andygoodliff

blogging light

Blogging has been light recently, due to our move to Oxford taking place tomorrow. This will be followed by two weeks away ... so there won't be much appearing here in the near future, but I will be back. My post on chaplaincy has appeared or will appear in the Baptist Times. We are very sad to be leaving Stevenage (I've lived hear 16 years and Hannah 24 years).

Greenbelt 2008 Line-Up is Looking Good

Music: 1 Giant Leap; Jose Gonzalez; Michael Franti

Talks: Robert Beckford, Philip Yancey, Michael Northcott, Brian McLaren, John Bell, Joel Edwards, Tina Beattie, Pete Rollins, John Swinton, Doug Gay, Keith Ward

Worship: Ikon, Grace, MayBe, Sanctus 1

new Abrahamic Religions Chair at Oxford.

Relations between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam often hit the world’s headlines because of violent conflict. But research at Oxford University reveals stories of fruitful co-existence that point towards creative possibilities for future relations.

These links are to be explored in detail with the creation of a new Chair in the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at Oxford University, which will be filled for the start of the academic year 2009 to 2010. It has been created thanks to a generous benefaction of £2.5 million. For more see here

Journal of Theological Interpretation, Spring 2008

Christ in/and the Old Testament

Murray A. Rae, John Goldingay, Christopher J. H. Wright, Robert W. Wall, and Kathyryn Greene-McCreight

Finding the Form of God in Philippians 2: Gregory of Nyssa and the Development of Pro-Nicene Exegesis

Mark Weedman

Jonah and the Imitation of God: Rethinking Evangelism and the Old Testament

Stephen B. Chapman and Laceye C. Warner

Biblical Criticism and Religious Belief

R. W. L. Moberly

A Looser “Canon”? Relating William Abraham’s Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology to Biblical Interpretation 

Daniel J. Treier

2 Corinthians 3:18 and Its Implications for Theosis

M. David Litwa

Paul, Allegory, and the Plain Sense of Scripture: Galatians 4:21–31

Mark Gignilliat

The Fear of the Lord as Theological Method

Daniel Castelo

Chaplaincy and the NHS

The reason for a lack of blogging has been due to my being on summer placement with the chaplaincy of addenbrooke's hospital, cambridge. My second week coincided with the 60th birthday of the NHS. I've never really been in a hospital, apart from visiting my brother after he had his appendix out and some friends who had just had a baby, so it was a fantastic opportunity to see how a hosptial and its wards work. Addenbrookes is a huge hospital - nearly 1200 beds and around 7000 staff. The chaplaincy team there are fantastic and play a vital role in the life of the hospital. It was privilege to spend time with them, learning something of the art of being a chaplain. As someone preparing for baptist ministry it has played an important part in my formation and definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. I have heard some wonderful stories from a whole variety of patients. Here's a few things I've found or learnt:

nearly everyone is happy to talk

talking is an important part of a patient's recovery

a huge amount of people have had some regular contact with a church, the emphasis there being on 'had'

chaplaincy has a transitory nature - you might have only one conversation with a patient and then never see them again or equally in the case of some patients, a relationship grows over months and years as a patient finds themselves being re-admitted

chaplaincy has to cope with the uncomfortable feeling of helplessness, of not being able to wave a magic wand

in a culture where the demand for 'cure' seemingly triumphs all, chaplaincy exists solely to offer care for a person, to offer support and prayer

the wider church perhaps doesn't value the role that chaplaincy does

ministry - whether in chaplaincy or the local church - must help people as they approach death

The NHS, sixty years old this year, was one the greatest achievements of the 20th century and in its charter it specifically demands that every hospital has a chapel and chaplain. We are a privileged nation. The church should regularly being praying for our hospitals and those who work in them, that they might continue too have the wisdom, the skills and the ability to care for us when we are ill.

Ecclesiology, Spring 2008

Late in 2007 the journal Eccleisology was taken over by BRILL from SAGE. We finally have the first edition of 2008.

Ecclesiological Investigations - Paul Avis

Shifts in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant Ecclesiology from 1965 to 2006 - Michael A. Fahey

Ecclesiology as Narrative- John O'Brien

On Fostering Ecclesial Dialogue: Engaging Contrasting Ecclesiologies - Bradford Hinze

The Promise of Constructive Comparative Ecclesioology: Partial Communion - Roger Haight

The Precarious Church: Developing Congregations in an Individualized Society - Henk de Roest

John Zizioulas on Personhood in God and for Humankind - Geoffrey Wainwright

Charles Wesley's Tercentenary - Re-appraising Early Methodism - David M. Chapman