Mike's musings

3/4 birthday, and the Bible. And fundamentalism

Miri turned 50:50 today: 9 months old. I'm not going into that. Anyway, she's doing very well at the moment, and is in a very social phase at the moment.

I led another "coffee and worship" this morning, and we used the new area in the back of Great Yeldham church. We didn't sit in pews: we sat in a circle. And had coffee and tea while we discussed things. No, really! This is the Church of England. Rural church of England. And 22 people came. TWENTY-TWO! We had to put new chairs out. And there were 2 children I didn't count.

So, we had a greeting, I read Acts 10:34-43, then John 11:25-27. Then we had coffee and tea (and biscuits) and I talked about "What does it mean to believe in the Bible"? I talked about Eusebius saying in the early 4th century that everyone knew that Genesis wasn't a literal description of the creation, but allegorical, and how fundamentalism, in Christianity, is generally a 19th century phenomenon, about translation (how many people read both Hebrew and New Testament Greek - oh, and Jesus spoke in Aramaic, anyway). And lots of related stuff. Only had 10 minutes or so, and then we had some discussion. I moved between the groups.

In the second group, I discovered two people who are, frankly, creationists. They're cool about it, and just feel it's the easiest reading.

I spent quite a lot of my summing up and intercessions in the following worship talking about respecting people with viewpoints different to our own.

Labels: belief, church, faith, miri, theology