When I started this blog nearly 4 years and nearly 300 posts ago one of the labels I used for it/me was "radical." Perhaps I used it a little unreflectively. Recently I've been pondering what radical means. A couple of things have made me think of this. Firstly this blog series from my friend Jeremy, which explores a distinction between "radical progressives" and "rational progressives." There is also this definition of radical, liberal and conservative from Terry Eagleton quoted at Young Anabaptist Radicals : “Radicals are those who believe that things are extremely bad with us, but they could feasibly be much improved. Conservatives believe that things are pretty bad, but that’s just the way the human animal is. And liberals believe that there’s a little bit of good and bad in all of us.” What interests me is finding a way to express the tension I feel sometimes between myself and the wider Unitarian movement. One way to express this is to say I tend
Seeking paradise in Cardiff
Comments
Today at the university where I work the Christian Union were giving out invitations to a series of lunchtime talks.
Here are the topics:
(1) Was Muhammad wrong about Jesus?
(2) The Bible: accurate history or absurd hopes?
(3) Atheists: free thinking or foolish?
(4) How can a loving God send people to Hell?
(5) Where was God in the Holocaust?
Only 4 and 5 are open-ended questions. No 4 is about the same thing as your clip. I will go to their talks ( there is a free lunch) and will be interested to know whether God is loving and doesn't send to Hell, is loving and does send to Hell, isn't loving and sends to hell, isn't loving and doesn't send to Hell - or none of the above.
For me, I see God more as a loving friend or a parent. If I make a mistake, he forgives me because he loves me. Makes me more than ever glad I am a Unitarian and Universalist. End of story.
Unfortunately guys like this can't see that there are other ways of understanding the Bible's meaning and value (nor the value of other holy writings).