way out west

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow!

So say Cornershop in their most well known song "a brim full of asha"... they have just announced a new Album and they are playing at Greenbelt 09 who describe them (accurately) as a "fusion of British indie, Indian beats, electronica"...  shaping up to be another brilliant festival - we can't wait! If you are going we are joining with Feig, Dream and Grace to host "The Long Worship" in New Forms all day long on Monday - find both us and "The . Worship" on the Worship line-up page of the Greenbelt web site - http://www.greenbelt.org.uk

A culture of fear?

On the train to London yesterday I found myself sitting next to a Muslim gentleman. He was dressed from head to toe in black with classic long beard and a small mesh fez like hat and was reading a magazine in Arabic... As I got on the train it was clear that no one wanted to sit next to him, people passed by the empty seat next to him moving on to seats further down, this bothered me a bit so I sat down. As the train got going he began to sing/chant - under his breath but audible to all around... It took about 10 minutes or so people began to pay attention and the couple in front of us turned round clocked & clocked him. After a brief whispered chat the bloke got up and wandered down the carriage. He found some empty seats and signalled his partner who moved down the train to join him... This happened several times during the journey for the whole of which he continued to sing... As we got off the train we made eye contact for the first time and he had a wonderfully warm and open counternance and he gave me a big smile. I don't know what to think about all this, I'll BR honest with you I was a little unnerved by him but refused to give into my irrational brainwashing... I felt for him because the culture of fear is not his fault and I can't see why he should be subject to such a reaction... However I can understand peoples reaction when the media is full of images of people looking like him with the subtitle "terrorist"! It seems to me we have a particularly dangerous vicious circle at play, we have a group of people who feel aggrieved (and some with a domination agenda) whose response has been violent... This violence is highlighted (and subject to reductionism) by the media and the politicians... Breeding a culture of fear which means a group of people become subject to treatment which makes them feel isolated, misunderstood and ultimately oppressed by the culture... Etc etc. I wonder who/how we break this cycle?

A.N. Wilson rejects Atheism and finds faith!

From the New Statesman

Do people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins simply not get life?

I think on the whole that's right, that clever as the professional atheists are, they are missing out on some very basic experiences of life.

What's the worst thing about being faithless?

The worst thing about being faithless? When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own. Ditto when I read the lives of great men and women who were religious.

Reading Northrop Frye and Blake made me realize that their world-view (above all their ability to see the world in mythological terms) is so much more INTERESTING than some of the alternative ways of looking at life.

Can you love god and agree with Darwin?

I think you can love God and agree with the author of The Voyage of the Beagle, the Earth Worm, and most of the Origin of Species.

The Descent of Man, with its talk of savages, its belief that black people are more primitive than white people, and much nonsense besides, is an offence to the intelligence - and is obviously incompatible with Christianity.

I think the jury is out about whether the theory of Natural selection, as defined by neo-Darwinians is true, and whether serious scientific doubts, as expressed in a new book Why Us by James Lefanu, deserve to be taken seriously. For example, does the discovery of the complex structure of DNA and the growth in knowledge in genetics require a rethink of Darwinian "gradualism". But these are scientific rather than religious questions.

ht Jason Clark http://deepchurch.org.uk/

Technorati Tags: Christianity: News: Spirituality

The Myth of Orthodoxy?

I've heard a few people say recently how their worship/church is underpinned/rooted in "orthodoxy". This always prompts a question in my mind... Whose "orthodoxy" do they mean?... Charsimatic, Evangelical, Liberationist, Episcopal, Congregational, Calvinist, Arminian, Lutheran, Augustinian, Roman, Greek, Coptic, The Pauline churches, The Jerusalem church... etc. etc. I'm sure the response would be "biblical orthodoxy"... But this brings even more questions eg. what makes these good folk think they can do something Bishops, Scholars, Theologians, 2000 years of the Church have failed to do, to find a single incontrovertable, universal interpretation of the whole of scripture... The more I think about it the more I think that "orthodoxy" is inherently local (in time and place) only grace is universal so only grace is a sure enough foundation for church, worship etc.

Test posting from iPhone

I'm a happy boy! All gadgetted up for the 21st C! All hail St Jobbs.