My intention has been to reflect on Creation theologically, in an holistic and integrative manner. So there is more to my writing at common or garden theologian than simply a theology of Creation, though that is undoubtedly its principal focus. I have attempted to be creative in my theologising about Creation, and this is beingContinue reading “Common Or Garden Theology: Creation. Three year overview 2020-2022.”
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Hard Facts for Hard Times: Greening with Unions.
Guest speech invited by the NEU for their Strike Rally at Jubilee Square Maidstone on 27th May 2023, on behalf of Maidstone Green Party. Good morning, and thank you for inviting me today. I’m Stephen Thompson, from Maidstone Green Party, and candidate for Detling and Thurnham Ward to Maidstone Borough Council in next week’s localContinue reading “Hard Facts for Hard Times: Greening with Unions.”
Buildings in the Book: From Babel to the Body of Christ.
Our favourite internet encyclopaedia says that this fine building is the parish church you might find in the Kent village of Detling. However, this isn’t a church. This is a church building. I know what you are thinking. Some pedantry (irritating wordplay practised by people pointing out the precise and proper meanings of words whichContinue reading “Buildings in the Book: From Babel to the Body of Christ.”
Divine identity in words, music and pictures: Forty years of singing to ‘The Lamb’
On the sixth day of Christmas 2022 we go on a journey with William Blake’s poem,’The Lamb’, accompanied by John Tavener’s 1982 musical setting for Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College chapel. Then we travel to St Bavo’s Cathedral to see the Ghent altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers, to ask is it possible for human words, human painting and human words to properly express the identity of Christ the Incarnate Lamb of God, through whom our relationship with God is ultimately mended? We discover that God enables sufficient meaning to be communicated through these means of revealing and creating Encounter.
Ambassadors and Agents: Picturing the Imago Dei within the frame of history.
Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533) is a Christian worldview painting, making it one of the most significant pieces of art of all time. I start to synthesise John North’s 2002 observations about the technical features of this painting with Christian theology.
On the vital necessity for a Christian worldview.
I am convicted that God not only made the cosmos with this singular jewel of Earth within it, and that He cared for it, and said that it is Good. God also wished and willed that we should care for it, and that we continue to do so. This care should be expressed in prayer, and in personal and local action. It should also be embraced as part of the gospel mandate- the charge to declare God’s Good News to all the world, to all humanity, in all times and places.
The Wedding at Stalisfield.
On Saturday last, the Father of the Bride (me!) did not give away his daughter. Instead, we agreed that all four parents would collectively release both children into their new marriage with blessing and prayer. Here’s what I had to say afterwards.
Four criteria for a theological reading of Genesis 1-3
McGrath suggests a four fold schema to appreciate the depth of meaning in the Eucharist: retrospect, anticipation, affirming faith and affirming community. I apply these criteria to the Genesis 1-2ff passages, finding McGrath’s headings to be extremely helpful in developing theological thinking about what the Genesis accounts meant and mean.
In the caravan with Caravaggio.
Drawing on a 2022 interview with Alister McGrath for Faraday churches, I explore what questions should be asked in the science and religion field in the future. Should we expect them to be inspired by the onward march of scientific discovery, or are we missing previously excluded and forbidden data from Christian testimony? If this cosmos is God’s cosmos then the sciences as disciplines can only offer a blinkered and deficient view. A tripartite Christian worldview will be fit for the task and offer more valid insights. I suggest that Caravaggio’s 1601 painting ‘Supper at Emmaus’ offers object lessons in constructing a more realistic view of God’s world.
A prison of possibilities.
A prison of hope? Could there be such a place? Artist Saif Mhaisen seems to think so, and I agree. Indeed, against the views of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, while we are imprisoned on this good Earth by our biology, this ‘prison’ is more a place of possibilities.
common or garden theologian 