Byrnesys Blabberings

Seeing as the last round up was little more technology based, this has more of a theological bent to it.

In a pretty fascinating article in the New Statesman AN Wilson describes his journey from belief to atheism and back.

"My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God “a category mistake”. Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . ‘The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.” And then Coleridge adds: “‘And man became a living soul.’ Materialism will never explain those last words.” "

- AN Wilson – New Statesman – Why I believe again.

There was a good article in ChristianityToday which explored the practice of cremation and how it betrays a lack of eschatological awareness, or at very least doesn’t appropriately symbolise the Christian hope of resurrection.

Kent Eilers from the Aberdeen based blog ‘Theology Forum’ shared a good quote about ‘The Promise of Systematic Theology’ by John Webster from January’s issue IJST.

Exiled Preacher gives a pretty amusing list of new the camps of reformed we can be on the look out for.

Trevin Wax shares a section  from his forthcoming book which describes ways in which we can subvert the worlds preoccupation with ’success’. I like it.

Per Crucem ad Lucem writes an interesting essay on the divergent opinions on  Hell inside evangelicalism, including detailing John Stott’s Annihilationist stance which I wasn’t aware of.

Alistair McGrath’s  lectures here at Aberdeen have already been transformed into a book.

A good thought on what’s really happening when we use language such as a ‘high’ and a ‘low’ view of scripture.

Mark Licitira continues his excellent series dispelling myths relating mental illness.