10 times the food!

If you give to World Vision's campaign to feed the people of Southern Sudan, the World Food Programme will match it tenfold!

Serious hunger is affecting the people of Southern Sudan as a result of a civil war and natural disasters. Amina Ahmed is 15 years old and has 7 brothers and sisters to look after. They ended up in a refugee camp having been forced to flee their village by the conflict. Her father is missing and her mother is ill. So, it is up to her to feed her family.

I couldn't find anything about this on the net, but I am making this our school's fund raising this term. So, if you want to give as part of that, you could let me have a cheque and I will include it. Otherwise call 0800 088088.

Alternative worshippers look down on church!

Us bloggers love to sit behind a computer screen in our 7th floor vacant rooms and look down on church goers, alternative worshippers, other bloggers, and generally treat the whole world with disdain. How easy it is to be a blogger!

Stop the Settlements!

Why not support this campaign by Avaaz?

President Obama just made a remarkable speech in Egypt, committing personally to building peace in the Middle East. Unexpectedly, his first move is to directly challenge the new right-wing government of America's ally Israel - pressing them to stop their self-destructive policy of settlements.

Obama’s bold strategy is facing powerful opposition, so he’s going to need help around the world in the coming days and weeks to strengthen his resolve. Let’s start right now - by raising a massive global chorus behind Obama’s statement that the settlements in occupied territory must stop.

We’ll advertise the number of signatures in key newspapers in Israel, as well as in Washington DC (where some are trying to undermine Obama in the US Congress). Read Obama’s words now and add your signature to them at the link here.

"Israeli Settlement Growth Must Stop, Says Clinton":

Saying something positive about charismatic worship!

I've spent the last few months absorbed in a study of the Spring Harvest 2008 songbook - mostly in order to confirm all of my prejudices about charismatic worship - and yes, most of them were confirmed!

Its lack of engagement with contemporary issues is quite shocking. Only one song, for example, out of the 120 songs, mentions ecology! Only 6, in my opinion, really engage with issues such as poverty or oppression. Yet, in these 6 songs (by 3 authors), I detect a change. Particularly when you consider that the 1994 songbook had no songs about any of these issues and had a picture of Christians dressed as the Crusaders! Certainly, these 6 songs are framed in the typical charismatic ways (not always helpfully), but their presence in the songbook is worth noting. They are marked by an engagement with contemporary issues, a concern for justice and the oppressed, an integration of God with the day-to-day and a recognition that as Christians they participate in the bringing in of God's kingdom to the earth.

I think this is the best lyric. There are some aspects of the song I'm not a fan of, but here are some good charismatic lyrics:

"Bring heaven to earth, Lord,
... You invite us to partner with you,

to see your kingdom come.

...Bring home to the homeless,
...Bring worth to the purchased,
and touch to the shamed,
...bring truth where there's spin
...bring justice to profit,
bring patience to growth;
bring wisdom to progress,
...bring freedom from debt, Lord,
an end to excess."

Listen to the full song here.

VOTE (Don't let 'Christian Values' kick Jesus out of the country)

Its elections today - GET OUT AND VOTE - otherwise, certainly in Sheffield and many other towns in the UK there is a real risk that the BNP might get in.

What's that on Nick Griffin's lapel - why a cross of course - because the BNP supposedly stand for 'Christian Values', good old England and all....

So Nick, this Jesus of yours, was he a swarthy skinned Palestinian Jew and one time asylum seeker in Egypt? Would you even let him into this country....

Sentamu even took out an ad in his paper

Guantanamo Reversal?

“Now some have suggested that this represents a reversal on my part” – Barack Obama.

Those were the words we really didn’t want to hear from Barack’s lips about his pledge to close Guantanamo, but we always feared that hidden in the fine print and the practical details, would be a reversal of sorts.

First, he has decided to revive Bush’s practice of trying terrorism suspects in military commissions. Whatever happened to a fair trial?

Second, he blocked the release of photos showing abuse of detainees. Whatever happened to justice for victims?

Third, “prolonged detention” of terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to the US, but who cannot be tried, because the evidence is “unusable” having been got under torture. Isn’t this just moving Guantanamo to the mainland?

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty, right to a fair trial, right to a lawyer?

I have some sympathy with Barack’s position, having to make the real decisions, but am I too harsh in seeing this as a reversal of sorts?

It prompts me to remember to pray for a man with tough decisions to make and that he wont go the way of practically every person I know who has power.

3 Days to the 100k Trailtrekker (62.14miles) - eek

Just 3 days to go till I do the non stop 100k Trailtrekker combining the pain of multiple blisters with the glory of the Yorkshire Dales.

I am doing it for Oxfam, who are helping stockpile aid for emergency relief that can be on a plane to where ever its needed in just 13hrs - they specialise in toilets - not only is losing sanitation bad for disease but also for dignity. So if you want to get 'toilets on a plane' (a great film to be had there!) then sponsor me and my work colleagues here

Here to find out more about trailtrekker

The Sacrifice of Isaac

The story of the ‘almost’ sacrifice of Isaac has, over the centuries, remained both one of the most evocative and also highly contested tales in the Bible. How could God ask Abraham to kill his son? It appears to teach that we should do as God says, without questioning the ethics of the demand, and in the end, God will prove himself just. Is it really right that we do not question the ethics of God's apparent commands? - an argument that could be used to justify all manner of atrocities from the Crusades to 9/11. Here, though, I suggest an alternative, probably thought of by many others before me.
It strikes me that the story probably arose at a time when child sacrifice was common. It was inevitable that any conscientious person, who wanted to appease their deity, would assume that this is the thing to do. Abraham, brought up in such a world, was no different. He would have accepted the received wisdom that God wanted him to sacrifice his son - he even ‘heard’ God command it. However his instinct for justice and his love for his son meant that it did not sit easily with him, to say the least. As he heard the sound of a ram in the thicket he had something of an epiphany. “Maybe God wanted him to sacrifice a ram instead.” The tale, I suggest, became important for later Judaism in defining the distinctiveness of their religion. It explained why they sacrificed animals, while the religions around sacrificed children. Thus, when Jews told the story of the origin of their faith, they told it as a story about the rejection of the inhumanity of child sacrifice.

Rather than reading it as a story that encourages blind, unquestioning obedience, I suggest it should be read as a tale about the ways in which we can all hide behind God’s ‘command’ and thereby do evil in God’s name. It is also, though, a story about the rescue of a loving, caring father from the brink of a murderous act in the name of God. It is about the possibility of rescue for all of us from harmful belief systems. To quote one of my favourite poems,
“ the awareness of things ill done
and done to others’ harm
which once you took for exercise of virtue”

It is about the human capacity to mishear (sometimes genuinely) and find ourselves, in the process, culpable of dehumanising. It is about the human discovery that God always works to make us more human and that any conception of God that dehumanises is to mishear or misunderstand.

I’m hoping to read “Fear & Trembling” by Kierkegaard over the holiday, which I think picks up the image of the ‘sacrifice’ of Isaac. Hopefully I’ll learn more after reading it.

Church on Fire!

"set your holy church on fire"

Is it just me, or does this line from a Matt Redman song ask God to be an arsonist?

Surely, there must be some budding lyricists out there who are capable of meaningful metaphor!

Gori Gori Hallelujah

Click pic to see this great story and don't forget to go to his page

This Nun walks into a bar.... & other good stuff

DIY parables anyone?
Rollins on belief - believe now so true soon
Raffi checks out to check in - the growing taste for real life

Great day...light

H gave me a day to myself today so i read, had coffee with my mother, went for a great fell run (in horizontal rain but that didn't include an asthma attack :-) and went to loads of artists studios as part of the Open Up festival - Great day. Loved the art and thoughts included:

:-( Sad that a number of the representations of a generic idea of violence were taken from the Christian religious tradition

:-) I LOVED this guy's stuff above. The views are some of my favorite views and his use of light (in street scenes as well - check Eccy rd) really impacted me - an evocative joy. It reminded me of a line from my previous post about light. Light in these pictures and in everyday reality is truly transformative. Even though the physical reality remains the same, somehow everything is different (dynamic, animated, pregnant with potential/meaning...etc?).

Acts 8 v 12 Then Jesus spoke out again, “I am the light of the world. The one who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”