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New books for 2013

2013 will see new books from

James K A Smith, How Worship Works - the sequel to Desiring the Kingdom

Oliver O'Donovan, Self, World and Time - the first of a multi-volume Christian ethics

Paul  Fiddes - Seeing the World and Knowing God - the 2005 Bampton Lectures

N T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God - the long-awaited book is rumoured to be out sometime this year

Walter Brueggemann, Psalms - a commentary in the New Cambridge Bible series

L. Gregory Jones, Living Before God: An Introduction to Christian Ethics

Maggi Dawn, Like the Wideness of the Sea: Women Bishops and the Church of England

Jeff Astley and Leslie Francis (eds.), Exploring Ordinary Theology - collection of essays expanding a new interest in theology from the 'pews' 

One Born Every Minute: A Christmas Sermon

There’s one born every minute. Millions of babies are born every year. Each with their own story. Babies are of course special, but at the same time pretty ordinary — however we might boast about them!

One born every minute. But here we are telling a story of one baby that we believe is somehow different, one baby that has a peculiar story of conception, one baby whose life, vocation is already known, already chosen. Expectant parents are often told your lives will never the same again, your baby will change your world — and this is of course true — but the baby whose birth we celebrate today, we believe not only changed the lives of Mary and Joseph, and the lives of the shepherds, but his birth means the whole world has changed.

One who is born in one minute, and has changed all other minutes, and hours, days and years — all of time — because of this birth we say nothing will ever be the same again … we will say it again with even more joy when we reach Easter: nothing will ever be the same again. This baby is both ordinary and not ordinary, is both very human and very God — the writer of Hebrews says the ‘exact representation’ — this baby, as the ‘Godbaby^TM’ poster suggests, ‘cries, wees and saves the world’!

Here is the mystery of Christmas in the miracle of Mary’s pregnancy, now lying in a manger, with meekness and majesty, the one mediator between God and the world — this is the goodness, the truth and the beauty of God in the fragility of baby’s life. We come back to the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth time and time again. I think it is because this is the story of life which belongs to each one of us. This story speaks the language of all humanity and also the language of God.

That God sends his Son to be born among us, with us, for us, also means we must be born again, born from the darkness into the light, born from safety into vulnerability. This Christmas mystery and miracle of the babe in manger is not obvious, its not in a certain sense reasonable, its truth, its logic or logos requires revelation, requires faith, requires the one who is born to gift us the knowledge of who he is — an experience which Jesus names to one person later as being ‘born again’. That the world finds all its meaning, its purpose, its life in a baby born to an unknown woman appears, to quote one very public atheist over the weekend just gone, ‘extraordinary garbage.’ Christmas only means more than an excuse for parties, presents and tv specials, if the one who is born is born in us — one born every minute — this is our prayer that Christ would be born in us, that we see beyond the Christmas card scene, to the mystery beyond and within. This is a dangerous prayer, to confess this Christmas mystery, to live in the light of it, to live the truth that nothing will ever be the same again, to resist going back to life just like before, is to recognise that this baby is more than cute and cuddly, but dangerous and troublesome. Matthew’s nativity account ends with children dying, Luke’s nativity account is written in the shadow of a brutal empire and as we go beyond the beginning of each of the gospels, we find ourselves into a narrative which ends in the death of the one whose birth today we celebrate: Christmas starts with Christ, but Christmas ends with Easter.

So today enjoy the baby – smile, laugh, even dance, but don’t just let Christ remain a baby to look at, but pray, pray perhaps for the first time, pray perhaps after a long time, that Christ would be born in you, that his life and love, his faith and hope would fill your head, your heart and your hands, pray that in worshipping and following this Christ, you will be given the courage to hold on, stand firm, be bold, even where danger or trouble may come. The Word has become flesh, and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

A Nativity Story

(This was my attempt, poor as it is, to try and do nativity story a la Julia Donaldson)

In a village named Nazareth our story begins with
A man called Joe with hammer and saw
A handsome donkey enjoying his straw
A gossiping gaggle of women next door
A stern village leader who growls and who glares
And a young girl called Mary without any cares

And Joe said, ‘Ugggh’ as his hammer hit a nail
And the donkey said, ‘Ere-ore’ swishing his tail
‘Chatter, chatter, chatter’ said the women without fail
‘I like everything right’ said the old village leader
while Mary said, ‘I want to be more than a cook and a cleaner’

One day in Nazareth
An angel appeared, out of the blue
to Mary he said ‘a baby is growing inside of you’
‘Wowzers’ said Mary, ‘But I’m still a virgin!’
Joe said ‘What is this that’s now occuring?’
‘Ere-ore’ said the donkey his head a-turning
‘Well I never!’ said the women at the front door
while the village leader’s chin dropped to the floor!

On the long road to Bethlehem
The very pregnant Mary lets out a tired sigh
An anxious Joe holds her hand – what a good guy!
The donkey, ambles behind, under the night sky
The gossiping women said ‘What a journey to make; hope not too late!’
The village leader said ‘At least they married before the due date’

In Bethlehem town it’s busy and bustling
The first inn-keeper said ‘Full-up, no room’
The second was sorry ‘it’s the census boom’
The third said ‘I’ve a stable where you can sleep’
With no other choice, Mary and Joe lie down in a heap
While even the donkey is soon making no peep

During the night, in a make-shift maternity ward
Mary said ‘Oooowwww’
Joseph said ‘Push’
The donkey said ‘Ere-ore’
And Jesus went ‘Wwwaaaaaaa’

During the same night, on a cold hillside nearby
Angels appear with news of a birth
Some shepherds said ‘What on earth!’
the Angels said ‘No, peace on earth, and goodwill to all men’
well the sheep are stunned – all a fright in their pen
and the shepherd’s ask, ‘Just tell us where and then when!’

Later that night, in wonder and joy
shepherds arrive, having left their employ
To see for themselves the tiny new boy
Into the light, what a sight!
There’s Mary, there’s Joe and a donkey there too
All looking at Jesus, wrapped in cloth coloured blue

From far away country, a long journey to make
Travelled wise men without any break
They followed a star, shining so bright
To Bethlehem it led them night by night
And there they found, the king long foretold
And gifts they gave, incense, myrrh and precious gold

This tale we tell, at each Christmas time,
With song, and story and even some rhyme
It’s a story of God who loves everyone
that he sent from heaven is one, only Son
so to Jesus we come, please hear us today
as we say, with Mary, ‘Lord have your way!’

Baptist History gets a boost ...

The Angus Library, based at Regent's Park College, Oxford has secured substantional funding to help further interest and educational opportunities into Baptist history.

The Angus Library is the leading collection of Baptist history and heritage worldwide.

It contains more than 70,000 items relating to the life and history of Baptists in Britain and the wider scene. The Library unites the original collection of historical materials gathered by Principal Joseph Angus in the nineteenth century with the libraries and archive of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Baptist Historical Society, and of the Baptist Missionary Society.

It offers printed books, pamphlets, journals, church and association records, church histories, manuscript letters and other artefacts from the early sixteenth century to the present day. It contains a comprehensive collection of Baptist periodicals from around the world.

For more information on today's news see here.

On the 12th day of advent, Jonty gave to me ...

12 days of short(-ish) advent reflections at 25thingsforadvent. Each day. Some really helpful stuff. Today Jonty Langley reflects on waiting without fear. Drop by.

Slow Church Coming

In the last year I've been introduced to the phrase 'slow church'. The Ekklesia Project took it as its theme for its 2012 conference and Chris Smith (of Englewood Review of Books) and John Pattison run a blog and are working on a book (due in 2013) all under the same idea. So it was a nice surprise to open at Stephen Pickard's new book Seeking the Church: A Introduction to Ecclesiology (SCM, 2012) to find its final chapter titled 'Slow Church coming'.

The rest of the book as its subtitle suggests is an introduction to ecclesiology (from a particularly Anglican perspective). It engages, as expected, with Paul Minear, Avery Dulles and Nicholas Healy, but its major conversation partners are Daniel Hardy (especially his work on 'sociality') Colin Gunton. It has chapters on models of the church, relation to the Trinity, mystery, and worship, which all look interesting, but it was the last chapter that grabbed my attention.

Pickard seems to be using the language of 'slow church' independent from others mentioned above. His major conversation partner in this chapter is a former Hauerwas student, Peter Dula, and his recent OUP book on Cavell, Companionship and Christian Theology.  Pickard distinguishes slow church from the fast asleep church (indifferent to cultural changes) and the frentic church (which you could say is indifferent to tradition). Slow church is a pilgrim church, moving and travelling, but with patience, for good things take time. Dula is introduced as a critique of communitarian approach to ecclesiology (identified with Hauerwas, Milbank, MacIntyre and co.), which he ulimtately calls a 'fugitive ecclesia' because it is always disappearing, on the run, beyond our grasp. Pickard ends with suggesting we need a travellling church, a pilgrim church, picking up companions on the way. 

Lots to ponder here, not least it makes me want to read Dula's book. I think there is some mileage in this language of 'slow church'. The best practical theology these days seems to want to remind us of things lost, without wanting (I hope) to trademark a new brand and as a solution to all our ills.