If you don't read the Baptist Times (or even if you do) then Glen Marshall's latest four offerings (here, here, here and here) are worth a look.  One of the things that I find challenging, though, is trying to hold the four of them together.

Only this week I was told that churches don't want theologians, they want someone who will be nice to them; that while ministers might know that the church exists for mission, what congregations desire/require is a chaplain to the faithful.  All this is rather demoralising if you are a mission-focussed, theologically-energised minister in a small church.  I read Glen's stuff and found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said but wondering how on earth you bridge the gap to reality.

So, how do you join up all the thinking?  Answers on a postcard please...

I am trying to read Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, Jean Grondin, tr. Joel Weinsheimer, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994, and not making much progress because the phone keeps ringing.  Ah well.  Nonetheless, I have quite enjoyed the twenty or so pages I've read this morning, been very grateful to those who tried to teach me Greek because the smattering of vocabulary I gained have has proved invaluable, and have already found something that has made me go 'hmmm' in a good way.

Evidently someone by the name of Augustine of Dacia (as distinct from he of Hippo) extended some ideas from Origen (of Alexandria, not another one!) in developing a four-fold scheme for Biblical interpretation.  This scheme was rejected by Luther, which probably explains why until today I'd never come across it.  The fourfold scheme is this:

• Literal (somatic or historical) interpretation
• Allegorical interpretation
• Moral interpretation
• Anagogical (~eschatalogical) interpretation

The author of the book then summarises the these thus: 'the literal teaches us what happened, the allegorical what to believe, the moral what we ought to do, and the anagogic what we are striving toward.'

Care is needed to avoid a simplistic reading of the thesis, and I'd need to look much more closely at this stuff to find out quite how this Augustine perceived his scheme, but it seems to hint at a series of helpful interpretive questions both for scripture and for history (or perhaps for anything else!):

• What does it say? (literal)
  
• What does it mean? (allegorical, used loosely, what are the truths it contains?)
  
• So what? (moral - how does this affect me/us?)
  
• What next? (how does this affect the here and now in the light of the aims/visions/hopes for the future?)

Another thing I've discovered is that the ancients understood 'hermeneutic' as functioning both in the move from mind/thought-to-word/letter and in the more familiar way from word/letter-to-thought/understanding.  I think this is helpful as I try to think about the reading and writing of denominational history, not that it isn't already recognised in historical method stuff, because it is, but because it verbalises it in a way I find connects bits of ideas together.  Thus, I end up with a writer asking themself similar questions about

• what do I write - subject matter?
• what does it mean?  What hidden truths (untruths?!) or messages are encoded within it?
• so what?  What difference do I want this to make to those who read it in shaping values, understanding etc.
• what next?  What are the practical implications of reading and reflecting on this stuff?

So, generally useful stuff.  Needs more critical thought inevitably.  But a useful exercise, I think.  (Maybe now I have to go and apply the scheme and questions to the scheme and questions ...)

Today I was visiting my mother and as we were catching up on news, I said, 'we had a Baptism at church last week.'

Her reply?  'That's nice, what was the baby's name?'

I despair!  Still, it made me laugh, which is no bad thing.

Tonight we had the planning meeting for our Christmas carol outreach service - I know it is incredibly early, but anything organised by committee takes some doing.  We managed to get representatives from two out of three traditions - the usual culprits (M & B but no A) - and had some fun picking carols and thinking how to fill the slots between them (apart from lots of Bible readings which we use each year).  Our theme, stolen from Spurgeon's Childcare, is 'sing like an angel' and we are intending to give everyone an angel themed gift to take away with them as a reminder of the messengers and the message (clever, huh).  This may yet mean making 200 paper angels, but IKEA, Ebay, Poundland and the like will be scoured first.  In between carols and Bible readings will be two sketches, a reflection by Hilary Faith Jones and something from Gervaise Finn, as well as a '5 minute message' by the Methodist minister who is on a three line whip to stay on theme, on time, and in comprehensible English!

So, what will we be singing like angels?

Good Christians all, rejoice (as per BPW)

Angels from the realms of glory

Hark, the herald angels sing

While shepherds watched their flocks

See him lying in a bed of straw

It came upon a midnight clear

Christmas is a time to love (this one to be taught to us as part of the service)

Joy to the world

There are a couple I wouldn't have picked, and a couple I'm really glad we didn't pick, but it nakes for a good, rousing sing and lots of mentions of angels!

All planning done and everyone gone in time for me to watch 'Silent Witness' - fantastic!

On Sunday one of the passages I'm using is 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 which is something of a favourite, guaranteed to cheer me up with its crazy images of talking hands, feet, ears and eyes.  It really lends itself to some wonderful cartoons, but try as I might there are few if any to be 'Googled' though two I found are on this post.  I love the anthropomorphism of body parts - a foot than can presumably see and understand that it is not a hand, can express this verbally and then hop off because it feels useless, an ear that can see the eye can do what it can't (superb irony) and then flap away.  Definitely some real humour here - but humour with a real point to make.  Talking ears, eyes, feet and hands are a ridiculous concept, and in order to imagine them they have to become bodies in their own right, complete with... eyes, mouths, ears and feet.  How ridiculous then that people feel valueless because of what they're not - but we all do.  How crazy that as individuals or as churches we think we can go it alone, don't need anyone else - but we do.

Paul often has a reputation for being a misery guts, but the humour of this passage resonates with my own, and makes me think, which is, after all, what the best humour does.