Six of the best from this week’s blogs

February 27, 2010

I’ve had comparatively little time for reading or writing blog posts this week, but all of the posts I mention here were not only well worth reading or taking note of – I wish I’d had time to interact more fully with them. The first four are on the Bible, the last two more broadly [...]

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Where angels fear to tread – a different and divine election

February 26, 2010

(This post is one of a sporadic series on the Church of England’s Thirty-nine Articles)
I begin with two disclaimers. For myself, I am no expert on such abstruse theological topics, nor do I find them congenial. Additionally, I suspect most Anglicans have hardly if at all heard of predestination, and the presence of article 17 [...]

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Atheists behaving badly: the Dawkinsgate fiasco

February 25, 2010

Before commenting on the – well fiasco doesn’t seem to strong a word, but let’s be more neutral away from the headline and say – kerfuffle at Richard Dawkins’ official site, let me point you to some posts dealing with it.

The man himself is outraged
But so is one of the seemingly dismissed moderators.
Ruth Gledhill comments [...]

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History and science – the human errors of Jesus and the Bible?

February 24, 2010

The title of this post is, I point out, a question. It arose because I was struck by the openness and honesty of the comment David Couchman left on this post. He said:

On the one hand, I’m very uncomfortable with the kind of conservative position which says ‘if science seems to contradict the Bible, so [...]

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Swearing and the art of non-apology: a broadcaster’s tale

February 23, 2010

The art of non-apology has been growing in recent years, most often taking the form of “I’m sorry if you feel offended, but …”, Tony Blair was one of many who helped raise it to an art form. But the BBC has a new idea of what counts as an apology after last night’s Newsnight. [...]

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Is “the Bible alone” an oxymoron?

February 23, 2010

I felt it was about time for a controversial question. Occasionally one will come across an otherwise well-thought out post which insists that “the Bible alone” is, or should be, the basis for – well, pretty much everything genuinely Christian, but especially doctrine and ethics. It has a reasonable pedigree in the Reformation. But does [...]

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Themes against verses? Arguments over women and men.

February 22, 2010

I’ve noted several posts recently on the ongoing rumbling about the roles of women and men. In the UK this has followed the blackmailing letter Reform published for the General Synod: “Give us our own episcopal enclave or we’ll hurt you.” Elsewhere in the world it has different triggers. It never quite seems to go [...]

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The Bully and the Pratt

February 21, 2010

Well, there’s an awful lot of ongoing gossip about the Prime Minister being a bully. Readers of this blog know I’m no fan of Gordon Brown, and I am more than ready to believe stories about the man who is a hectoring shouter-down of others in public being a temper-tantrum throwing bully in private.
Having said [...]

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Anglicans read it in church: Bible and Apocrypha revisted

February 20, 2010

I noticed when casting my eye over the C of E’s General Synod reports in this week’s Church Times (sorry the link’s behind a firewall till next week) that there’d been what looked like a fairly unsatisfactory debate on the lectionary. Now admittedly lectionaries rather appeal to the anorak tendency of the church, but hidden [...]

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Scientific evidence for God: cosmology versus biology?

February 19, 2010

Eddie Arthur has drawn my attention to a new site – God: new evidence –which (so far) is exploring the ways in which modern cosmology can be seen to offer support for theism. It has a number of videos, which feature some respectable scientists like John Polkinghorne. Here’s one which circles around the strong anthropic [...]

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