View From The Basement

Interview with James H Cone.

I was introduced to the thoughts of Black theologian James H Cone via the writing of Mennonite theologian John Denny Weaver. There's a great interview with Cone HERE, where in conversation with Bill Moyers he talks about the Cross and the Lynching Tree.

Glasgow protests over Gaza air strikes

  Today as a family we headed off to our local protest over the Israeli air strikes in Gaza.

I'll post more on this and why we decided that this was an important thing to do when I've more time.

Blog Interveiw

Jason has interviewed me at his blog. You can read it here.

He asks me the following nine questions;

1. How did you get into blogging in the first place?

2. After 4 years of blogging where do you see yourself heading with it?

3. What does your family think of your blogging?

4. You used to work in Youth Ministry. How long did you do this and how was the experience over all?

5. You have an interesting blog title, how did it come about?

6. You told me before that you were doing some schooling. Tell us a little about that.

7. Does your studies include Christian Anarchism?

8. Tell us about your spiritual journey.

9. You are standing before Jesus for the first time, what do you say?

Thanks for interviewing me Jason - it was good and fun to have to reflect upon these things.

God Bless America

A friend pointed me towards this fascinating documentary that went out on Channel 4. It's called, "God Bless America" and looks at the association of the religious right in the US with the republican party and how that relationship changed over the recent presidential election.

You can watch it on Channel 4's play back service.

It features many of the main players, those who ran the "faith teams" for the respective candidates. It interestingly points to how many conservative evangelicals where changed politically by going to New Orleans to get involved with relief projects there. It also highlights a "new bread" of evangelical leaders such as Richard Cizik and Joel Hunter (Pastor of Northland, Orlando) who have a broader agenda than that of the traditional narrow issues. It also shows Don Miller (author of Blue like Jazz) endorsing Obama.

Worth a look.

Dr Ted Herbert

Dr Ted Herbert was the vice principle of the college at which I did my undergrad theological training. I use the past tense as on September 30th Ted passed away. As well as being vice principle he was a fantastic Old Testament lecturer - I say fantastic as his classes stood out for two reasons. (1) Everyone learned something (2) everyone stayed awake given the enthusiasm and energy that flowed from Ted as he lectured. Indeed it was this enthusiasm and energy which led to him being compared to Tigger from the Winne-the-phoo stories by the students during my time there.

And this is how I think I shall remember Ted - a Tigger like follower of Jesus, someone exuding energy and enthusiasm for scripture and the things of God.

For those who have not seen them yet there are two youtube 'messages' from Ted. One to his church and the other to the new students at ICC. You can listen to them here and here.

Needless to say, thoughts and prayers are with his family and his colleagues at the college.

Psalm 137

I don't get the opportunity to preach that often, but did so twice on Sunday in Greenock. I based the morning preach around Psalm 137. This psalm was "made famous" by Boney M, however I used a version sung by Lori Chaffer to introduce the psalm and have embedded the video that went with it.

Rather than try to repeat my preach here I'll try and do a wee summary.

(1) Unlike the people of 137 we are not exiles we are strangers. While this difference may seem subtle I think it is profound. An exile is looks back, her heart is back in the homeland. A stranger has never know home, they are still searching and thus face forward. This orientation means that as strangers we have a 'holy dissatisfaction with this world as we never truly fit.

(2) The people of 137 missed an opportunity. They let their emotions stop them from learning to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. While our emotions need to play a part in what we sing (hence we need to sing songs of lament etc) they are not the prime reasons we sing. I gave four reasons why we sing, but I'm sure you could think of many more; (a) because God sojourns with us, (b) because God is worth it, (c) because it witnesses to God - both in respects of telling us who God is and reminding us of what he's done and in witnessing to a watching world (there is a challenge there for our song writers as may contemporary worship songs tell us next to nothing about God!) (d) because it changes the world.

I finished by reading Psalm 108:1 - 6

Can't get the video to work so you can view it HERE

Volunteer

I was sent an email asking if I would post about this organization. They are  based in the USA, so this is more relevant if you live that side of the pond!

ChristianVolunteering.org is linked to many well known urban ministries and seeks to fit volunteers with opportunities for service. They are particularly keen that as we approach the holiday season, and thus people have time they would not otherwise have, that people sign up for some of the projects they have listed.

So if you live in the States go and have a look and think about volunteering in an urban ministry this Christmas.

Help I have children

Lynn over at Help I work with children had organised a conference for families called Families on Fire. We went along as a family - I didn't make it to it all due to other commitments.

It was good to take some time to think about our family and what God wants to do in and through us.

I think most people who went benefited from the weekend, so thank Lynn for all your hard work.

Random Acts of Kindness

I was surprised today when I opened my email to find that someone who reads this blog had performed a random act of kindness on me by sending me a gift voucher for some books. What can I say but thanks.

Deep Scripture

I guess this is a sort of follow on post from Deep & Wide and my thoughts about going deep into a particular theologian. We need also to go deep into scripture.

I've never been a fan of the daily reading booklets that seem to be popular, but I object to them on more than issues of personal taste. The Bible is not an encyclopedia, a dictionary or a recipe book for life that you can just read a verse or short snippet and understand what it means. Jim, quite rightly IMHO picks up on the issue of "special" edition Bibles which verge on no longer being the word of God but intricate interpretive grids that eschew certain doctrinal and chatechumenical positions. All this I fear is forming bad reading habits in many and helps sustain a proof text version of Christianity that fails to see the bigger picture or engage in any kind of exegesis of that word.

So we need to read long, and particularly in the New Testament many of the books can be read comfortably in one sitting. Yet we also need to read deep. There are very few, although thankfully some people who have what I would call a deep knowledge of all scripture. They have spent years immersing themselves in the Bible and have faithfully performed the exegetical task before jumping to the hermeneutic one (While I acknowledge there is a formal split between exegesis and hermeneutics I think I'd want to argue that if we are to try and understand Scripture then these are two moments of the one movement). That said perhaps most of us cannot or will not attain the knowledge and skill of such a master crafts-person, yet this should not deter us from becoming more skillful, more competent with scripture.

So just as I think that it's healthy for a student of theology, be that a formal student in the academy or a 'lay' (hmm I don't like that word) person with a brain, to go deep in an handful of theologians, so I think it is healthy that we go deep in a handful of Biblical books. Spend time meditating on them, read them over and over again. Read some good commentaries and other secondary literature on them. Meet for coffee those you know who are more familiar with this book than you and encourage, share and build up each other in the faith.

There is a hard first step to all this and that is prayerfully deciding what books you should go deep in, but don't stress about this too much, you can always add others to your list!

For me the challenge is to become "deep" in Genesis, Isaiah, Some of the minor prophets, Matthew, Romans, Revelation.