Today I was at the launch of @sophianetwork’s #mindingthegap18 research (in the House of Lords, no less) and @Project328’s brand new database of women speakers. Both are potential game-changers. [1/n]
#MindingTheGap18 reports the experiences of women in UK churches. There is hope, but also too much darkness. It comes with a manifesto, a call to do differently, which deserves to be widely heard. [2/n]
Our @Project328 database (speaker328.org) is designed to offer a list of UK women with the gifts and experience to speak at church events/Christian conferences, to end the weasel excuse about ‘we couldn’t find a woman’ [3/n]
The website works brilliantly and looks fantastic—credit to @vicky_walker and @davidbunce (&, I am told, a Russian guy called Sergei living in Brazil who only interacts by Skype—there’s a John Le Carre novel here somewhere) [4/n]
Someone reminded me that 5 yrs ago I wrote something about not defending the ministry of women; I finish today feeling like we’ve emphatically gone on the attack. [6/6]
Then I remembered the Cape Town Commitment from the Third Lausanne Congress in 2010. Anyone who was involved in global evangelicalism at the time knows the story well... 2/9
There was a concerted political campaign coming out of N. America to get a CBMW-type perspective enshrined by Lausanne. I was on the very peripheries of what was going on, but knew about this, and about attempts to stop it. 3/9
Someone just asked me about the greatest sermon I have ever heard. I’ve heard lots of good sermons, but I know which one was the greatest. It was about 25 years ago, in @SpurgeonCollege chapel. [1/12]
+Lesslie Newbigin was the preacher, right towards the end of his life. Blind, so he couldn’t see us, and so bent that we almost couldn’t see him behind the pulpit. ‘When you go out into the ministry,’ he began, to a chapel-ful of ordinands, ‘what are you going to do?’ [2/12]
He started listing some options: ‘some people will want you to be a social worker…’ colourful details followed. ‘But there are professional social workers; why should you do what they do less well?’ [3/12]
So, on the back of the previous post, what do I think about the filioque? 1/8
1. I think the fourth-century pro-Nicene trinitarian settlement, achieved by the Cappadocians and expounded most clearly by Augustine, did not definitively rule of the procession of the Spirit in either direction. 2/8
2. I think that, for several complicated reasons, confessing the dual procession of the Spirit is probably the right way to go. 3/8
On the back of conversations about libraries and card catalogues, I remember being in--a residential library in Wales, let's say--maybe 20 years ago. I was there with a writing group, and wanted to check a patristic citation. 1/4
I looked at the card catalogue, and discovered they had Migne, both the PL and the PG. Easy. But where were they? I showed the card to the librarian on duty and asked. 2/4
'It should be in that corner,' she said.
'It isn't,' I responded.
'Have you looked carefully?'
'It's approximately 450 volumes of hardbound folio; I think I'd spot it if it was there...'
Don't know why this crossed my timeline, but in they interests of things like truth and reality: Calvin never taught or defended limited atonement/particular redemption. Never. 1/12
Some (e.g. Paul Helm) argue that it follows logically from things he did affirm, but there is not one single text in Calvin’s entire corpus that can be credibly read as an affirmation of the doctrine. 2/12
(& even if Helm is right, we cannot know that, presented with the demonstration, Calvin would not have said ‘that’s horrible!’ and reformulated the areas of his thought that led to it.) 3/12
Concocting a pasta bake from leftover turkey I suddenly realise that my own weird culinary hill to die on is that white sauce, & all derivatives thereof, must be made from a roux. 1/4
I would never propose or defend the thesis that cornflour is of the evil one, but my kitchen practice appears to assume it... 2/4
And, yes, this has made me or other members of the family late when we’ve needed to eat quickly before some evening event. And, no, I am not sorry. 3/4