Ben Blogs

In response to:Is fear meant to be political?

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:13:23 +0100

Love this, as usual. I really enjoy your wisdom. I've often remarked on the place of fear - if you go through any newspaper, pretty well every story is an appeal to some kind of fear as a way of selling the paper. The sad thing, as you say, is that the church buys into this and does not examine itself. I think we need to buy into Kingdom values, and the perfect love that casts out fear.
Keep talking!

In response to:Homosexuality with God

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:54:12 +0200

I think you hit the nail on the head with the "pick and mix" attitude to scripture being the problem.

Any holy book can be interpreted in so many diferent ways when being selective about the bits that fit your agenda.

Didn't G.W.Bush try to imply a religious root for his disgusting war in Iraq? Shame on him.

In revelations it warns about altering the meaning of that book. I wonder if John meant the whole book?

In response to:Homosexuality with God

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:40:02 +0200

I agree with you; the true crux of the discussion is what do we precieve as holiness? St Peter even goes as far as say we are a 'peculiar people' (1 Peter 2:9 KJV). We are meant to be different; we are an outward expression of God's action in our lives

When we aproach this subject, we must have these thoughts in mind.

Thanks for your intelligent response.

In response to:Homosexuality with God

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:53:07 +0200

I agree with you that this is a tricky, delicate and difficult subject. My own feeling is that the whole argument is not about sexual orientation at all - I'm not sure whether God cares particularly about that. What does make sense to me is that God calls us all to holiness - whoa, what an un-PC concept in a society where we should all be able to do exactly as we want, as if freedom comes vacuum-packed and has no bearing on anything else in life! But just because people think that doesn't make it wrong. So whatever our orientation, it is about learning to be more holy with the help of the Spirit, to live a purer life, 'to keep ourselves unspotted from the world' etc etc - how hard is that when 'sin clings so closely'!

This of course does not solve any of the arguments, because people differ on what 'holiness' means. But I still think that fundamentally this is a debate betweena Christian understanding of holiness and an individualist, secular understanding of freedom.

In response to:Can Atheism change me?

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:34:09 +0200

I love this. It hits the nail on the head. Atheism is as it says it is a - theism: no-god, therefore defined by what it does not believe. A very shaky place to be - thank you for pointing that out! - though I guess atheists would say there are plenty of things they do believe in - like humanist principles, for example. But even those are derived from the Judeo-Christian faith, and are add-ons.

In response to:What on earth is mission?

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:51:29 +0200

I really like this. We learned this some years ago - why should people come to us? We need to take the Gospel to them! I've just finished reading 'Moving towards Emmaus' by David Smith - a brilliant look at the Emmaus story in the light of current disillusion, not only in Christians but also in humanists and Muslims. A very timely call to us Christians to be more humble in our approach and just be content to share Christ wherever we are. Trouble is, our big church buildings make us feel like they should be full ... and much as I would like to pull a lot of them down, the cry of 'heritage' goes up! But whose heritage? And what does it actually mean? Jesus didn't leave buildings behind ... that was a wise move!!

In response to:Is it me...?

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:00:11 +0100

Hi Ben

I really like this. I wonder what would happen if the church's festival days slipped out of current usage altogether? Like you I don't think it would be long before other things took their place - after all, we're coming up to red nose day, not that that's a bad thing.

I've been talking with another friend about living in the moment. Have you read any of the stuff on 'practising the presence of God'? It's hard to do because we are always planning in our heads for the next few things - especially in the west, where we like to get organised! Other cultures don't bother and can't understand why we make such a fuss about it.

It's another thing to learn from kids - they are much better at living in the moment.

all God's best

Gill