What a week!

Busy, worthwhile, rewarding, hard work - all very appropriate descriptions of the past week. Again and again I am struck by the privilege of being here, and also recognising just how much there is to do. Admittedly, some of it is stuff I have chosen to do, but there is no end of things I could choose to do on top of what I am already doing, there is so much going on in these villages!

One of the things I have chosen to do is to lead these Lent talks, some of which have taken quite a lot of time to prepare and put together, including this week! Text is available at New Kid Deep Stuff as always, and here is a taster, just in case you fancy a little bit of Theology to keep you thinking....

Lent 2009: The Apostle’s Creed

Session 4

I believe in Jesus part 2

I want to begin tonight’s thoughts by restating a couple of things which I perhaps didn’t make completely clear last week. I have spent some time thinking about the nature of these evenings and some of the discussions that have come both as part of the sessions and around after the event too!

At the beginning of these talks on the Creed I said that I wasn’t going engage in a purely academic exercise, nor was I going to take apart all the bits of the Creed and dismiss them – on the contrary I think I would restate that I wholeheartedly believe in all of the articles which make up our Creed and hope that these talks would assist you in feeling more confident in proclaiming these truths also. In particular, I want to say that when last week I said I wasn’t going to discuss the ‘Virgin Birth’ as I thought it was a red herring, I didn’t mean that I didn’t believe in it and didn’t want to talk about it, I wholeheartedly affirm it. My concern is that (like discussions over a six day creation) discussions about the mechanics of how this or that might have happened are often a distraction. My belief in the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ, which is founded in Jesus taking flesh from the Virgin Mary and by the power of the Spirit is at the heart of my own understanding of the Incarnation.

What I am hoping to do is highlight both how some of these articles of faith ended up in the Creed, and to ask ourselves exactly what we mean, and what those who put together the Creed meant, when these things are and were recited over many hundreds of years. The Creed is not the end of faith, nor is it meant to be recited parrot fashion without addressing the serious, foundational beliefs of which it is comprised. It is easy to drift, or ‘freewheel’ through faith, accepting what might be the accepted interpretation of a particular minister, writer, or tradition within the Church, without grappling with the truths both behind our Creeds and within our Scriptures. [more]