Category: Church
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‘Heaven Is for Real’… or is Heaven ‘The Real’? | A Psychoanalytical view of Paradise and Hell
Thanks to KV for putting me on to a book that has been quietly notching up huge sales in the US. ‘Heaven is for Real‘ is the true story of a 4 year old boy, who ‘died’ and went to heaven, and then came back: Just two months shy of his fourth birthday, Colton Burpo,…
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An Emerged Theology: Can We Actually Say Anything about God?
Nice bit of banter going on between Tony Jones and Pete Rollins, where Tony challenged Pete to ‘give up atheism for Lent’. Outlining what this might look like, he requests: I’d like Pete to post some beautiful, flowery prayers on his blog. I’d like Pete to make some conclusive claims about the characteristics of God.…
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Can Anyone Explain To Me Why People Should BURN in Hell FOREVER?
The debate around hell and damnation continues apace. Rob Bell is about to launch Love Wins, and the arguments about whether he is apostate or a Universalist or worse (filth, as one commenter puts it, an egotistical heretic as another says) are making one thing for certain: His Publisher Wins. But one question keeps coming…
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The Empathetic Civilisation | Dirty Heaven [3]
I’ve been thinking about Jeremy Rifkin’s talk on ‘The Empathetic Civilisation’ which he gave at the RSA last year. It sparked my interest because of this quote: “There is no empathy in heaven, because there is no mortality. There is no empathy in utopia, because there is no suffering.” This made think a little about…
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The Empathetic Civilisation | Dirty Heaven [2]
Jeremy Rifkin’s talk about empathy leads us to some interesting conclusions about heaven. Because empathy is about engaging with those who are other, and experiencing some of their pain, heaven – as traditionally seen – must be a place where there is no empathy, because pain cannot be experienced. The typically Christian view of heaven…
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“Lord I just…” | Do you believe in Prayer? | Speaking into the unknown
A couple of times recently I’ve been in situations where people have said ‘let’s pray together.’ It’s struck me that there are some interesting group dynamics going on when we do that, which I thought would be good to air. Firstly, if God is God, then why do we need to pray aloud? The answer…