What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Peter Tatchell coming to St Mary’s

    I’m delighted to announce that Peter Tatchell is coming to St Mary’s next month to give a human rights lecture and also to be a forum speaker in conversation with me.
    tatchell

    Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will be visiting St Mary’s in July. He will give a lecture on Human Rights and the Commonwealth the week before the Commonwealth Games begin in Glasgow. The lecture will be on Saturday 19 July 2014 at 6.30 pm – tickets £5 on the door. There will also be a forum conversation between Peter Tatchell and the Provost, the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth on Sunday 20 July 2014 after the 10.30 am Sung Eucharist.

    Photo credit – Matt Buck (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

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One response to “Eid, Pride and Abraham’s Sacrifice”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.

    One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
    It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
    But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).

    In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.

    Oofft.

    Reply

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