Francis Spufford writes for The Guardian about The trouble with atheists: a defence of faith.
Marcus Borg writes for The Huffington Post about A Chronological New Testament.
Rachel Mann writes in The Guardian that The church is our best hope against the zombies.
The Church Times has this leader: Baptism for all.
Mark Sandlin writes for The God Article that there is Far Too Little Sabbath in the Sabbath.
Christopher Howse writes in The Telegraph about a Big question from Stephen Hawking.
In the What I’m really thinking series in The Guardian this week is the woman priest.
I really liked Marcus Borg’s article about the chronological Christian Scriptures or New Testament. Unless one believes that the Bible is the literal, absolutely true, and inerrant Word of God — I swear I once heard an evangelical Christian minister preach that God handed Moses the King James Version on Mount Sinai — (which I emphatically don’t believe), it is clear that Christianity evolved in its first 100 years of existence, as different people came to understand what Jesus of Nazareth’s life and ministry meant. How Paul sees Jesus of Nazareth in his letters is very different than how John… Read more »
“it is still a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary. I assent to the ideas because I have the feelings; I don’t have the feelings because I’ve assented to the ideas.” The heart&soul of Spufford’s piece (mostly excellent, if a bit long), almost entirely ignored by the a(nti)theist critics (who predictably conformed to both Spufford’s characterization, and the Guardian commenting-stereotypes). But does Spufford protest too much? Too defensive? Yes, probably. Christians get crucified for the sins of Christianists—but then again, as Christians we should… Read more »
I do like the ‘Church Times’ Leader, which opens up the question about who is entitled to be baptized in the Church. As a priest in ACANZP, I have long believed that the church must always be hospitable to anyone who requests the Sacrament of Baptism – if only because of the fact that the Holy Spirit may have been the motivating force behind the request. I am mindful of the Lord’s invitation – “Come to me, all you that are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest”. This does not imply that there should be hoops to jump through… Read more »
A modern take on the Anglican via media: “Zombies to the left of me, crazies to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”
Yes the Chronological NT looks an interesting project. Peterpi above outlines a pretty gruesome way that some evangelical folk look at the reception of scripture, but (speaking as an evangelical myself) I believe that’s pretty much confined to the margins – that kind of ‘dictation’ model certainly isn’t how informed evangelicals would look at its creation – although Revelation is an interesting case. No doubt, though, the writers were very prayerful about what they wrote so there were no doubt some ‘lightbulb moments’! There are limitations to Borg’s approach. A couple that occur to me are firstly the difficulty in… Read more »
Mark Sandlin is, of course, wrong about Sunday being the Sabbath. It is not, but rather “the Lord’s Day.” They are not the same. It’s unfortunate that English names for the days of the week do not make this clear, as the Spanish and Portuguese do.