Virtual Methodist

Yesterday over lunch I tuned in to BBC's Bargain Hunt which happened to be from Greyabbey in Co. Down, and after a lot of scrabbling around in the disproportionate number of antiques and collectable shops in that small village, one of the experts Charlie Hanson bought a late 17th century book entitled "The Protestant Reconciler" as his bonus buy. It cost a grand total of £12, all of his "leftover lolly" and despite some scepticism on the part of the auctioneer at Ross's in Belfast, it made a significant profit. I thought that there was a certain level of irony in all of that given that, sadly, reconciliation has never been seen as a particularly profitable endeavour by the church here... Protestant or Catholic. It has been, far too often, an afterthought (like Hanson's bonus buy) or a fringe endeavour. On Sunday night the 4 Corners Festival hosted an evening at Skainos in East Belfast exploring the role of the church in peace and reconciliation her...

Harmony requires that people sing slightly different tunes. Not discordant ones, but different.   In the Methodist Church we pride ourselves on our singing. "Methodism was born in song" we claim... but these days most of the the singing that goes on is in unison... Slowly the four part harmonies that used to characterise some classic Wesleyan hymns are being forgotten even more rapidly than the wider corpus of Wesley's hymns... And what is true musically is at times true theologically. There is a desire for us all not just to sing from the same hymnbook, but to sing the same parts in a very small range of songs. People singing different tunes or introducing different songs can be made to feel very unwelcome in certain parts of the church... and I am not specifically talking about the Methodist Church, but we are as guilty as any... However, there is a limit... I was in a church recently where when it came to the chorus, which in our church involves myself and maybe one...

I posted a link to a Guardian post including this video in last week's Saturday Supplement , but it is worth posting in its own right. On the same day I also retweeted a friend's post about news of a new foodbank opening in Dennistoun, Scotland a week or so ago saying "With each new foodbank I don't know whether to cheer or weep." That is not just because of the appalling need/generous response dichotomy, but also because of the refusal of some establishing foodbanks to engage their brains as well as their hearts. I was at an event on Thursday night past where our President, Heather Morris said that she longed for a day when Christians do not throw up their hands and say "I'm not a theologian". As Christians we need to think theologically - bring "God words" to bear on the world in which we find ourselves. But we also have to think politically - not necessarily party politically (though at times that is necessary, and perhaps the...

Just over three years ago a story came out suggesting that artistic portrayals of the Last Supper have been "super-sized."   There were a number of thoughts that occurred to me on reading it: the first was to check the date just incase it wasn't an April Fool prank... the second was one of despair regarding the usefulness of such research and the money expended on it... but the third related to the statement that: "Craig Wansink, who is a professor of religious studies, says the changes in portion sizes is probably a reflection of culture rather than theology." To how many things could that be said? And tonight, as people share, not in an artistic representation of the Last Supper, but a liturgical re-enactment of it, how much of what is said and done has been influenced more by culture than theology? Is the liturgy shared by the congregation, or predominantly led from the front? How much of that is out of a desire for extempore, Spirit-led worship (ev...

The title of this post could have been used to describe the happenings on a Chicago golf course last night, but it actually refers to the book by former Bishop of Durham, N.T. (Tom) Wright. I apologise in advance to facebook friends and fellow Goodreads members as this is substantially the same review that I posted via Goodreads this morning... But I thought it was worth taking a slightly more leisurely look at some of the issues raised there. I first read this book about four years ago on the recommendation of Glenn Jordan. It took me about four months to get through it the first time, as it is not an easy read... I actually finished it whilst on exchange in Grand Rapids, so it was a pleasant accident that our exchange partners, Geoff and Pam Hayes were with us yesterday evening for our "Good Book Group" who had chosen this book to read way back in March. So, whilst Europe and America were slugging it out in Medinah, a group of Irish and Americans (including some golf add...

No supplement last week as I was a little too-pre-occupied to collate the few things that had caught my eye... But here are a few from  the past couple of weeks... First is this news that, in the midst of the Euro-meltdown, the Greeks have apologised to the rest of the EU with a huge wooden horse ...  I'm not an economic expert... indeed balancing my own chequebook stretches me to my limit (although I have to say I get a little frustrated with those who constantly compare maxing out their credit card with the management of sovereign debt... the two don't actually bear any relation to each other... unless we are using our credit cards to pump-prime potentially money-making ventures), so articles or programmes about economics and finance usually don't hold my attention for long... However, last September on Radio 4's More or Less I listened the whole way through a programme which explained the crisis in terms of Homeric myths and in the light of the above link I so...

Our church book group is currently looking at Scot McKnight's "A Community Called Atonement". I must say I'm finding it a stimulating read, and, after we've had our discussion of it next week I'll post a longer reflection. The opening page served as the stimulus for my only contribution to the MCI Lenten Blog on the Atonement, which was published today, entitled "The Atonement Game." What I say in that blog regarding the debate regarding the Atonement, might also be usefully applied to the ongoing hell-Bell saga... His book, "Love Wins" will probably be on the reading list for the book group soon, but until such time as I actually read it, I'm not making any further comment or posting links pointing to what others are saying from varying informed and uninformed positions. Mr. Bell's publicity machine is doing a good enough job on its own (hence the lack of a link even to buy the book)... I will, however, say that so far the whole ep...

Came across this meme on Scotteriology . I wasn't actually tagged... Scott Bailey its author wouldn't know me if I bit him... but a number of things about this meme set me thinking. First, I've been doing far too many Facebook "5 of" quizzes recently (I'm weaning myself off), but this involves a bit more thought. Second, the word meme was devised by Richard Dawkins to describe an idea that develops a reproductive life of its own, and given his well know antipathy to religion, I thought that the fact that this meme is about theological books was particularly ironic. The rules to this particular meme were originally that you should name the five books that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible. Note that these need not be your five favorite books, or even the five with which you most strongly agree, but what five books have permanently changed the way you think. After this the idea was to tag five others. But, as appropriate with...

Once upon a time there was a man with no sense of personal discipline who started a blog on a social networking site... But it was a useless site (just take a look at the URL at the bottom of this page to see why) and due to lack energy to sort it out he gave up on it... But now he's decided to start again on a different site and be a bit more disciplined this time... Sorry about the third person stuff there... a bit of a Caesar complex... Anyway this blog will be an online archive of stuff I have written elsewhere for various reasons, bits and pieces that have inspired me and occasional rants about various things... The material will include sketches, monologues, songs, articles, essays, mostly on theological issues, but occasionally straying into other fields too. If anything is of use to you, feel free to use it liberally, though please do acknowledge the source... Anything that I quote on this blog will be suitably cited, if possible, so that the appropriate person or persons c...