Theology books meme...

Sam has tagged me with this, and it is an interesting exercise, so here goes (and hope it may be of use to some others?!?)...


Rules:
i. List the most helpful book you've read in this category;
ii. Describe why you found it helpful; and
iii. Tag five more friends and spread the meme love.

I would endorse Sam's 'Prefatory note', in concurring that this is a HARD exercise for a keen reader of theology over more years than I care to mention!!!...

1. Theology
Let's Do Theology by Laurie Green. Takes theology out of its academic straitjacket and releases it into the pastoral cycle and the everyday discipleship of regular Christians. The original published in 1990 seems a little dated in a few places now, so I am pleased that a second (revised) edition will be published later this year. (I am privileged to have a manuscript copy which I am scanning at present, and I can commend it!)

2. Biblical Theology
truth is stranger than it used to be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age by J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh. This book (prefaced by the earlier The Transforming Vision) helped me to integrate my early reading of the Bible with my understandings of postmodernism gained as a tutor/scholar of cultural studies.

3. God
The Social God by Kenneth Leech. Relates our doctrines of Trinity to how we are to understand social relations. Seminal.

4. Jesus
The Meaning of Jesus, by Marcus Borg and Tom Wright. Accessible dialogue between two moderate theological takes on the key aspects of Jesus' life and meaning. A facntastic starter-text.

5. Old Testament
The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann. I am with Sam on this one - a key book that first suggested to me that the experience of Exile was the formative and normative one for constructing a hermeneutic for reading the OT.

6. New Testament
The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright. This is a bit of a cheat, because this is Volume One of Tom Wright's great NT-opus and I really mean the whole thing! But this is the first one I read and it helped me to understand Jesus as 'a one-man Temple/Land/Torah-replacement movement', ie. what Israel had been waiting for!

7. Morals
Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre. A superb set of essays from such eminent Christian ethicists as Brad Kallenberg, Nancey Murphy, John Howard Yoder and, of course, the enervating Stan-the-Man Hauerwas!

8. (Church) History
The Story of Christian Theology by Roger E. Olsen. Encyclopaedic, yet eminently readable, relating church history to developments in theology, as I think makes coherent sense.

9. Biography
Apologia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman. If one is permitted autobiography in this category, this ranks for me as a compelling and honest account of a life lived with conviction and deep, developing faith. If it has to be a biography of a saint, can I plump for G.K. Chesterton's St Francis of Assisi? A loving portrait of a generous man by a writer with a tremendous gift to write character well.

10. Evangelism
A Generous Othodoxy by Brian D. McLaren. I know there are those who will say that this book is merely a statement of an individual's theological and devotional convictions, but I certainly think that the generosity of God is the springboard for all evangelism, the telling of 'good news'.

11. Prayer
Prayer: Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis. I have always liked this developing, sensitive exchange of letters - rather like prayer itself...


and now I tag Philip (Ritchie) and Alice (Smith)... sorry, can't rustle up five punters!!!

Girly music in church!?!...

Some fascinating discussions going on over at +Nick Baines' place about worship songs and music.

I am firmly of the opinion that much of what characterises evangelical sub-culture is a rather sub-Christian exercise in narcissism - certainly, it engages relatively little with either doctrine (the great strength of classic Anglican and Methodist hymnody in the 18th and 19th centuries) or an honest and exposing range of experiences of God's presence, seeming absence and working, which is the great feature of the Psalms..

So much of the richness and integrity of all this is lost in 20th and early-21st century Anglican practice - at least as far as Sunday worship goes in many parish churches. For my money, we need more loud 'beer and hymns' for big gatherings and more Christians steadily saying, singing (or even chanting) their way through the Psalter....

New shapes for ministry...

Some useful thoughts about the changing (or not?!?) shape of ministry in the Church of England, here.

I concur that we are trying too hard to maintain the status quo. I would go further and say that the great revival of local Christian communities that I see coming over the next thirty years - as a part of the relocalisation of much of our lifestyles - will be a very good thing, and will require some institutional repositioning along the way...

H/T RevSam

OK, so where have I been?!?...

Now, this is not meant to be special pleading, but I have been absent from the blogosphere for some time now. Basic reason is because it ISN'T A SIN TO STOP BLOGGING!!! (In fact, it can be really quite therapeutic!)

More to the point, since 1st February I have been prioritising being a half-decent father to the newborn twins in my household - as well as the other three kids - and a half-decent husband to my wonderful and hardworking wife. Sleep - broken into 3-hour chunks, at best - has been a major priority, also.

Now, I reserve the right with what follows to junk all future blogging for any of the aforementioned, or for other things that threaten my capacity for being a human being, but what I propose is to start using this blog more regularly, and systematically, once again.

I also intend to generate two new blogs, so that I can more easily divvy-up my thoughts and reflections into separate camps, and for different audiences.

This blog, the journey home, will remain as a site for occasional reflection - this may be on a subject from the daily news, or something else in the zeitgeist...

A new blog, Andrewes' Articulations, will serve as a community webpage for the Parish of Rawreth in Essex, and its parish church of St Nicholas, where I am privileged to serve and lead as pastor and priest...

The third blog, Bradwell Faith in Action, will operate as a holding-resource for the work I participate in as the Bishop's Advisor for Faith in Action in south and east Essex. Here, I will seek to keep a journal and links arising from the work I do amongst our parishes and with our partners in developing community ministry and service.

Bookmark those that interest you, I pray, and come back for more!!

Go well,

Paul

FOLK GIG NIGHT @ ST NICHOLAS’

We are privileged to be able to once again play host to a tremendous folk singer/songwriter for a night of songs and stories during the early summer.
Tim Chesterton
will be playing a gig here on
Saturday 30 May 2009, at 8.00pm

As some will already know from his visit to us in summer 2007, Tim plays his guitar and sings, both classic folk compositions and his own works, and it is still a rare treat to catch him in the UK, as he is usually resident in one of the great global homes of folk music, Edmonton, in Alberta, Canada! If you have access to the internet, do check out some of his recordings on any of the following websites:


http://www.myspace.com/timchesterton
http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/1834/
http://www.reverbnation.com/timchesterton

Tickets are now available from the Rector, Churchwardens or the school office (and even via this blog, should it please you!). Suggested minimum donation £5.00, receipts to benefit church ministry funds and a charity nominated by the PCC, at Tim's agreement. Bring your own bottle and snacks for a relaxing and fun evening – and bring plenty of friends!

25 things to know about me...

A couple of my friends have tagged me with this meme, so here goes!...

1. I once calculated that – by the age of 18 – I had lived in 18 different places.I have slowed down a little since then, but not much, and so have lived in less than 39 different places as of now...

2. Yes, you've guessed it, I am working through mid-life crises aplenty as I approach the delightful age of 40!

3. Of these many crises, hairloss is, surprisingly, not one of them. My father and his brothers were all largely bald by their mid-twenties, and my maternal grandfather fully white-haired by a similar age, so I seem to have bucked the genetic trend!

4. As a consequence of 3, above, I have not yet given up on the fascination with actually having hair and so tend to dye it regularly and do odd things with it. I am actually a natural dark brown...

5. ...but I have indeed discovered that blondes have more fun, as a rule!

6. I once enjoyed a series of evenings during which a group of beautiful young women drew on just about every inch of my naked body with felt tip pens. (It was for a part in a play, honest guv!)

7. The latter relates to my love of the writing and imagination of Flannery O'Connor, the greatest ever short story writer, in my appreciation.

8. I also have a bit of a thing for the imagination and style of CS Lewis and GK Chesterton. I am terribly, terribly orthodox!!!...

9. ...except that I have a bit of a problem with the Christian churches as they generally are, as opposed to how they might be if they were true to their calling! I think it deeply strange that I have found myself ordained...

10. ...especially as I think my first act as Archbishop of Canterbury would be to anathematize all who think the title 'The Reverend' is an appropriate epithet for a pastor. Stick to 'Pastor', 'Teacher', 'Father' or 'Mother', but lose 'The Rev'!

11. I am a Christian because I know, first, that I am a sinner.

12. I think most people are very slow thinkers and I find it irritating that others chastise my being too complex, or nuanced, or 'too thoughtful/well read'. Then again, I step into sin just as readily as the stupidest person...

13. ...a near-photographic memory is no replacement for character and the practice of the virtues. (I had a photographic memory for text and image until my mid-twenties – absolute recall, very strange, others tell me – but now have considerable problems with certain kinds of memory, especially short-term)...

14. ...which may be something to do with suffering from Pernicious Anaemia and Migrainous Vertigo, diagnosed this last year.

15. Talking about vertigo brings me, conceptually, to heights of achievement and perspectives on things...Do you see the way my mind works?!? Irritating, or what?!?..

16. One of my proudest achievements is to have seen five beautiful children come into existence and to have assisted at all their births, three at home.

17. Utterly different track. Many people know me as an environmental campaigner; fewer know that I have much to repent: through the 1990s I kept, variously, houses or apartments in Yorkshire, Luxembourg, London and Cyprus and jetted between them (and drove a 4x4).

18. I also used to have a collection that featured most of the classic Single Malts.

19. I also had a similar penchant for Cuban and Santa Dominican cigars....

20. ...and a cellar full of fine wine.

21. When I first read St Augustine, I noticed some similar character flaws!

22. I love filing things – the only time I feel really really relaxed!

23. The most fun I had in ministerial training was imitating Thomas Cranmer keeping his wife in a box whilst composing the Prayer of Humble Access (in a review sketch, you understand!). Also, pushing the margins of decency by suggesting that John Wesley was fonder of his horse than his wife!

24. I belong to a lovely cell group.

25. My wife is now shouting at me to 'get off that bloody computer and change a nappy!' so I had best leave it there!

Lunacy where?...

The Archbishop of York does a good line in speeches that grab the popular imagination. He is a wonderful gift to our civic life, imho.
George Pitcher, blogging over at the Telegraph, has reported him, here.

The nuts and bolts of what he said are covered well by the Telegraph, and make stirring reading for someone in my line of work, namely trying to get churches, local authorities and other public and private bodies to talk together and recognise one another in order to better serve our communities.

I like to reflect that, in an asylum, the sane ones would certainly appear mad. And so it is, oftentimes, being a Christian in our society, which is so soul-sick at present (though in the most vehement state of denial). Our addiction to - and codification by - a crass and reductionist materialism - makes our society unable to recognise the Physician.

GK Chesterton - writing at a time when the reductive materialism so prevalent and pervasive in our own day was just beginning - argued that such a reductive materialism, as advocated by most intellectuals of the day, led inevitably to spiritual poverty, not just in religion, but also in art, music and literature - in short, in much of that which makes life worth living.

I think he would be with the Archbishop of York! I know I am! The Christian only appears mad to a civitas of sheer lunacy!

Chesterton puts it better! He wrote, identifying the true lunatic:

"Our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the the lunatic [is that] it gradually destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deduction of the materialist that, rightly or wrongly, they gradually destroyed his humanity. I do not only mean kindness. I mean hope, courage,poetry, initiative, all that is human."

(from Orthodoxy)