“The much greater interpretative element in John is actually quite coherent with my claim that this is the only Gospel to have been actually written by an eyewitness. Precisely because he had been close to Jesus he felt qualified to interpret Jesus.”

I feel childishly excited.

BTW I’m also feeling much better today – I’m even wearing a dog collar for the first time in a week….

Wonderful (HT Neil Gaiman)

Just a thought – as yet unformed, but I wanted to acknowledge and record it.

Pacifism – resolute non-violence – rests on the refusal to act in a way which is sinful (that a violent action is sinful is not disputed).

The church’s role is to cultivation and form disciples in such a way that this becomes second nature, that it governs the way that they think about these things.

Sometimes the consequences of acting in this sin-less manner (or less sinful manner) is that great harm is achieved within the world by those who have chosen violence. World War II is the classic example. Non-violent resistance did not/ would not dissuade the Nazis.

There is, therefore, a claim implicitly being made here, that the ‘eternal’ consequences justify the temporal costs.

This, it seems to me, is a form of world-denial. I am not sure how to reconcile this with an incarnational faith.

Chris Tilling is starting a series on Richard Bauckham’s new book here. Which I’ve ordered from Amazon, but it hasn’t arrived yet – but I am very excited by it.

Grin.

Great essay from Peter Berger on this theme here:

“There is a challenging agenda here, one of great interest both to religious believers and to others concerned with preserving a society in which diverse people can live together in civic peace.”

This is just a short one, despite the grandiose title.

One of the things about a) Peak Oil (therefore Peak energy) and b) Global Warming, is that the energy structure of the future will necessarily be more diffuse and multiform (and more efficient and lower in carbon). There probably will still be a ‘grid’ of sorts, but it won’t dominate electricity supply in the way it does now. The pattern will have much more resemblance to the internet, especially the ‘Napster’ model, with many nodes sharing product and lots of redundancy built in. The local will be the dominant factor. (And I remain convinced that the future is wired – what will Google do? etc)

I’m reminded to say this by this article, and the concept of systempunkt. In other words, as well as the pressures on the system coming from Peak Oil and Global Warming, we can add Global Guerrillas as another major force dictating the same outcome.

Fortunately, this outcome is deeply attractive and human.

Now – I tend to believe that most illness is psychosomatic (voice of a sergeant major in the background “Pull yourself together boy!”), which means that whenever I get ill my main project is to ask myself ‘why?’.

Actually, this isn’t as neurotic as it might seem(!). I think this time, which was the first ‘proper’ illness I’ve had since coming to Mersea, was simply God saying ‘take a break’, or, more precisely, ‘let go’. The key shift was pulling out of the Learning Church and the Remembrance service (which I should now be preparing to take, rather than writing this blog entry – but then, I do think that ‘should’ is the language of Satan). It was learning, again, the lesson that nobody is indispensable – and that it is OK to disengage. Which meant that when I finally stopped fighting it and trying to get myself back into the saddle for the weekend – and wrapped myself up in a duvet for 48 hours without trying to do anything else significant – the illness finally started to shift. Still there to some extent – especially a pain in my lungs/ sore throat – but the lethargy has gone. Mostly.

I think I might look back on this (especially as I’m due to go on retreat next week) as a time of transition – the beginning at Mersea is well and truly over. Only a few weeks ago I felt myself start to relax and think ‘yes, this is going OK’ – and I’m sure it is precisely that relaxation somewhere in my soul which allowed this illness to get a foothold. Let God, and all that.

Various things have started to clarify though – and there is a lot that I want to write about. Stay tuned!

Despite loving Colbert, and appreciating all that he does, I do see a dark side to all this.

(Well, I would, wouldn’t I?)

OK. Put together this, with this:

and this, with explanation of the story here:.

I say this even though I am convinced (having watched this, and linked it in to various other elements we should be aware of) that the specific ‘terrorist’ threat to the Western world is vastly overblown, and not much more than propaganda. However, what our wise leaders have conjured up is a malevolent genie – and this genie happens to have a weapon to hand that will destroy our way of life. It won’t destroy humanity, and it won’t destroy western civilisation, but it will cause havoc, and probably lead to the destruction of Islamic civilisation. Our endeavours should be focussed upon minimising the blowback.

The man is a genius.

Got directed by an e-mail to this blog, which is really good, and now on my blogroll. Then, from following a link on one of the stories, I came across this post, which was a) very funny, and b) made me think about whether I’m doing my marriage preparation classes right….