Why I like Brian Mclaren

I like Brian Mclaren because he says things like this:

“I have felt for a long time that Western Christian theology (in its Catholic and Protestant forms) had somewhere become preoccupied with getting individual souls out of hell after death, and had too often lost a sense of God’s continuing love for all creation in this life – in other words, we had substituted something else for the gospel of the kingdom of God, which was at the heart of Jesus’ message. It was as if the doctrine of the fall had eaten up the doctrine of creation. The issue of hell-avoidance became the centerpiece of salvation, and I felt this perspective was neither true to Scripture nor healthy.”

Brian McLaren on his new book The Last Word and the Word After That.

Of course this is likely to have you branded as a liar and a damned heretic by a lot of folk, but I think there’s a lot of merit to his arguments.

My tuppence worth on the election

Well last Thursday was the General Election and now it’s all out of the way I’ll chip in with a few thoughts on the subject…

Tony Blair and Co won though with a hugely reduced majority of just 67 seats. Historically speaking, a parliamentary majority of 67 is still pretty large although it does of course seem rather small when compared to the two huge majorities that Labour won in 1997 and 2001. I think it’s a shame that Blair didn’t use his majority to introduce some changes to the electoral system, which is incredibly unfair when you think about it. Consider this:

Labour vote: 35.2% = 356 seats
Tory vote: 32.3% = 197 seats
Lib Dem vote: 22% = 62 seats

But I’m not holding my breath for them to change the system to a more proportionate one anytime soon.

The Tories were happy of course, though secretly I think they’ll be a bit miffed. Their support levels have only risen by just under 1% since 1997, which shows that almost no one outside of their core demographic has switched back to voting for them. I think the anti-war factor (amongst others) turned a lot of people away from Labour and towards the Tories, although most of the anti-war vote went towards the Lib Dems.

Blair is now clearly an electoral liability since the Iraq war, though he has announced that he still intends to be Labour leader at the next election, which combined with the coming downturn in the economy (yes) will I expect lead to a Tory government in 4-5 years time, especially if Uncle Tony leads us into another war of dubious legality.

Things that should be on the agenda in this Parliament:

* Pensions – nobody is going to get any by the time people my age get around to retiring but no one seems to be taking it seriously and the government aren’t encouraging people to save.

* War on Terror – Blair won’t risk another war if he wants to keep his job, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Dubya decided to attack Iran, Syria or North Korea in the near future, especially if Iran gets the bomb. I’m not a huge fan of nuclear weapons, but why is Iran a threat to world peace when it isn’t even a nuclear power? I could name one or two nuclear powers who have started more unilateral wars than anyone else since WW2 and who clearly are a threat to world peace (world peace, not peace for the west).

* The 192 bus that runs from Stockport to Piccadilly is always late. It is supposed to run every 4 minutes but sometimes you have to wait up to 20 minutes for one to arrive.

* The economy is slowing down, consumer spending is dropping, unemployment is rising and businesses that are relying on marginal profits to stay afloat will go under. Debt is at an all time high, and inflation is rising so expect interest rates to go up and exports to drop.

* TV – why is there never anything good on? Hm?

* Europe – didn’t feature in the election campaign and with good reason. Generally speaking, the British public are staunchly anti-Europe, so the largely pro-European Labour and Lib Dem parties kept quiet on the issue. The Tories also kept quiet because even though they are largely anti-Europe, the last time Europe was a serious issue in the early 1990s their party was torn in half and with defections and whip withdrawals over the issue John Major almost lost his majority. We’re due a referendum on the EU constitution this Parliament, and given that the EU have still not allowed its contents to be available to the public for them to make their own minds up, I would advise a ‘No’ vote at this moment in time.

* To the person who googled ‘Tony Blair Nude’ and arrived at this blog, I say shame on you.

*

VE-Day

Sven-Reuters news

Trillions of people turned out all over the world to mark the end of World War Two in Europe yesterday. Many war veterans, some of whom are now over 200 years old, gathered to pay tribute to their fallen comrades.

Sadly Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were too dead to attend the celebrations, though this didn’t dampen the spirits of those taking part. Trafalgar Square was packed with revellers singing old wartime musical favourites such as ‘My gal’s got rickets’ and ‘Oops Mr Hitler, you’ve trodden on my bloomin’ flowerbed.’

A generic cockney old woman recalled the jubilation felt in 1945 when it was announced that the war was over. “We heard on the wireless that Germany had surrendered and we all celebrated by having an extra half-slice of spam and singing the national anthem. Of course at the time we didn’t know that the Daleks would soon come and annihilate most of London, but you just get on with life.”

Joseph Goebbels is 126.

Pondering.

If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you’ll probably be aware that my faith is important to me. There are of course a great many things in Christianity that I dislike, and some that I’m downright hostile to (mentioning no atonement theories in particular.)

I think one of the things that is most rewarding is when I’ve written something or said something that has really encouraged, challenged (in a good way), or strengthened them on their journey of discipleship. The flipside is that one of the worst things that ever happens is when something you’ve said bruises someone’s faith and causes them to doubt some parts of their faith in a way that is harmful.

I do believe of course, that part of growing spiritual maturity will almost certainly involve the slaughter of several sacred cows, but there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. My own journey of faith in Christ has been greatly helped by questioning, and at times by doubting. Questions have never pushed me away from God, they have always drawn me further into his mystery.

I am aware though that some of the things I’ve written on here have caused one or two brains to frazzle and maybe one or two hearts to sink. This hasn’t ever been my intention, and sometimes I forget that maybe not everyone is as comfortable that kind of thing as I am. I still don’t buy a literal six-day creation (controversial), a pre-tribulation rapture a la Left Behind (shouldn’t be controversial, but it is), or the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement (which has undeservedly achieved the status of unquestionable dogma in many parts of the Evangelical world. I criticise it and people look at me as though I’ve just kicked their Gran in the face and robbed her pension money), or a host of other things.

I think the greatest thing about studying the Bible and Theology is that you realise just how much you don’t know, and that there’s so much that everyone doesn’t know. So now when I come across people who think they know it all and that their particular denomination/movement has the answer to everything (you don’t) and doesn’t need to learn from anyone else (“Agh! The Emergent Church – they’re different! Quick, demonise them!”) I think I’ll just quietly chuckle to myself rather than get all worked up and bang my head against the wall.

Imposter!

Another World of Sven? Bah.

Previous imposter here. Thérèse thought he was hot.

Fascinating facts

It’s exactly 2.30am as I post this, which means that I have now been alive for a total of 204,529 hours. Alternatively, one may say that I have been alive for 8,522 days, or 12,271,680 minutes, or 736,300,800 seconds.

Yes, I am that uninspired to blog at the moment, and yes there is a calculator on my desk that just happened to be lying around.

As a generic white western male, this means I will have eaten approximately 14 tonnes of food up until now, which statistically is likely to have included over 100 insects accidentally eaten in my sleep.

I have been stung 5 times by wasps and bees, bitten by 1 dog, spawned 0 children, visited 13 countries, got 10 GCSEs and 4 A-levels, achieved 5/6ths of a degree in Theology and 1/3 of a degree in Politics and History, had 9 different jobs and punched 5 people in the face, all of whom were asking for it, and all of whom I punched in 1995 or 1996. I have been baptised once, lost my temper with a customer once, learned 3 non-native languages (with varying degree of success), been on TV 5 times and won a total of £235 plus expenses.

Weighing it all up, I don’t really think I’ve achieved as much as I could have done in that time, but then if you subtract the hours when I couldn’t walk, talk, or read and write I’m not doing too badly overall. My life to do list (in no particular order):

1. Get Ph.D in New Testament Theology
2. Pay off stupid student debt (currently standing at £16,000, or $30,281.58)
3. Write novel satirising various things, make enough money from aforesaid book to cover #1 and #2.
4. Learn more than 3 chords on the guitar
5. Move away from Manchester before I’m 30 and never live in a city again.
6. Write books that will help ordinary Christians to get a better intellectual grasp of our faith, partly with the aim of encouraging Charismatics not to have minds that are so ‘open to the Spirit’ that their brains fall out, causing them to talk nonsense, albeit very loud and passionate nonsense.
7. Spawn a dynasty
8. Live long enough to witness the the collapse of western civilisation. Nations as greedy and violent as ours are bound to come to ruin sooner or later. Learn the lessons of history people.
9. Wake up earlier than Jonny. This may be impossible.
10. Learn to fly.
11. Destroy Internet Explorer forever and ever.

That’s it for now. Night!

Yer daft ha’porth

In the near future, everyone without one of these will be denied human rights, including the right to breed:

Soon there shall be trouble at a mill, office, home, and Parliament near you. Southerners are advised to flee now or be forever enslaved. Rest of the World, prepare for defeat.

Slight Plagiarism

Today I went to vote in the General Election. They wouldn’t let me vote for anyone…specifically.

I’ll get me coat.

Attention Citizens

President Sven’s utopian society is now up and running online thanks to the people at Nation States. To view my perfect world, click here.

Here’s what the UN had to say:

UN Category: Psychotic Dictatorship
Civil Rights: Few	Economy: Reasonable	Political Freedoms: Unheard Of

Location: The North Pacific

The Empire of President Sven is a tiny, devout nation, renowned for its compulsory military service. Its hard-nosed, cynical population of 5 million are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as “my little playthings.”

The enormous, corrupt government concentrates mainly on Law & Order, although Religion & Spirituality and Commerce are secondary priorities. The average income tax rate is 34%, but much higher for the wealthy. Private enterprise is illegal, but for those in the know there is a slick and highly efficient black market in Retail.

Crime — especially youth-related — is relatively low, thanks to the all-pervasive police force. President Sven’s national animal is the muppet, which frolics freely in the nation’s many lush forests, and its currency is the sven.

By ‘eck

Yes.

Go on, you know you want to.