Reprogramming thieves



It´s been a busy week: classes finished, graduation is tonight and there's been five celebratory meals and three speaking engagements.

But the start of the week began from a different perspective. We went to see the project which Free Church children are raising funds for. It was one of those strange trips into the fringes of this 2 million population. We were told not to speak English on the bus, to walk quickly when we got off it and not to give anything to anyone. Unfortunately on the bus Christine had trouble switching off her camera flash as she recorded the 45 degree uphill journey. Thankfully she still has it.

In such communities a different civilization exists. The ethic is that you get what you want by begging or stealing. Some locals are so poor that they have never taken the 20p bus ride into the city centre. The church work amongst the children uses a system of encouragments so they learn that honest effort results in rewards.

Later in the week the New Testament class were round for breakfast, and one of the students, more in touch with reality and Jesus than us, prayed that "our fridge would always be full". Lord help me to see life from below.

Photo: Christine sharpens pencils while a NewTestament is being read

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A wonky couple of days

Only two weeks to go before semester finishes. Students are pretty stressed out. They cheered on Friday when class finished. Had a visit last night from an ex-evangelical pastor who's joined the Catholic church and now teaches religion in a an upmarket monks' school. He was keen to justify his actions so feel he's not at peace with the move. It made me think how poor the care of pastors is when things get difficult for them. And how astute Catholic clergy are, more so than their evangelical counterparts. Reading New Testament Theology by Philip Esler, who's trying to justify praying to the saints. Feel it's been a wonky couple of days.
Read more

Dangerous ground in Parliament Hall

It was like taking part in a Harry Potter episode.    The location was Parliament Hall where the Scots Parliament met in 1645-46.   You enter it by pushing open an unmarked door at 66 South Street,  St Andrews.     Bright panelled walls and enormous portraits look down upon you in a friendly manner. We were warned by the Divinity Dean,  Ivor Davidson,  that we were on dangerous ground.   What we were embarking on "involves confession,  petition,  doxology and wonder.   We are at the edges of what we can say".       This was a conference on the Doctrine of the Trinity. The first to speak,  Tom McCall,   had flown in (by aeroplane) from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,  Chicago.    Since arriving he had spent a night in a tent on Ben Nevis,  and now he spoke at breakneck speed on the biblical data. The second speaker looked as if he had flown in on a broom stick.   Your archetypical kindly wizard,   white bearded  Professor Paul Fiddes of Oxford University
Read more

MacDonalds in the Seminary

Image
Each day I teach 13 students in the Seminary and 650 outside of it. There's my Biblical theology class and my theology internet site. Such is the demand for materials in Spanish that readership of Recursos Teologicos just keeps on growing. Even when I neglect the thing for months, it thrives.This has some unexpected advantages. Marketing people like the site: it's in, effectively, the world's second language and offers a sought after product. In the past year I've been kindly given a string of the latest theological titles for review. The kind of books no minister would ever be allowed to buy. "Darling, do you mind if I spend £60 on Paul Helm's book on Calvin?", has only one answer. And my laptop benefits from £700 of the best Bible Software just for the effort of writing my opinion of it. There are other unexpected developments: people write in with problems. Agony Aunt style, I put my responses on the site's Blog (like a
Read more