https://thinktheology.co.uk
13 posts
Writing 62% · Culture 15% · Life 15% · Tech 8%
Subscribe via RSS
Last week Andrew gave some great recommendations for summer reading. At the risk of self-promotion let me add another recommendation. Sometimes it’s good to get away from it all. Life gets busy and it feels like everything is crowding in. It can be hard to think straight, to see straight. Sometimes it’s good to get a completely different view. During a time of sabbatical leave I spent two weeks hiking a section of the GR10 path in the French Pyrenees. This is a famous long-distance route that…
Books fall into different categories. Some are more suitable for reading over the summer than others; it is hard to define exactly what makes a book a "summer read," but I think it involves a combination of storytelling, world-building, originality, and insights on something that you wouldn't normally think about. On that basis, here are five suggestions for the next month or two.Andrew Ross Sorkin, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History. It might seem strange to describe a…
In my introduction to Jon Marshall's review of From Genesis to Junia last week I made the observation that it is rare for there to be anything groundbreaking in recent books published on the roles of men and women in the church. For complementarians this is unsurprising: they need to simply hold to the orthodox patterns and practice of the church through almost the entirety of its existence, and, in that sense, have nothing new to say. On the other side of the aisle, the burden is on…
Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this, but I loved the Barbie movie, and have watched it at least three times. I do have four daughters.It’s a funny movie but one scene where the smiles freeze is Gloria’s monologue about the travails of being a woman: It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too…
Here is the second part of Jon Marshall's review of Preston Sprinkle's 'From Genesis to Junia'. In Ephesians 5-6, Paul uses the “household code” framework to show how the Gospel (past and future) reorients Christian households. Since the NT church is often an extension of a household, this biblical chapter provides a seminal framework for the organization of a church. Ch. 7 1. Preston’s chapter includes lots of insights about the ancient world. He makes the text come alive in fresh ways. 2. He…
In recent years there has been a steady stream of books published offering a fresh perspective on the roles of men and women in the church. It is rare for there to be anything groundbreaking in these books - all the arguments have been well-rehearsed over the past half-century - but some are much more compelling than others. (What I consider the most helpful book of all was first published in 1980: Stephen B. Clark's 'Man & Woman in Christ'.) Preston Sprinkle is an author to take seriously. He…
Two cracking paragraphs here from Carl Trueman:Today we live in an oddly neo-Donatist age where there is still a tendency to conceptualize ministry in terms of personal qualities and experiences, although these are now determined by the psychologized values of the therapeutic society rather than responses under persecution. And this neo-Donatism takes various forms: Women need to have pastoral roles because men, lacking the lived experience of womanhood, cannot adequately minister to their…
Every now and again, a historical anniversary crops up that is simply too important not to celebrate. Over the course of the last couple of decades, three landmark Reformation dates have been thoroughly worthy of celebration. In 2009, at Together on a Mission, I ran a Calvin seminar track to celebrate the 500th birthday of the great French reformer. I must admit, I thought the seminars would attract a couple of dozen church history nerds but, to my utter amazement, the room was packed for three…
The book of Revelation is notoriously complex and prone to suffering from flights of hermeneutical fantasy - especially in chaotic times such as those in which we live. it deserves better! My father has been teaching on Revelation for decades, and in this one hour summary provides a sane, helpful and hopeful reading of this important book.
One of the most zeitgeisty books I've read so far this year is Freya India's debut GIRLS: Gen Z and the Commodification of Everything. Here's a summary in her own words, from the introduction:GIRLS is not just another book about social media. It is about a vast, interconnected web of industries, each profiting from our experiences and anxieties. It is about how these industries influence everything from how to look to how we feel, from how we love to how we treat other people. It is about an...
This poem was written by Bryan Hart, and largely inspired by C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. Though there are two obvious references to the novel (the usage of the face and the reflection in the water), the primary echo is in the word that first appears as a curse and/or burden but is later repeated as a blessing. In TWHF, it was the line “You too shall be Psyche,” whereas in my poem, it is the “Be perfect” of the Sermon on the Mount, a burdensome word regardless of how to translate the mea...
Where is technology taking us?My friend, and sometime Think contributor, Bryan Hart wrote this poem about AI, voiced by my daughter Nancy, to introduce a sermon on technology. You can find Bryan’s entire message here.
