Ok

By continuing your visit to this site, you accept the use of cookies. These ensure the smooth running of our services. Learn more.

A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life - Page 1103

  • Theology & Worship

    I read this today, it refers to Barth, so it must be good!  It is also the best apologetic for practical theology I've ever seen (rather than the apologies for it that are all too frequently encountered).

      

    Practical theology as worship

    As we have seen, Practical theology and qualitative research combine to offer us a way of exploring the richness and complexity of creation. They move us beyond naive and simplistic assumptions about the world and human beings and allow us to explore the inner and often hidden depths of human experience.  Perceived in this way, we might describe this type of Practical Theology research as worship. It was Karl Barth who that the ultimate aim of all theology is worship (2002). Barth points towards the importance of doing theology with a spirit of praise and wonder; approaching the task as discovering the things of God with a deep sense of awe. As we seen in this book, theology does not relate only to the rational dimensions of human experience.  At a fundamental theology is always oriented towards the worship and praise of God. As we convert qualitative research and graft it into the service of theological action, it enables us to enter into some of the depths and complexities of creation; as we listen critically but openly to the voice it brings to us, we are drawn new understandings of and fresh perspectives on the divine drama. These new understandings should draw us into communion with God and inspire worship and praise at the intricacies and wonders of creation. It should not only us to understand, it should also enable us to love God and relate more closely to God, ourselves and to one another Matt. 22:3 7—40).

     

    From Practical Theology and Qualitative Research, John Swinton and Harriet Mowat, London, SCM, 2006 Page 259

    The Barth they refer to is Prayer Karl Barth, Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2002

  • Pub Churches

    Anyone reading this involved in pub churches?  Our new venture, COMPASS, sets sail in May in the lounge of the pub down the road and will be monthly.  Suddenly I have been cited as an expert on this model of church life which is scary, we aren't going yet!  Are we the only Baptist pub church?  Surely not.  Are we the only pub church with a TT minister?  Probably!  (Which kind of reminds me of a joke about St Peter ordering mineral water when Jesus and the disciples went into a pub - but I don't tell it very well).  Anyway gentle readers, if you have any thoughts to share on what helps and hinders, I'd love to know them.  Just trying to work out how to enrol on an elementary miracles course so I can do the necessary with glasses of water in order to keep the expenses down! 

  • For Sally

    For Sally, who is doing work on lone parents and church, here is a poem by Kathy Keay...

    God of the Single Parent

    By

    Kathy Keay

    Blessed is she who belongs nowhere

    Because she is with child

    But without husband

    For You will be her Life Partner.

    Blessed is she who only has one pair of hands

    To do six tasks at the same time,

    Urgently.

    You will send her unexpected help.

    Blessed is she who must provide for all

    The needs of her children

    And for her own.

    You will surely defend her cause.

    Blessed is she when the children are in bed

    And in the silence of the evening

    She craves for adult company.

    You will fill her home with your Presence.

    Blessed is she when others speak falsely against her

    And when she is required to listen to all manner

    Of dreadful afflictions

    Which will come upon her children

    Because they are the products of a single-parent household.

    You will delight in proving them all wrong

    Because she puts her trust in You.

    For You are the God of the Single Parent

    Who knew what it was like

    To live against the expectations of society

    And said

    The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to

    Such as these

       

    From Kathy Keay, ed. Laughter, Silence and Shouting: An Anthology of Women’s Prayers, Harper Collins1994 page 82

  • Work on Singleness & Church

    I recently mentioned I had done some work on single people's experience of church (back in 2002).  I have uploaded the summary of that work which was published in the Baptist Minister's Journal which can be found here and the full thing (12k words plus loads of appendices and a mega impressive bibliography, if I say so myself who shouldn't) here

    I also rediscovered some poems I'd collected on the theme and here is just one of them...

     

    Singleness

    Is the liberty

    To be me,

    To do what I like

    When I like,

    To travel

    Unencumbered

    The highways

    Of the world

     

     

    Singleness

    Is the discipline

    Of freedom,

    The privilege

    Of having more time

    For others,

    More responsibility

    To give myself,

    More space

    To share.

     


     

    Singleness

    Is the pain

    Of children

    Never born,

    Of being outside

    On the outside

    Of the family,

    Mysteriously virgin,

    Threatening to others.

     

     

    Singleness

    Is aloneness

    In my one-person family,

    The open door

    And table,

    The discovery

    That I am loved,

    Valued and of value.

     

     

    Singleness

    Is the ache

    Of rejection,

    Bereavement,

    Desertion,

    Of having

    No living body

    To throw my arms around

    And love me

    For myself alone. 

     

    Singleness

    Is the ability

    To close my front door

    On the world,

    To enjoy my solitude,

    Listen to music,

    Paint,

    Be at peace.

     

     

    Singleness is my beginning

    And my end,

    My laughter

    And my tears,

    Myself and God,

    Complete,

    Loved and loving,

    At home and free,

    Celebrate with me!

     

     

     

    By Betty Hares, From Mary O’Brien and Clare Christie eds. Single Women: Affirming our Spiritual Journeys Westport, Connecticut, Bergin and Garvey, 1993.  More can be found here (but please be careful with copyright, Nicola Slee's unpublished work was used with her permission as part of my dissertation work)

  • Inclusive Language and American Spellings

    These days students are excpected to use inclusive language in their essays; this is a good thing.  The reality is though, that this is never as easy as people think it should be, and the loudest voices in favour of its use seem to come from quarters which replace one form of exclusion with another...

    I am currently reading a book on a 'holistic theology of the atonement' written 15 years ago that refers to single human beings exclusively as 'he' and a book on practical theology written last year that exclusively uses 'she'.  The oft used argument that using 'she' language redresses the balance is not good enough - exclusion is exclusion however you dress it up.

    English as a language does not really help much, there is no gender-neutral alternative; you could hardly use 'it' to describe a person could you?!  I'm not a great fan of alternating male/female pronouns but at least they make an effort in the right direction.  My undergraduate essays often opted for s/he on the basis that it only counts as one word and I guess it is a bit less clumsy than repeatedly saying 'he or she' or 'she or he' (and avoids any read in/out hierarchy) but it is not very elegant.  I also got quite good at ordering sentences to avoid the use of pronouns, but is that a cop out?

     

    The other thing that I notice is the increase in British authors using American spellings.  Why is this?  When did the USA become normative for 'English' at least as it is written in the UK?  I accept that when I cite USA writers I need to use their spellings, but it grates more than somewhat when British authors no longer use 'British English.'  I'm not just referring to the use of 'z' rather than 's' (which apparently reflects older British English forms) but the absence of doubled consonants in verbal endings and use of 'inquire' to mean 'enquire' etc.  Are we ashamed of our own version?  Or is the quest for sales across the pond the altar on which we sacrifice our spellings and grammar?

     

    The words we use are important, and maybe I'm just turning into my mother who was always hot on grammar and spelling, but I do lament what I see as the decline of written English.