Simon Says ...

Wednesday 14th Se ptember 2016, 6.00pm for 6.30pm   Derby Cathedral Café    You are invited to the launch of Imitation and Scapegoats a new book by Simon J Taylor, Canon Chancellor of Derby Cathedral, Area Dean of Derby and Director of Curate Training.   The book uses the work of René Girard on violence and religion to ask how minsters and pastors can deal with rivalry, conflict and scapegoats in their own lives and ministry. The ideas are explained through stories from the Bible, case studies and questions for reflection and discussion.   Please come and mark the launch of the book, with refreshments and a brief introduction to the themes of the book. Copies will be available for purchase.      

So I did it:  All six books on the Michael Ramsey Prize shortlist have been read and reviewed.  The reading was fairly constant, the reviewing was a bit rushed towards the end! The reviews are here: Faith and Struggle on Smokey Mountain Healing Forgiveness Children in the Bible Unapologetic Dementia God's Presence I've thoroughly enjoyed it.  They are a set of excellent books, and not necessarily ones I would have read otherwise.  It leaves me in very good heart regarding the health of theology written in English. But on the Sunday of Greenbelt , one and only one of the books will be declared the winner.  So I thought I'd give it a go and pick the single title that I think should win. But first, something I have noticed from previous years shortlists.  For the past two shortlists, I have found bookmarks featuring all the shortlisted titles.  On both occasions, the book in the bottom left-hand place has won. This is 2011: ...

Review of Frances Young, God’s Presence: A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2012). The final book on the Michael Ramsey Prize shortlist for 2016 is a work of systematic theology.   Frances Young is a very distinguished theologian.   Her writing on the New Testament and early Christian theology is well known and is part of a corpus of writing that dates back to the 1970s.   This book is an integration of all the different concerns of her theological life, as an academic, a theologian of both the New Testament and the early church, a Methodist, a preacher and the mother of a profoundly disabled child, Arthur.   All of these different aspects to Young’s work and writing inform and shape this book. That theme of integration is also the way in which Young approaches the topics of her theology in this book.   In each chapter she offers a prelude of snapshots, showing the way the subjec...

Review of John Swinton, Dementia: Living in the Memories of God (SCM, 2012). I confess that I approached this book with trepidation.   What I feared was a well-meaning but dull account of the symptoms and basic pastoral needs of those with dementia – worthy, but not very interesting.   What I found was quite different.   This book is a mixture of deep theological accounts of what it means to be human, and important reflections on love and living.   All of this is explored and brought to the surface in Swinton’s reflections on dementia.   All has repercussions far beyond caring for those with that illness.   This is another truly excellent book on the Michael Ramsey Prize shortlist. Swinton starts with a question of identity.   He wants to be loved and cared for, just for who he is.   So the question becomes who is he?   This is, of course, compounded by issues around dementia, where people lose memories, a...

--> Review of Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense (Faber and Faber, 2012). This is the only book on the Michael Ramsey Prize shortlist that I had already read.   In the spirit of the enterprise, I re-read it so that I could review it alongside its fellow nominees.   I enjoyed it as much on the second read as I had on the first. This is, quite simply, an excellent book.   It is very well written, by turns profound, insightful, irreverent and funny.   Spufford’s conceit is to write a book to explain why he is weird enough to go to church.   In order to do that, he offers an account of faith that draws on and speaks to contemporary culture.   There are lots of references to popular culture in here.   Don’t skip the footnotes, they are where some of his best, funniest and most barbed comments are to be found.   Take this one as an example: ‘Everyone...

Review of Anne Richards, Children in the Bible: A Fresh Approach (SPCK, 2013). This is the third of the shortlist for the Michael RamseyPrize , and wants to provide a new approach to working with children in the church.   She starts by reproducing a child’s question about God – ‘Who invented you?’   It’s an excellent question, which begs very deep and complex philosophical and theological issues.   Richards also offer’s the reply given by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.   She commends Williams for his ‘simplicity, generosity and directness’ (p. ix).   That the Archbishop takes the child’s question so seriously, is important.   That he tried to respond in a way that the child could engage with is equally important. Richard’s contention is that ‘children are worth God’s special attention and … are deeply woven into God’s purposes’ (p. xi).   In particular, she finds that God finds children ‘worthy o...

My copies of this just arrived today.  Very exciting. It was a challenge I set myself to look at what Girard might have to offer those involved in pastoral ministry, rather than great geo-political issues.  I think there is much to be drawn out of Girard at the more personal level.  I tried it out at the Diocese of Derby's Clergy Conference last year, and there seemed to be enough to it to be worth writing up. The writing brought new ideas in using Biblical exegesis and case studies to flesh out Girard's theories.  There are also questions for thought or discussion.  I hope it will prove both interesting and useful. Thanks to all at Grove, who have done a great job with this.  The cover is very pleasing! I will add a link when it is up on the Grove site to buy (it is already available at ubiquitous non-tax paying online retailers). There will be a launch event on Holy Cross Day (14th September) in Derby Cathedral Cafe.  More details to fol...

Review of Stephen Cherry, Healing Agony: Re-imagining Forgiveness (Continuum, 2012). The second of the shortlist for the Michael Ramsey Prize is Stephen Cherry’s Healing Agony .   This is a profound and hard won meditation on forgiveness.   The origins of the book are in his accompanying of a mother whose child had been murdered.   From this starting point, Cherry approaches a wide range of material on forgiveness.   Some is theological, some political, some psychological.   There are many stories of those who have faced the challenge of forgiveness.   Quite deliberately, Cherry sets out to bridge the experiential and the theoretical.   There are no simple and easy solutions on offer, as Cherry says ‘the truth about forgiveness is darker, more difficult and infinitely more agonizing than the myths about forgiveness which people, not least Christian people, prefer to promulgate’ (p. 179). Through the hard stories of ...

Review of Benigno P. Beltran, Faith and Struggle on Smokey Mountain: Hope for a Planet in Peril (Orbis, 2012). If all the books on the Michael Ramsey Prize shortlist are as good as this, then I’m in for a treat!   It is good to have an author on the shortlist who is not from the UK or the US.   Beltran is from the Philippines.   A Roman Catholic priest, and a teacher of theology, Beltran has also been the chaplain to the most notorious rubbish dump in the world – Smokey Mountain in Manilla.   Here around 25 000 people lived as scavengers, and became a symbol of both poverty and the ecological degradation of the world. This is a deceptively short book.   It is both moving and challenging.   It also covers several different genres.   Most obviously, it is autobiographical.   Benigno Beltran was a Pilipino priest who was sent to study in Rome.   He returned to the Philippines to train seminarians.   On h...

--> Review of Ian Cowley, The Contemplative Minister: Learning to Lead from the Still Centre (Bible Reading Fellowship, 2015). This excellent little book is for those ‘who are looking for a better way of serving Christ than the relentless busyness and pressure which has become the norm for so many’ (p. 12).   Ian Cowley, who has experience of ministry in South Africa and is now the Vocations and Spirituality Co-ordinator for the Diocese of Salisbury, calls us to rediscover our still centre in prayer and rooting in God. Ministry that does not have stillness and prayer at its heart is in danger of losing its relationship to God, of warping a vocation, and not having the counter-cultural edge that should be the mark of all Christian ministry.   Cowley calls us back to silence and simplicity as being of the essence and the heart of ministry, not just extras and ideals.   He draws widely on the traditions of the church, from the contemplative to th...

The Michael Ramsey Prize is awarded every two years for a work of theology.   Set up by Archbishop Rowan Williams it has been won by some great books, and the shortlists contain some excellent theologians. This year, I saved up my pennies and have bought the whole shortlist.   I plan to read them all before the winner is announced at Greenbelt at the end of August. This year, the shortlist is: Benigno Beltran, Faith & Struggle on Smokey Mountain (Orbis) Stephen Cherry, Healing Agony: Re-imagining Forgiveness (Continuum) Anne Richards, Children in the Bible (SPCK) Francis Spufford, Unapologetic (Faber & Faber) John Swinton, Dementia: Living in the memories of God (SCM) Frances Young, God’s Presence: a contemporary recapitulation of early Christianity (Cambridge University Press) My initial reaction is to note that I have only read one of these prior to the shortlist being announc...

Review of Tom Wright, Simply Good News: Why the Gospel in News and What Makes it Good (SPCK, 2015). A new Tom Wright book is often a treat, but I confess to being a little under-inspired by the title of this one.   Perhaps it sounded like just another book on the Gospels and their historical basis.   I was wrong, this book has lots to say and is more than another history of Jesus. In fact this is a book about evangelism, about the practice of commending Christian faith to those who are outside the church.   What Wright does really well is to use his knowledge of history to explain what telling the gospel meant in the New Testament and what the implications of that are for today. He starts from the (hardly controversial) observation that the gospel is good news.   That is simply what the Greek work euangelion (gospel) means.   It was used to announce the births, successions and victories of Roman emperors.   Rather b...

--> Jeremiah 7.1-16 ; Romans 9.14-26 Earlier this week the Houses of Parliament hosted an event in which the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar met to discuss the contributions of their religions to peace in the world.  One MP took to Twitter to describe a conversation at the gate to the Palace of Westminster.  A man in a dog collar approached a policeman to gain entry.  ‘You here for the thing with the Archbishop of Canterbury’, said the policeman.  ‘I am the Archbishop of Canterbury’, replied the cleric. In our first reading, Jeremiah is railing against those who look to particular practices and accomplishments as proof that they are safe from the judgement of God.  “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord.’” he warns his people. There is no complex theology in this warning, no difficult to read message.  It is very simple.  P...