Here comes the bride

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=110232968103

Thanks to our friend Ed Babinski for sending the link!

Video: A Drive-by Baptism. Almost.

He had the dirty laugh off to a tee. All he needs is a bit of training in the administration of liturgical pronouncements and we are talking ‘power evangelism’

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Usual theological vocabulary for the day

Some of the Church Fathers really knew how to insult, calling people 'mad', 'beasts' etc. I sometimes wonder, in our fuss to be 'nice', if this is an art we have lost. Hence I introduce a new blog series of useful theological vocabulary, especially aimed for undergraduates to swell their lexis for the years of study that follow. So to the first:

Wackjob

Can play a very useful descriptive function in certain contexts.

Example setence:

Just the other day, a ‘friend’ told me of a lovely discussion page where one fundamentalist chap had decided to caution the author of the blog for quoting C S. Lewis, ‘for he is not a Christian’, and all because Lewis didn’t fit his own wackjob frigging messed up pile of theological wackiness.

A random thought

‘The apophatic method, whether in our theological discourse or in our life of prayer, is seemingly negative in character, but in its final aim it is supremely positive’ (The Orthodox Way, by Bishop Kallistos Ware, p.166)

As I read that tonight, I couldn’t help wonder if historical-critical biblical scholarship is the exegetical equivalent of the apophatic method.

Separated at birth?

Robert Duvall and Rudolf Bultmann

Seven things to do to cheer yourself up

Years of experience has made me a wise man. If you are feeling down, and not even Baywatch seems to help

1. Put a lot of Tobasco sauce in your work colleagues tea
   
2. Flick bogies at old people
   
3. Make remarks to insecure teenagers about the spots covering their faces
   
4. Regularly throw out the metaphorical baby with the bathwater.
   
5. Visit a conservative Christian friend's flat, and swap all of their John Piper books with Funk, Ehrman and Lüdemann volumes.
   
6. Take only the King James 1611 Version to your 'emergent' bible studies, and use the word 'repenteth' a lot.
   
7. And read Douglas Campbell's brilliant, I repeat brilliant tome, The Deliverance of God. Loren Rossen has written an impressive review here, and I can only agree with his enthusiasm. I think it is the most important book to have been published since Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism. I had the pleasure of meeting Douglas last week and we had a good chat about his book and a forthcoming project which will also be a huge interest. A great guy. A worldview shaking book. Though this sort of thing is often said, I mean it most seriously: This one should become compulsory reading for any Pauline aficionados. More from me about this one anon.

Wheaton’s Theology Conference 2010

A heads up: Wheaton's 2010 Theology Conference will take place April 16-17, in honour of and in dialogue with NT Wright, including a great line-up of speakers including Richard Hays, Kevin Vanhoozer, Sylvia Keesmaat, Marianne Meye Thompson, Markus Bockmuehl and, of course, Wright himself.

http://www.wheaton.edu/Theology/theo_conf/index.html

New Cornelis Bennema book

A heads up. This guy has good judgment, and he writes very clearly.

(click to enlarge)

God the Father

Our good friend, Heather Moffitt, has written a nice reflection on parenting ... based on the book of Numbers! Have a read here. I like her parting shot: 'Like the Israelites, our children are not a problem to solve'.

To be honest, I often treat myself as a problem to solve, and I always end up in a tight, cramped place with little love to show to others. I have become convinced that God loves it when we drop our 'self-help' spiritual pieties, cut ourselves more slack, stop taking ourselves so seriously and enjoy life. But it seems to take a good deal of maturity to realise that.

Ecumenical reflection of the day

This 'Jesus Billboard' has been making the rounds in blogdom recently (apparently first blogged here).

My thoughtful reflection can be limited to a sentence: This is theological impoverishment to the extreme, and I wonder what on earth those who produced were thinking. Is it not our reflections on the cross that most clearly reveal the level of our theological healthiness?