The Table

Here’s a mock-up of the table that will appear as a feature in the new building we are planning to erect at St Stephen’s/Bryndwr… nice work by Gordon, our architect, with some helpers to quietly place this installation on the site

Kim Fabricius quote

This guy is marvellous… rightly naming the craziness of some forms of Christian beliefs/ideological-isms for what they untruly are…

a teaser…
‘This is an ecclesiastical health warning for “divine flu”. There are two potentially fatal forms of this malady afflicting the church. One is caused by the Tweedledum virus, the other by the Tweedledee virus.

Theo-chemically, the viruses are mirror images of one another, and can only thrive in symbiotic relationship. The technical terms for the related illnesses they cause are “neo-liberalism” and “conservative evangelicalism”.’

He then lists 10 symptoms for each – to be fair I have picked my favourite from each – it is easy to pick which side of the coin fits which ism…

“Think “Calvin and Barth” is the name of a comic strip, that orthodoxy is dull rather than dangerous, and that John Spong is a “progressive” theologian rather than a recycler of Enlightenment ideas.”

and, “Worship with “choruses” that are four lines long, a half-inch deep, and take 20 minutes to sing.”

read more here… http://www.faith-theology.com/2009/09/divine-flu-health-warning.html

silly old guy fawkes

Te Whiti being led from Parihaka – source: Wikipedia

This evening New Zealanders in their droves mark the failed bid to blow up an English parliament several centuries ago by lighting expensive imported fireworks of average beauty to the bewilderment of me (and others) and to the downright fear of my scared animals.

On this day, 5 November 1881, an illegal raid was carried out on the village of Parihaka in Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island Te Ika-a-Maui where the peaceful protesters were either beaten, raped, or sent south to work in Dunedin as slave labourers held without trial.  The injustice was immense, but the thread of the gospel was stronger thanks to the stunning leadership of the chiefs Te Whiti O Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi.

Now that’s a story worth marking with decent celebratory public fireworks displays in the towns and cities of Aotearoa New Zealand each 5 November!