Search Results
Lectio Divina - Series Foreword
Lectio Divina - Series Foreword
by SPCK - Enzo Bianchi
Series Foreword To read Enzo Bianchi’s work is, among other things, to be forcefully made aware that we have got used to a rather thin diet of resources to help us read the Bible. We have plenty of good scholarship and plenty of good popular summaries of that scholarship – but ve…
The Lion's World - Introduction The Lion's World
The Lion's World - Introduction The Lion's World
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Introduction The Lion’s World Not every reader has been charmed by C. S. Lewis’s Narnia stories, and the recent release of high-earning film versions of several of the books has renewed the controversy. Critics of Christian faith have been predictably vocal – though their comment…
The Lion's World - 1 - The Point of Narnia The Lion's World
The Lion's World - 1 - The Point of Narnia The Lion's World
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
The point of Narnia The Lion’s World A middle-aged bachelor teaching English Literature at Oxford proposes to publish a children’s fantasy: in most publishers’ offices, it is a proposal destined for the wastepaper basket. Yet no one could deny the extraordinary and continuing app…
The Lion's World - 2 - Narnia and its crtitics
The Lion's World - 2 - Narnia and its crtitics
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Narnia and its critics I mentioned earlier the way in which Philip Pullman had conceived his own trilogy as a sort of riposte to the Narnia books. The parallels are clear enough – an alternative universe including talking animals, even (though Pullman might dispute this) an activ…
Meeting God in Paul - 1c Paul the man
Meeting God in Paul - 1c Paul the man
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Paul the man But what of Paul himself? What kind of a person was he? So far we’ve been sketching out the whole environment, leaving in the middle of it all a human-sized shadow. What kind of man? What age? What do we know of his personal life?…
Meeting God in Paul - 1b Paul the Jew
Meeting God in Paul - 1b Paul the Jew
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Paul the Jew Paul is a Roman citizen – but he also, of course, inherited another very stratified and very strict tradition. He is a Jew: a Jew whose name was originally Saul, and who, he tells us, came initially from the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3.5). He belongs to that hug…
Meeting God in Paul - 3b The image of God in us
Meeting God in Paul - 3b The image of God in us
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
The image of God in us But there’s more to it, because of course what St Paul is evoking is not a Jesus who simply sits on the throne of heaven and receives our prayers, but a Jesus who – because his own life in time and eternity consists entirely in pouring out praise and love t…
Meeting God in Paul - 3 The new creation: Paul’s Christian universe
Meeting God in Paul - 3 The new creation: Paul’s Christian universe
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
The new creation: Paul’s Christian universe Let’s begin with that deceptively simple phrase ‘the image of God’ – because in trying to understand how, for Paul, the whole universe is reorganized around the figure of Jesus, this idea is central…
Meeting God in Paul - 2d The healing sacrifice
Meeting God in Paul - 2d The healing sacrifice
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
The healing sacrifice I spoke in the previous chapter of how in his letter to the Romans Paul is, as it were, turning his head from side to side, saying, ‘You think you’ve got the point? Think again. And [turning rapidly] don’t you imagine that because they haven’t got it, you’re…
Meeting God in Paul - 3c Living in the new creation
Meeting God in Paul - 3c Living in the new creation
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Living in the new creation In 2 Corinthians 5.17, Paul says that to be baptized in commitment to Jesus is to become or to be involved in a ‘new creation’. Everything is beginning again because the real universe (as distinct from the fantasy world of our fear, selfishness, greed, …
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1b Responsibility for creation
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1b Responsibility for creation
by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper
Responsibility for creation It is a rather different reading of the biblical tradition from that often (lazily) assumed to be the orthodoxy of Judaeo-Christian belief. We hear regularly that this tradition authorizes the exploitation of the earth through the language in Genesis a…
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1c An intelligent response to environmental crisis
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1c An intelligent response to environmental crisis
by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper
An intelligent response to environmental crisis The ecological crisis challenges us to be reasonable. Put like that, it sounds banal; but given the level of irrationality around the question, it is well worth saying, especially if we are clear about the roots of reasoning in thes…
Meeting God in Paul - Introduction
Meeting God in Paul - Introduction
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Introduction Trying to write a very short book about St Paul feels a bit risky: from the early centuries of the Christian Church until now, the great minds of Christianity have worked out their thoughts in lengthy and impassioned dialogue with Paul’s letters, and the quantity and…
Meeting God in Paul - 1 Outsiders and insiders: Paul’s social world
Meeting God in Paul - 1 Outsiders and insiders: Paul’s social world
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Outsiders and insiders:Paul’s social world When daylight came, the magistrates sent their officers with the order ‘Release those men.’ The jailer reported these instructions to Paul: ‘The magistrates have sent an order for your release. Now you are free to go in peace.’ But Paul …
The Lion's World - 3 - Not a tame lion
The Lion's World - 3 - Not a tame lion
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Not a tame lion The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe carefully prepares the way for Aslan’s appearance. When in Chapter 7 Mr Beaver confides ‘in a low whisper’ that ‘They say Aslan is on the move’ (p. 141), we are given a glimpse of what is instantly evoked by the name for the ch…
The Lion's World - 6 - Bigger inside than outside
The Lion's World - 6 - Bigger inside than outside
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Bigger inside than outside It’s – it’s a magic wardrobe. There’s a wood inside it, and it’s snowing, and there’s a Faun and a Witch and it’s called Narnia; come and see. ( The Lion Ch. 3 , p. 120) Lucy’s summary of the mystery introduces us to the image that will recur at the end…
Meeting God in Paul - 2c A different kind of community