What can one do in 40 minutes with such a title? An exam candidate once said: ‘I can answer none of these questions but I will write down all I know.’ What I can do is a) state some principles and b) back them up (not prove them) with a few examples. I. Principles: we will have two, paradoxical ones a) the NT is a by product of the early church, showing up how it went about its business. and... Read more
You have invited a Neue Testamentler to your Rally and must put up with what you get. If I could think of a more useful subject, I would use it. Of course we are near January 25th and we could look for other reasons– years of the great Reformers. Luther, Zwingli, Wycliffe who all recognized their great debt to Paul. Yet today Paul is unpopular. ‘He spoiled the simple message of Jesus’ (but have they even tried to unravel Son... Read more
THE BURNING ISSUE— delivered at Hexham on 12/13/84 For about 25 years you’ve allowed speakers to choose their own subject. Then you started setting puzzles, such as Judas Iscariot. Now, you have given me the hardest task. For me, issues rarely burn, even when I feel strongly. Moreover, I’ve had a go at most of the things I feel strongly about. No doubt I could reuse some. This was once specifically a preachers’ fellowship, and in a different way I... Read more
We come back to preaching, but are all preachers ministers? Is ordination just a matter of full time vs. part time? What is a call to preach? Again this year I sat in a candidates review and wondered about myself. This even longer ago. I think I believed the Christian faith is true and if true it must be proclaimed and that the fundamental form of proclaiming was preaching. And I believe this now, but it’s nothing like Exod. 3... Read more
I am not satisfied. Perhaps it is your fault! You asked for a continuation of the Conference of 1983, and that is something I wished to pursue. It was this very theme I started in 1983. I now borrow Hans Kung’s title On Being a Christian but his line of thinking. I urged you to look at his great book, but have delayed rereading it. The intellectual is not the only aspect of being a Christian. I will treat the... Read more
There is an obvious pretext for this subject. But we don’t need a lot to make it relevant, as we are all aware of it, especially preachers. But a good deal of uneasiness is what brought this subject out into the open. My talk or discussion starter, and I hope a response that will be profitable. Note the double title– a statement and a question. Both are important. First of all, there are problems in theology. Anyone who thinks it... Read more
The common debt that all Christians, including Catholics share to Luther, is that the man existed, and had an effect on all history, and on the story of the whole church. This means telling some of the story. He was born in 1483, the son of a miner who prospered, and could afford to send his son to good schools. He was a bright boy and had the usual schooling with much Latin at Magdeburg and Eisenach. He did University... Read more
Here is the description on Amazon for this 300 or so page book which came out in 2023….. “From Ken Jennings comes a hilarious travel guide to the afterlife, exploring to die for destinations from literature, mythology, and pop culture. Ever wonder which circles of Dante’s Inferno have the nicest accommodations? Where’s the best place to grab a bite to eat in the ancient Egyptian underworld? How does one dress like a local in the heavenly palace of Hinduism’s Lord... Read more
A lecture given at the Catholic College at Ushaw outside Durham on 1/15/85. That college closed in 2011 due to lack of seminary students. Auditur et altera pars. This will bring us near to the point. Fridensaal at Munster: Treaty of Westphalia ends the 30 years war between Catholics and Protestant. How should they treat each other– ‘Listening’ is a much better way. I was asked by your superior– What difference does it make to a non-Catholic lecturer like me... Read more
A lecture given in Hexham in 1985. In general these lectures seem to almost all come from the period shortly after Kingsley retired from his University post at the University of Durham in the Theology Department in 1982. Explaining the call to preach has turned out to be more difficult than I thought. To illustrate the difficulty, two proposition: 1) Faculties– do not preach unless you have to; 2) at Cambridge, what you must ask is whether you have a... Read more
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