In this week’s episode we talk about how culture shapes art, and especially, how the culture of the time affects the Bible.
This is always a tangled thread, not least because many people like to assume that God dictated the Bible. And, since God is outside all time and therefore culture, the Bible must be free of that. Of course, God didn’t dictate it. At least not in that sense. Paul says that scripture is God-breathed, not God-spoken.
In this episode we discuss some follow up from last episode’s interview with Danielle Strickland which addressed issues of patriarchy within church and society. A lot of our discussion this week was on the difficulty of addressing the deep, ingrained stuff, the stuff we grew up with and which has shaped us. We are all products of, what one correspondent calls our ‘silly teenage dramas’. It’s life-long work dismantling this kind of stuff.
This is a great and really important interview. Author Danielle Strickland talks with Joe about patriarchy – ‘the male-centring and male-ordering of the world’.
This is something we’re always keen to discuss, but being two blokes of a certain age, it feels like it could so easily tip over into mansplaining. So it was great to have Danielle talk about the challenges of calling it out, the heretical concept of the male-ness of God, and the way in which it affects our world and, of course, our church.
More discussion of metaphors this week. We talk more about the idea of Jesus as ‘Lord’, and discuss how changes in culture, society or even technology might change our understanding of long-standing human metaphors. As culture and society changes metaphors can get left behind.
This is the issue with the idea of Jesus as ‘Lord’; it’s really whether that, as an honorific, still works in our society. It’s not that it’s not true, it’s whether the word has lost its impact.
Happy Candlemas to one and all. In this episode we talk a lot about baptism: what is it, where did it come from and does it still matter? And did I really write a book on it without realising?
Spoilers, but turns out we both think it’s still significant and important. My feeling is that, as something which Jesus told us to go and do, it seems that we ought not to dismiss it lightly.
We had lots of interesting feedback this week, including a question about whether the statement ‘Jesus is Lord’ still works for us in our democratic, post-feudal society.
I was reminded of a piece I wrote in a book called God’s Dangerous Book, which talked about the first translation of the Bible out of Greek and into the Gothic language by a cleric called Wulfila. Here’s an excerpt:
There were three immediate problems.
There’s a lot about metaphor in this week’s show triggered, partially, by my latest irritation with a worship song, but also by a heartfelt email about the patriarchy in religion. Metaphors are, of course, vital. Apart from mystical moments of direct revelation, they are the only way we have to talk about God. As I say on the show, God exists in translation. Without metaphor we are up the creek without a paddle.
We return to the Bible this week, to the thorny topic of how we deal with difficult Bible verses, particularly verses about eternal punishment and divine vengeance. As our correspondent puts it, it’s like biblical whack-a-mole: you hammer one passage down, only to see new ones pop up.
In particular he was talking about 2 Thessalonians 1.8-9 which is full of vengeance and eternal punishment. In the podcast I do talk a bit about different ways of reading this – it’s not quite as unambiguous as it seems.
Happy new year (although, as we all know, the official Mid-faith Crisis New Year isn’t until March).
Back after our Christmas break and we talk about a bit of an anniversary: Jan 1 2025 marks 45 years since I became a Christian. Fair to say a few things have changed in that time, so we discuss how we understood ‘conversion’ back then and how we understand it now. And we think about how our sense of purpose has changed.
Happy Christmas! In this festive episode we share – and then judge – our Christmas micro-sermons. Also we think about the practices that will nourish us this Christmas and reflect on how the darkness and worry of the nativity stories does not diminish the life and hope.
Not, perhaps the most polished episode – which is saying something – but heartfelt nevertheless. In particular I’ve been struck this year by the way in which the nativity stories take place against a backdrop of fear and trouble.