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13 april Like you couldn't tell......yes, this poor space has been abandoned, left out in the cold, treated like last year's news. Wait, it is. The next site being groomed for rejection is www.on-2nd-thoughts.blogspot.com - if you're interested. Of course, being a Microsoft implementation of HTML, that link probably won't work for you. Sorry about that. 06 oktober Irony sweet ironyAt last Canterbury admits that the whole thing is crumbling, according to the SMH. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/tape-holds-crumbling-cathedral-together/2006/10/05/1159641462801.html - but I'm not sure that money's the solution... 25 september Confessions indeedMadonna has been copping some criticism during her current 'Confessions' world tour. Not because of her music, but because a feature of the concerts is her dropping in attached to a disco-styled cross with a crown of thorns on her head. Some people have been suggesting that it's a trifle blasphemous (aside from being tacky and offensive, that is).
Well, she's leaped to her own defence. She's being quoted as saying that the intention is to raise awareness of the suffering still going on around the world, and that she is confident that 'if Jesus were alive today, he'd be doing the same thing'.
No doubt Jesus was disappointed to hear that he's been deluded about coming back from the dead way back in the first century.
An interesting defence against blasphemy: heresy. For a woman who names herself after Jesus' mother, you'd think she'd keep up with family news a bit more... 31 mei There was movement at the station...Only one comment on current events: I was amused to confirm that the da Vinci movie still carried the usual disclaimer at the end: the characters and events depicted in this motion picture are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental... (I wonder who they might be referring to!!). I was struck even more in the film by how passive and subordinate the heroine is - ironic in a story that transparently wants to be seen as empowering women.
More exciting is that plans for a 7pm houseparty are afoot - keep October 6-8 free in your diaries - it's going to be a grrreat time!(And pray for beach weather...)
I'm also looking forward to what's coming up - QuHACKK (kids at scripture are excited already), a couple of shorter sermon series (but I'll keep them up my sleeve for a little while yet...), and yes, even this Sunday's sermon. Wonder what mayhem we can get up to this time!
Just read an impressive journal article debating whether or not God made a covenant with 'creation', or whether Noah's was the first. A nice piece that looked at the nitty gritty Hebrew, drew a sound conclusion (no, yes), but then pointed out the profound application: that our relationship with God, while it might be covenantally based, goes bigger than that. We aren't just in a formal relationship, but a real, unfettered one. You've gotta love it when academia doesn't lose the wood for the trees. 28 april Where to draw the lines?I noticed this yesterday, and thought it an interesting read - http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rent-asunder-as-brawls-replace-talk/2006/04/26/1145861416496.html
"What the factions of the church must realise is that it is possible to disagree, and remain in communion. The Henny-Pennys who wring their hands because the Africans don't agree with the North Americans should learn to accept that it is the fundamentals of faith that matter most, not peripheral issues of order, ordination - and sexuality." It begs the question: who gets to define what's peripheral? It seems that 'the Africans' (a nice way of dismissing the majority) would argue matters of sexuality are not peripheral, and that's why they're taking a stand here.
Julia Baird seems to opt for C S Lewis as an exemplar in how to deal with it - subscribe to 'mere' Christianity. And because evangelicals like Lewis, then we should happily follow him here. Doesn't quite follow, does it? Do we go with him on his publicly expressed ideas, or his (more conservative) privately held views? Does she really want us to believe one thing, while proclaiming another?
The trouble really lies in that word 'peripheral'. I'm thinking that a Bible that says 'in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them' cannot really support the idea that sexuality is peripheral: even if you choose not to take this as linking sexual identity with being in the image of God, it still remains that one of The Defining Characteristics of our humanity is gender.
So why does our culture find it so easy to define sexuality to the periphery? I think it goes back to our individualistic bent: if what matters is the individual, then sexuality, reaching beyond the individual, is out of the primary category of importance. I'm me, regardless of my relationships.
I wonder if the trinitarian God could make such a statement? Or perhaps the thing that matters is not the individual, but the relationship between persons...
Back to the official sermon now! |
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