stop snarling
It has become fashionable for science and religion to snarl at one another. They need not. Many scientists are religious. Universities sprouted in Europe to fertilise religious learning first planted in monasteries. Early scientists sought to explain God’s role in the Universe, not to deny it.
The Times, 19 Feb, commenting on a £1.9 million research project to discover why people believe in God. (Possible answer – because She’s there after all?) Read the whole article here.
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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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It’s an interesting play on the word irrelevant. I’m sure that we are all called to count ourselves as nothing, and to rank ourselves with those who are marginalised and despised. In that sense, yes, by the standards of our wider world, we probably find ourselves irrelevant.
However, we are not called to be irrelevant in terms of the message we live out, which is painfully apposite to every age and generation. So, as irrelevant as we may be, we need to find very relevant ways to share what we find to be the most important thing in all the world, no?
…completely irrelevant. Oh goodie! I’m a success in my field!
great, you just gave me the end quote in my essay about whether ministers are teachers by warrant of their calling – and how do we do it effectively.
you see the thrust of my essay by the nature of the quote……