Simon Says ...

Review of Brian D. McLaren, The Story we Find Ourselves in: Further Adventures of a New Kind ofChristian (Jossey-Bass, 2003). Over a cup of tea with a retired colleague, the question was raised ‘Where is liberal theology being done today?’  The former Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, was often asked a similar question – ‘where will the next generation of liberal Christians come from?’  His reply was ‘Where they’ve always come from – the evangelicals!’  Over tea, I found myself reflecting that that was still the case, but that these days they didn’t have to stop being evangelicals when they embraced liberalism.  The evangelical tent, at least in the UK, has grown pretty large.  Much of the good liberal theology is being written by evangelicals and published by evangelical publishing houses. Brian McLaren is a case in point. An American pastor working with ‘emergent Christianity’, McLaren is an evangelical but his theology is decidedly liberal.  I rea

I want you to imagine for a moment that the Dean of Derby preached this morning, a sermon of erudite and orthodox Anglican theology.  Then this evening, along comes the reforming Canon Chancellor and purports to correct, nay to refute the Dean’s teaching, accusing him of popish heresy and of ignoring the Scriptures.  And that this is a pattern that overall continues for several years.  This is, of course, not what is happening here tonight.  I do not stand here to refute the Dean’s heresies.  Rather I stand here to speak of a man for whom this experience of sermon and counter-sermon was a regular occurrence.  The man is Richard Hooker, and he has come to be seen as the greatest apologist for Anglicanism, and even by some as the inventor of Anglicanism! To understand how this came about, we must look a little at what had happened to the Church of England in his lifetime.  Richard Hooker was born in Heavitree near Exeter in about 1554.  There is a little

A Sermon for Trinity 20 2 Kings 5.1-3,7-15c ; Luke 17.11-19 Our Old Testament reading this morning has something of a Hollywood blockbuster about it.  You can imagine the trailer: Naaman, commander of the most powerful army in the world, yet afflicted with an incurable disease. How will he rid himself of this dreadful illness?  A tale of passion, of strength and of wonder.  Naaman, coming to a cinema near you, certificate 15. So let me ask you to imagine the story we heard this morning as a Hollywood film.  It begins with an introduction to Naaman, a great man, a mighty warrior, in high favour with the king, commander of the army.  A force to be reckoned with.  And then the great tragedy of his life – his leprosy.  Cut then to a quiet timid servant girl, the spoils of one of Naaman’s great triumphs.  ‘There is a prophet in Israel who could heal you,’ she tells him.  Cut again (the bit this morning’s reading cuts out), Naaman rushes in to see the King