I came downstairs this morning to find the television on to the chat show The Wright Stuff, on which they were discussing our massive overconsumption at Christmas. A great subject to get thinking about, and one on which I wrote an article for Gair Rhydd. But what I found totally bizarre was that the whole discussion was centred around the environment, with the presenter complaining about the “massacre of trees” necessary for all those Christmas cards!

Yes, the environment is important, but get some perspective! “Never mind the gaping global social injustice and economic division in the world! Forget the fact that half the world is starving while half the world stuffs itself with turkey and mince pies until we’re sick of them and dying from obesity – no, think about the trees!”

I might despair, were it not for the true message of Christmas, that of God come down to earth into the mess of this world to die and come back to life to instigate the Revolution of the Kingdom of God, for him to transform our lives and our world by his power. There should be and can be real change through the power of the Gospel, so let’s work out what that means and start living it. I’m planning to give some thought to what Christmas in the Kingdom of God should be like – thoughts and ideas greatly appreciated!

I’ve just been doing some Christmas shopping online, and have found a present for my sister Hannah and something that I might get for Dad, though I’m awaiting a second opinion on that. I still need to get a present for one of my housemates for the house “Secret Santa”, and don’t really have any good idea yet for what to get him. I have part of my sister Becky’s present and have been looking at possible presents for my Mum. Ah, the joys of Christmas!

Rich has just put up various lists of seven things, starting with “Seven things to do before I die”. It’s a questionnaire that’s currently doing the rounds of the blogosphere, and arrived at Rich by way of Jon, and I’ve also spotted it over on The Blue Fish Project, where it got rather short shrift!

Rich listed me as his number five person he wants to see join in too, so here I go! (You might want to read Rich’s answers first so you’ll get a couple of in-jokes I make in my own lists). All of these aren’t necessarily in any particular order

Seven things to do before I die (but not necessarily in this order)

1. Write some really good stories
2. Get some really good stories published
3. Get some really good stories in the bestseller lists
4. Become a husband
5. Become a father
6. Be labelled controversial
7. Become a charismatic – no, I’m joking, Rich and Becky, don’t panic! ;-)

Real number 7: Enter ever more deeply into that union with Jesus Christ, becoming like him in love and holiness

Seven things I cannot do

1. Stop thinking
2. Stop writing
3. Stop believing in Jesus
4. Eat peanut butter
5. Enjoy clubbing
6. Abandon Doctor Who for Star Trek
7. Stop being a Welshman

Seven things that attract me to my spouse
Well, I don’t have a spouse, or even a girlfriend, but things that I find attractive include:

1. Intelligence and thoughtfulness
2. Godliness (a bit of an old-fashioned word, but I mean it without any of the negative associations it might have acquired)
3. Sense of humour and silliness (which are related but not identical)
4. Willingness to give hugs
5. Shared interests (in particular a love of books, I’d guess. And any potential partner would have to put up with my obsession with liking for Doctor Who)
6. Different interests (it would be boring to marry just a female version of myself – what a scary idea!)
7. Physical beauty (though not usually the stereotyped idea of beauty as blonde hair, big boobs and the like. Also, the more attractive someone is in non-physical ways, then the more attractive they appear physically, in my opinion)

Seven things I say most often

1. “How are you?” (I try to really mean this)
2. “Not long until Christmas!” (at least I say this a lot at the moment!)
3. “Not long until Doctor Who is back on television!”
4. “I need to be more disciplined”
5. “We need to grasp the wholeness of the Christian message”
6. “I want to be a writer”
7. Nothing at all because I’m too busy getting tied up in knots thinking through what to say (especially likely when faced with young ladies who match up to various points on the previous list!)

Seven books (or series) I love (Bible not included)

1. The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis
2. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
3. Hunger for Reality by George Verwer
4. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
5. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Berniers
6. The Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson
7. Brewers’ Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)

1. The Lord of the Rings
2. The Truman Show
3. The Incredibles
4. Star Wars original trilogy
5. Shrek
6. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Seven people I want to join in, too

1. Ian
2. Jamie
   
3. Sarah F
4. Dave
5. Steve
6. Alison
7. You – add a comment with your answer if you don’t have your own blog!

Christmas is coming!

Ah, I love this time of year. Anticipation hangs in the air like warm breath on a frosty morning, an edge of excitement creeping in and affecting everything as the big day approaches. And what a thing to commemorate – God come down to Earth as a man to save us! That’s something worth celebrating.

The Carol Service in the Students’ Union, organised by the Christian Union, was on Wednesday evening. I was helping by welcoming people on the door and giving them chocolates with a Bible verse attached, and was dressed up in my suit and bow tie to do so. The speaker, John Risbridger, said that he couldn’t remember speaking at such a smartly-dressed student event and felt distinctly underdressed for the event! He gave a good talk, and it was a fun evening.

Yesterday morning after my Medieval Heresy lecture on the Albigensian Crusade, I headed into the city centre for some shopping. I resolved not to get stressed about finding presents, and had a merry time just browsing the shops and market stalls, looking out for things that my friends and family might enjoy. I really like the arcades and indoor market – some of the shops and stalls are a world away from the homogenous chain stores of the nearby high street.

One of those homogenous shops I went in was Toys R Us. A stack of Remote Controlled Daleks was positioned right by the entrance, much to my delight. I have to admit that I pressed the button on each of them to set off a chorus of “Exterminate! Exterminate!”

I managed to get several presents, but what they are is a closely-guarded secret, especially since some of the people they are for sometimes read this blog! I sometimes think it’s a pity that blogs don’t have a feature to block specific people from reading specific bits, so then everyone could chuckle about my getting ***** for ***********, without *** knowing about it. But word would probably get round to the person in question anyway.

Today I went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which I’d organised as a Navigators social, though I’d told other friends from my course and from CU as well. I’d got tickets for many people, but at the last moment I discovered we were one short! I’m not quite sure why the numbers didn’t add up, but I rushed downstairs to buy another ticket, and fortunately they hadn’t sold out and so I got in. It was a bit of a pity that the cinema was very full by the time we got in and so we couldn’t sit as one group. The film was really good, very enjoyable, though talking it over afterwards most of us agreed that it lacked a certain indefinable magic. It lacked an extra sparkle to make it truly brilliant, though it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly could have been done better. But a wonderful tale to further enhance my Christmassy mood!

I then hurriedly ducked in the bathroom to put on my bowtie, and shot off with some fellow CUers to the Christian Union Christmas dinner in Highfields Church, which was great fun – turkey and crackers and mince pies, oh my! It was fun having a relaxed time chatting to people over the meal, and then playing around and singing songs and stuff. The pleasure of good company of the likes of Ian and Robbie and Helen and Swithin and Matt Bater and Katie and all the many other good friends there is something wonderful, and coupled with good food and the thrill of approaching Christmas makes for a delicious evening.

And now here I am, back home (or at least, back in my house, which I don’t quite think of as home), and it has just turned midnight, which means that in two weeks exactly it will be Christmas day.

“Joy to the world, the Saviour comes – let earth receive her king!”

So, what have I been reading recently? Here’s some stuff that you may find interesting…

The dread forces of corporate power are trying to exert their baleful influence over the book industry as Waterstones attempts a takeover of Ottakars bookshops. Waterstones was taken over by HMV a while back, and since then has tried to sell books in the same way that HMV sells CDs – heavily marketing a few big sellers rather than trying to sell a wider range of books in smaller numbers. Combined with Waterstones’ centralised buying policies (that is, all Waterstones bookshops everywhere stock the same books), this is pretty damaging to smaller publishers and to variety in the book industry, and if Waterstones takes over Ottakars it will further increase the power of a few Waterstones executives to control what become the big successes in the book world.

The Guardian gave a glowing review to the film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, with critic Peter Bradshaw saying “There is no need for anyone to get into a PC huff about its Christian allegory”. But don’t worry, this sudden bout of unexpected reasonableness at The Guardian didn’t last long – today Polly Tonybee gave just that: a PC huff about Narnia’s Christian allegory.

Dave Bish over at the Blue Fish Project has written a response to Tonybee’s criticisms of Narnia discussing the offence of the cross, which is pretty much what I though when I read the article, so that’s saved me a blog entry!

I just discovered the blog of Steve Kneale, with whom I was on a beach mission team at Benllech a while back, and he has some interesting political commentary and other stuff.

Speaking of “Steve”s, I’ve also been having a look at Steven Carr’s blog, where he discusses various theological issues. His most recent entry argues that Paul’s view of the resurrection as something spiritual contradicts the Gospel’s view of a flesh-and-blood resurrection.

Rich Andrews, my sister’s boyfriend and International Secretary of Bangor CU, has resumed blogging on a regular basis with various musings on studying literature, Ultimate Frisbee and Seth Cohen off The OC. His housemate Mark also has a good blog, The Zone – I particularly like the suggestion that all that The Sound of Music lacks is some explosions and a Death Star, and he also does some great cartoons.

Dave Williamson, Western Mail reporter, fellow Mackite and charming Irishman, has been talking about the strange relationship between evangelicalism and Catholicism, in particular “Why We Need A Conversant Communion with Catholicism in Ireland”. Meanwhile, Dan Edelen over at Cerulean Sanctum has been talking about the importance of introverts in the church, something that I found helpful as nominations for the new CU committee are currently open.

Gary Andrews, former editor of Gair Rhydd, is trying to get 25 people to join him in refusing to shop at supermarkets. You can read about how this mission is going, along with various other stuff, on his blog Coffee and PC. While I’m not sure I’m going to try and avoid supermarkets altogether, what he’s said has challenged me to think more carefully about where I do my shopping.

I suppose that gives you some kind of insight into what I’ve been distracted by recently! But it’s now almost time for me to go to bed, so I’d better wrap up here.

I’m currently busy working on my Critical Theory essay, seeking to answer the question “Is the author dead?”

My argument is that modernity’s idea of the Author, as a God-like infallible and rational subject with complete mastery of His words, is indeed dead. Postmodernism rightly kills the author’s pretentions to be God.

But rather than abandoning the author altogether, the death of the Author-as-God should lead us to a right understanding of the author-as-human, a responsible communicative agent. I’m working from some of the ideas put forward in the book Is there a meaning in this text? by Kevin J Vanhoozer, which attempts to put forward “a systematic and trinitarian theology of interpretation that promotes the importance of Christian doctrine for the project of textual understanding” – or, more briefly, a Christian understanding of how and why things mean something.

I’ll probably be blogging some on the ideas I’ve covered this term in Critical Theory this semester, at least once I’ve got some of my essays out the way. I started actually writing my Critical Theory essay this weekend and have now written around one-third of it, so I’m pleased that I’m making some tangible progress. It’ll be interesting to see what the lecturers think of my rather unconventional take on the subject!

I’m hoping to finish this essay by the end of term, have most of my Creative Writing portfolio done, and have gathered all the material I need for my Heresy essay and Children’s Literature essay. These are all due in after Christmas, so it’s a matter of getting as much done now so I don’t have to do as much in my holidays, and prioritising what I need to do down here in Cardiff while I have access to the library and everything. Anyway, back to work…

Today I didn’t wake up until 10:30am and didn’t get up properly until lunchtime. Such decadence. I have something of an excuse other than laziness, because I was up late last night – and no, not a wild night partying, but a wild night praying!

The CU had a half-night of prayer. We met in Gabalfa Baptist Church, armed with our Bibles and supplies of food (we weren’t going in for fasting as well!) Ben Carswell gave a talk about mission – sadly, Dick Dowsett, our mission speaker, wasn’t able to make it because his daughter is very ill, so that was something else to pray about too. We had “prayer walks” around Cardiff in four groups, before returning to the church for prayer with various different aids in different rooms (verses up on a Powerpoint presentation, music, a room for “creative prayer” and the like). It was a really good, and helped enthuse me and give me more of a sense of vision, as well as a good time to think about ideas for the mission.

So what was it that was getting me excited? The Revolution, that’s what.

The Revolution is coming, it is here and it is unstoppable. This revolution will sweep through all creation, changing it forever. What am I talking about? The Kingdom of God, begun at the Resurrection of Jesus, born in our hearts, and changing the world.

Christianity isn’t just about the salvation of individual souls. God’s plan is to redeem all of creation. The kingdom of God is present when we follow God as king, as he deserves. But it is far more than that – it is also “the sphere of influence” of his rule and all its benefits. The influence of his love and goodness should spread through every area of life. God’s rule isn’t something just for our private lives, but for everything: art, culture, politics, science, relationships – you name it! God’s big plan is to bring all things under one head, Jesus Christ.

The revolution is both here-and-now and coming-soon. This is a present reality, and through the power of God, there can be real and substantial progress. We can’t make heaven now, but we can work towards that with real progress, and that process will be completed and consummated at the return of Christ.

Whether you enter the kingdom free and willing citizen or resist it as an unrepentant rebel is up to you. But God’s plan is that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

God involves us in the revolution – he chooses to work through us being his disciples, living and proclaiming his good message of love and grace to the world. That’s an awesome and exciting responsibility, and we need to be working out what the kingdom of God means in all that we do, from shopping to studying, from our money to our relationships to our work to our hobbies.

This means the total overthrow of our habitual ways of thinking, our self-centredness and pride. Saying we should follow God as king goes right against the grain of the current individualistic, independent culture. But God is a good God, a God of love and justice, the servant-king who laid down his life for us – he is so amazing he deserves to be followed as lord and king! The revolution means a revolution in our attitudes. It’s a revolution in society: a change from isolation to community, from selfishness to contentment, from apathy to action. Many people despair of changing the world, but we know that through the Kingdom change is not only impossible, but inevitable!

Today I was watching some of the Doctor Who boxset. The extras include trailers, including the one where the Doctor asks the viewer “Do you wanna come with me?”. Jesus says something similar, only it isn’t just a question, but a command – “Come follow me”. The Doctor gives a warning and a promise, and what he says is true of the Christian life as well: “It won’t be quiet, it won’t be calm and it won’t be safe. But I tell you want it will be – the trip of a lifetime.” Are you excited?

That coming kingdom is something to be excited about. The Bible tells us something of Jesus’ resurrection body – it could appear and disappear, walk through walls. If his resurrection body was so transformed, then what will the resurrection creation be like? Our ultimate destination is not some disembodied afterlife, but a new physical creation, the marriage of heaven and earth. Our ultimate fate is resurrection, not mere afterlife!

There’s no Biblical grounds for supposing that in heaven we’ll just sit around singing “You’re so great God” over and over. How tedious that would be! How could we ever be content with such paltry worship? No, just as God gave Adam and Eve meaningful work and activity to do in filling the Earth, building civilization, learning and exploring, all as service to him, we will have new and exciting things to do in the new creation. Just look around at all the achievements of mankind. That’s the result of being made in the image of God, even when that image is corrupted. Just imagine a civilization built by a people perfect and uncorrupted – the great art and achievements and wonder of a world built as an act of worship to God. Are you excited?!

Join the revolution: love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and your neighbour as yourself. Work this out in the wholeness of life, and this will transform both you and the world. The church has been so ineffectual in many ways – let’s get in there, working towards the coming kingdom.

The revolution cannot be halted – are you ready for it?

I happened to notice as I came to write that this is my 150th post on this blog. It’s just going to contain the same ramblings as I had in mind anyway, but I thought I’d make note of it anyway! Today also saw the highest number of unique visitors reading my blog since I added in a counter, with 54 when I last looked, beating my previous record of 53 on 9th February 2005.

I’ve just got back from CU Open House, where Ian had his head shaved. He foolishly promised while on houseparty to submit to this indignity if £500 pounds could be raised in donations to the Mission. With such an incentive, it didn’t take long to raise this sum, and so Ian had to bid farewell to his fine head of hair!

The talk in CU was really good this evening. Ian Parry was talking on “The Return of the King”. Swithun’s head dropped in disappointment when Ian said he took an amillenialist view, but I thought Ian did a good job of focusing on the big picture without getting into all the details of pre or post trib and the like. He really did a good job of emphasising that it isn’t just our souls that are being redeemed, but all of creation, and that’s something massively exciting! I agreed pretty much with every word, and in cross-referencing to the rest of the Bible, especially when it came to application, Ian Parry referred to the some of the same passages that I immediately thought of when he introduced the point. It’s good for me to be challenged with other views, of course, but it’s also nice to have something to agree with wholeheartedly!

Speaking of disagreement, as I walked back from Open House with Matt Bater, he said that last week’s talk on the Body of Christ was one of the few talks in CU that he’d had problems with. The speaker (whose name I’ve forgotten) was laying heavy emphasis on the issue of . Ben Carswell brought up the importance of truth in a question at the end, but I don’t think his exchange with the speaker made things very clear. I tried to get them to clarify by asking “What is truth important for?” Truth is important, but we need to be clear how that applies.

For example, doctrinal correctness is not a criteria for whether or not someone is a Christian – what makes someone a Christian is faith in Jesus Christ. There are certain beliefs you need to hold before you can put your faith in Jesus, such as in his lordship, that he rose from the dead and will forgive sin. But it is the faith in him that saves, rather than mere mental assent to those facts. Christianity is about following a person, not a set of beliefs.

Similarly, whether someone holds true beliefs and doctrine or not has no bearing on whether we love them. But it may have a great deal of bearing on what Christian activities we are able to do with them. From a purely practical point of view, it’s hard to co-operate in evangelism if there is disagreement on the fundamentals of your message.

Also, the Bible is clear that right teaching is vitally important, because we need the right knowledge in order to have the right living. Christian love and unity means confronting error, not avoiding it. The balance of things is “speaking the truth in love”, and you cannot seperate one from the other and be living rightly as a Christian. The speaker last week was very strong on the love and unity side of things, but perhaps not enough on the importance of truth and purity. It’s another example of Christians not being extreme enough – we need to go to both extremes of love and truth at the same time.

Another highlight of the evening was the video of the houseparty. Three quarters of the way through the compilation of video and photo from the houseparty, I thought I was going to get away with just a brief appearance in a photo. But no such luck – they did of course include my leading the audience of the Talent Show in singing “Dem Bones”, just as I got to “The back bone’s connected to the bum bone!”

On Friday morning, I woke up and, remembering the weather forecast, pulled back my curtains. Flakes were falling, white and beautiful from the sky, giving a gentle covering to the world around. I rushed downstairs and stuck my arm out the back door, allowing white flecks of snow to settle on my hand and dressing gown before melting into chilly droplets.

It did, alas, stop snowing a few minutes later, leaving a thin covering that was just about enough for a few snowballs. On the news, they just grumbled about the disruption in people’s journeys to work. But the people I talked to during the day enjoyed the beauty and thrill of it. There’s something about a snowy day that makes people excited, makes us take a step back and enjoy the world for once. And in an effort to practice my poetry skills for Creative Writing, here’s a poem about it:

Rain Rushes, Snow Slows

Rain rushes rattling running
Drops dripping drips dropping
&nbsp Ground crash
&nbsp Window splash
Closed faces eyes down
Through the crowds escaping!

But everyone slows
&nbsp when it snows,
Faces that are
&nbsp as bright
&nbsp as sun
&nbsp on snow,
Gaze around
&nbsp for the first
&nbsp time again at
&nbsp a world aglow.
Every flake
&nbsp dancing gently
&nbsp on an unworried
&nbsp downward journey.
Playing in
&nbsp the air
&nbsp above,
In no hurry.

by Caleb Woodbridge