Fish & Fishermen in English Medieval Church Wall Paintings

 

That’s the title of a new book by Frederick Buller, a Pike fisherman and historian, which includes two Cambridgeshire Churches.

Filed under: books

With Eagleton’s eyes

I’ve just finished reading Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. It’s a superb book, devastatingly critical of the conflate he calls Ditchkins, and equally sharp about the catastrophic castration of Christianity from revolutionary creed to religious conservatism.

I’m picking up on Eagleton’s shoot-from-the-hips style. If ever he needs a break from being one of our top literary critics, he could make a superb speech-writer for Colonel Gaddafi, producing time-limit busting communist diatribes that were actually worth listening to.

And what makes the book especially good from a bishop’s point of view is that Eagleton is no mean theologian too.

Here are some favourite quotes:

• The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don’t end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do.
• As the first truly global mass movement in human history, Christianity finds in what it sees as the coming kingdom of God a condition of justice, fellowship, and self-fulfillment far beyond anything that might normally be considered possible or even desirable in the more well-heeled quarters of Oxford and Washington.
• At the peak of his assurance, Enlightenment Man finds himself frighteningly alone in the universe, with nothing to authenticate himself but himself. His dominion is therefore shot through with a sickening sense of arbitrariness and contingency, which will grow more acute as the modern age unfolds.
• However hard one tries, one simply cannot shake off the primitive conviction that this is not how it is supposed to be, however much we are conscious that this seeing the world in the light of Judgment Day, as Walter Benjamin might put it, is folly to the financiers and a stumbling block to stockbrokers.
• Modern market societies tend to be secular, relativist, pragmatic, and materialistic. They are this by virtue of what they do, not just of what they believe. As far as these attitudes go, they do not have much of choice. The problem is that this cultural climate also tends to undermine the metaphysical values on which political authority in par depends. Capitalism can neither easily dispense with those metaphysical values nor take them all the seriously. As President Eisenhower once announced in Groucho Marx style: “Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious belief – and I don’t care what it is.”

Filed under: books

Theos news

It’s that time of the month, and news updates are flooding into my inbox. The latest is from Theos, who are flagging up their next publication God and Government to be launched on 22 October. It is

a series of essays which explore what the proper function of government is. The book does not tell readers what to do, still less whom to vote for. It seeks, rather, to equip people to consider what they should be attempting to achieve in their roles as ‘political Christians’, that is, Christians employed, engaged or simply interested in politics. The writers, all highly respected theological thinkers, are Philip Booth, Andrew Bradstock, Jonathan Chaplin, David McIlroy, Clifford Longley, Julian Rivers, Nick Spencer,  Nicholas Townsend, Nigel G. Wright,  and Tom Wright.

The book retails at £9.99 and is available for purchase here.

Filed under: books

Buy Cambridge Books?

Cambridge University Press email to say that they have launched an  online version of their 2009 history catalogue.

Filed under: History, Resources, books

Killing God

This book by Kevin Brooks is not a comfortable read for Christians. The young heroine wants to find out about God – but only so that she can kill him. Her alcoholic father became a Christian, but kept on drinking and then left them and puts them at risk. Her horrible neighbours are Christians. Her friend’s brother takes his own life because of the shame of a relationship with a priest. Gulp.

Plenty to talk about here, and not just the philosophical conundrum of what it means to hate, kill or even rather positively not believe in ‘someone’ you don’t think exists. You can read more as usual on the CultureWatch website.

Filed under: Media Matters, Resources, books

The Feast is Ready

All of a sudden the Diocese of Ely seems to be bursting with creativity! I’ve  just had the pleasure of meeting Rachel Nicholls, author, teacher and assistant priest at St Bene’t’s Church in Cambridge.

You can find her earlier books (all assemblies for primary schools) here on the Kevin Mayhew website.

But now hot from the press, also published with Mayhew, comes The Feast is ready to begin – all-age Eucharists for festivals and seasons throughout the year.
It contains sixteen outlines for services, picking up on the resources of Common Worship and suggesting ways to use visual symbols, story-telling and shared actions to make a celebration of the Eucharist genuinely all-age. As it says on the back cover:

If you have ever felt that an all-age Eucharist just isn’t possible because the children will be restless and the adults will be irritated, then this book is for you.

So it is partly meant to be a book on all-age worship for those who feel allergic to it – as well as for those who feel enthusiastic, but would like a few extra resources. I have covered the kinds of festivals and days that people often associate with all-age worship, eg. Christmas, Epiphany, Mothering Sunday – but also Passiontide, Trinity Sunday and All Saints, to try and widen people’s expectations of what is possible.

Rachel is also a considerable scholar writing on New Tetament topics. I loved this bit from the blurb for her book Walking on the Water: Reading Mt. 14:22-33 in the Light of its Wirkungsgeschichte

The concept of Wirkungsgeschichte is gaining ground in New Testament Studies. It involves the gathering of diverse interpretations of a text, but can it offer significant exegetical results or is it merely a form of cultural stamp collecting?

Filed under: Resources, Worship, books

Joyful Christianity

Dr Cally Hammond, Dean of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in our very creative Diocese of Ely, has a new book coming out soon with the very appealing title of Joyful Christianity. She invites us to experience afresh the events before, during and after Jesus’ birth as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke.

Often our Christian lives lack the real, deep joy of God. We frequently fail to grasp the jubilant essence of the Bible. This is never truer than as we approach Advent.

Caught up in our pre-Christmas stress, we just don’t appreciate the depths of meaning in a story that we’ve heard thousands of times before. It is all too easy to gloss over the nativity and what it means.

So it’s an Advent book, but it will be out on August 20th and you can order it now from SPCK’s online shop. To order elsewhere quote ISBN 9780281060870. It’s a 96 page paperback and is priced at £8.99.

Filed under: Resources, books , Advent, Diocese of Ely