Noel Richards (people think he is a really nice person but he blocked me on email for over a year – more below on this) and I have just recorded with Martin Purnell (of ‘Off Grid Christianity’ fame) our fourth Christmas special. The normal bizarre quiz in which I think I gained ‘nil point’ but did win (in my mind) cos of bonus points. The episode will come out some time around Christmas and we did overrun by more than an hour, so some serious editing to be done! In one of the ‘off the record as you have gone off-piste but could we pursue this…’ the conversation somehow got on to ‘penal substitution’. Anyway Martin P has saved it as a stand-alone recording. It would need a bit of extra work to reach a doctorate level but here it is:
The ‘off grid Christianity’ podcasts can be checked out at:
https://www.accessradio.biz/series/ogc/
And as an extra bonus (we all like bonus points) – try this ‘Gospel in Chairs’ with Brad Jersak.
Oh and the bonus points – I put in a claim for 2 on the basis that when Martin Purnell sent us an email with suggestions I was always the one to reply first. Noel was tardy. He did claim that there was no expiry date to the emails but I was certainly worth 2 points for my all-but immediate replies. And then I claimed 2 more as Noel had blocked my emails for over a year – claiming that he only did that as he had a lot of spam from emails with the suffix ‘.eu’. Claiming that it was nothing personal. Lame excuse.
Thank you for this, and for the laugh! Definitely a friction point regarding austere images in my French church set-up. I can’t do with the continual self-flagellation that seems to result because of having to be forever indebted rather than forever freed. And I just had a conversation last week about Good Works and was told that the sheep and the goats was all about Israel. Which is odd, since on looking up Matt 25 for context, it actually talks about all the nations being gathered. But Sola scriptura, apparently, which was actually mentioned earlier in the same conversation. The combination of conservative evangelical tradition and the French education system is a powerful one.
Glad you had a laugh. When Martin P sent me the clip I said we have to leave the humorous parts in as we can take ourselves too seriously. Glad we are not in God’s good books cos we believe the right things. I hate it when we divide over ‘I am right and you are wrong’. I used to say I am not right on everything and what makes it more complex is I don’t know where I am wrong.
‘Be yourself everyone else is taken’ (I think Oscar Wilde?). But you are definitely one of those people who provokes others by being yourself and in so doing you are embodying a different path, a path that is light and free. And the traditions that you refer to need light and freedom.
The laugh was very much needed, and the Oscar Wilde quote is one of my favourites. The path may be light and freedom but it can be a very isolated one here. Can’t count the times I’ve consider leaving the church or indeed baling back to the UK. But the physical land still has a big place in my heart.
I’m glad of a mid-weekly half hour “pause spirituelle” hosted by the pastor of the Reformed church and open to all denominations – just a short, monastic style office. I finally know the Lord’s Prayer in French! As a small ecumenical community from multiple traditions we prayed for the government at the time of its most recent crisis – it seemed a good place to pray from, given the entrenched divisions. The prime minister’s subsequent reinstatement may or may not have been connected. There is also a monthly Lectio Divina, where we are not told what the bible teaches us…
After 18 months of one frozen shoulder after the other I have at last been getting fuller movement back over the summer, coupled with a most unexpected emotional see-sawing (to echo your dream). I think it’s a freeing thing, alongside the physical freeing, but it continues to be challenging. However, as I approach another birthday this weekend I am actually feeling physically younger than this time last year, so perhaps as a fairly seasoned “over 55” now I might still be up for something, if only I knew what!