I've moved my blog these days.
From now on you can find the blog at www.davidsharvey.co.uk
Monday, 28 March 2011
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
God only has us...
In Desmond Tutu’s book God Has a Dream he writes in the chapter entitled, “God Only Has Us” these words:
Our God is a God who has a bias for the weak, and we who worship this God, who have to reflect the character of this God, have no option but to have a like special concern for those who are pushed to the edges of society, for those who because they are different seem to be without a voice. . . . Perhaps there is something similar [to “compassion fatigue”] called ‘God’s partner fatigue,’ where we try to ignore God’s calling us to help, because to see is to witness the suffering of others and to experience pain. But there is an equally great experience of suffering that occurs when we try to numb ourselves to the realities around us. It is like ignoring a sore and letting it fester. When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound—our own and others’—and it can finally heal.
Read the article I 'borrowed' the citation from.
Our God is a God who has a bias for the weak, and we who worship this God, who have to reflect the character of this God, have no option but to have a like special concern for those who are pushed to the edges of society, for those who because they are different seem to be without a voice. . . . Perhaps there is something similar [to “compassion fatigue”] called ‘God’s partner fatigue,’ where we try to ignore God’s calling us to help, because to see is to witness the suffering of others and to experience pain. But there is an equally great experience of suffering that occurs when we try to numb ourselves to the realities around us. It is like ignoring a sore and letting it fester. When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound—our own and others’—and it can finally heal.
Read the article I 'borrowed' the citation from.
Monday, 21 December 2009
!Misunderstood Grace
Today, once again, many Christians and churches face the temptations of cultural captivity, spirituality without discipleship or ethics, and knee-jerk nationalism. These are all forms of cheap grace, or cheap justification - a relationship with God in which God is believed to be a kind of cosmic agent of 'salvation' (happiness, blessing, security, prosperity, etc.) who requires little or nothing of the allegedly 'saved' or 'blessed'.
Cheap justification is justification without transformation, without conversion, without justice. - Michael J. Gorman.
Cheap justification is justification without transformation, without conversion, without justice. - Michael J. Gorman.
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Girlfriend in a coma
After my first week of PhD work, which involved lots of wandering up and down Oxford Road, I found myself reflecting on the various people you see wandering up and down that road and how the Biblical Studies research I'm doing relates to them...It was an interesting thought process, and I didn't have many positive thoughts about how traditional theological positions relate to the street-walking-people of Oxford Road.
Having said that, I rarely have much positive to say about traditional approaches to theology...but that's a different story. For now, the following words were rattling around my head, the conclusion to Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma:
"His mind races: Think about all those crazy people you can see on the streets. Maybe they aren't crazy at all. Maybe they've seen what we've seen - maybe those people are us.
Us.
You'll soon see us walking down your street, our backs held proud, our eyes dilated with truth and power. We might look like you, but you should know better. We'll draw our line in the sand and force the world to cross our line. Every cell in our body explodes with the truth. We will be kneeling in front of the Safeway, atop out-of-date textbooks whose pages we have chewed out. We'll be begging passers by to see the need to question and question and question and never stop questioning until the world stops spinning. We'll be adults who smash the tired exhausted system. We'll crawl and chew and dig our way into a radical new world. We will change minds and souls from stone and plastic into linen and gold - that's what I believe. That's what I know."
Having said that, I rarely have much positive to say about traditional approaches to theology...but that's a different story. For now, the following words were rattling around my head, the conclusion to Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma:
"His mind races: Think about all those crazy people you can see on the streets. Maybe they aren't crazy at all. Maybe they've seen what we've seen - maybe those people are us.
Us.
You'll soon see us walking down your street, our backs held proud, our eyes dilated with truth and power. We might look like you, but you should know better. We'll draw our line in the sand and force the world to cross our line. Every cell in our body explodes with the truth. We will be kneeling in front of the Safeway, atop out-of-date textbooks whose pages we have chewed out. We'll be begging passers by to see the need to question and question and question and never stop questioning until the world stops spinning. We'll be adults who smash the tired exhausted system. We'll crawl and chew and dig our way into a radical new world. We will change minds and souls from stone and plastic into linen and gold - that's what I believe. That's what I know."
Sunday, 20 September 2009
A Football Post
I know I've never posted about football before, but some of us waited along time for this photo here.
Nice when it came!
Friday, 4 September 2009
Worldwide equity
Isaiah 3:14 "Why is the plunder of the poor in your houses? (LXX)"
Is Isaiah backing FairTrade?
How should this affect our shopping?
How much of my house is really made up with the plunder of the poor?
If it was made in a sweat shop, or in an oppressive context, or for below acceptable wages...
...is it plunder?
And therefore theft?
Is Isaiah backing FairTrade?
How should this affect our shopping?
How much of my house is really made up with the plunder of the poor?
If it was made in a sweat shop, or in an oppressive context, or for below acceptable wages...
...is it plunder?
And therefore theft?
Friday, 28 August 2009
Old...
Can we expect to get better and fresher and more relevant with age or will we inevitably grow stale, brittle, and irrelevant? In many art forms, it's assumed that the older you get the fresher and deeper you'll get... yet conversely, people seem surprised when somebody gets better with age? What does this say about our understanding of age, awareness, and longevity?
http://tinyurl.com/n2qljg
Is it possible that valuing age is amongst one of the most subversive activities we can be involved in? I live in a culture that is masochistically attached to youthfulness. But why is this? Why are we so committed to a false existence - none of us are actually getting younger so why are we pretending we are.
It's a little like the 1960's Bald Man's 'comb over' - the only person fooled was himself.
So why can't we celebrate age, celebrate maturity? Would we all be happier if we accepted that everyone was getting older, and enjoyed it?
http://tinyurl.com/n2qljg
Is it possible that valuing age is amongst one of the most subversive activities we can be involved in? I live in a culture that is masochistically attached to youthfulness. But why is this? Why are we so committed to a false existence - none of us are actually getting younger so why are we pretending we are.
It's a little like the 1960's Bald Man's 'comb over' - the only person fooled was himself.
So why can't we celebrate age, celebrate maturity? Would we all be happier if we accepted that everyone was getting older, and enjoyed it?
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