“The Gospel takes away our right forever to discriminate between the deserving and undeserving poor.” - Dorothy Day. I love this quote. God's care for the poor is because they are poor nothing else. It cuts across governments whose attitude to immigrants is less than generous, especially those who have signed up to the 1948 …
Continue reading The Gospel takes away our right to discriminate
The 4th book of Psalms I have no idea what God is going to punish Pastor Wilhite for (see the image below). Possibly for his theology. The 4th book of Psalms, those 17 religious songs between psalms 90 and 106, have a theme, God is above us. The layout is like this:Book 1: Psalms 1 …
The divine right of kings The idea of the divine right of kings, that God had appointed the monarch to have authority and could not be held accountable by parliaments, was popular in Europe from the medieval period. By the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries this had grown to mean that the king also had authority over …
Continue reading Where is God in this? — Part viii: The monarchy
The 4th book of Psalms The third psalm in a row that says that God is coming to judge the earth in righteousness. Unlike the manic street preacher I would pass on Briggate when I worked in Leeds, these psalms do not say God's judgement is something to be afraid of. God is coming to …
Continue reading Let the whole world go wild with joy – Psalm 98
The 4th book of Psalms In the novel Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, Om, the great god, visits the Discworld*, only to find he is in the form of a small tortoise, he has none of his godly powers. Om has no power because the power of gods depends on the number of believers, and …
Pentecost: The birthday of the Church Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com 1 Pentecost is known as the birthday of the Church Pentecost is known as the birthday of the Church. The Church did not start with Jesus' birth, resurrection or ascension but when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus' followers. 2 The Holy …
The 4th book of Psalms Psalm 96 is a song of triumph, not only for God's present victory in bringing the people out of exile but also to God's final victory when the whole Earth is redeemed. The silhouette of small hills across a bay. Above is a red and god sky of a sunset, …
Continue reading Looking forward to a redeemed world – Psalm 96
The level of the genocide in the book of Joshua is not as bad as you would think. Compare this with book of Ruth: A foreign woman gives up the practices of her country, takes on the culture and religion of another country, Israel, and becomes the great-grandmother of that countries greatest king, David. A …
Continue reading Where was God in this part 7: Joshua and genocide
A blog post for ascension day The East Window at Holy Trinity Huddersfield, the top section depicting Jesus ascending into a cloud watched by the eleven apostles. 6 When they were together for the last time they asked, “Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?”7-8 He told them, “You …
The 4th book of Psalms The first rule of public speaking or writing is "Do not insult your audience." To that end we do not say, "You are wrong," but we signal that we will not entertain the other person's opinion by saying, "let us agree to disagree," closing down any debate. This psalm is …
