Easter Weekend - A Review - Religion

So after drinking and chatting in the Old Green Tree I got up obscenely early on Easter Sunday to go the 'Daybreak' service at 6am just down the road. Always really nice to go to a different church to see a different way of doing things, but the really strange was a Daybreak Service on Easter Sunday that didn't contain communion. It was all very nice, but was much more like an Easter Eve service (complete with renewal of baptismal vows etc.) than an Easter Sunday 'First Communion of the Ressurection' that I'm much more accustomed to. Intersting.

Christian Writers - Please don't be Hypocritical...

I'm in the middle of reading a Christian book - Rick Warren's 'Purpose Driven Life', and aside from the fact that it's overtly American (irritating, but copeable with) there is one thing that is driving me absolutely crackers about it.

He insists on using about 20 different Bible translations throughout the book, and changes from one quote to the next completely indiscriminately. According to him, the reason is that 'reading the bible in an unfamiliar version can cause us to re-consider and reappraise otherwise overly familiar words'. Well, maybe. This aim would still be acheived by just having one version throughout that is less familiar to most people than the ubiquitous NIV.

The major problem that I have with the way he uses different versions throughout is that it gives the appearance of picking the version that makes the point you want to make. Rather than genuinely getting to grips with (a faithful translation of) the original text. Consider it this way - if a non-christian friend of mine came to me, having picked 20 different bible verses from 20 different versions that showed the Bible to be inconsistent, full of lies, and not how I try to portray it - I'd just laugh at him and tell him not to be so daft. In fairness, none of my non-christian friends would even consider doing that as it would be daft to take so many verses and versions out of context. So if we wouldn't do it when trying to engage other people with our faith, why is it ok to do it when discipling to each other?

Apologies for the lack of posts

...but as way of an apology, please accept the following:

I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to my friends and colleagues, but it is so difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without offending someone. So I met with my solicitor yesterday, and on their advice wish to say the following:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Gregorian calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our countries great and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wisher.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message.

A Christian voice in Politics?

So why should I (we?) be involved in Politics as a Christian? I will try and give a short list here, which hopefully I can expand on and explain further in due course:

• As a voice for God in Society - As the prophets and judges were to Israel, so we should be today. God is concerned for Society as a whole and for his world (cf Genesis). As Christians we know that the world is fallen and sinful, and that it has been / will be redeemed. Even with this knowledge that what we do is never going to be enough to make 'as it is heaven, also on earth' we should still stand up for (our understanding of) God's views.
  
  
• As a voice for those without a voice - Jesus talks lots in his parables and teachings about standing up and speaking for those who are unable to do so for themselves. In the same way then, we should be standing up and speaking for justice and freedom from poverty, and being involved in both large scale campaigns to raise awareness, as well as being involved in in-depth discussions about the best and most godly ways to alleviate suffering and injustice.
  
  
• As a voice for God's people - Politicians should be (somewhat) representative of the people that they represent. Clearly then, a proportion of politicians should be Christian in order to ably represent the Christian population.
  

That's a start, although I'm sure that there are more that could be added in due course.

Film - Casino Royale

In Summary - A strong recommendation to go and watch this film.

I'll be honest from the start... I've never read the book (or indeed any other of Fleming's works). This meant that whilst I'd heard that the film was meant to be quite close to the book in its portrayal of the lead character; I had no idea when watching what they had changed / included and what had been left alone. It is a return to a gritty, emotional Bond - gone are the Roger Moore era lifted eyebrows and immaculate attitude in all situations - and in comes blood, cut lips, and the serious need for a shower halfway through a poker game. In this aspect it feels more like a proper film rather than 'Carry on Bond' as the most recent films have done (invisible car anyone...).

It is however let-down in a couple of places I feel - the fact that the climax comes 2/3rds of the way through the film rather than at the end means that whilst it's important what happens after the poker game, you feel like the principal battle has already been won. True, it is necessary for emotional development of the Bond character, but could this not have taken place earlier. I'm not entirely convinced with the way they showed the poker game either... they assumed the viewer knew how to play for one thing (so I had to spend 10mins at the end of the film explaining to my father how Texas hold-em works...). And for the other they dragged it out (cos it is really important) but not by showing exciting poker playing, but by Bond getting attacked and poisoned and anything else other than playing poker!

Having said all of the above it is a very enjoyable film - and you don't realise that you are watching a Bond for a lot of the film, it 'just' comes across as a great action adventure film.

If you want another, equally impressed take, I suggest you wander over to Baron-Scarpia's site for his intelligent meanderings on the subject.

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As far as a Christian viewpoint on the film goes:

This film is violent - very violent in places, and the opening killing by Bond to get his 'double-0' is particularly savage. Does the film as a whole condone violence though? I'm not sure that it does, and in fact goes the other way - whilst we see Bond being violent and getting away with murder (literally of course) - We also see the pain and hurt that this causes too. Physically (Bond ends up far more bloodied and bruised in this outing than in any other I can remember), but also emotionally and mentally. When Vesper Lynd sees Bond kill a person in front of her we see her afterwards cowering in a shower, unable to wash the blood from her hands. (Nice allusion to MacBeth if a little obvious). In showing this brutal aspect of what it is that Bond does, we see how violence and death should affect us, and thus lead us to pursue more peaceful paths.

As far as where Bonds emotional development goes - we see in this film, for the first time since On Her Majesty's Secret Service that he does have a heart, but we also see how it turns to stone rather than love and the reasons behind that. In my view this shows how we should pity, rather than judge, and how we should try and empathise, rather than moralise. There are many people in this world who are emotionally broken and who react to that broken-ness in different ways - with Bond, as with all of those, we should be showing how the Love of Christ will not betray or get taken away, but is eternal and everlasting.

PQ - November Edition

The most recent (November) edition of PQ (The Evangelical Alliance's Monthly News and Christian Comment) is availiable here as a pdf.

In initial reading, most of it I would reasonably agree with, although personally I think that the front page (pointing out that legislation is not neccessarily a good thing) could have highlighted the campaign by Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems to scrap laws as part of their proposed 'Freedom Bill' Small beer really though...

Isaiah 6 - A Couple of Thoughts

Had to lead a House group Bible Study on Isaiah 6 last night. I've had a couple of weeks to prepare it, but people always seem to ask the questions that you don't think of when trying to prepare. There were a couple of things to come out of it that I think are useful to remember;

• The comparison between the LORD ALMIGHTY sat on the throne in heaven; and the sinful and fallen King Uzziah that has just died. Whatever Israel (Judah) may think, the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY is all-powerful and in charge.
  
  This is as true today as it was then - however much we may despair at our political (and perhaps spiritual) leaders - if we follow Christ we will not go wrong.
  
  
• Isaiah realised his sinfulness - both personally and as the representative of the people:

  "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips"

  Beacuse he realised his sinfulness, and had faith in God, he was able to have his sin atoned for. It is instructive to note that this happened before he had to take God's word to the people, and so we see that he takes his message having been cleansed of his sin through atonement.
  
  Perhaps in the same way we should ensure that we are cleansed and convicted of our own sin before preaching the gospel to all. Certainly it appears that a large amount of the hypocrisy taunts thrown at the church in general (usually due to a specific personal failure of some leader or other) would be reduced if leaders were prepared to acknowledge their failures and weaknesses more often.
  

Hello World

So... what does one write in a first blog entry?

I guess a generic introduction to the purpose, expected content and reason for the blog. There are so many blogs around that surely an extra one is just a waste of time and space. I would certainly make that comment about a number of other blogs that I've stumbled across in the past.

I wanted somewhere to be able to think through a number of things, as the very act of writing a cogent argument on-screen should force me to think it through properly, rather than having a half-hearted waffle... if anybody else reads it - then that is a bonus (or not depending on their point of view I guess).

As a consequence, I will try very hard not to include personal things that are not relevant - ie. no 'Today I went and bought a new TV, it's really cool'. I will try and discuss politics (UK mainly, although also generically as and when it comes up), religion (btw... I am an evangelical Christian - this is an important starting knowledge about me for anybody reading...) and hopefully the intersection of the 2. (By this I mean - does my religion, which should affect all aspects of my life, affect how I vote politically? - what do Christ's teachings suggest about the way we should interact with, and aim to direct, society today? - Does this mean that all Christians should vote for the same party, and if so which one?)

Hopefully that all makes some kind of sense to me, and will try and keep me on the straight and narrow blogging path.

Welcome to my world...