Virtual[ly snowbound] bishop

It’s as well my ‘appearance’ this morning with Sally Magnusson was sound only.  Having failed to make the studio in Stirling, I got off the road into a filling station at Dunblane and got stuck in the snow.  Did the interview while still stuck – is this a first?  Since I was – as it were – a foolish virgin who didn’t have a shovel, I bought a scoop from the rather astonished guy behind the till, dug myself out and carried on round the M9 and back across the Forth Bridge to Kirkaldy, where I arrived during the Offertory Hymn and changed from virtual to actual Bishop.  I am becoming concerned that this blogging thing is becoming fashionable.  This poses me two problems.  One is that the market is becoming crowded.  The other is the more serious issue that I have always believed that Christian faith is at its prophetic best when it is both unfashionable and counter-cultural.

8 comments

  1. Maybe the Diocesan Synod thought that a blog was a new breed of dog which our Provost hopes will win Crufts for him.

  2. Read an interesting comment in Miroslav Volf’s Free of Charge today – about how we shape a God who simply mirrors our own interests and desires: ‘Our God simply gratifies our desires rather than reshaping them in accordance with the beauty of God’s own character. Our God then kills enemies rather than dying on their behalf as God did in Jesus Christ.’

  3. Dear + David,
    There must be a very wicked situation out there that enables one of your flock to languish, sipping coffee in a wonderfully warm bed, listening to your interview with Sally M.
    It is also wondefully wicked to realise the we depend on our Bishop to tell us there is snow outside, and that he and his car are well and truly stuck in it.

    I must applaud you for your adventure, some of us never made it a mere mile to the Cathedral, and in an odd sort of way, a certain amount of shame was “felt” through the airwaves.

  4. Good point, you are right and I don’t think we should isolate and seperate ourselves – but should we not be distinct from the world otherwise we are just another club? Is it a case of, as long as the message is delivered it does not not matter how and who delivers it? In Christ, Stephen

  5. Meanwhile I’m trying to persuade people that blogging is really as useful as the phone – and I bet you wouldn’t be without that! Besides – are we not to use the ways of the world to the best advantage to get the message out?

  6. David, I think you are right the church needs to be different not just a rehashed version of the world, there are too many examples of the church trying to be hip and trendy and it just seems empty and frivilous, let’s offer something different – the gospel – it is so astoundingly simple its the best message for a complex and superficial world.In church today our Pastor gave a wonderful gospel filled sermon – The church is the bride of Christ lets boast in Him !!

  7. > I am becoming concerned that this
    > blogging thing is becoming fashionable.

    Yes. It was terribly disappointing at the Diocesan Synod yesterday that no-one got up and said, “A blog? What is a blog?”

  8. Please don’t stop blogging. It is wonderful to read the blogs of you and your fellow episcopalian clergy and know that while we in Australia are experiencing 39 degrees C you are freezing. What a contrasting world we have!

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