This week’s episode is all about money. It’s an interview with financial advisor Sian MacInnes FPFS which is all about the difficulties we have in dealing with the subject.
Personally I have always felt vulnerable around the issue. I have that internal conflict, which I suspect many writers and artists have, of feeling anxious about money, but at the same time making life choices which don’t guarantee any kind of financial security.
In this week’s episode, Joe and I – helped by some great feedback – talk about what we gain from belonging to a church, and also what we gain by not belonging. The topic was inspired by a talk I heard a friend of mine give. She was born and raised in Nepal, but moved back to Scotland, and so never felt that she really belonged in either place. But now she has come to see that not-belonging gives her a unique and valuable perspective.
Yes, in this episode, Joe and I return – for a bit, anyway – to the Bible, this time discussing how the Bible was compiled and what is meant by inspiration.
2 Timothy 3:16 is usually translated as ‘All scripture is inspired by God’, but the Greek is para graphē theopneustos which means ‘all [the] writings are god-breathed’.
First, there’s the issue of what ‘scriptures’ Paul is talking about. The Bible as we have it didn’t exist in Paul’s day.
This week Joe raised the topic of Christian outrage over the Olympics. One of the joys about not really being on social media means that this storm completely passed me by. It was only a couple of days later when I saw a news article about the organisers apologising for it that I realised anyone had got angry.
The idea of people being outraged because of a lampoon of an historically inaccurate painting of the last supper seems odd to me.
In this weeks podcast Joe and I talk about the wrathful God of the Old Testament, you know, the one who is so bloodthirsty that the only way of appeasing him is to slaughter sheep, cows, oxen, some enemy tribes and… er… his son. Yes, we start back in the world of ‘PSA’: penal substitutionary atonement. I don’t want to go into that much on this blog post. Suffice it to say, it’s not a view that ever made much sense to me, even while I was dutifully forcing myself to believe in it.
We’re back! And after a long break there is a lot of catching up to do.
In this rather rambling episode, Joe and I catch up with what’s been happening in the month or so since we last recorded. After reading Rolf Dobelli’s book Stop Reading the News I’m on a bit of a newscast. I haven’t watched the TV news much, have stopped my daily doomscrolling of the websites and feel a lot better as a result.
This week, Joe and I talk a lot about Sabbath. Well, I talk a lot about Sabbath, to be honest, because it’s been something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently.
Two things have inspired me. First, I heard a great sermon on the subject a couple of weeks ago. And following up on that I read Abraham Heschel’s book, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. I am ashamed to say I’d never come across Heschel before.
In this week’s episode, Joe and I talk more about the nature of church. In particular we talk about the physical location of churches - does a church need to be visible? Does it need an identifiable location, times to meet, etc.?
Personally I think churches need a place and not only for practical reasons. Over the last few years my ideas about sacred places have changed entirely. I used to think that the church – as in the building – didn’t matter much.
In this episode Joe and I delve into his new theme of ‘nature churching’. In particular, we talk about what exactly constitutes a church.
I admit to being a little doctrinaire on this one. I think, historically and theologically there are some characteristic activities which define a church, as opposed, say, to a Bible study group, or even just a group of people meeting together.
Looking at the model of church in Acts, and accounts from the early years of the Christian church, it seems to me that the characteristic activities of a church are:
In this week’s episode, Joe and I talk about Pentecost. It’s one of the oldest festivals of the Christian church, having been celebrated at least since the third century.
According to the ever-fascinating Philip H. Pfatteicher, the English term Whit-Sunday may be from ‘white’ reflecting robes worn by new converts, or it may come from the Old English word wit, meaning wisdom, since the Spirit leads us into all truth.