It's late, life is daft and I've just had an email from someone whose faith is at a point of needing to 'grow up' to cope with such complexities as theodicy and (seemingly) unanswered prayer.  This is why I get hacked off with evangelism courses - they don't prepare their happy converts for real life when the simple answers just don't wash any more.  Or, perhaps, to be more fair, it's why I get hacked off that churches don't build on going nurture as part of their programmes.

So, anyone out there got an equivalent to 'Theodicy for Dummies' or 'Philosophy of Prayer for Absolute Beginners'?  I have a copy Peter Vardy's 'The Puzzle of Evil' and various elementary philosophy of religion texts (well, as in undergraduate definition of elementary, not GCSE!) but in this case I am reluctant to lend them, not least as the former seems to be out of print.  Any ideas please - and I'll try to source them rapidly.

Thank you.

This is scary.

For those with even the vaguest interest in Baptist history it is a travesty to discover how it is being abused; for those of us in churches descended from Barton it is embarrassing and shameful.  Even though Barton is now large 'B' Baptist in name only it doesn't do any of us any favours. What would Dan Taylor have made of it all?  And of course, WWJD?

This is probably demonstrable proof I've lost the plot and, if so, I'm blaming it on the army of microspcopic life forms currently sojourning in my pharynx!

Walking through my dining room this morning and passing a table groaning under items for Friday's labyrinth - palm crosses, bowl and towel, chains, pebbles, purple fabric - and waiting for the postie to deliver the myrrh anointing oil (from a USA Messianic Jewish supplier) I found myself idly postulating the idea of God having a dining table on which items are laid out ready for the big events.  OK so it's nuts, and probably really bad theology, but there's something kind of comforting about a myth of a table with all the elements of creation laid out on it in readiness (and it's actually no more "unscriptural" than hands flinging stars into space (which is a wonderful line) when compared with Genesis 1).

Ok, I'll go and lie down in a darkened room now until the fog of my mind clears!