The groaning of creation

We screened the People’s Emergency Briefing film in the week before this message, so the climate crisis loomed menacingly. In the film, Jennifer Saunders of Absolutely Fabulous fame asks a good question: “What’s the matter with us?” What is the matter with us as a civilisation?

There is no eco-crisis in the New Testament, but we often read Romans 8:19-21 as an expression of Paul’s conviction that the whole of creation will eventually be set free from the consequences of the fall of humanity.

I think that misses the historical point.

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The Canaanite “genocide” and the renewal of creation
I’ve just got back from a fascinating and at times harrowing week in Rwanda and Burundi where I took part in a gathering of ‘emerging’ African leaders, organized by Amahoro Africa. The theme of the conference was ‘The Gospel of Reconciliation’, the 1994 genocide and its aftermath being the… ()
New creation, Spirit, blessing and kingdom: a clarification of terminology
I have been rather bothered recently by the way in which the emerging church - though not only the emerging church - makes use of the concept of the ‘kingdom of God’ to define its mission, the idea being that the task of the church is to extend or build the kingdom of God on earth. Very often there… ( | 1 comment)
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I have voiced some reservations in a couple of recent posts about the appropriateness of modelling the life and mission of the church on the form of discipleship found in the Gospels (see ‘Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, and the future of the church in Europe’ and ‘We have to go back, but not to… ()
We have to go back, but not to square one
I suggested in my review of Alan Hirsch’s book The Forgotten Ways that, in our search for a new paradigm to replace the now more or less defunct Christendom worldview, the historical moment which we should revisit for inspiration is not the beginning of the narrow path of… ()
I am the way and the truth and the life
Jesus’ exclusivist statement about the salvation of Israel needs to be read, at least in the first place, in the context of the story that is being told. We do violence to Jesus’ intent if we cut it from that narrative and make it a universal, context-free, self-interpreting dogma meaning something… ()
Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, and the future of the church in Europe
The ebullient Alan Hirsch was in Portugal recently with the Christian Associates leadership community, talking about what makes a missional church-planting movement, in his words, go ‘Kaboom!’ In his book The Forgotten Ways he faces squarely the fact that the church in the West is… ()
New creation and the kingdom of God
This is an attempt to clarify, in response to some perceptive comments on the post ‘NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation’ (the link is to a copy of the article in this site: the original with comments can be found here), how I understand the relation between ‘kingdom of God’ and… ( | 13 comments)