Resources
On these pages you’ll find links to some resources for thinking about theology and ministry in form of papers prepared over the last few years for a variety of groups...
Some practical resources will be added soon.
Thinking about Theology
| Name | Description | Download |
| 'If Religion is so dangerous, what shall we do about religionists? The Dawkins Debate' 29th Feb 2008 |
I like a good intellectual scrap and looked forward to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. But I must admit that it disappointed me. I found it not, as I had expected, an intelligent and sophisticated invitation to atheism, but rather a bundle of prejudices and feeble arguments which often depend on anecdotal punch-lines for their conclusions. Yet it has been a best-seller and had wide media exposure. The book evidently had the same effect on John Cornwell, who gave a fascinating response to Dawkins' views to a packed chaplaincy at Warwick University last Monday evening. |  24.99KB |
| A Biblical View of History and Historians 11th Jun 2007 |
'Past Times' is a chain of shops which in the past few years have expanded in High Streets and Shopping Centres across England. The shops offer an authentic postmodern experience of history. The goods are drawn from every period of the past; there is no sense of the integrity of any one period or style, or of any one story to be told. You can pick and choose and rearrange the pieces in any order or way that you like. It is the commercial equivalent of the way in which, as Beverley Southgate says, some 'historians roam freely over the past, mingling "fact" with "fiction".' 'Past Times' encapsulates the postmodern approach to the past. | 84.66KB |
| Be Transformed by the Renewing of your Mind 11th Jun 2007 |
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will. Rom 12:1-2 (NIV) | 113.53KB |
| Moving into the Unknown: the Bible, History and Postmodernity 11th Jun 2007 |
The four verses which comprise the preface to Luke's gospel are the only discussion of historiographical methodology and purpose in the New Testament. In this paper I want to carry out a clearly focussed investigation into that preface, in the course of which I hope that we shall see themes emerge which impinge directly on the debate about history-writing in the postmodern situation. In that debate, doubt is often cast over whether we can know anything about the past. 'Moving into the unknown' is an appropriate phrase for doubts cast over the accessibility of the past, both in the first and twenty-first centuries AD. This is the question which Luke addresses in the preface to his gospel. | 127.7KB |
| Not Hurrying On - RSThomas – the last country parson 11th Jun 2007 |
The poem 'The Bright Field' will serve as a focus for what I want to say, under three main headings. The first is the sense of journey. In the poem, Thomas is travelling. On the way he sees and notices the bright field, but passes by. So first we shall examine the story of RSThomas's life and work. | 125.88KB |
| Pannenberg on Ministry 11th Jun 2007 |
In doing theology, each theologian...must do it within his or her own context, while seeking not to be caught in the particularity of that context but to express what can claim universal truth. | 141.83KB |
| Spirituality, History and Theology 11th Jun 2007 |
Historians today are increasingly aware of the dangers of `patronising the past`. The past should be studied on its own terms, they believe, within its own frames of reference. Previous generations may have thought about matters in ways different to our own, but that does not mean that they were wrong. Genuine history should seek to enter, as far as is possible, the world-view of the society being studied, including its understanding of spirituality. | 102.88KB |
| The Church in the City 11th Jun 2007 |
'Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams' (Acts 2:17) John Dawson once said that 'an anointed imagination is the eye of faith.' (Taking our Cities for God (Word 1989) p.55). Imagining and dreaming matter a great deal with God, especially for leaders, I believe; they are spiritual disciplines which we have neglected. Allowing the Holy Spirit to work in those parts of our minds which dare to dream and imagine a future radically different to the past is crucial. In so many churches creativity has been stifled and imagination tamed. So what would you dare to dream for your city? Think of the great visions of John in Revelation, of the new Jerusalem. Dream, for a moment, with the person next to you, of what God wants this city to be. |
121.23KB |
| The Prospects for Providence 11th Jun 2007 |
What is the role of historical writing from a Christian perspective as we enter a new Christian millennium? | 58.44KB |