sin? or heaven?
My friend Chuck Smith has a new site, with all kinds of links, and a regular post from him. Chuck is a good and thoughtful writer (and speaker too) and it's well worth reading a while refelection every now and then. I'm well aware that people reading screens are biased towards short blog-posts and Tweets – but they are only "snacks", and Chuck is a writer who develops his points.
Here's a few snips from his latest post, Think on these things which starts with a Doll's house, and ends by making you believe in yourself. Check out the whole post.
When the brain is preoccupied with negative thoughts, anxiety or anger, “it is nearly impossible to find peace and serenity” (Newberg and Walden in, How God Changes Your Brain)…
Having a healthy sense of sin is necessary for learning to walk with a holy God, but as Emily Herman said, “Much of our popular Christianity, especially of the Evangelical type, ends here.” To be preoccupied with sin, she says, is not theology but pathology…
“Heaven and hell are born together in the human soul; but heaven, not hell, is its natural habitat.”
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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. 
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Don’t forget the liturgical use of the African Sanctus.
Is that like ‘confession + declaration = “lording over”‘? Perhaps we need to dismantle the mental space of clericalism, rather than ceding the ministry of absolution.
I take your earlier point about ‘how people receive’ things. At the same time, I wonder if there’s been serious research into ‘perceptions of lordliness’ in ministry; to what extent are we re-enacting the sixties’ ‘we’re just regular blokes’ embarrassment at actual clerical identity, and to what extent are we actively seeking to address a demonstrable problem? And — if it be granted that the problem is something more than a projection from the uneasy consciences of leaders who wish both to be church leaders and to be one of the gang — do we know that switching from declarative to optative is the strongest response to the problem — rather than, say, cultivating humility and self-giving service that would dispel any accusation of lordliness?
I think I know a great many clergy who would rather be lordly and optative, and not so many who would rather be declarative and truly humble.
Yes, I think you are right, AKMA, and one of the things I want to work on when the next book is off the desk is an exploration of liturgy for people who claim not to like it, and the implicit ecclesiology that it is bedded in. I personally feel like I live in two worlds sometimes – the religion that makes sense to me as a priest and theologian, and the ritual that constantly tries to take ten steps back to include people who don’t get it (yet). But I don’t think that’s the same as dumbing down or avoiding it, I think it’s a catechetical exercise. I’d love to get a conversation with you on this sometime, over a coffee.
Excellent. Pity you’re not able to travel this time. I was just listening to (and loving) Bach’s Cello Suites last night – brilliantly evocative and transporting…
Have a great weekend
If you’re in Glasgow, or I’m in Cambridge, let’s be sure to let one another know. Coffee’s on me, assuming I’ve been paid by then.