Gilo explores where the Church is and what kind of person is needed to begin to repair the damage. He says “almost every senior bishop who might be considered for the role of Archbishop of Canterbury is likely to have legacy ghosts trailing in their wake and waiting to haunt them. Any senior bishops being considered for the role will need to have searing honesty with regard to their safeguarding history. Deep elder wisdom required. Someone who has not necessarily been in much position of power to bury anything. Someone from the edge. Someone with a deep understanding, heart of compassion, and… Read more »
I try to explore my own possible belief in the possibility of god in my hymnwriting. A rueful smile just appeared … should the word ‘belief’ or the word ‘god’ be ascribed italics or perhaps quotation marks? Nothing is certain. Neither of these heavily coded words are straightforward for me, as I do not necessarily believe in belief. Anyway, this hymn is an attempt to picture a different kind of god than the one the Church presents which is generally an off-putting model for me. The fragile absolute (Slavoj Zizek reference) requires no altar and paradoxically no hymn. It is… Read more »
Gilo, thank you for posting your post-modern, post-god hymn. Reading it was a very emotional experience for me – reading of you exploring your own possible belief in the possibility of god. We are kindred spirits. I yearn to be part of a community that is exploring from deep personal experience and wisdom, the cosmic energy that pursues me, fleeting, fragile, provisional, transforming, emotional, inescapable essence, core of my being when I give time and presence to the moment. It’s a hymn I long to sing in company. I am striving to raise the question – where and how and… Read more »
Sorry to hear about your health problems, Colin. I hope you soon get better. Although my basic Christology is fairly traditional (I won’t say ‘orthodox’ in case of confusion) I’m akin to both you and Gilo – if I’m reading you correctly – in not finding much that reflects the divine spirit in organised CofE Christianity – despite all my best efforts to the contrary. For me my awareness of God and the divine has always primarily been in the outdoors or within human company. Someone on another site said that he regularly sees divine ‘signs and wonders’ in the… Read more »
Thank you Colin. What an affirming and lovely response. https://www.youtube.com/live/1oJO42dVsgQ?si=sgac28mfpJlbvAPq 1:06 ff. You might enjoy this. Sung at Alan Wilson’s memorial service. Alan and Rosie took me to the Blake Exhibition at the Tate some years back. Alan encouraged my wacky writing. I wish he’d been there in person to hear it as he liked this hymn. If bi-polar hadn’t accompanied my adult life as result of abuse – I might have had an interesting career as a writer and outsider theologian. Jim Cotter and John O’Donohue, both of whom I knew, encouraged my writing. Perhaps the mental health condition… Read more »
Thank you, Gilo. I rather like the words, and have saved them – though will indeed never sing them. You wouldn’t want to hear the results, and I wouldn’t wish to offend you with them.
I’ve just read Michael Mitton’s ‘Travellers of the Heart’ -and in comments, on both liberal Christians and post modern missionary outreach are quite interesting. He and I seem to have been travelling in parallel most of our Christian lives – we’re probably about the same age.
FrDavid H
1 month ago
Fr Colin cites Richard Holloway’s Stories We Tell Ourselves in his desire to discover a credible belief in God. Since the dawn of humankind, people have expressed in stories fables and myths a search for purpose in a ‘meaningless universe’. In the CofE this long quest has culminated in a set of easy Alpha booklets to be read in conjunction with a quiche salad supper which helps explain the nature of the kindly, middle-class deity. He is welcoming to all respectable heterosexuals who are prepared to eat and sing together and listen to a casually-dressed minister who will explain the… Read more »
I am sure all you theologians and thinkers understand the question is not the existence of God, it is the nature of God. The difficulty is when we try to describe the nature of God within our human world. God is, if anything, extra, or outwith, human and our human experience, but at the same time deeply embedded in our world and experience. We don’t even have the verbal language. No doubt there are some words in the creed describing this, which nobody understands. But one thing is clear – God cannot be put into a little box. That is… Read more »
God has been put in a little box. Nicky Gumbel and his followers do it every week and the box has cost millions of pounds from the Church Commissioners.
28 million people have been reached by Alpha, so maybe the Church Commissioners see this as a good investment. The ‘box’ is a place where people are given space to ask questions, whatever their sexuality. Some will find answers to their questions in the Christian faith, but most do not, there is no coercion. The point is that those sow sparingly will reap sparingly, those who sow generously will reap generously.
I think we are talking about different boxes. The idea that God may be put into a defined box is human arrogance at its worst. Job’s whirlwind.
Even at a human level, does a small child understand their parents? of course, they are not completely ignorant, but they are not yet formed to understand adults.
They go to our church, 7 last time it was run, and we run it 3 times a year So the church could grow by 10% this year having started in 2021. Reasons to be optimistic.
unless God has made us with the capacity to understand enough of the divine nature (aka in the divine image), and has become human and used human language to describe it, in ways that we can understand. If God has already described his/her/its own nature within our human world, then we actually do have the language. Yes it is partial (1 Cor 13) but it is also sufficient.
David, respectfully my understanding of theological theory seems to encompass the thinking of Gilo and Colin far more easily than a theological framework that does not look at a looser God or even at a sociology of religion that brings together conceptual frameworks outside the particularity of cultural Christianity. EG Buddhism, Islam, Ba Hai Shinto. Institutional religion in this secular age is often dangerous abusive patriarchal and elitist. Certainly that is an experience of many Anglican’s across the world. And yet amongst this remain good faithful people. Is incarnational theology sufficient ? Is seeing through a glass darkly sufficient to… Read more »
I should like to direct readers to my comment on Gilo’s blog on via media in response to his paragraphs 2&3. This is an edited version of my comment. In my five years [almost] of supporting my friend Kenneth in an unfounded allegation of sexual touching, no less than four bishops, one now in a very senior post, have been involved. Involved in collusion, cover-up to protect the reputation of colleagues,fabrications, which Gavin Drake bluntly calls ‘lies’ (not about this particular case though). I can justify all that I say with detailed provable documented evidence. In my original comment I… Read more »
It may be partial and sufficient, but my point is that it is not complete, and can never be complete. The peace of God certainly passes all understanding.
Who wrote the description of God to which you refer? Did she/it/he dictate the words? When did this happen? Please don’t say “when the bible was written”!
The one thing which should be absolutely certain is that it is God who defines the box, not us.
Said myself, with outstanding arrogance.
Kate Keates
1 month ago
I don’t think the church has a monopoly on understanding God. My friend drew my attention to this YouTube video yesterday, in which Harrison Ford, as a tribute to his late friend EO Wilson, speaks of the importance of listening to the quiet voices. https://youtube.com/watch?v=06uYTjKwS1E&si=6hWz8IW3dJwhP15J It’s very moving. EO Wilson – I had to look him up – was a humanist (having been raised a Baptist) who believed that scientists and the religious need to come together to protect the planet. I don’t want to get into that, but I thought Harrison Ford is really on to something saying that… Read more »
I used to dislike the phrase ‘through a glass darkly’, mainly because it provided an excuse to ignore the things we can see. But, given that nobody can ‘understand’ the vastness of the universe, or the love between two people, any understanding we have of God must surely be very partial. we cannot even contemplate a full understanding, the created cannot understand the creator,even if the created is made in the image of the creator. Cerainly any understanding should include both biblical and non-biblical sources, with a dash of the Holy Spirit. Slight confession – I gave up going to… Read more »
And Harrison Ford is also a carpenter… Though not on topic, he just lost his home in Brentwood in Los Angeles and had to evacuate from the wildfires with pretty much the clothes on his back. I’m sure he’s fine and has a ranch in Montana, but evacuating from a wildfire pushed by 70-100 MPH winds is terrifying, more so for seniors, the less abled… Climate change is here. Sadly.
The fires in CA were known by all indigenous peoples. Two Years Before the Mast, the classic 19th century sailing account, in which Dana refers to burning hills in CA. Those humidity drying winds from over Nevada and rushing down the immortal hills of Santa Anna, have been doing that from time immemorial.
Gilo explores where the Church is and what kind of person is needed to begin to repair the damage. He says “almost every senior bishop who might be considered for the role of Archbishop of Canterbury is likely to have legacy ghosts trailing in their wake and waiting to haunt them. Any senior bishops being considered for the role will need to have searing honesty with regard to their safeguarding history. Deep elder wisdom required. Someone who has not necessarily been in much position of power to bury anything. Someone from the edge. Someone with a deep understanding, heart of compassion, and… Read more »
I try to explore my own possible belief in the possibility of god in my hymnwriting. A rueful smile just appeared … should the word ‘belief’ or the word ‘god’ be ascribed italics or perhaps quotation marks? Nothing is certain. Neither of these heavily coded words are straightforward for me, as I do not necessarily believe in belief. Anyway, this hymn is an attempt to picture a different kind of god than the one the Church presents which is generally an off-putting model for me. The fragile absolute (Slavoj Zizek reference) requires no altar and paradoxically no hymn. It is… Read more »
Gilo, thank you for posting your post-modern, post-god hymn. Reading it was a very emotional experience for me – reading of you exploring your own possible belief in the possibility of god. We are kindred spirits. I yearn to be part of a community that is exploring from deep personal experience and wisdom, the cosmic energy that pursues me, fleeting, fragile, provisional, transforming, emotional, inescapable essence, core of my being when I give time and presence to the moment. It’s a hymn I long to sing in company. I am striving to raise the question – where and how and… Read more »
Sorry to hear about your health problems, Colin. I hope you soon get better. Although my basic Christology is fairly traditional (I won’t say ‘orthodox’ in case of confusion) I’m akin to both you and Gilo – if I’m reading you correctly – in not finding much that reflects the divine spirit in organised CofE Christianity – despite all my best efforts to the contrary. For me my awareness of God and the divine has always primarily been in the outdoors or within human company. Someone on another site said that he regularly sees divine ‘signs and wonders’ in the… Read more »
Thank you Colin. What an affirming and lovely response. https://www.youtube.com/live/1oJO42dVsgQ?si=sgac28mfpJlbvAPq 1:06 ff. You might enjoy this. Sung at Alan Wilson’s memorial service. Alan and Rosie took me to the Blake Exhibition at the Tate some years back. Alan encouraged my wacky writing. I wish he’d been there in person to hear it as he liked this hymn. If bi-polar hadn’t accompanied my adult life as result of abuse – I might have had an interesting career as a writer and outsider theologian. Jim Cotter and John O’Donohue, both of whom I knew, encouraged my writing. Perhaps the mental health condition… Read more »
Thank you, Gilo. I rather like the words, and have saved them – though will indeed never sing them. You wouldn’t want to hear the results, and I wouldn’t wish to offend you with them.
I’ve just read Michael Mitton’s ‘Travellers of the Heart’ -and in comments, on both liberal Christians and post modern missionary outreach are quite interesting. He and I seem to have been travelling in parallel most of our Christian lives – we’re probably about the same age.
Fr Colin cites Richard Holloway’s Stories We Tell Ourselves in his desire to discover a credible belief in God. Since the dawn of humankind, people have expressed in stories fables and myths a search for purpose in a ‘meaningless universe’. In the CofE this long quest has culminated in a set of easy Alpha booklets to be read in conjunction with a quiche salad supper which helps explain the nature of the kindly, middle-class deity. He is welcoming to all respectable heterosexuals who are prepared to eat and sing together and listen to a casually-dressed minister who will explain the… Read more »
I am sure all you theologians and thinkers understand the question is not the existence of God, it is the nature of God. The difficulty is when we try to describe the nature of God within our human world. God is, if anything, extra, or outwith, human and our human experience, but at the same time deeply embedded in our world and experience. We don’t even have the verbal language. No doubt there are some words in the creed describing this, which nobody understands. But one thing is clear – God cannot be put into a little box. That is… Read more »
God has been put in a little box. Nicky Gumbel and his followers do it every week and the box has cost millions of pounds from the Church Commissioners.
28 million people have been reached by Alpha, so maybe the Church Commissioners see this as a good investment. The ‘box’ is a place where people are given space to ask questions, whatever their sexuality. Some will find answers to their questions in the Christian faith, but most do not, there is no coercion. The point is that those sow sparingly will reap sparingly, those who sow generously will reap generously.
I suppose the “reaping generously” is reflected in the terrible decline in churchgoing since the evangelicals took over the show.
I think we are talking about different boxes. The idea that God may be put into a defined box is human arrogance at its worst. Job’s whirlwind.
Even at a human level, does a small child understand their parents? of course, they are not completely ignorant, but they are not yet formed to understand adults.
Absolutely, can’t put anyone in a box, but some people on TA insist on doing so.
“28 million people have been reached by Alpha”
So where are they? They’re not going to church, that’s for sure.
They go to our church, 7 last time it was run, and we run it 3 times a year So the church could grow by 10% this year having started in 2021. Reasons to be optimistic.
unless God has made us with the capacity to understand enough of the divine nature (aka in the divine image), and has become human and used human language to describe it, in ways that we can understand. If God has already described his/her/its own nature within our human world, then we actually do have the language. Yes it is partial (1 Cor 13) but it is also sufficient.
David, respectfully my understanding of theological theory seems to encompass the thinking of Gilo and Colin far more easily than a theological framework that does not look at a looser God or even at a sociology of religion that brings together conceptual frameworks outside the particularity of cultural Christianity. EG Buddhism, Islam, Ba Hai Shinto. Institutional religion in this secular age is often dangerous abusive patriarchal and elitist. Certainly that is an experience of many Anglican’s across the world. And yet amongst this remain good faithful people. Is incarnational theology sufficient ? Is seeing through a glass darkly sufficient to… Read more »
I should like to direct readers to my comment on Gilo’s blog on via media in response to his paragraphs 2&3. This is an edited version of my comment. In my five years [almost] of supporting my friend Kenneth in an unfounded allegation of sexual touching, no less than four bishops, one now in a very senior post, have been involved. Involved in collusion, cover-up to protect the reputation of colleagues,fabrications, which Gavin Drake bluntly calls ‘lies’ (not about this particular case though). I can justify all that I say with detailed provable documented evidence. In my original comment I… Read more »
Not as a reply to David Keen but my comment was as a response to paragraphs 3&4 in Gilo ViaMedia.News, ‘The Church is What We Do Next’.
I do apologise for any seeming confusion
It may be partial and sufficient, but my point is that it is not complete, and can never be complete. The peace of God certainly passes all understanding.
Who wrote the description of God to which you refer? Did she/it/he dictate the words? When did this happen? Please don’t say “when the bible was written”!
I didn’t mention writing. But I am working on the premise that Jesus spoke words, which I hope isn’t contentious?
Saying that God is essentially unknowable is also to put God in a box.
“To an Unknown God.” One of the many shrines in Athens.
“Saying that God is essentially unknowable is also to put God in a box.”
Indeed.
The box is called “the Alpha Course”.
Did anybody say God is essentially unknowable?
The one thing which should be absolutely certain is that it is God who defines the box, not us.
Said myself, with outstanding arrogance.
I don’t think the church has a monopoly on understanding God. My friend drew my attention to this YouTube video yesterday, in which Harrison Ford, as a tribute to his late friend EO Wilson, speaks of the importance of listening to the quiet voices. https://youtube.com/watch?v=06uYTjKwS1E&si=6hWz8IW3dJwhP15J It’s very moving. EO Wilson – I had to look him up – was a humanist (having been raised a Baptist) who believed that scientists and the religious need to come together to protect the planet. I don’t want to get into that, but I thought Harrison Ford is really on to something saying that… Read more »
I used to dislike the phrase ‘through a glass darkly’, mainly because it provided an excuse to ignore the things we can see. But, given that nobody can ‘understand’ the vastness of the universe, or the love between two people, any understanding we have of God must surely be very partial. we cannot even contemplate a full understanding, the created cannot understand the creator,even if the created is made in the image of the creator. Cerainly any understanding should include both biblical and non-biblical sources, with a dash of the Holy Spirit. Slight confession – I gave up going to… Read more »
And Harrison Ford is also a carpenter… Though not on topic, he just lost his home in Brentwood in Los Angeles and had to evacuate from the wildfires with pretty much the clothes on his back. I’m sure he’s fine and has a ranch in Montana, but evacuating from a wildfire pushed by 70-100 MPH winds is terrifying, more so for seniors, the less abled… Climate change is here. Sadly.
The fires in CA were known by all indigenous peoples. Two Years Before the Mast, the classic 19th century sailing account, in which Dana refers to burning hills in CA. Those humidity drying winds from over Nevada and rushing down the immortal hills of Santa Anna, have been doing that from time immemorial.