New Look, Books, and Sounding Like Other People

I decided to update the image of the blog.  I quite like the new look, especially the continuous nature of the lists down the right hand side... subtle but nice.

Listening to snippets from Jon Foreman's E.P.'s - he is the Switchfoot front man, and has released four E.P.'s over the last year.  They are good, chilled out, stripped down tunes.  Check him out here.

I have been attempting to write a number of book reviews, reviewing the numerous books I have recently read.  It has only happened in skeleton form, and already I don't really like what I've written.  I seem to end up sounding like the many, many book reviews I've read - and not sounding like myself.  Which I suppose is bound to happen to some extent, but I'm not a big fan of it.  So for now my reviews will continue to be skeletons - one day I may post them up here.

The books I have read have brought up numerous things to talk and think about.  The most prominent are epistemology and postmodernism.  But those two subjects will take up another post (or indeed posts), once I've come to a decision about them or build up enough courage to air my questions and limited understanding.

The Right Mentality

To quote Francis Schaeffer:

"Do not minimize the fact that in reading the Bible we are living in a mentality that is the right one, opposed to the great wall of this other mentality that is forced upon us on every side - in education, in literature, in the arts, and in the mass media."1

What a truth.  We often don't perceive the massive effect that the "other mentality" has upon us.  Only recently have I realised just how much I was sucked into the education system of the UK - learning to pass exams, not learning to think.  Having come out of it, I find it not at all surprising that the education system is failing so many.  The current trend is to blame the lack of understanding teachers have for different people's 'learning styles' - but that has little effect in a system that teaches us to scrape through, instead of teaching us to think.  

I have great admiration for teachers who teach people to think.  I don't remember much of the politics that David O'Dell taught me during my A-Level politics course.  But I do remember that he began to teach me to think.

On another level, it excites me that I have friends that are passionate about the arts - and are seeking to have an influence upon the world of art.  Sticking true to God and his revealed Word, they are not afraid to make the hard choices over their art, knowing that God will provide.  That is exciting, that is inspiring.

1  Schaeffer, Francis A., He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Illinois, Tyndale, 2001.

Are We Theology Students Losing Focus?

A reminder to those who, like me, can all too easily lose the focus of why we're studying Theology.

How To Waste Your Theological Education

A running theme throughout these reminders is the fact that it is all too easy to love the subject of Theology and all that it entails - the essays, the reading, the arguing and debating, the refuting, the thelogising and philosophising - and forget that at the end of it all, is Christ.  And it is our love for Christ that should shine through, and it is our love for Christ the likely brought us to study Theology in the first place.  

That's a sobering challenge.