Orality Journal 2, 1 (2013)

The latest edition of Orality Journal, published online by the International Orality Network, is available as a pdf here; it includes a number of interesting-looking articles on different aspects of Bible storying.

Gilles Gravelle

Literacy, Orality, and the Web

What oral communication can accomplish in Bible translation projects that print communication alone cannot.

Pam Arlund

Church Planting Movements among Oral Learners

Case studies of using orality strategies in church planting movements.

W. Jay Moon

Using Rituals to Disciple Oral Learners: Part 1

What can we learn from the powerful effects of rituals from cultures and how can rituals be used for meaningful discipleship.

Clyde Taber

Contextualizing the Gospel in a Visual World
In a media saturated world, how do we contextualize Kingdom stories for the new generation?

Marlene LeFever

Inside-out Stories

When a ministry retools, what are the outcomes?

A. Steve Evans

Mind the Gap: If This Is Your Land, then Where Are Your Stories?

What and where are our stories that help us claim the land?

J.O. Terry

Ten Mistakes of a New Bible Storyteller

Wisdom from a storytelling practitioner.

Tara Rye

Story Proof: The Science behind the Startling Power of Story

Book review.

Prayer on a Vast Canvas

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world... I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.

John 17:24-26

The scope of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is huge, overwhelming even. It moves from the oneness between Father and Son ‘before the world began’ (17:5), through the mission of the Son sent from the Father, to the keeping and sanctification of the apostles as those in turn sent into the world (17:18), to those who believe through their testimony – us included – who come to participate in the eternal love of the triune God. Jesus’ prayer embraces nothing less than the whole history of redemption.

The prayer thus reflects God’s mission, and the goal of that mission – to gather a people to share in the fellowship of love and oneness that existed between Father and Son ‘before the creation of the world’ (17:24), that we might be loved by the Father with the love he has for the Son. Just bask in that for a moment.

In a sense, John 17 is the real ‘Lord’s prayer’, with the one recorded in Matthew 6:9-13 best thought of as the disciples’ prayer. It is Jesus’ prayer, not ours. And, as we eavesdrop on it, we hear not just his voice but his heart: his alignment with the will of the Father, his desire to complete the work given him to do, his concerns for his people. Above all, perhaps, the prayer demonstrates the intimacy between Father and Son. But it also beckons us into that intimacy, and invites us to reflect on how we will pray as a result.

John 17 helps us, not because it gives us a technique for prayer, but because it orients our praying. It shows us that prayer is addressed to God as Father and is rooted in relationship with one who knows us and loves us. It reminds us of the centrality of God’s glory. Our prayers can sometimes be focused on ourselves with concentric circles of legitimate interests and concerns, needs and responsibilities. But Jesus puts the Father’s glory at the centre, and the circles that radiate out are to do with his will and his purpose.

As Jesus promised, answers to such prayers prayed in his name are always given (John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:24). For those who truly know him – and are one in intimate union with him and the Father – pray out of a knowledge of his will and a desire to serve his interests.

Centre for Public Christianity (May 2013)

Among other items, the latest newsletter from the Centre for Public Christianity contains a link to a piece by Simon Smart on ‘the way the drugs in sport scandal reveals both the pervasiveness of utilitarian thinking in our society, as well as its limits’, a link to an audio interview with Lynn Cohick on ‘what life was like for women in the ancient world – and how their lives were changed in their encounter with Jesus’, and a link to a video interview with Erin Wilson on ‘the religious dimensions of contemporary political life’.

Mission Frontiers 35, 3 (May-June 2013)

The May-June 2013 issue of Mission Frontiers, published by the U.S. Center for World Mission, contains a number of articles around the theme of ‘Equipping the People of God for the Mission of God’.

Here’s the opening sentence of the editorial by Rick Wood:

‘Making disciples of Jesus from every tribe, tongue, people and nation is the most important job in the world.’

Later, he writes:

‘Discipling someone must be a highly intentional, personal relationship between people where the disciple is trained in the process of making disciples by actually doing it, not just hearing about it in a sermon. It seems so basic but people learn by doing not by simply listening. I would never want to be operated on by a surgeon who simply listened to hundreds of lectures on how to do surgery. Neither should we send out disciple-makers with similar preparation.’

Individual articles can be accessed from here; the whole issue can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Stephen Backhouse and George Pattison on Søren Kierkegaard

This Sunday (5 May 2013) will see the 200th anniversary of the birth of Søren Kierkegaard. I expected to see slightly more made of this than I have done so far.

I asked Stephen Backhouse, expert on all matters Kierkegaardian, to write a short piece on him for LICC’s weekly ‘Connecting with Culture’, which he kindly did, and which is available here. Stephen notes that in a world in which becoming a Christian was as easy as being born and being ‘civilised’, Kierkegaard waged an ‘attack upon Christendom’ by making Christianity harder and more offensive.

George Pattison has also published a piece in The Tablet – ‘Passionate Thinker – Celebrating Kierkegaard’ – which is available here. Reflecting on how Kierkegaard’s contribution has been understood by some, Pattison also draws attention to ‘the way in which Protestant Christianity was itself absorbed into secular society in such a way as to leave no critical distance between Church and society’.

‘[W]hatever else is to be said for or against him, Kierkegaard matters today: he is one of the few post-Enlightenment thinkers whose work is both defined by a Christian agenda and nevertheless remains a major point of reference for the secular world. He can be seen as the progenitor of existential angst and of postmodern irony just as much as he can be read for his extraordinary insights into pastoral care. And, typically, an academic seminar on Kierkegaard today is as likely to include secular moral philosophers as practitioners of the devout life.’

Theology and Ministry: An Online Journal

From St. John’s College Durham comes Theology and Ministry, ‘a peer-reviewed annual publication featuring innovative work at the interdisciplinary interface of theological study and ministerial practice and reflection’, which ‘encourages the rapid and inexpensive on-line publication of distinguished work, making articles available to a world-wide readership at minimal cost’.

Bravo!

The first issue is available now, with articles and reviews downloadable from here.

All the pieces look interesting, but the first one particularly caught my eye, by Richard Briggs and Pete Phillips – ‘The Bible as Augmented Reality’:

‘This paper explores the notion of the Bible as “augmented reality”, a phrase used to refer to the addition of a layer of digital data superimposed upon our normal field of vision. We look at some points of contact between this notion and that of the Bible as the Church’s book and a light for its life. We then turn to various reference points for thinking through this image more widely, in literature, theology, and philosophy. A final section considers initial areas for further exploration in developing the image, as one among many useful ways of thinking about the Bible in today’s world.’

Christian Reflection on Women in the Bible

The latest issue of Christian Reflection, published by the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, is now available, this one devoted to ‘Women in the Bible’. The whole issue is available as a pdf here, and an accompanying Study Guide is available here. The main articles, with their abstracts, are as follows:

Robert B. Kruschwitz

Introduction

Studying the stories of women in the Bible can point us to the heart of the scriptural narrative. Without ignoring some of the difficult androcentric passages in the Bible, our contributors show us the liberating implications, for both men and women, of studying the women in the Bible.

Junia Pokrifka

Redeeming Women in the Grand Narrative of Scripture

In light of the biblical grand narrative of redemption and restorative justice, patriarchy and androcentrism can no longer be seen as normative, but as regrettable conditions that God and God’s human agents are working to overcome.

Mary Ann Beavis

Who is Mary Magdalene?

The traditional image of the Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, not to mention contemporary speculations about her being a priestess or goddess figure or bride of Christ, are quite mistaken. They fail to do justice to the biblical and historical woman behind the legend.

Mona Tokarek LaFosse

Women’s Roles in the Letters to Timothy and Titus

The letters to Timothy and Titus reveal a growing consciousness about reputation in early Christian communities. Behavior that outsiders might find distasteful – especially the behavior of women – could be perceived as immoral, compromising the honor of the group. How do these observations (and prescriptions) bear on the present?

Joy A. Schroeder

Deborah’s Daughters

As prophetess and judge, Deborah became a potent symbol of female authority and speech, an obvious exemplar for women aspiring to claim a public voice in the nineteenth century. These women – preachers, devotional writers, suffragists, and abolitionists – were Deborah’s daughters.

Other Voices

Heidi J. Hornik

Biblical Women in Christian Art

Jeanie Miley

Worship Service

Jocelyn Mathewes

Women with Icons

In the Orthodox tradition, icons – like the saints and stories they portray – point to the power of the larger story of Scripture, and show how great a God is our God. The photographs in the Women with Icons project reveal how the icons of patron saints, and the women who hold them close, point to Christ.

Katherine Callahan-Howell

Ripples of Freedom

God desires that the spiritual freedom that we receive in Christ Jesus should cascade into others’ lives. Sometimes this happens in unpredictable ways. In Acts 16:16-34, an unnamed slave woman sets in motion a course of wonderful, freeing events that we remember and celebrate today.

F. Scott Spencer

Preaching about Women in (and on) the Bible

Since women experience and interpret the world differently from men, it would be nice if the viewpoints of women scholars were seriously considered in preaching today – not least in dialogue with women’s stories in the Bible.

Sheila Klopfer

Feminist Scholarship on Women in the Bible

While acknowledging the difficult androcentrism of the Bible, the three books reviewed here also affirm its liberative and authoritative nature. They present a constructive way forward for modern interpreters who are committed to feminism and who maintain a high view of scriptural authority.