Simon Says ...

Today is one of those days when it is exceedingly depressing to be an Anglican. Jeffrey John's nomination as Bishop of Reading has cause a good deal of anger and vitriol. Some of this is sane, much isn't. So we have the very unedifying sight of the Bishop of Carlisle telling the nation on Newsnight that 'obviously the penis belongs to the vagina: that is something fundamental to the way God made us'. This is neither true nor helpful, it's a crass oversimplification at best. The church is very definately confused over sexuality. Bishops seem particularly unable to deal with the subject. All we get is the incessant round of 'the Bible says' as if it didn't say lots of things that we don't worry about in the same way. It makes me want to scream. What does God really think about all of this? There's a great cartoon in the Guardian today which has a Breugel-esque painting of widespread death and destruction. One of the characters being mass

Globalising God website is here

"the kings [of Italy] are the merchants. And their weapon is money ... even priests, bishops, even religious orders have to take money into account. That is why, naturally, rebellion against power takes the form of a call to poverty." Umberton Eco, The Name of the Rose pp. 127-8. A hard quotation, but one worth wrestling with! Eco's first book is still his best. It shows (if only in its backdrop) the church unable to come to terms with the radical revival of St Francis (although, importantly, Francis remained within the church). Money is power and the church is bought into power (note the metaphor here!) in many different ways. Philip Goodchild's book Money and Religion is very important on this (if you can get past the post-modern speak). He's speaking at a conference I'm organising next month called 'Globalising God'. See the website here .

Time for introductions. My name is Simon Taylor, I live in Bristol where I am curate at two Anglican parish churches. I have previous training as a theologian, including writing and teaching at Sheffield University. I am married to Jacky. Why a blog? Two reasons. First I am impressed with the quality of thinking in some blogs that are out there and wanted to contribute from a different perspective (especially ) . I think that blogs are a particularly good way of doing that thinking because they happen on the way, as it were. All theology is on the way, it's just that some doesn't realise it! Second, it gives me a chance to learn about computer communication in a way that I haven't previously operated. Bear with me, I'm crap with computers. So there we are, time to see what develops ...

Should work this time

Link error corrected

Adding links to the Churches where I work. You may be able to find sermons of mine here (or you may not).

"One of the urgent needs of the church these days is to understand the ecclesial significance of controversy. To put it more plainly, we need to remember that conflict in the church is not necessarily a matter of revolt against and defence of a settled solution, but a God-given means of discovering what it is we actually believe." Rowan Williams in Scottish Journal of Theology 56/1 (2003), p. 82.

Well that was easy even for a technophobe like me. Thanks to all. Introduction to post when I'm not supposed to be working!