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A Course I'm teaching: Spiritual Wisdom from Liberal Christianity

Next month I'll be part of a team teaching a new course at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre: Spiritual Wisdom from Liberal Christianity.  I will be speaking of how a "liberal" - generous, broad - understanding of God's love and activity can be the foundation for a radical, inclusive, mystically rooted faith practice.  Here's what Woodbrooke says: This course introduces learners to some of the hidden spiritual treasures of the Liberal Christian tradition. Over the course of five-weeks participants will be invited to learn about inspiring figures and theologies from, or in sympathy with, the Liberal Christian tradition.  You can find out more and book here.
Recent posts

Book Review: "The Seeking Heart: A Contemplative Approach to Mission and Pioneering" by Ian Mosby

  I was looking forward to reading this book as I've done a couple of Ian Mosby's courses online and because I feel like I'm circling around a contemplative approach to my pioneering as well and so I was interested to be in dialogue with people who are thinking like this. Ian Mosby's contemplative approach makes a lot of sense to me. If evangelism is just about getting people to "come to church" or "give their lives to Jesus" then it's always struck me as rather superficial. So many books I read come with these sorts of assumptions that come only from the Evangelical way of looking at the world. Ian Mosby, from a more contemplative Christian approach rather sees the invitation as entering into deeper relationship with God through contemplative practices. The book is based on PhD research that involved interviewing a lot of "Spiritual but not Religious" people in London. There is a great deal of reflection on what this category of people...

"Your task is not to seek for love" (Video)

 

Jesus was indigenous

  "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Nathanael (John 1:46) I love Christmas carols and have enjoyed singing some this Christmas season, though fewer than when I was in full time church ministry. Obviously as a Unitarian Christian some of the words I think are problematic, but one of the most problematic, said in many ways in different carols and liturgies this season is "he came down to earth from heaven." This is something said again and again at Christmas time - that Jesus is "from heaven." That Jesus' real home is heaven, some otherworldly spiritual place that he temporarily left to live a brief existence some other place, an earthly place where he never really belonged to, because he really belonged in heaven. Heaven is his home. Heaven is where Jesus is from . I disagree. Jesus is not from heaven. Jesus is indigenous. Jesus is from Nazareth, a small town, that even at the time it seems was a rather small, unimportant place. Maybe even a no...

The Parents have Eaten Sour Grapes and the Children's Teeth are Set on Edge (Video)

 

I Feel Sorry for Us (Video)

 

Emotions Matter

I'm always a bit suspicious of those people who have SOMETHING WISE to say right in the midst of a historical event. Despite my job being, at times, to say something wise I don't always feel up to it, and I want to hide away in my bed and just be a person rather than one of those WISE PEOPLE who have clever opinions.  Nevertheless I've been reflecting this week on the Trump victory in the States and what it means. What it means for the future, I cannot say, but it is obviously terrifying for the world. My heart goes out especially to trans people in the States as well as the Palestinian people. But I've been thinking about those campaigns and how they landed. Kamala Harris' campaign, and particularly the National Convention which had this message of JOY, seemed at the time to me deeply inappropriate against the backdrop of a genocide. I was listening to a This American Life episode following a Palestinian American at that convention, and how the leadership was tryi...