Food for Thought
CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 29 February 2024
Friends in Christ, I am pressed for time this week, and so I want to share a few articles and resources I have found interesting in recent weeks. Perhaps one or more of the links will catch your eye too...
Liturgy is Serious Business, by Samuel Bray and D.N. Keane
The kind of thoughts expressed in this article go a long way to explaining why we still conduct our early Sunday morning service from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and continue to offer Choral Evensong midweek in the old style. Here's their concluding quote:
It is essential to understand the prayers we say and the passages we read, just like we need to understand the words we sing. But the language of the Book of Common Prayer is usually simple and straightforward, like John Newton’s “’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, / And grace will lead me home.” The challenge of the prayer book’s language is usually not understanding it, but really meaning it.
How to Face Apparent Contradictions in the Gospels by Michael Kruger
Subtitled, "Does the Census Account in Luke 2 Contain Errors?", this is a long but fascinating exploration of an issue which is often blown out of proportion, but should also be faced honestly by Christians who value the truth. Here's one paragraph as a sample:
But the more we learn about ancient historians (Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius), and about Greco-Roman biographies (of which the Gospels are likely an example), the more we learn how ancient practices were different from our own. In the ancient world, for instance, it was common to tell stories out of order (for thematic reasons), paraphrase and reword quotations, conflate and abridge material, streamline the timeline of events, and so on.
And for those who prefer podcasts, I've been enjoying...
The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God with Justin Brierley
The episodes are often longer than an hour (I listen at 1.25x speed), but in way that's optimistic, but not naive, explores the turn away from the 'new atheists' back towards openness to God, and in particular the Christian understanding of God in the gospel of Christ. It explores modern cultural trends, but does not (in my opinion) get caught up cheerleading one side of culture wars or in merely cheer-leading for possible celebrity conversions. Key episodes looks at Richard Dawkins, Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Louise Perry, Aayan Hirsi Ali, and more...
Love endures—even more than it emotes by Carl Trueman
On Valentine’s Day, Trueman wrote that it's easy to think married love is demonstrated most visibly and dramatically on the splendours of a wedding day...
But this is not when love is most beautifully demonstrated or most powerfully revealed. Love, real love, is clearest and strongest in times of suffering. Couples who have endured agony either as a result of illness or of the malice of others learn something about the strength of their marriages and the nature of true love that is only revealed in times of pain...
All of this points to the supreme example of love, Jesus Christ. God’s love is the ultimate example of self-giving: the one who gave Himself for others not because they were intrinsically lovely but rather despite the fact that they were unlovely.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney