“O Tempora! O Mores Evangelici!” 11. When gurus get outed as ogres
This is the 11th post in a short series trying to grapple with today’s sense of malaise in British evangelicalism. One of The West Wing’s big themes is quest to find ‘my guy’. By which I don’t mean searching for the perfect date. In the backstories episode that opens season 2, Josh Lyman is working for Senator […]
repost: I believed in Father Christmas… But I believe in the Israelite.
This is a repost from 15 years ago on my old blog – I needed to refer to it from something but it can’t have transferred. Such is life! So apologies for being slightly unseasonal (although technically this is still Epiphany). Well, it was inevitable I comment on this track, which U2 put out to […]
“O Tempora! O Mores Evangelici!” 10. A milestone and a decision
Something Hugh said at that meeting in Sheffield has been etched on my memory every since. I’d only been in ordained ministry perhaps 2 or 3 years and we were having our normal post-Summer catchup and planning session.
We would habitually begin with a short devotional, but that day, Hugh was in reflective mood. Only a few weeks before, he’d celebrated his 50th birthday, and now he openly described how affecting that milestone had been. If memory serves, it was on the lines of “I now realize that I have more years of formal ministry behind me than ahead of me.”
“O Tempora! O Mores Evangelici!” 9. Believing the propaganda
You will know of Godwin’s law, I’m sure, whereby the longer an internet discussion countinues, “the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” So, I’m afraid, the time has come.
One of the most gripping if chilling works of history that I’ve read is one that I find myself returning to a lot these days, despite the fact that it is well over 10 years since I first encountered it (in early research for Wilderness of Mirrors). Sir Ian Kershaw has spent a lifetime researching 20th Century German history and has brought all kinds of profound insights to the anglophone world (including through his mammoth two-volume biography of Hitler).
Q Marks the Spot 147 (January 2021 Treasure Map)
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hoping 2021 is better than 2020!! Sacred Treasure Sad to begin 2021 like this, but I felt it was unavoidable. The repercussions are going to be felt for many years to come – and I fear the general reputations of big-name church leaders will deteriorate before remotely improving. (More than one report […]
