Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 20 Jun 2008
The European explorations of the Australian interior in the nineteenth century give us the most wonderful insight into understanding Jesus’s instructions to his disciples.
3MT : Burke, Willis, John McDouall Stuart and Travelling Light [4:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (71)Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 17 Jun 2008
Vincent Donovan travelled to Tanzania in the 1960s to teach the Masai people about Christianity. In return he learnt a profound lesson on what it means to be a church community, in a time and culture which has all but forgotten what “community” means.
Continue Reading »Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 30 Mar 2008
The resurrection is not, in the memorable words of a former Bishop of Durham, just a conjuring trick with bones; although most people in the church live as if it were. Most people in the church live as if the resurrection was just Jesus’s neat escape from a perilous situation. The walls are closing in, the baddies are coming, the werewolf is at the door— how will our hero escape. Tune in next week for the next exciting installment of “Jesus Christ: Hero of Jerusalem” — (oh, don’t bother, he managed to escape danger by being resurrected— sorry, bit of a let down— we’ll make sure the scriptwriters come up with a more satisfying, more believable cliff-hanger next episode). Continue Reading »
Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 21 Mar 2008
The Gambling Act (2005) came into force in September last year, and today we are seeing one of its more overt results. For the first time betting shops in England and Wales are allowed to open for business on Good Friday. Even though there is no horse-racing taking place today (the main business for betting shops in the UK), even so, customers of this “modern leisure industry” will be able to bet on forthcoming events, today’s football matches, horse-racing abroad and use the gambling machines in the shops. All in all, a triumph for a modern, go-ahead industry. Oh, and did I mention, how “modern” gambling is today?
The emphasis on modernity was unsubtly rammed home by a speaker for Ladbrokes in an interview on Radio 4 this morning. When asked about religious objections to Good Friday opening, the speaker generously allowed everybody the right to their opinions, but such moralising has no place in a (yes, you guessed it) modern go-ahead leisure industry.
I am grateful to Mr Ladbroke for his generous nod towards a multi-moral society, but I think he’s wrong. Not in wanting his shops to be open on Good Friday, no. I don’t have a problem with gambling on Good Friday. My disagreement with him is his assertion that this is a modern go-ahead industry.
I think that betting shops should be open on Good Friday. I think it is the one day of the year on which gambling should be forced to happen. I think that gambling and Good Friday are inextricably linked. After all, what does John record happening at the foot of the cross, as the crucified Jesus begins his slow agonising descent into suffocation and death?
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says,
‘They divided my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.’
And that is what the soldiers did. (John 19:23-25)
For hundreds of years, when Christians wanted to meditate on the passion of Jesus they would use depictions of the instruments of the passion: the cross, the nails, the whip, the crown of thorns, and, yes, the dice used by the Roman soldiers in gambling for the dying man’s clothes.
Gambling and Good Friday go together, and have always gone together. For those of use who don’t gamble, for those of us who will be attending church rather than the bookie’s today, it is good to remember that the Lamentation of Jeremiah means as much today as it did in the prophet’s own times:
Does it mean nothing to you, all ye who pass by?
Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 15 Mar 2008
The world of Star Wars was profoundly influenced by Buddhism, and in no greater way than its treatment of anger. For Christians, as we begin the commemoration of Holy Week, this version of anger is far removed from what we see in the biblical witness and in the last week of Jesus’s life.
Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 12 Mar 2008
For those of us who might be preparing Good Friday sermons or Holy Week school assemblies, I have prepared this (with uncertain copyright, but I’m asserting fair use!)
Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 11 Mar 2008
A scandal and a stumbling block is the crucifixion, a “strange way” of getting things done. As we enter Holy Week, Christians need to recover a sense of the utter strangeness of what God has achieved in Christ. A Welsh poet and a French troublemaker can help us with that.
Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 04 Mar 2008
Arvo Pärt’s organ piece Annum per Annum has something to say to those who are always looking for the next new thing in the life of the Church.
3MT : Doing the old things well [5:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (85) Annum per Annum : David Goode (organ) [8:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (61)Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 28 Feb 2008
There is a difference between Truth and truthiness. There is a difference between Faith and faithiness. Can you see it in your own life?
Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 25 Feb 2008
The private chapels of Bavarian farmyards reminded me, most peculiarly, of Alisdair MacIntyre and his search for a new Benedict.
Continue Reading »
