Advent Friday Round-up
so much going on! several deadlines, end of term madness, stuff and more stuff. But here are a few Friday items worth checking out:
- Mark Pierson on a fantastic bit of curated Advent Worship (do try this at home, but only if you have flood insurance!!)
- Dave Walker on Nine Lessons (learned) and Carols
- David Keen’s contribution to Friday silliness is The Christmas Linebacker. I’ve read quite a few po-faced anti-religion posts this week and it occurred to me that one of the most appealing things about Christians is that they have no trouble at all poking fun at the curiosities or the excesses of their own religion. As Peter Leithart points out in his marvellous book, Christianity is ultimately a comedy (in the classic sense of something that ends well despite what you go through on the way) not a dour, nihilistic tragedy where everything ends in darkness and death. (If you haven’t read it, buy it RIGHT NOW. Or tell Santa to buy it for you)
2 Responses to “Advent Friday Round-up”
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author musician theologian
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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Is Peter Leithart’s book entitled Deep Comedy? Where is the best place to buy it in the UK? For some reason the UK Amazon sellers of the book seem pretty overpriced.
yep, that’s the one – amazon is as cheap as any; a good library should be able to get it, but it’s worth the investment to order frm the States (IMHO!)