Quote of the day

Radio 5 film reviewer Mark Kermode on Keira Knightley in Pirates 3

"you could build a nice set of ikea furniture out of her performance"

Hear the whole review here

How sound are you?

Clearly with an exam tomorrow I should be considering Charles Gerkin's approach to pastoral care but nothing recharges the old grey matter more than thinking about something completely different. Following on from a previous post about the tension between what is I guess Paul's advice to Timothy to "watch your life and doctrine closely". Note not just watch your doctrine but life - how it is lived out. Orthodoxy without orthopraxis - or faith without works is dead, as James would say. I forgot to mention that I was asked "are you a young earth creationist or a heretic?". Now I have a strong stubborn/rebellious streak so even if I was a young earth creationist I would probably still have answered "I guess i'm a heretic then". It was ridiculous that my views one one matter should define whether someone respected/listened to me or wrote me off.

Anyway, my colleague has just written a blog entry on similar grounds - around the theme of how we measure our unity - by actions and/or belief. Check it out here.

Finally a couple of cartoons stolen from Dan Kimball on a similar note:

Which is more accurate? or sadly true?


Revision always allows you to find out bizarre things like your theological worldview:

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 75% Neo orthodox 68% Emergent/Postmodern 64% Classical Liberal 50% Roman Catholic 46% Charismatic/Pentecostal 43% Reformed Evangelical 43% Modern Liberal 39% Fundamentalist 18% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Now I know....

Why God is better than the Police

So last night I had an encounter with the Police. It wasn't pleasant and I'm £60 poorer and got a bonus of 3 penalty points on my license. Thinking back about it its amazing the amount of self-justifying I've been doing to make it out that I'm not a criminal and didn't really deserve it and others are worse. It was wet, there were a set of traffic lights ahead, I was thinking 'I'm almost out of petrol, hope i make it to the garage' (the arrow was hovering on the empty edge of red) and just noticed the lights were amber, but (foolishly) thought, sure don't know if i'll be able to stop, i can squeeze through. First mistake.

Then a minute later, blue flashing lights in the mirror - 'oh crap'.
I did think 'well the lights were just changing, should have stopped, it'll be ok'. Second mistake
After the chat about what happened, the 'officer' asked how long I'd had my license, if i had any penalty points, on my 'no' he responded - "that's all right then, I'm going to give you 3 for failing to stop at a red light". I thought it was pretty harsh, no warning or 'well make sure it doesn't happen again' but bamm, straight in there with points. Bank balance, next years insurance and pride all going 'ouch'. I also wondered if i had points would he have then not given me any? Or if I had been female...

Then to rub salt in as I was filling up having reached the garage, weren't there some boy racers wheel spinning, burning rubber, and speeding off into the distance. I'll bet they didn't get any points last night. Bandits.

Of course I was wrong, should have been paying more attention, should have stopped, can't really complain (although memories of friends getting a slap on the wrist for doing double the speed limit keep filling my head). It is shocking just how much I tried to justify and excuse myself. The black and white of it was that I was in the wrong and deserved it, but boy racers as a case in point, I felt the need to compare myself and make sure that even if I'd done wrong - there were others who were worse than me.

Made me pretty grateful how graciously God treats me - not the way I deserve, or don't deserve as the case may be, that he is the God of the second chance, who is incredibly patient with his stumbling constantly getting it wrong children, not treating us harshly...

Revision Time

Studying part-time is great for keeping the grey cells active, the downside is every 6 months I have to do an exam. Which usually means trawling the depths of the internet while thinking about my essays. On my first day off to revise its important to come up with a plan of attack of what to do in the frequent breaks my brain needs to recharge.

A good time waster is gotoquiz.com where importantly I discovered how to answer the facebook question on political ideaology. Highly accurate no doubt. My guardian reading probably gave me away as a woolly liberal. Here it is...

What is your political ideology? Your Result: Liberal   This quiz has categorised you as a Liberal. You believe in the role of the government to fight poverty, both by means of welfare programs, and economic regulation. You are defined as a progressive in the US, but you are generally favouring of the retention of the current social paradigm.
Social Democrat
Communist/Radical Left
Libertarian
Conservative
Fascist/Radical Right
What is your political ideology? Make Your Own Quiz

Thanks to zoomtard for the chance to pit Mary against an evil looking Eve in the bible battle.
Or for a more classic sporting effort there's table top football from the evils of the Murdoch empire. and of course the old sporting classics like Tardis Tennis on the BBC Sport site.

As if you couldn't tell how productive my day is going to be, now its sunny as well...

property - the new pornography or the new religion?

I've been reading David McWillliams book - 'the Pope's children' on the dramatic changes that have swept Ireland since the Pope last visited. Its fascinating stuff - particularly the baby boom 9 months after the Pope visited. JP the second obviously acted as some sort of weird aphrodisiac! McWilliams talks about property being the 'new pornography' and about how its impossible to have a conversation in Ireland without it turning to property prices at some point. He's right. We're obsessed. We even camp out to make sure we get the developments being released. Its all about getting onto the property ladder. While I do concede the good investment argument and all that there is something disturbing about it all. As a non property owner I frequently get bored during house chat - all very well if you can afford it, but spare a thought for the many people who can't. Harshly put sometimes people who used to be interesting become boring when all they have to talk about are houses and furniture... Why are we so obsessed? I was at B&Q earlier getting a bbq and the place was bunged - some people go to church on Sundays, a lot of the rest go to B&Q. I can't imagine what it will be like when ikea comes to Belfast. TV is coming down with home/garden improvement shows. In 21st century Ireland and Britain it seems as if people worship their houses. Many people put themselves in crazy debt to have the right furniture, patio or decking. Why? There's nothing wrong with enjoying where we live but there is something disturbing going on. It seems as if people's worth and security are wrapped up in their houses, in how their kitchen looks, in how big their fridge (with built in ice dispenser) or flat screen plasma TV is. We need to keep upgrading and updating to be happy. Were our grandparents generation miserable because they didn't have all this stuff? Is there something here about the erosion of community? Where does our sense of security and self-worth fit into all this?

I've spent some time in Africa and South America and found that people who don't have all this stuff, who don't worship at the altar of consumerism seem to be able to be content, and indeed maybe have their priorities in a much better place... but then to make comments and ask some of these questions in this area isn't terribly popular...

Thoughts from a lonely prophet part two

A belated return to Walter Rauschenbusch.

"Christian morality finds its highest dignity and its constant corrective in making the aims of the kingdom of God the supreme aim to which all minor aims must contribute and from which they gain their moral quality. The church substituted itself for the kingdom of god and thereby put the advancement of a tangible and very human organisation in the place of the moral uplifting of humanity."

"churchly correctness took precedence over Christlike goodness."

His comments on church and kingdom and the subsequent discussions we had in class provoked some musing on my part, coupled with some stuff I was listening to from Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll. Those words resonate today as often the church/churches seem more interested in building their little empires and running their programmes than building the kingdom. Thinking in terms of kingdom is challenging as it broadens our horizons. For me in a Christian student organisation it raises lots of questions. How does the extension of the kingdom sit/clash/merge with our values and partnering with others seeking to build the kingdom but who have different approaches?

God's plan in history is to build his kingdom, and the church is the means to do that - not the end in itself it seems if you read Revelation 22 which sees the leaves of the tree of life being for the healing of the nations. It makes you wonder if CS Lewis in the Last Battle is getting this when it comes to some 'outside christianity' - without getting all universalist of course.

Something else in this smogashboard of things floating around my head is a frustration with people who equate the life of following Jesus being about going to heaven. Reading the biblical texts doesn't necessarily suggest this - God is establishing his kingdom, creating/recreating a new heavens and new earth and the bible ends with the 'new Jerusalem' descending, reiterating that the physical earth is a crucial part of God reconciling to himself all things. Its also interesting as we look at the big picture flow of the bible that it startsin a garden and ends in a city of people from every nationality and people group. For God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and for his kingdom to come surely means that we need to work hard at building inclusive church communities of all nationalities, young, old, rich and poor - youth congregations or monocultural congregations may be easier in the short term but are they really expressions of God's kingdom if there isn't longer term integration?

Some muddled musings grasping at the wonderof the most incredible reconstruction project in history, especially given the fragility of the raw materials...