I have chosen, in prayer (of course) during Lent and approaching Easter Sunday, to preach through different angles on the atonement, or what academia calls, models or theories. We mustn't be confused by how the idea of "theories" is being used here. It is not a way to shoe-horn in a text into an abscure... Continue Reading →
Abstract Rhetoric: Schism between Preaching & Counselling First, interpreting the Bible so as to systematise it without hearing its relational wisdom tends to split Christian discourse into two - between the discourse of the pulpit and that of the counsellors. Whilst there should be a distinction between the private specifics of counselling and the public language of preaching, the two should... Continue Reading →
In Memory of the 100th anniversary of the death of P. T. Forsyth this year (2021), I will outline his eleven points in the chapter entitled 'The Ideal Ministry' (as printed in The British Congregationalist, 18th October, 1906), in the book Revelation Old and New. 6. The Ideal Ministry: A FINISHED GOSPEL (pt.2) Nothing strikes... Continue Reading →
Sermon preached on 13th September 2020. Luke 13:10-17 ‘Shameful Behaviour’ The last time I entered a synagogue was in Cairo, 2007. It was a beautiful experience and nothing much happened. In Luke’s gospel, this is the last time Jesus enters a synagogue too. Unlike my visit, which was quite sedate; With Jesus (as usual), it... Continue Reading →
“When the Day of Pentecost arrived…” Pentecost….from the Gk meaning 50th. 50th what? 50th day after Passover. In the OT it is called The Feast of Weeks (Shavuot). A national holiday of rest, offering and celebration of the harvest (Lev. 23). Now that’s interesting. On the day of rest and offering and celebration:... Continue Reading →
500 posts, and yes, I'll admit, they are a mixture of the good, the bad and the (very) ugly! But for this milestone I thought I'd post something short and sweet. It is a comment made after preaching by the greatest Protestant theologian, Karl Barth. I like this because it mocks reductionist simpleton Christianity with... Continue Reading →
See the short video (June 2019) on The Fuel Cast, filmed at Torre Abbey ruins, Torquay. Who was P. T. Forsyth? Peter Taylor Forsyth was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on this day in 1848 to a working-class family, and was educated there through his university years. Afterwards, he became a Congregationalist minister serving in five successive... Continue Reading →
During his 1907 Lyman Beecher lectures on preaching at Yale University* (these lectures became his classic Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind), Forsyth shared the three ways in which he thought the Church suffers: i. from triviality. ii. from uncertainty. iii. from satisfaction (with itself, or more specifically, complacency). He later went on in that address... Continue Reading →
The funny guys at Babyon Bee have hit on a Forsythian nerve of mine. The headline 'Half Of Congregation Dies Of Starvation As Sermon Goes 15 Minutes Over Time' is brilliant satire, as are almost all of their other articles; a much welcome relief to the tedium of seriousness we Protestants can so easily find... Continue Reading →
"I remember one minister for education urging that ‘Britain was the only nation on earth where cleverness was despised’. In other European countries, for example France and Germany, cleverness is sought after and prized. The glorification of educational backwardness, then, is part of a localised British decadence or hedonism that is inconsistent with biblical Christianity.... Continue Reading →
Gralefrit Theology 