andygoodliff

PowerPointless by Debra Dean Murphy

I came across this article by Debra Dean Murphy on the use of powerpoint in worship. Some might call the first half of the article a diatribe. I think she makes some good points. I get particularly annoyed with powerpoint in sermons as it often feels more like a board presentation than an engagement with the Word of God. Having said that Hannah finds the use of visual images as helpful aid to her concentration and listening. Here's an extract from Murphy:

PowerPoint also conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways, so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention, an object of intense fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they become conditioned to worry that it will malfunction. They find themselves thinking more about the screen and the technician at the soundboard than about the God whom they've come to worship and the larger worshiping body of which they are a part.

Indeed, PowerPoint makes worshipers less aware of the persons around them; they engage in less eye contact and other forms of human interaction for fear of missing something on the screen. (One might argue that hymnals, prayer books and bulletins potentially create the same sort of isolation or individualism in worship, and it's possible that they do. But the sheer dominating presence of a projection screen in worship works in concert with PowerPoint's client-driven bias to cater rather blatantly to the consumer/customer/individual.)

To use PowerPoint in worship is to unwittingly set up a competition between what's projected on the screen and the human voice doing the preaching, praying or singing. And it's a contest that PowerPoint always wins because, as Richard Lischer has observed, when the brain is asked to listen and watch at the same time, it always quits listening. What PowerPoint enthusiasts see as enhancing the worship experience--projecting pictures of water during a baptism or images of fire and wind on Pentecost--is instead a form of sensory overload that manipulates emotions and stifles imagination. It is difficult to cultivate an awareness and appreciation of ambiguity and mystery in worship when images are projected at strategically timed moments in the liturgy for the purpose of instructing worshipers what to think and feel.

Rev

One of the highlights of this year's Greenbelt was an interview with James Wood and Tom Hollander, creators of Rev. Rev is a BBC2 comedy from earlier this summer which was about the life of a innercity Anglican vicar, Adam Smallbone (played by Tom Hollander). It was a fantastically insightful, well-researched and funny look at modern ministry, which received lots of great reviews. Non-UK readers look out for it on DVD or possibly BBC America. The first episode looked at people who showed up at church in order to get their child into the local CofE school; the second, the issues arising when another church takes over with smoothie bar, sofas and their awesome vicar Darren (clip here); the third was about a Muslim group wanting to use the church and a lap-dancing club opening across the school; the fourth was about Adam's jealous of another vicar's popularity on TV and radio; the fifth was about the loneliness of ministry; and the sixth is about Adam's crisis of faith. There were many great moments, as well as some bits when I thought it went a little too far in its humour. Two moments that stand out. In episode 2 when Adam says to Darren that his service was 'more show that sacrament' - a timely reminder that being relevant and contemporary (see here) can leave behind faithfulness and truthfulness. And in episode 6 when Adam has reached rock bottom in his crisis of faith, he is asked to pay a pastoral visit to a dying woman and he is reminded of the verse read at his ordination from Isaiah 6: 'the Lord said whom shall I send? and I said 'Send me'. Something about being called to ministry regardless of self-doubt and uncertainty that comes with life and also that his ordination affirmed God's call on his life.

The conversation with Wood and Hollander was revealing as well as amusing. They talked about their desire for the show to be authentic and how they discovered through their research and doing the show the demands that come with minsitry. While neither of them are what others might call committed believers, they have created a show and characters who capture the demands, the difficulties and the joys of Christian life and ministry.

 

Doug Campbell interviewed on Paul's gospel and theology

Fantastic interview with Doug Campbell can be found here. He lays out in simple terms his understanding of Paul's gospel and some of its implications for the Christian life. (HT to Jason)

List of Reviews of Douglas Campbell's The Deliverance of God

Mark Seifried has a review in the latest Themelios, read it here, his review ends it by saying:

It is truly a pity that this massive work, into which so much labor and intense study obviously has been invested, should bear such fundamental flaws. One can only admire Campbell’s effort and pray that in the future it might be crowned with greater success.

A more favourable and positive engagement with The Deliverance of God is beginning by Chris Tilling.

Reviews so far:

Nijay K. Gupta in Reviews in Religion and Theology 17.3 (2010)

Robin Griffith-Jones in Church Times 7683, 18 June 2010

Beverly Roberts Gaventa in The Christian Century, May 18 2010

Francis Watson in Early Christianity 1.1 (May 2010)

Sean Winter in Regent's Reviews 1.2 (April 2010)

Douglas Moo in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 53.1 (2010)

Thomas Schreiner in Bulletin for Biblical Research 20.2 (2010): 289-90

Jane Heath in The Expository Times (December 2010)

Charles B. Cousar in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 64.4 (October 2010)

Joshua Jipp in Horizons in Biblical Theology 32.2 (2010)

Alexandra Brown in Theology Today 68.1 (April 2011)

Chris Tilling, 'The Deliverance of God, and of Paul?', Journal for the Study of Paul and his Letters 1.1 (Spring 2011)

Michael J. Gorman, ''Douglas Campbell's The Deliverance of God: A Review by a Friendly Critic', Journal for the Study of Paul and his Letters 1.1 (Spring 2011)

Douglas A. Campbell, 'What Is at Stake in the Reading of Romans 1–3? An Elliptical Response to the Concerns of Gorman and Tilling', Journal for the Study of Paul and his Letters 1.1 (Spring 2011)

R. Barry Matlock, 'Zeal for Paul but Not According to Knowledge: Douglas Campbell’s War on ‘Justication Theory’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 34.2 (December 2011)

Grant Macaskill, 'Review Article: The Deliverance of God', Journal for the Study of the New Testament 34.2 (December 2011)

Douglas A. Campbell, 'An Attempt to be Understood: A Response to the Concerns of Matlock and Macaskill with The Deliverance of God', Journal for the Study of the New Testament 34.2 (December 2011)

See also some reviews at amazon.com

Interview with John Colwell

John previously answered a few questions here and has kindly agreed to answer a few more with the publication of his new book.

For those who have not read your new book - Why Have You Forsaken Me? (Paternoster, 2010) can you quickly summarise what it's about.

It's a personal reflection on Psalm 22: the first two chapters are largely autobiographical, giving a brief account of the experience of bi-polar illness, then there are a couple of chapters reflecting directly on the psalm, two chapters reflecting on the significance of Jesus words from the Cross in Matthew and Mark and finally two chapters reflecting more generally
on the relationship between God and suffering.

Has this been your most difficult book to write?

Yes (Promise and Presence was more demanding academically but not as
personally painful)

Do you think the use of autobiography and theology is something which we should encourage? Alongside your book is the recent theological memoir Hannah's Child from Stanley Hauerwas.

All theology is inevitably autobiographical - though this is often unrealised and unacknowledged. Surely theology demands truthfulness and truthfulness admits that we read Scripture and inhabit a tradition as the people we are, shaped by specific contexts, communities, and experiences. I had the privilege of reviewing Stanley's 'theological memoir'- I couldn't commend it too warmly: it puts flesh on his extraordinary contribution and
theological development. [John's review will appear in the next edition of Regent's Reviews]

In the book you're fairly critical of contemporary worship, I wondered if you thought there is anything positive we can say about the deluge of new worship songs of the last thirty years?

I don't think it's just contemporary worship that is at fault (though the fault is most marked in contemporary worship and collections of songs). We still manage doctrinal proclamation (though probably not with the same effect as previous generations), we're strong on praise and especially strong on personal adoration, but we're lamentably weak on lament and lament is where a fair proportion of any church congregation find themselves.

You have now returned to local church ministry after sixteen years as a college tutor. Has it been good to get in the same pulpit and visit the same people week in, week out?

Fifteen years actually - I believe God called me to pastoral ministry and, though being a tutor at Spurgeon's had a strong pastoral element, I'm delighted to be back in a local church for the next few years and sharing Word and Sacrament with the same people week by week.

Are you still finding time to read and write?

This past year has been frustrating for a number of reasons with which I won't bore you. I'm woefully behind with my reading schedule (though it is a demanding one) and a number of factors have militated against much writing - just a few reviews and isolated articles.

What three things would you say are important to those, like myself, beginning ministry in a new church?

I'm tempted to say prayer, prayer, and prayer. There may be people who can maintain a walk with God without any formal structure but I commend a formal pattern (rhythm) of prayer as indispensible to the Christian life and certainly to Christian ministry - so establish a rhythm of daily and seasonal prayer and a pattern of retreat. And, whatever you do, don't give way to the temptation to become a mere manager or chief executive - God has called you to be a minister of the Word and Sacrament so don't allow anything to displace that priority.

What is your next writing project?

I'm not sure that I really have one. I've started work on an exploration of virtue (All you need is love?) and I'd like to follow that with a re-examination of the nature of sin and of 'original sin' - but my priority at present is to be a faithful pastor to the people here and within the
community in which I find myself.

In your previous book, The Rhythm of Doctrine, you offered a novel but brief systematic theology shaped around the church year. You weren't sure it would work and were waiting to see what kind of response the book received, before possibly considering an expanded version. Have you been surprised at the positive response and does this mean you will go ahead and offer us the first systematic theology written by a British Baptist theologian for a long time?

As I admit in that book, the aim of writing a systematic theology is immensely pretentious and I'm not convinced that I'm a sufficient scholar for the challenge. Certainly I could only attempt it if life was more free from other and more pressing responsibilities. Neither do I know whether a publisher would be interested in such a long-term project from a relatively obscure writer. But if it did come about I hope it would be even more 'different' than Rhythm of Doctrine suggests. I'm ever more convinced that the only appropriate voice for theological reflection is that of worship and prayer, that the systems that have come from Reformed scholasticism are far too shaped by Enlightenment rationalism (and detachment), that we're too preoccupied with answers and not sufficiently humbled by questions, that the form of much systematic theology itself denies that witnessed in its content. Maybe I'll try a collection of prayers and poems.

Why Have You Forsaken Me? by John Colwell now available

John Colwell's new book Why Have You Forsaken Me? was due out last December, but got caught up in the problems Paternoster were then facing. It is now finally available. It has eight chapters reflecting both on Psalm 22 and his own struggles with manic depression.

1. Into the Darkness

2. Reflecting on the Darkness

3.Darkness and the Psalmist

4. Darkness and Israel

5. Christ's Human Darkness

6. Christ's Unique Darkness

7. Darkness and God

8. Darkness and Presence

The book is Colwell's most personal so far - the book opens with the story of his experience of manic depression whilst being a church minister and college tutor. The bulk of the book them explores how we trust God in his absence. Through the book Colwell argues for the importance of lament in worship over against worship that operates only as praise. He is critical of contemporary worship scene. In later chapters he also argues against a understanding of atonement in terms of penal substitution, the doing away with the doctrine of impassibility and a distorted gospel that sees miracles as everyday (and so not they cannot be described as 'miraculous') and healing as a right. The book is a departure from his earlier books on ethics, the sacraments and Christian doctrine. It is a 'Personal Reflection' as the subtitle indicates. Although exploring not an easy subject matter - illness and the absence of God - it is written in the usual Colwell style: the occasional anecdote, the helpful and clear engagement with theological questions (here most notably the doctrines of atonement and impassibility) and a readership that always seem to keep the pastor and interested Christian in mind (that is, the so what question is always near the surface). While there are other books that deal with the absence of God and illness (I can think of several Philip Yancey ones), John provides a theological exploration with honest reflection that I think will be helpful to many.

 
   

Paul Fiddes in conversation

You can view Paul Fiddes in conversation on literature's promised end and finding God in stories here.

Paul has recently been Down Under and Jason has been blogging on some of the lectures he gave here.