Falling With Style

There is now an assumption amongst Christians that the prevailing culture is either the enemy : So we fight against it and talk of eroding rights and standards as with the BA discrimination case yesterday. Or the alternative is that we make our modern culture the primary reference point and reinterpret our theology in the light of this, getting shaped by and submerged in culture: Like Steve Chalke appears to have done with his developing views on homosexuality. Neither extreme is appropriate or necessary, but a polarisation amongst believers has occurred. Since words like ‘contextualisation’ and ‘ecumenicalism’ entered our vocabulary 40 years ago we have begun to move in opposing directions which now see us split down pretty well defined lines of evangelical and liberal. Strangely enough, the Evangelicals amongst us often find ourselves in closer accord with the Orthodox(again, as with the Coptic Christian and BA),than with the liberal. The scriptures don’t require a leaning in e...

I've enjoyed reading books by the magnificently named Dutch Sheets, and the even more unlikely Preston Sprinkle this week! We just don't make names like that in the UK. My favourite quote of the week comes from a proper, solid, sensible British name, Richard Foster. His classic on Prayer is every bit as worth reading as Dutch Sheets. Both will get you out from under the sheets earlier in the morning and onto your knees. Writing of the Lord's prayer, Foster says: " For sheer power and majesty, no prayer can equal the Paternoster....it really is a total prayer. Its concerns embrace the whole world, from the coming of the kingdom, to daily bread. It is lifted up to God in every conceivable setting. It rises from the altars of the great cathedrals and from obscure shanties in unknown places. It is spoken by both children and kings. It is prayed at weddings and death beds alike. The rich and poor, the intelligent and illiterate, the simple and the wise - all speak thi...

Here is the annual award for my book of the year. It is totally subjective, based on my own peculiar reading habits. Last years Book of the Year was deservedly taken by 'The Case for Working with your hands, or why office work is bad for us and fixing things feels good' by Matthew Crawford. The long title alone gives it kudos - but the book is even better than the title! I've read lots of great fiction this year, and an honourable mention goes to the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Just because something is a mainstream bestseller for teens and gets a movie franchise doesn't make it bad fiction - don't be a book snob! I also really enjoyed reading Brother Andrew's 'God's Smuggler' again, 25 years on from the first time. If there was a golden raspberry award it would go to 'Last Train from Liguria - Christine Hickey. I persevered for a couple of hundred pages but was so bored waiting for something to happen in her depressing world...

I’ve been searching for the best Christmas joke and I can’t decide. The best ones are either so bad that they belong in a Christmas Cracker, or so old that we all mouth the words together and recite the punchline before it’s delivered. So here, in no particular order of preference are my current favourite Christmas one liners (apart from No5 which is a three liner, but I like the shuddering literalism of it!) 1/Q: What do you call Frosty the Snowman in May? A: A puddle! 2/Q: Who hides in the bakery at Christmas? A: A mince spy! 3/What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus? Claustrophobic. 4/It just wouldn’t be Christmas without M&S. It would just be Chrita. 5/It was Christmas Eve in a supermarket and a woman was anxiously picking over the last few remaining turkeys in the hope of finding a large one. In desperation she called over a shop assistant and said "Excuse me. Do these turkeys get any bigger?" "No" he replied...

The extraordinary angel choir ambushed the Shepherds, singing of a new kind of peace on earth. It was quite possibly the first choir those Shepherds had ever heard, and maybe even a premiere performance of angel singing anywhere on planet earth! A description of the first century Palestine of these Shepherds sounds depressingly familiar to those of us who have seen the 21st century version on the news broadcasts - Split into deep historic rivalries, vying for power and favour with the Romans (or present day America). Even on a good day, tension never far from the surface, always ready to boil over into violence, which in turn can quickly escalate from a minor incident to sweep up the whole region in blood and revolution. Not exactly 'peace on earth' now or then,unless you are prepared to fundamentally water down the definition of the word peace. From whichever century you look at it we seem as far away as ever from the tantalising hope of real peace. Maybe the Angel cho...

It's easy to adopt a revisionist view of missions history, believing our missionary forefathers stumbled through foreign lands with British blinkers on, blind to cultural sensitivities which have only been discovered by us in this global generation. This assumption is arrogant and wrong. From the very beginning of the spread of the early church we find Paul relating the gospel first to Jews in the synagogue with a narrative they understood, then to to the Gentiles, adapting his story to point to the same Jesus. His Athenian preaching is well noted as a masterpiece of bridge building cultural awareness. Later, some of the early church Fathers used the philosophical worldview of their day as a launch pad to communicate the gospel. Origen's strategy was simple. In his own words, he used philosophy 'in the same way the Egyptians were plundered by the people of Israel.' Their wilderness tabernacle was built by instructions given by God to Moses, but it was constructed w...

One amazing conversation in Romania last week highlights more than anything the huge shift that has taken place in 20 years or so since the fall of the Communist regime. Aurel, a 26 year old teacher was a small child when Communism fell. Whilst things can still be incredibly tough for young Romanians, Aurel is a part of the generation that have grown up with relative freedom and without the oppression of the old order. As a Christian, Aurel told me that he had got hooked on buying bibles! So many bibles, in so many shapes, sizes, versions and covers are now available: From red letter words of Jesus, to two tone leather pocket paraphrases - Aurel was hooked and buying them all! One night recently in a dream, he had a conversation with William Tyndale! Tyndale is the father of bible translations, martyred for his English bible under Henry VIII's own brand of controlled regime. Aurel says that Tyndale approached him in the dream holding a big black leather bible. Speaking in a ...