Thank you, Brother Ivo

Usually I feel weary reading “Christian” comment on current affairs and I realise we are not in an age of wise christian reflection. Even the “Cranmer” blog has become dull and sometimes small minded but recently he adopted a new colleague “Brother Ivo” who sometimes shares enlightening gospel glimpses. Check this link and see if you find it helpful.

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/how-would-you-like-your-lamb-of-god-sir.html

What to make of C. L. Franklin?

Ironic title for a man who led multiple lives

The name of Clarence (known as C. L.) Franklin is not so well known in British church circles but he was for a long time the most famous preacher in the USA. He was also daddy of Aretha Franklin and most of us have heard of her. This post is just to draw attention to a fascinating article about his life which majors on the musical/cultural side. Here is the link

The Man with the Million-Dollar Voice

It is tempting to try to draw conclusions but perhaps it is better to just read the story and ponder.

Bankers, Welfare and Post-modernism

The letter below should explain itself. Here is a link to the relevant article.

Dear Sir,
Every so often Evangelicals Now inserts an article of such appalling quality I feel tempted to send in a letter from “Disgusted of Bow”. Today is such a day.
It seems there is a “fatal” flaw in western democracy. A certain cause of death? Apparently. Our democracies are under sentence of death because of modern welfare systems. And what sort of sociologist or deep political thinker has seen into this tragic future? Why non of those shallow analysts. Rather a member of that one profession whom we can trust with our economic futures , a banker!
Referring to no scripture but serially invoking the bête noir of Evangelicals Now, post-modernism, Steve Gandy assures us from his lofty perch that “Deficit Financing” is to blame, as if our banks were not chronically addicted to gambling huge multiples of the money deposited with them.
He deprecates politicians who use offshore funds to avoid paying tax. Much larger sums are being squirrelled away by senior bankers. And it is the banks who organise and run such schemes.
The real target of the article is the Welfare State. Yet, the banks are recipients of state welfare on a massive scale. By means of buy-ins, bailouts, quantitative easing and near zero interest rates (only for banks of course) the poor taxpayer is paying for the ignorant or criminal errors of “senior banking executives” in London.
Lastly, no article like this is complete without a veiled reference to the “German menace”. Sure enough, it crops up in the very last article. We are replaying the Weimar Republic years and we know who came next.
Dear Editor, if you do not have enough material for your newspaper why not leave a page blank? Scrap paper is always handy.
Incidentally, could you give PostModern Relativism a rest? People have always been moral relativists when it comes to money. Conversion to Christ is the only cure.
Your slightly depressed brother,
Erik Pattison.

 

 

Do we come to God when we go to church?

There is a new post on my theology blog on this topic. By and large, I do think church attendance is central to Christian living . Click here to read the post.

Pseudoscience, creationism and the Mainstream

As usual, Steven Shapin adds something insightful to a faithful book review in the LRB. Looking at the amazingly popular Pseudoscience of “Worlds in Collision” (author Immanuel Velikovksy) through the lens of a new book The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by Michael Gordin. But it is not just a review of a review. It is about whether we can even say exactly what Pseudoscience is and a look at how and why it becomes popular.

He kindly does not explore how Creationism (the biggest current Pseudoscience in the West) mirrors and repeats the same pattern – right down to creating a parallel Scientism to the one it parodies. I won’t say more – it would be redundant. Here is the link.