Ben Myers: On the virtue of heckling preachers

Here's what Ben posted on his blog, Faith and Theology (http://faith-theology.blogspot.com)

"This morning my family decided to visit a quaint little Protestant church down the road. We’ve never been there before—and I don’t think we’ll be back any time soon. The preacher spoke on the beatitude, “blessed are the meek.” And to my great surprise, he spent half the sermon praising Ian Paisley as a model of the Christian virtue of meekness.

Anywhere else, the crowd might have heckled him. And I reckon it’s unfortunate that there’s no tradition of Christian heckling. We should have booed and jeered. We should have thrown fruit. It would have done everyone a world of good: the preacher would have been held accountable for his words, and the congregation would have taken a stand for humanity.

But instead we all sat in silence, our hands folded meekly in our laps."

A Confession of the Cross

Alan Torrance handed me a cool book by Tom Smail called "Once And For All." It is a book about the atonement. I'll be posting a few quotes here and there.

"The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's heart." - T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

The new macs are here...

...6 months ahead of schedule. It's amazing. Replacing the PowerBook is the Mac Book! Check it out!

Karl Barth Meeting at Glen's this Monday, 7:30pm

Hello everyone.
We shall meet at Glen Franklin's house in Shutesbury (94 Leverett Road) at 7:30pm. Please call me at 413-374-4834 if you want to carpool up with me. Glen's number is 413-259-1711 if you get lost.
See you tomorrow. I'll bring the readings.