theological reflections

For Easter Monday, here is a reflection on a poem which I was sent by my supervisor recently: ‘Suddenly’ by the twentieth-century Welsh poet and Anglican priest, R. S. Thomas.

Christmas is almost upon us – but today let’s skip ahead a little in the narrative we retell at this time every year.

God's image in humanity is marred by sin and violence. But in Christ his image is restored in us, and we are called to be locations of his presence on earth as his Spirit works in us.

Richard Middleton on the human calling to image God and how this relates to our scholarly work.

It will surely have escaped no reader's attention that we are now less than a week away from Easter, that happiest of all days in the Christian calendar. This is the central celebration of our faith. It's a time when we remember the staggering, unthinkable sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross; when we rejoice at the earth-shattering power that God displayed when he raised him from the dead; when we recognise once more the forgiveness, power and hope that are ours now because of God's wonderful gift. In this celebration, the cross and the empty tomb are both equally important.

Richard Vytniorgu offers an alternative perspective on scholarly freedom:

In a previous post on the German poet Rilke, I concluded that art can help the Christian scholar ‘to acknowledge and work under the supreme agency of God in the world’. Today I want to go a bit deeper into what that might mean.

This summer marked the 140th Keswick Convention. The Keswick Convention is a three-week long meeting of Christians in the Lake District with a history of Bible-centred teaching alongside practical seminars. It’s for all ages and interests and of course set in one of the most awe-inspiring parts of the British Isles.

I am a leader on the 19-24s programme and so was excited when I learnt that the theme of this year’s convention would be ‘The whole of life for Christ’. It would encourage us to

There are few topics in theology that so readily act as a prism to refract one’s worldview and reveal various strands of one’s theological commitments as the topic of life after death. When discussing what happens at death one very quickly reveals one’s hand on a variety of issues. Three that spring to mind are the following: the value and purpose of human life, the ontological nature of the human person and the efficacy of Christ’s death on the cross.