Coffee Theology

Well done to those who survived Café Theology last night, which involved clips from Bridget Jones , Bridesmaids , Skyfall and The Bourne Ultimatum .  The clips were long and the questions posed were many.  One of the books of the Bible I felt myself drawn to when preparing for the service, and which we considered briefly last night, was the Book of Ruth.  It occurred to me a few months ago that Ruth is a book (and possibly the only one - but I would love to be proved wrong) that actually passes the Bechdel test.  A reminder: to pass the Bechdel test, a film (or play, or book, or whatever) has to have two or more female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man.  It's an interesting test to apply to films in particular in order to consider how women are portrayed. The Book of Ruth is just four chapters long.  It concerns an Israelite, Naomi, and her daughter-in-law, Ruth.  Naomi's husband and two sons have tragically di...

It's been an interesting few days preparing for our Cafe Theology service on Sunday evening.  I'm due to preach on the topic of gender on Sunday week, with the title: 'A woman's place'.  As this is a somewhat enormous topic, embracing as it does the relationship of one half of humanity to the other, I thought it might be helpful to get people thinking about the issues in advance (and possibly give me some pointers as to where on earth to start in preparing the sermon).   We'll be considering clips from four fairly recent films - including Skyfall , which I've blogged on before - asking ourselves what view of women these films convey and then considering some texts from the Bible, asking what happens when the Bible collides with these offerings from contemporary culture.  I'm not expecting any easy answers, but it should be an interesting conversation. Some people complain, with some justification, that the Bible is a sexist book.  It was certainly writte...

Today my colleague and I took advantage of it being half term, and a quieter week in the church office, to attend the Active Church conference put on by Oasis Church Waterloo.  The grey-haired bloke in the background is Steve Chalke, who it turns out is far more radical than I thought.  A very interesting day with a lot to reflect on.   My most embarrassing moment of the day came when a perfectly nice Anglican priest asked me if I had a paid role in the church or was a volunteer.  I've blogged before, I think, about the fact that people tend to assume I'm not a minister (or not a proper one) because I'm young-ish and female.  So I decided to put my new resolution into effect - to throw these questions back at people when they ask them - and said something along the lines of: "Why do you ask that?  Why are you wondering if I'm paid?"  It turns out he hadn't heard me say I was a minister because of the traffic noise, so I immediately felt guilty for bein...

Well, perhaps it's fitting that I begin the season of Lent, a time of penitence, with an apology.  I have decided once again to take up blogging daily for Lent (taking up, rather than giving up.  A different kind of discipline).  Only I forgot to blog yesterday.  Not a good start... Or perhaps an appropriate one.  I am reminded of my fallibility... Regular readers of my blog, or indeed anyone who's ever met me, will know I'm an enthusiastic J.K. Rowling fan.  Her first book for adults, The Casual Vacancy, is currently being televised on BBC1 on Sunday evenings, so I thought this called for a series of blog posts on this most excellent story.  The first episode of the three-part adaptation was a bit of a disappointment, because the story has been heavily edited for television, and it's such a great story.   The scenario is a small picturesque Cotswold town, the imaginary Pagford, and its larger, uglier neighbour, Yarvil.  In between Yarvil and...

I hadn't seen this film in ten years but I came across it on the TV the other night and it's inspired a few trains of thought.  I started watching just before the crucial scene where Morpheus meets with Neo and offers him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find out what 'the matrix' is.  Morpheus offers two pills: if Neo takes the blue pill, he will wake up in his bedroom and think their whole conversation was just a dream.  If he takes the red pill, he will find out what the matrix is, but there will be no going back. Neo takes the red pill, and wakes up in a womb-like pod attached to tubes.  He looks out of the pod and sees row upon row of others, stacked hundreds of storeys high.  The whole of humanity is being used to generate energy to supply the machines which have taken over the world following an apocalyptic battle.  The pods both support human life and siphon off the energy generated by people's bodies, while keeping the people comatose and plugge...

Thanks very much to all those who commented on my last blog post and on Pete Greig's article, both attempting a response to Stephen Fry's fascinating comments about the nasty god who allows such suffering and then demands that all bow down and worship him. I would like to start with a disclaimer: I am no philosopher and only a wannabe theologian and these are BIG topics which people far cleverer than me have debated in many books I have not read.  (I'm not being modest: in preparation for my last blog post I skim-re-read a chapter in a book by Paul Fiddes, former principal of Regent's Park College, who has a brain the size of a planet.  I don't understand most of what he says in person, but fortunately his writing is beautifully clear).  As long as you all imagine that we're down the pub (or having a coffee, my teetotal friends) having a good late-night debate throwing some ideas around, I'll attempt to present some more thoughts. Caroline, you pointed out t...

"Children with bone cancer - what's that about?  How dare you?  How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault?" http://fullist.co.uk/2015/01/interviewer-asks-staunch-atheist-steven-fry-hed-say-met-god/ A friend sent me a link to an interview with Stephen Fry on Irish TV in which he is asked what he would say to God if he met him face to face.  His brutally honest answer begins with the words quoted above.  Essentially, his view is that if God exists, he must be a monster. The number one most commonly asked question on The Alpha Course: "Why does God allow suffering?"  It's a humdinger and no one has come up with a satisfactory answer in 2000 years of Christian theology.  I was very amused by a passage in The Da Vinci Code where one of Dan Brown's characters explains the problem of suffering using the simple analogy of a child on a skateboard whose parent cannot allow him the freedom to play without letting him fall down ...