Have had a little changeabout, added a couple of links and changed some of the books under my reading and recommended list. I still recommend Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy despite many people seeming to get all hot under the collar about it - I thought it was well written and engaging and thought provoking. Like most books I read I didn't agree with everything in it - but then i don't tend to choose books just to re-inforce my prejudices, but to widen my perspective. The books in the sidebar link to Amazon UK, you obviously don't have to buy them from there, but the reviews are sometimes quite helpful and prices good. If you get the chance, go and check them out at your local SPCK or Wesley Owen stores... or any good bookstore!
On return from holiday I had lots to deal with, a pile of mail that was nearly as tall as me, various calls to respond to, and an update on all that had been going on in my absence. All good, or rather everything went well, though it had been extremely busy and very well covered by my colleagues. In the week since I've got back though I have had a number of conversations where people have expressed disappointment that 'The Vicar' didn't do X or Y, or that Clergy haven't visited certain folk - despite the fact that I know I have extremely competent colleagues and very good lay pastoral visitors from all of the Churches who have handled things as well, if not better, than I ever could. It boils down to the erroneous belief that things are somehow more 'kosher' if a man (preferably a man in many cases, but that's another issue which I am not going to rant about today) with a 'dog collar' does it, be it opening fetes, visiting people or services in...
So, I'm not a theological conservative. That probably comes across in pretty much everything I write, but I thought I should say it. I believe myself to be orthodox, however, and hold to those things which the Church expresses in the catholic creeds. I also have a relatively 'high' theology regarding the inspiration of Scripture. But I am not a Biblical literalist, nor do I hold to a doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture. I can't. The Bible is too rich, too deep, too difficult, too flawed for that. And by flawed I mean I understand it to be the record of human beings trying to make sense of God at work. It has the breath of the Spirit blowing through it's words and on every page, but when we try and make sense of God there is a chance we will go awry.... 'Hey lets condemn (and or murder) pretty much everyone who isn't in our tribe, that's obviously what God wants' kind of awry. And if we study this book carefully then we see that ideas ...
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