View From The Basement

Tripoli

The BBC and other new outlets are carrying reports that the violence in Lebanon has now spread north to Lebanon's second city Tripoli.

When I visited Tripoli a few years back it seemed a far more radical place than Beirut. Indeed the couple who took us there had lived in Tripoli until someone put a bomb outside their house and tried to blow them up.

When in Tripoli we overlooked the city from the walls of the citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gillies. We prayed and as we did so a flock of white doves took off from some rooftops and circled in the sky - a sign of peace? We prayed that it would be a sign of peace, of a lasting peace - still we pray for what else can we do?

Valuing Theology

Went across to New College yesterday to get some stuff from the library, meet some friends for lunch and go to a seminar by Dr Janet Soskice called "faith, hope and loveliness (which was very good) and the Gifford Lecture by Prof. Robert Veatch. It was a good day.

At lunch the old chestnut of finding funding came up. Funding is hard to come by for post graduate theological study. Most funding bodies make awards on a competitive basis, and many have restrictive criteria (e.g. will only consider you if from a particular denomination). For me this raises the question of who values theology?

The lack of scholarships etc. for theology would suggest that the answer is a rather negative one, i.e. not many people value it (or those that do have no money to invest in the next generation of theologians!)

Expressions

Exist

"In order that people may exist with Christ, Christians must exist with the people"

Jacques Maritain, Scolasticism & Politics, 1940, p246.