coComments related to tortoise

"A satsuma is not a failed ora

2009-11-17T14:07:20.815+01:00

"A satsuma is not a failed orange." I heard it only recently, and it apparently does the rounds in rural ministry training - but it could apply wherever a congregation bemoans its smallness.

Earl - You advocate "a concre

2009-11-10T17:04:47.464+01:00

Earl - You advocate "a concrete practical real world living out of the gospel in a way that changes lives for Christ". I think that means you are essentially agreeing with the second paragraph of my earlier comment. Jolly good. For in case you missed it, my objection is not to evangelism or mission-shaped living. My objection is to the terminology of "making the Gospel relevant". It's a lazy turn of phrase that can lead to lazy thinking - for it implies 'buffing up' the Gospel to make it slot in more readily to the preferences and preoccupations of contemporary zeitgeist.

To "make the Gospel relevant"

2009-11-10T15:23:20.149+01:00

To "make the Gospel relevant" - how arrogant! How Pelagian! As if the Gospel were the clay, and we the potters - tasked with fashioning something attractive out of a mundane and malleable raw material. No - if anything, the shoe to be "made relevant" is on the other foot. For the call is by God's grace to make of our lives, indeed all life, something that is "relevant" to the kerygma of Jesus... lest we hear him say, at the last, "Depart from me, I never knew you" (Matthew 7.23).

Ah, quantum physicists. The tr

2009-10-04T16:57:08.894+02:00

Ah, quantum physicists. The trouble is, you never know whether they're thinking inside or outside the box - until you open the box.

I remember discovering, whilst

2009-08-01T15:03:20.202+02:00

I remember discovering, whilst grappling with the Wife of Bath's Prologue, that Middle English appeared far less forbidding when recited in a broad West Country accent.

Intentional attack of the i

2009-07-28T17:55:21.021+02:00
Intentional attack of the inncoent WAS one of the many reasons God told the Israelities to take on the “ites”. DH, I wonder if I could trouble you for a chapter-and-verse reference for this. Thanks. (BTW Richard, apologies if this appears twice - comments playing up for me)

So? David's dancing was "befor

2009-07-26T17:08:52.619+02:00
So? David's dancing was "before the LORD" in worship at this seminal point in the nation's life. His declaration that this "before the LORD" would mandate even more undignified behaviour creates an a fortiori support for dancing when we gather to celebrate in worship - be that in the context of weddings, baptisms, the Lord's Supper - whenever. Not a compulsion, mind - but a support.

Yeah, they may have called him

2009-07-25T19:00:13.807+02:00
Yeah, they may have called him a glutton and a drunkard, but a DANCER? Never! Really though, the dancing may not be to everyone's taste, but there's no need to get all Michal about it...

When Americans start playin

2009-07-24T21:34:50.894+02:00
When Americans start playing the ‘inherent superiority’ card, the possibility of reasonable conversation comes to an end. Indeed. But to be fair, that possibility evaporates whenever anyone starts playing the 'inherent superiority' card.

What clergy do on their day of

2009-07-18T13:12:29.074+02:00
What clergy do on their day off. How to put together a riveting children's address using only the items found in the office equipment cupboard. I daresay there's always more that could be said/drawn on the subject of Risk Assessments, Health & Safety etc. Fresh Expressions of Church Bookstall. The Hassock: a History. The Church Away Day.

By the way, and almost complet

2009-05-30T23:38:38.919+02:00
By the way, and almost completely off the point - Michel in this photo seems to be doing a remarkable impersonation of Jeremy Begbie. Separated at birth?

Advocates of journalling would

2009-05-28T15:40:16.065+02:00
Advocates of journalling would say that its value lies precisely in its propensity to open up the territory for the writer's own thinking, exporation, and - yes - change. Perhaps we imagine (or want there to be) a difference between such writing-as-self-provocation on the one hand, and an author's published output on the other. Perhaps we've grown accustomed to being consumers of other people's visions, with their ideas as a product fixed in time. Perhaps too this is where the humble lending library might help us: encouraging and reminding us to regard all our reading not as an exercise in consumption, but as an act of hospitality - with the text, and its author, not our chattel but our guest.

Very good. Just a couple of mi

2009-04-08T11:28:06.043+02:00
Very good. Just a couple of missed "Jesus has changed his profile picture" opportunities (e.g. Emmaus), but really very good.

Looks to me like you've stumbl

2008-10-15T15:53:10.720+02:00
Looks to me like you've stumbled upon a promotional bust of Kenneth Williams dating from the time of that cinematic masterpiece Carry On Cleo. As you say, definite similarity there.

Easy, tiger. The guy was commi

2008-10-09T22:34:30.651+02:00
Easy, tiger. The guy was committed for psychiatric evaluation - which is rather different from a claim of mental illness, and which also presumably means something a little more robust than bibliobloggers reading a news story and thinking, nah, he's just evil. Just as depravity can be said to derive from the Fall, so can infirmity - including mental infirmity. And much as we'd like it to be easy to differentiate between the behaviours that stem from each, it's not so straightforward. So let's allow the psychiatrists who actually interview the guy to evaluate whether he acted through illness or merely through malice. Unless of course you're going to go all scientologist about psychiatry being bunk...

It's an excerpt from Jubilate

2008-10-06T21:54:41.178+02:00
It's an excerpt from Jubilate Agno, a poem by the 18th Century English writer Christopher Smart. Whilst I don't on the whole share your - shall we say - forthright evaluation of the text, I imagine you will be more pleased than surprised to know that Smart spent six years in a lunatic asylum and indeed Jubilate Agno was written there.

Let's give it another try...

2008-06-09T14:53:35.391+02:00
Let's give it another try...