I have just discovered that 3 Minute Theologian is one of the people that the Beaker Folk “light a tea light for”. I’m pleasantly grateful, seeing as the Beaker Folk are some of the people that I shamelessly rip off for witty quips and asides in my teaching and preaching!

That’s karmically balanced, isn’t it?

In this month’s Atlantic there is a fascinating article on the Turing Test and what it says about being human. In it, the writer, Brian Christian, gives an interesting piece of background to the perennial popular anthropology question:

Philosophers, psychologists, and scientists have been puzzling over the essential definition of human uniqueness since the beginning of recorded history. The Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert says that every psychologist must, at some point in his or her career, write a version of what he calls “The Sentence.” Specifically, The Sentence reads like this:

The human being is the only animal that ______.

The story of humans’ sense of self is, you might say, the story of failed, debunked versions of The Sentence.

Surely “The Sentence” is easily answered, if you are willing to go all meta- on it?

The human being is the only animal that discourses on “The Sentence”.

There! Simple!

What’s next?

BBC “This is the moment the protesters have been waiting for. Mr Mubarak is stepping down after 30 years as Egypt’s head of state.”

Will it be Berlin ’89 or Tehran ’79?

Or, as it more likely with Vice-President Suleiman still in control, will it be “meet the new boss; same as the old boss”?

A county council has been accused of over-zealousness in implementing CRB (Criminal Records Bureau). Everyone (it seems) who applies for a job with Swale Council in Kent is required to go through CRB disclosure, including “beach cleaners and leisure centre catering assistants”. CRB checks are intended for people who will be working directly with children or vulnerable adults.

Councillor Mike Cosgrove admitted that perhaps the council has been over punctilious:

“That is a balance which we are continuing to review,” he said. “But I would say that we are doing this in good faith.”

“We want to make sure that those services which we operate which touch children and vulnerable adults are as secure as possible.”

Perhaps you didn’t really mean to say that, Councillor?

Note to self (and note to others):

Mark 13:11 is not a pedagogical strategy — although it is amazing the number of Christian educators who seem to think it is.

Fraser Dyer, live-reflecting on a POT conference in London Diocese, noted some of the more common solipisms, infelicities, and downright complacencies in Christian education today:

• “I didn’t really know anything about this until I read a marvellous little book on the subject…” [here]
• “This just occurred to me over breakfast so might be a bit unstructured…”. It was. [here]
• What hope that new clergy can understand their role as teachers when on the receiving end of such bad practice in adult education? [here]

In the “Little Apocalypse” of Mark 13 (and parallels) Jesus’s predicts the coming troubles, and tells his disciples how to prepare for their trial. In short— don’t:

When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. [Mark 13:11]

This was teaching for a specific time and place and for a specific purpose: the Christian church was not to think its Truth was based upon the same ontological grounds of every other philosophy in the Roman-Hellenist world: great logic, better rhetoric, fantastic allusions, clever preparation. Jesus was teaching his disciples that, in the time of trial, the Truthfulness of their witness would be best represented by their absolute and unconditional reliance upon the Holy Spirit— in effect: “I am a Christian, O magistrate, not because of the clever arguments of the philosophers, but because of the moral and ethical imperative of the One whom you crucified”.

This is all well and good. But to draw some kind of analogy between the specific context and purpose of the Little Apocalypse and today’s Christian education? What arrant arrogance! The number of times I have witnessed a speaker find a (random) verse from the Bible and then proceed to free-form over, around, under, beneath and upon it. Christian education is not, and ought not to be, MC toasting. The scribe should be able to draw out from his or her scrip teachings old and new, and teachings which have been thought about!

In the meantime, beginning to speak to an audience, assembled to hear your words, without having prepared before hand is just to say “I didn’t have time to do this properly, because Jesus is coming”!