Guarding God’s Reputation…
Have you ever sat through a sermon or a talk and heard the speaker express a view about God that made you think, “Well that makes God sound petty and small”? Usually the speaker means well, but has not thought deeply. An advantage of being 65 and of having preached my first sermon when I was 15 is that I now have half a century of sermon “thou shalt not’s” to sift through. In their own way they each say something about what the speaker thought about God, or perhaps didn’t think, because sometimes we make God sound so very mean and so very trivial. One that...
Read MoreUnbusy, Subversive and Apocalyptic: Three Big Eugene Peterson Words
One of the joys of teaching theology is that I get to engage with many student projects. Some remind me of things I have forgotten, others introduce me to ideas I have not previously considered. At present I am supervising a project which highlights the importance of the work of Eugene Peterson. One of his books The Contemplative Pastor suggests that pastors should be unbusy, subversive and apocalyptic. The only change I’d suggest is that we don’t limit this to pastors – but advocate it for all followers of Jesus. Why do I think Peterson’s selection of unbusy,...
Read MoreKnowledge or Wisdom?
I chair the academic board of an Australian University College and at a recent board meeting we were discussing “the democratisation of knowledge”, which is a lovely little expression noting that information is now readily available to almost anyone. It’s simply true. I have been lecturing in class and said something like “that happened in 1827 – or was it 1828” and in less than 30 seconds I will have a student say, “Actually it was 1826 , the 4th of May 1826 to be precise – I’ve just checked on Google.” Mercifully most of my...
Read MoreGod is my: A Psalm 3 Testimony…
This blog often discusses weighty matters – the future of the church, social trends, significant ethical issues, Christian apologetics, personal growth. Every now and then I like to step back and simply remember and celebrate the God whose existence and goodness is the assumed given behind all that is written. In this post I would like to do this by reflecting on a 3000 year old testimony – one which King David writes when in the middle of one of the many crises which made up his life. You find it in Psalm 3 when David is facing a coup ‘etat instigated by none other than...
Read MoreOur Responsibility to the Future…
Christianity has a 2000 year history, and it is therefore natural that we should think about our responsibility to the past, and those who have gone before us. You see this in debates about faithfulness to our heritage, or how the Bible needs to be interpreted in a way consistent with the longer term tradition of understanding its texts, as well as in efforts to keep doing things the same way as we have before. All this is understandable, and has value. However, I wonder if we pay as much attention to our responsibility to the future – to the version of the Christian faith we are...
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