Updated to add day 2 to Colin Coward’s blogs
David Ison ViaMedia.News Confronting our Culture, Presenting our Past
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Speaking of leadership; speaking of reconfiguration.
Benjamin L Corey Patheos To Those Christians Who Say, “God Doesn’t Give Us More Than We Can Handle”
Ben Clements British Religion in Numbers Religion and the British Social Attitudes 2016 Survey
An update of the long-term religious data available from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) surveys
Colin Coward is attending the Intimate Conviction Conference in Jamaica.
Intimate Conviction Conference opens in Jamaica
Intimate Conviction Conference – Day 1
Intimate Convictions Conference – Day 2 and Reflections
Rachel Treweek Gloucestershire Live Letter to my younger self by the Bishop of Gloucester
Thank you Benjamin L Corey. My, our, 38 year old son died in his sleep two years ago next week, leaving a widow and 10 year old daughter. I’ve written about this on my blog, but feel I must endorse Mr Corey’s words. Here are some more things that Christians have been known to say, equally unhelpful, patronizing, or indicative of bad theology. “I know how you’re feeling”. You most certainly do not, not even if you too have lost a larger-than-life 38-year old son. Grief is intensely personal and is intertwined with our history and with projections of what… Read more »
Andrew Lightbown loses sight of much of what modern leadership studies have to offer in their critique of leadership – see for example, two books in the same series, Jackson & Parry’s ‘Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership’ and Chris Grey’s ‘Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Organizations’.
Modem are a good group offering resources about Christian Leadership. They run annual conferences and publish book reviews – see, for example, their review of Dennis Tourish’s 2014 book on the Dark Side of Transformational Leadership, published at https://www.modemuk.org/2016/09/15/the-dark-side-of-transformational-leadership-a-critical-perspective-by-dennis-tourish-reviewed-by-vaughan-s-roberts/
Thank you Stanley Monkhouse for telling it as it is.
A moving and heartfelt piece of writing by Fr Monkhouse.
Re Benjamin Corey and Stanley Monkhouse: Some 25 years ago, very early in my ordained ministry, i suffered a serious depressive episode, and was off work for nearly a year. I certainly had well-meaning friends saying both, “I know how you feel”, and “God will not give you more than you can bear”, and I agree with both writers that these sentiments were profoundly unhelpful. My vicar of the time was most supportive; he had actually been part of the problem in the first place, but once I was unwell he came up trumps – just sitting with me and… Read more »
Thank you Mr Prebble. Two years is a short time, so I don’t give up hope. Whether or not that verse speaks of the kingdom now or in the future, it is certainly the case that singing to God moves me intensely, and so does celebrating the holy mysteries. I can hardly get through the weekday liturgy sometimes, but then I reflect that if I can not be truly myself when I am at the altar, then I ought to give up. Surely, that is the very time when I must be entirely myself, no airs, no defences, no pretences,… Read more »
Thank you to both Benjamin Corey and Stanley Monkhouse. There is a real problem with Christians who assume nothing can go badly wrong for people of faith – or, if it does, a sort of spiritual insulation will protect our minds and hearts from the pain. It ain’t so. Some people have led relatively easy lives, and therefore don’t know how to deal with others having a bad time. Some have little imagination. Too many, I think, avoid the hard work and difficulty of being alongside someone in the throes of mental or spiritual agony. They don’t want to go… Read more »
I too would thank Benjamin Corey and Stanley Monkhouse for his openness. My experience was more mixed. Twenty four years ago, my wife literally dropped dead in front of me, just as we were about to start a sabbatical in Toronto. I was fortunate in that the church which I had attended only twice welcomed me as the stranger with its gates and the ministry of its then Rector to the stranger was amazing. The doctor I saw very wisely said that I should never think in terms of ‘getting over it’ since the trauma had happened but that over… Read more »
Sorry for the typo. The third sentence should, of course, read “stranger within its gates’.
“. . never more than you can handle . . . ” You mean, like Maximilian Kolbe, like Dietrich Bonhoffer? That doesn’t sound like a father, just a solipsistic psychopath.
Daniel Lamont, what a heartbreaking and difficult situation that was, far away from all your support networks and everything that was familiar. Though it seems you got more support there than you would have done at home. But if we in church cannot sit with those who grieve, what does it say about our knowledge and experience of the Man of Sorrows?