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So, here I am toddling along back to the blog which I haven’t managed to update in quite some time (seems like 2 months almost).

The truth is, I became quite disheartened by the whole blogging thing, partly because the majority of my views are coming from people who are searching for “french wine” or “durdle door.” Neither of which is my topic of choice.

However, I am still here, I am still youth-working, I am still blogging, and facebooking and occassionally twittering. I just get disenthused with the inordinate choice of wedsites through which to portray who you are.

Anyway, currently I have no real insights to share with the world on this site. However, I was reading Psalm 3 this morning, and I thought I would share the encouragement which I received from it.

  1. God is a sheild around you.
  2. God is your glory.
  3. God holds your head high.
  4. God answers you.
  5. God keeps you in safety and watches over you.
  6. You do not need to be afraid of 10,000 enemies.
  7. And finally, your victory comes from Him.

Well, that’s about all for today, hopefully it won’t be another 2 months until I blog.

I don’t really know who Brodie McGregor is, but he left a comment on my blog and on visiting his blog in return I found an excellent (and more detailed) post about the discussion between Dr Rowan Williams and Mona Siddiqui. The post is focused more on detailing the exchange between the two scholars than on any judgement or personal view on what was said. My previous post, on the other hand, was more of the latter!

Also, if you are even more interested in this discussion than reading some thoughts from someone else on it, and you wishyou had been there. Or more worryingly, you were there and would like to watch it again, Glasgow University provide the webcast in their archive, and you can find it here. You will have to have windows media player to watch this wmv however.

Brian McLarenBrodie, however, also reminded me that Brian Mclaren is coming to Glasgow at the beginning of December. Precisely, he will be speaking on Sunday 7th December and also two times on Monday 8th December. I plan to attend both events on the Monday (11am -3pm at ICC, focusing on the topic ‘A new kind of Christian’, and then laterly at the Vertigo Bar in Strathclyde Student Union from 7.30pm) as I am otherwise engaged with work on Sunday evenings.

And for some added information, I wanted a picture for this post, so choose Brian Mclaren, but found it funny that Google Images more or less only has two different pictures of him, this one, and another with him sitting next to a cross. Either that, or her just poses the same way quite a lot.

I was privileged to be present at the Glasgow University hosted discussion between Prof Mona Siddiqui and Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, last Wednesday.

I arrived with a whole load of preconceptions about the Archbishop who thinks that Sharia law should be an integral part of British law. I’d heard so much about it on the news, and Dr Rowan Williams received so much criticism and caused uproar because of the comments. The archbishop had been “ridiculed” and “lampooned” by some who believe that any change along these lines would create social chaos.

However, the Bishop of Hulme said, in response to this, “We have probably one of the greatest and the brightest archbishops of Canterbury we have had for many a long day,”

It was this fact that I started to realise as I listened to the bishop speak, and my misconceptions were in part turned around and sorted out. I maybe wouldn’t go as far as to say he was the greatest and brightest, but I certainly think he has more to him than the media have been suggesting. He speaks in an engaging manner, almost as well as a politician, answering the questions which he likes to answer and effectively missing out those which he prefers not to. He speaks of his passions of sharing Christian love and of the similarities between different religions.

There were a couple of things which stood out to me, but I will only deal with one tonight as it ended up being a larger thought process than I would have imagined at first. So, the Archbishop spoke of his view of Holiness and how he could see the attributes of Holiness in all different types of people, including people of other faiths.  In particular, he said that he knewthere were holy aspects visible in people such as Mona Siddiqui, a Muslim and other Jewish people that he knew.

But, how exactly can this be so? Isn’t Holiness an attribute of the God of the OT, in fact it is the only description which is emphasised by repeating it three times. For in the OT there was no bold text or underline, rather the emphasised by repeating, so to have one word repeated three times makes it pretty special. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. God is Holy! So, then, if we are not worshipping the same God how can we all be displaying this attribute of God.

Well, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests that we are not worshipping different Gods, rather we are expressing it differently. Of course, this is the controversial point, and I do not agree with this as such. I do not think that different religions are merely different expressions of worship towards the same God. The main point for me, as a Christian, is the fact that a third of the entire being of God is Jesus. Therefore, if any religion, or any person, disowns or does not believe in Him, then they do not know the true God. So, if Jesus was fully God, and you do not know Him or worship him, are you really worshipping the same God as someone who does? So really, while I agree that some worship by obeying law and others worship by serving others and being in relationship with “God”, they are only worshipping God if they have come through Jesus. – “No one can come to the father except through me” – Jesus

My thoughts are scrambled on this one and I keep going round in circles, hence my statement about the theological hamster wheel earlier in the week.

Anyways, it’s time for me to move on, but what’s your thoughts on Archy and the Sharia Law?

What are your thoughts on holiness and it being visible in people of many other religions?

I realise this is a sensitive question and I haven’t dealt with it fully, I just hope people don’t think I have been offensive!

Saturday Round Up

So, it comes to Saturday, and usually this is the only day through the week that I’m not working. I guess this makes it an excellent day for a bit of a round-up on what has happened in the previous week, which is usually not much. However, we are told that Saturday and Sunday visitors to our blogs are few, so perhaps this is the best day to do this.

Continue Reading »

real persecution?

real persecution?

Today we continue our series on Romans 12 with verse 14. We are looking at the following verse:

 

Rom 12:14  Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse.

 

The image I have used from the Simpsons to illustrate the point which I intend to make may seem a little crude to a few of you, but I just had a feeling when researching into today’s verse that very few of us actually understand persecution. Persecution is not just someone mocking us, scoffing at us, sidelining our views in society, although ultimately these things can be part of persecution in a larger scale. Rather, persecution is the systematic mistreatment of a person/persons. This could involve, arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture or in extreme cases execution. And yes, this still happens, but fortunately not to us. So, how then, do we understand persecution in our contexts? My initial response to my own question would be that we do not fully. However, we must attempt to understand this concept as comprehensively as we can. Therefore, we must look forwards, backwards as well as examining our present circumstances in order to gain an answer.

 

Here are the following three parts I feel would help us understand persecution and this verse: Continue Reading »

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