What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Tuesday Update

    Tuesday: Useful comment article by Colette Douglas Home in today’s Herald, on the Roman Catholic Church’s position on #equalmarriage: http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/core-message-of-christianity-is-one-of-love-and-forbearance.18704767

    Includes good key quotes from Sunday’s sermon and this:

    [Kelvin Holdsworth] welcomed gay Christians to the service and discovered, not surprisingly, that his congregation had increased.

    A senior Catholic source reportedly accused him of “incendiary and uncharitable language” when he issued his invitation last Friday. Mr Holdsworth said: “I think people get weary of hearing a negative message from church people. What they want to hear is positive – about changing the world for the better, about justice, about love.” Amen to that.

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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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