Signs in the Sun, the Mail and the Star

In the same week as the various apocalyptic forecasts for the future of the UK, it's once again time for the Church of England lectionary (set readings for each Sunday and weekdays) to hit the spot.

 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. (Luke 21:25-6)

Which is all standard biblical picture language for 'things are about to get really nasty, nobody will have a clue what is going on, and it will feel like the end of the world'. Within 40 years of Jesus' words the Roman emperor changed 4 times in a year following Nero's suicide, each with their own army.

On the radio yesterday someone was sketching out a scenario in Parliament where Teresa May was ousted, her Conservative successor lost a vote of confidence, and Labour won the election. They didn't spell out how Vince Cable would end up Prime Minister at the end of all that but these days, anything's possible.

Jesus warning in the light of the Europe-wide convulsions, and their grim impact on his homeland was: Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down  either by indulgence or by anxiety. These have always been the two standard ways we deal with bad news and bad situations to avoid praying: blot it out or fret over it.

There is a third way: watch and pray. As if to illustrate, the same passage from Luke concludes with Jesus heading away from Jerusalem to Bethany, the garden of Gethsemane was on the route, and Bethany was Jesus place of retreat and hospitality. It's from the place of prayer that we see clearly. William Wilberforce credits the practice of Sabbath with keeping him focused and persevering on his great work.  "Blessed be God for the day of rest and religious occupations wherein earthly things assume their true size and ambition is stunted…" I wonder if there's a connection between the Prime Ministers remarkable resilience and her regular Sunday worship. Can any politician lead well if they are in the swirl of events 24/7/365? 

New Alpha film series - 'who is Jesus?'

A few months ago Alpha redid there materials into a new 'film series'. These are good - nicely presented, a move away from the lecture style, to something a bit more varied. I've used the clip on the reliability of the new testament (from 6:40 in) and folk found it really helpful.


if you can't view this clip, try https://vimeo.com/183533609

Johns Gospel, Jamaican Style

Whilst looking for some visuals for Sundays bible reading, I stumbled across this. This seems an ideal way to recognise the two most important events of the last 2 weeks: the resurrection from the dead of Jesus of Nazareth, and the victory of the West Indies in the Twenty20 World Cup.



And in case you're wondering, this is no trendy modern innovation. The first mention of cricket in history is the day of Pentecost, when "Peter stood up with the 11 and boldly declared..." (Acts 2:14)

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob spotted at Calais

"one can categorise Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the terms used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 

Abraham begins as a voluntary migrant, but then lives in Egypt as an environmentally induced, externally displaced person.

Isaac is born to immigrant parents, and he subsequently becomes an environmentally induced, internally displaced person. 

Finally, Jacob is a third generation migrant who involuntarily migrates to seek asylum for fear of physical harm. Jacob does eventually repatriate by choice, but he lives out the remainder of his life as an immigrant.

It is no stretch to say that migration and the experience of being an immigrant among foreign groups forms these patriarchs’ identity and is, in this way, inscribed into the very foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam." (Casey Strine 'The Old Testament as a Resource for thinking about Migration')

So when God introduces himself to Moses as 'The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob' in Exodus chapter 3, God is introducing himself as the God of 3 generations of immigrants. He does this to a man who himself is an asylum seeker, to call him to lead a mass migration across the Middle East. And that's before we even get to Jesus and Paul.

Lots more food for thought at the very timely 'Migration' special of The Bible in Transmission, a journal produced by the Bible Society.

UJIP

Lets see:

 - Freedom to run your own country without interference from a big European power
 - Independent nationhood
 - A return to the good old days
 - Keep our country for the people it belongs to and kick out the foreigners who are spoiling it.

Yes, it's the United Judean Independence Party.....

"So when they met together , they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6)

All together for the next hymn, 'Jerusalem'......

It must be Easter, or maybe Christmas

The signs are everywhere, a 'gospel of Jesus wife' which even the promoters admit was written at least 300 years after the life of Jesus, and one person who thinks the Gospel of Luke was written by Mary (well, actually, he doesn't - the Daily Fail thinks this makes a good headline, the GP/bible scholar in question repeats a fairly mainstream view; that Luke gathered evidence from various sources and then put it into a coherent order. Mary, Jesus mother, was one of the sources. That's not the same as saying she wrote the gospel. When you get to looking at what Dr Bradford actually says, there's not much there to fundamentally disagree with).

It must be Easter. Or maybe Christmas.

There's an unofficial publishing season for these stories, which begins roughly 15 days before any major Christian festival, after which nobody really gives a monkeys.

I love the 'facts' in the Mail article - Luke has double the number of feminine words than Mark? Well for a start his gospel is nearly twice as long, and he has more stories about women.

Perhaps we need to add in a Biblical Ignorance Day on the Tuesday before Palm Sunday, when all these things can be paraded, hyped up, the foundations of Christendom can be shaken to the core, and then we can all safely forget about them until the following year.

Questions in Genesis

We've spent the last couple of months exploring the early chapters of Genesis (1-4 and 12) at our church, this Sundays sermon is given over to a Q&A on any of the issues that the series has raised. Here are a few of the questions sent in so far:

1. If Adams family were the only family on earth, how did his sons find women to marry who were not from his own family? It’s curious that Adam didn’t have daughters.
2. Why did God allow Adam and Eve the choice of good and evil when the world was already perfect?
3. Why didn’t God make men and women equal (Eve was created to be a helper)?
4. Why did God choose a rib to form a woman?
5. What does the Church of England teach about man being a separate creation from the animals?
6. Why were we not meant to have knowledge if we were made in God’s image?
7. Why put the tree of knowledge and the tree of life there. You know the consequences of someone eating the fruit of either tree so put them somewhere else that Man isn't going to pick the fruit from them.
8. If you really wanted to mess with God's creation, why pick the tree of knowledge to point Eve at to pick fruit from. If eating the tree of life would give them a lifespan that, when combined with what they'd gained from the tree of knowledge, would make them like gods, then getting them to eat the fruit from the tree of life would cause lots more problems because if everybody lived extremely long lives then the Earth would reach the point where it couldn't support everybody far too quickly and it would be a horrible place to live. Nobody dying but still having to feed and look after everybody. Think Torchwood Miracle Day

Great, I'll have to watch Torchwood as part of my sermon prep... 

What would you answer? What questions would you ask?

A TV Show of Biblical Proportions

The Bible, a TV miniseries made for US television, is to air on Channel 5 from Saturday 30th November, 9pm. Here's the trailer, and there's all sorts of clips, snippets & info at the link. Or go here, where Damaris have put some resources together for churches.


Having just about finished a Bible Society course on how we interpret and apply the Bible, it'll be interesting to see how the series does it. Reports are a bit mixed! But then, when did a movie version of a book ever constitute an improvement?

Or if you want something on the big screen:

Beatboxing Christmas

Hot on the heels of the original Beatbox Nativity, Gavin Tyte has recorded the whole of Lukes gospel as a rap. If you're short of a reader for one of those Christmas services, or just think it's time for a slightly different version of the story, scripts and audio are here.

In case you've no idea what I'm talking about:

'The Bible' TV series

Channel 5 are showing the US-made miniseries (10 hours) in December, and it looks like it will come out on DVD at the same time. There's a helpful website  just launched, with lots of clips, handy episode summaries, and some linked resources created by Damaris.

I was interested to see the endorsements, including a couple of Bible scholars who say positive things about it. There's a bit more background to the project here, reviews have been mixed, though most of the Amazon crowd seem pretty happy. Can't really say any more until we've seen it!

Why should we trust the gospels?

Great post, downloadable talk, handout and slides at Mark Meynells blog.

Had an 'I love the internet' moment as I found them.

"At the very least, read it" Lee Mack on the Bible

Lee Mack, on Desert Island Discs, musing on having the Bible to read on his Desert Island: 

"I'm glad you get the Bible, because I would read the Bible. I think it's quite odd that people like myself, in their forties, quite happy to dismiss the Bible, but I've never read it. I always think that if an alien came down and you were the only person they met, and they said, 'What's life about? What's earth about? Tell us everything,' and you said, 'Well, there's a book here that purports to tell you everything. Some people believe it to be true; some people [do] not believe it [to be] true.' 'Wow, what's it like?' and you go, 'I don't know, I've never read it.' It would be an odd thing wouldn't it? So, at the very least, read it."

Ht The Blue Fish Project

The prospect of alien encounter as an incentive to read the Bible? It's a new one, but it might be worth a try...

Life of Pi Theology

(spoilers). There's a profound truth in the ending of Martels 'Life of Pi', which the film thankfully keeps. Most of the book is devoted to the story of Pi's survival at sea in a boat with only a tiger for company, after his boat with a cargo of circus animals sank. There are various fantastical elements to the story, and when Pi finally reaches safety, his story isn't believed, so he tells another one. This is altogether more brutal and grim. The final chapter is an interview with insurance agents, trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

Pi "So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you, and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals of the story without animals?"
Mr Okamoto "That's an interesting question"
Mr Chiba "The story with animals"
Mr Okamoto "Yes, the story with animals is the better story"
Pi "Thank you. And so it goes with God."

All very postmodern: if it doesn't make any factual difference, lets just believe the story that makes us feel better. Truth is based in the reader/hearer, not the author/facts.

I'm in the middle of prepping some teaching material on mission, which involves going back to the Bible narrative and re-telling the story from the mission point of view. I don't think that's doing violence to the plot or direction of scripture, though inevitably it emphasises certain parts, and passes over others. As someone who's fired by mission, am I being truthful, or just telling 'the better story', the one which I can personally connect with, at the expense of accuracy?

On a different topic, Steve Chalke put a large quantity of cats and pigeons in close proximity a few days ago with a piece explaining why he now thinks committed gay relationships are ok, and that the church should affirm them. There are some interesting statements in there - e.g. that 'inclusion' is at the heart of Jesus message (yes and no, and probably not what we mean by 'inclusion'), and you can read this either as a well-reasoned piece explaining his conclusions (if you agree with him) or a warping of the scripture account to affirm homosexuality (if you don't). This might be a 'better story' - it makes the church less offensive to gay people, and there has been a lot of support for Chalke from within the church - but is it true? And how much does that actually matter?

Chalke argues that we've revised our interpretation of scripture over things like slavery and the role of women, generally against the tide of what scripture says, so why not over this? His motivation is explicitly pastoral:


Why am I so passionate about this issue? Because people’s lives are at stake. Numerous studies show that suicide rates among gay people, especially the young, are comparatively high. Church leaders sometimes use this data to argue that homosexuality is unhealthy when tragically it’s anti-gay stigma, propped up by Church attitudes, which all too often drives these statistics.

I believe that when we treat homosexual people as pariahs and push them outside our communities and churches, when we blame them for what they are, when we deny them our blessing on their commitment to lifelong, faithful relationships, we make them doubt whether they are children of God, made in his image.

So, I face a hard choice; a choice between the current dominant view of what scripture tells us about this issue, and the one I honestly think it points us to.

Here's the struggle: we want both the 'better story', and the true story, and if the two appear to be in conflict then which one do we tweak? The companion piece to Chalkes in Christianity magazine, taking the opposing view, reviews the same Bible texts and comes to very different conclusions. Greg Downes argues that his is the 'better story', one reached by holding fast to Bible teaching:

There are many Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction who have embraced another path – the countercultural and costly teaching of the Bible, and perhaps for obvious reasons, choose, by and large, to remain anonymous. They too have a story to tell, and often it is one of discovering that applying the teaching of scripture to their lives has become Good News to them. This is not to say it has been without pain and sacrifice, but in the midst of this, they have come to discover a redemptive gift. We need to salute these brothers and sisters as the courageous overcomers they are, and examples to all of us of sacrificial obedience.

Pilate asked: 'what is truth'? The truth is that Jesus, and God's dealings with us, are both the true story and the better story. In postmodern culture we are more likely to opt for the better story and sit light to truth. 'So it goes with God'? No, God is not the God of our own imagination, he is the Truth, but he is also the Way and the Life. God's truth is freeing and life-giving. But if we decide in advance what we think will be freeing and life-giving, then that's our story, not His.

Bible in a Minute

If you're a bit stuck for content for Bible Sunday tomorrow. No, of course, not, you're fully prepared aren't you?

Bible - Visuals and Infographics

In the hunt for some good images for a Bible Sunday display, here's a few links for people who like their information in picture format:

Visual Unit: superb, maps of Bible stuff, philosophical systems, periodic table of the Bible, timelines, etc.

Tim Challies 'Visual Theology' series, nice way of presenting things.

Old and New, which is part graphics part art

and a list of other links here.

favourite so far is this one by Chris Harrison. Try and guess what it is before you see if you were right.


There must be more, any pointers?

Update: some graphics and stats here on access to the bible worldwide. Thanks to Eddie Arthur for that one.

Media Relations for Ministers 101/Grumbling

Another corker from Cake or Death. Reminded of it by yesterdays story on government plans to put a King James Bible into every school. I first read about it on the BBC site, but knew before I reached the relevant section that they'd have a quote from the National Secular Society opposing the project. So I left that link off and majored on some of the positive things being done in schools instead.

By 'coincidence', I skimmed the ABofC's 2011 Lent book yesterday, and was particularly struck by a chapter on 'Giving up Grumbling'. The automatic reaction of the media is to seek out the 'grumble' angle on any story. Conflict spices the story up a bit, but it also becomes almost impossible to celebrate anything with out a 'yes but.....' Living in that atmosphere isn't great for the soul.

CS Lewis put it like this:  "Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others... but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God "sending us" to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE hell unless it is nipped in the bud. ”

The media as the outer circle of hell? Or am I grumbling?

King James Bible for every school

Financed by giving from charities and philanthropists, the Department of Education is sending a copy of the King James Bible to every state primary and secondary school in England.

The DfE link above has several good links to everyone from Richard Coles to Richard Dawkins, plus some great case studies - ways schools have used and explored the Bible as a text and as a piece of UK culture and history. There's details of each of the case studies on the following pages - it would be worth churches having a look at these as well, some reallly creative ways of exploring and engaging with the Bible, in whatever translation.

Other Kings James Version resources here.

Holy Week Timeline

Superb graphic produced by Bible Gateway (high res version available at the link)

HT Mark Meynell, worth visiting for links to other good stuff.

Sorry about the way it spills over into the sidebar, it was that or a very small picture.

A Bible for those who don't read the Bible

The Bible Society has just launched 'Who?', a rewritten New Testament aimed at those who don't read the Bible, which includes the 3 synoptic gospels merged into one.

Our world is an extraordinary place, a place of breathtaking beauty and fragility. It teems with life in mind-boggling variety, from the things we can see – birds, fingers, leaves – to those we can only imagine – the furthest spinning galaxies. And it all sprang from the mind of God. Before anything existed, before the rhythm of time began, God was.

‘In the beginning’, we read, God spoke a Word of creative power and – Bang! – the cosmos exploded into being. The person we have come to know as Jesus was that ‘Word’. He was with God and one with God from the very start.

that's the start of Johns gospel, but you'd worked that out already. I really like the writing style, though I'm not sure how Paul Langham managed to do over 400 pages of it whilst running a massive church in Bristol. The other good thing is that it gives us a British alternative to the Message - a great paraphrase, but occasionally betraying its cultural roots.

More here, and the link above gives you the contents and a decent excerpt as a taster. Might be worth a look.

Or, if performance poetry is more your style, the first 4 chapters of the Hip-Hop Gospel of Luke are now up on the Beatbox Bible website.

Books of the Bible: the Baby Name Remix

Thanks to twentyonehundredproductions,  via Richard Frank.