Abraham, and “Obsession”
The Magnficient Obsession is a new book by Ann Graham Lotz (who is the daughter of famous evangelist Billy Graham)
It tracks the story of Abraham, but rather than locating it as a historical study, Ms Lotz writes of how an in-depth study of Abraham's life changed her own life significantly. She travels through Abraham's story, making connections with her own life,
and writing with some vulnerability about the way in which she makes
the ancient relationship between Abraham and God into a reality in her own life. Her reflections on what it means to be a friend of God, to be on a Journey with God, to reject the "idolatry of evangelicalism" and to exist primarily for the blessing of others, gives a contemporary take on the relevance of this ancient story for contemporary life.
3 Responses to “Abraham, and “Obsession””
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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I think there are a number of issues packed in here. When I was a parish priest I could get the CW baptism rite to work Ok in the two buildings where I routinely ministered, but my colleage could not in his. How much is the building a factor?
I heard Michael Vasey on this when the services came out – he was the chief architect of them remember. His advice was that when leading them you “just need to ham it up”. Certainly the deep drama of these services needs a dramatic leading.
I thought Ben’s text was interesting – but it begs a question doesn’t it – are we really baptised ‘in the prayers’ of anyone? Aren’t we baptised ‘in the waters of death and new life’? I’m all for flexing CW but we need to keep the theological heart of the rite in view.
It may well be that we will need to revise CW baptism as many people do find it hard to make it work – it is not just the liturgically unfeeling who struggle! My colleage mentioned above was certainly not litugically inept, though he did eventually become an archdeacon….
Charles I’m interested in the idea that our current liturgy works in certain buildings and not others. For me, it works to a degree in my college chapel, although I always pause to explain what different parts of the liturgy mean, and am always told afterwards “Thank you for explaining it, I had no idea…” which is all very well, but in an already lengthy and verbose service makes it one long recitation. I’ll give it more thought. (Michael Vasey, BTW, was a genius. I wish he was here to ask what we should do next…)
Yes, I think the interface of building and performance is under-researched in liturgy.
On the verbosity, I used to deal with that in the parish by taking the exhortation which comes after the baptism itself and dividing it between two or three people (Readers, Sunday School leaders et al) – that made it seem less long and verbose!
We had a baptism at the church I attend today and it did not seem too long – I can’t identify what our vicar did to speed it along though!
Michael was a genius and a maverick. As you know, I was his successor at Cranmer and I would sometimes (at difficult times in the college’s life) go and stand at his grave in the grounds of the chapel and wonder what he would have done – WWMD??!