Beer and Theology: Future Dates
We have excellent Beer and Theology speakers lined up for the next few months, so here are some dates for your diaries.
Articles
Nourishing Memories: Preface
Introduction The first religious experience that I can remember is getting under the nursery table to pray that the dancing mistress might be dead before we got to her dancing class. This is how Gwen Raverat begins her chapter on Religion, in Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood (p. 210). Thankfully, her prayer was not answered. In this witty, autobiographical … Continue Reading
The bells of Liverpool Parish Church on Easter Day
Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring the bells of Easter Day over land, over sea, over all the earth. Bring the clang of nature’s joy up from earth, to the skies, midst the furthest stars: ‘Christ is Risen from the tomb’ sounds the call of the tow’rs to the rising gulls. ‘He is Risen, death is … Continue Reading
Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide: Silver Jubilee
Introduction 2021 is the Silver Jubilee of the official opening of the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide (CCCW) at Westminster College, Cambridge, which took place on January 22, 1996. The Centre was then known as the Henry Martyn Library for mission studies and world Christianity. These 25 years have seen extraordinary growth. The doyen of 20th-century scholars of Christian-Muslim … Continue Reading
Reflections on the Public Purpose of Marriage
My intention in writing this article is to explore long-standing legal principles of marriage and their scriptural endorsement as a means of delineating the over-arching public reason for marriage. I will also provide examples that demonstrate how this public reason is being undermined by the re-definition of marriage. The repeated and inevitable result is that … Continue Reading
Gay Christians, ACNA and GAFCON
Quarrels about words? In my years involved in dialogue and debate relating to sexuality, some of the most depressing moments have been when those who broadly share my views concerning biblical and church teaching speak and act in ways that I find really unhelpful, even damaging, and impossible to support. Reading the Pastoral Statement on … Continue Reading
Job’s Silent Friends
If you’ve ever heard a sermon on the book of Job, it’s likely that the preacher will have criticised the protagonist’s friends. In the opening chapters, Job’s life is decimated. His children die, all of his property (and therefore security) is taken away and he is afflicted with physical illness. His friends arrive and almost … Continue Reading
The Regions and Tribes of Evangelical Theology: The Future
This is a fool’s endeavour. Over the last seven articles, I have tried out a new anthropological/geographical slant for mapping out the various branches of Evangelical theology in the 21st Century. I have used the terms ‘regions’ and ‘tribes’. Like any typology, it is very reductive. Some of the theologians discussed don’t even remain fixed … Continue Reading
Dealing with Doubt: The Story of Two Scottish Theologians
This essay might well begin with, ‘Have you heard the one about the Scottish Episcopalian and the Scottish Presbyterian?’ Last year Richard Holloway, our Scottish Episcopalian, had his book entitled Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe published.[i] The book recounts how he came to have doubts about his Christian faith, doubts … Continue Reading
Is the Second Coming Imminent?
As I write this we are drawing to the end of the season of Advent where those who use the revised common lectionary (the set of readings used by the Church of England and many other liturgical churches) will encounter readings featuring the traditional themes of Advent; heaven, hell, final judgement and the second coming. … Continue Reading