Roger: interview on ‘Woke’

Roger (Mitchell) recently presented a paper at the Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies at Queens College and met Asger Trier, a Danish Jewish independent scholar and journalist, on the subject of “Woke.” Asgier raised several important questions about cancel culture and platforming but then shocked me by suggesting that the pulling down of the statue of the Bristol slave trader Edward Colston was a step too far. Roger challenged him on this in the discussion after his paper who then asked if he could interview me for his TV channel, which we recorded the following afternoon. It raises interesting points about love’s response to conspiracy theories, populism and the reality of evil. The brief introduction is in Danish, of course, but the rest is English.

The importance of story

Stories… I have just completed two interviews with Steve Lowton and Michele Perry on the nature, power, relevance of stories. Would have loved to have gone for a few hours – fascinating responses from them both… Hopefully in this and the next video there is enough to stimulate your own thoughts.

A couple of posts

A couple of articles – one a podcast that might be of interest. Thomas Jay Oord is one of the key writers on Open Theology. Here is an article on God and foreknowlege:

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/gods-knowing-isnt-causal

If you decide to read the article scroll down to the comments also – one or two interesting bits in there, related to God and ‘timelessness’ (a concept the Greeks might embrace but not one Hewbrews could swallow).

Andrew Perriman always writes material that will necessitate a measure of re-reading of Scripture. Here is a video cast he has just released on:

https://www.postost.net/2021/09/how-does-new-testament-predict-future

How does the New Testament predict the future… So essential to grasp that we do not have a book that is helping us see we are in the ‘last days’ because of this, that and the other!! We are, have been in the last days, with some hope that there will be a ‘last day’ yet to come.

And why not throw in Peter Enns. He helpfully does a number of podcasts where he ‘ruins something’! This one on ‘Peter ruins Isaiah’ makes for a good listen:

https://peteenns.com/episode-178-pete-enns-pete-ruins-isaiah/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=episode-178-pete-enns-pete-ruins-isaiah#

Video interview with Matheus Lapa (#1)

Over the past short while I have been touching base with Matheus – from Brazil but living in Canada. We first met when he was (and continues) to translate for when he was translating for me on Zoom earlier this year. I suggested I made a few videos with him… for a number of reasons. He is younger than me by a few years (BTW my calculator seems to be back functioning and shows a difference of 42 years between us!!!… Age 23, things 23 years ago etc. have become very significant for Gayle and I, so that caught my interest); he is living cross-culturally and has / continues to think through the implications of his faith.

I made 3 interviews on Monday – this being the first, just pressing in to issues of what difference(s) are there in living cross-culturally.

Perspectives