Ready for battle!

Well, it's the night before term begins, a time for all teachers to dread, but at least it's a student free day and my old mate Gerard from itcpublications.com.au is coming to school to improve our pedagogy. I've been hoping for this for some time, so fingers crossed it all goes well. It'll be good to see GPA again anyway.
On Anglican matters, I finally got a chance today to listen again to a sermon I heard a couple of months ago from Bishop Tom Frame. He was kind of plugging his latest book which is called Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia (or something like that), but expanded it to include comments on what we can do about it. It was one of the most motivational sermons I've heard in quite a while, really inspiring! Shame I don't think I'd be allowed to post it somewhere, but then again I guess I've given him a plug now...
In other related matters, I read a book recently called I Found God in Bermuda: Faith for the 21st Century by Rev. Steven Ogden, currently Principal of St Francis Theological College. It was good reading for the most part, though it suggests what seems close to a non-supernatural proposal for Christianity in the future. Now, this is not big news for people who've heard of John Robinson, Don Cupitt, John Shelby Spong etc, but I guess it may ruffle a few feathers. The interesting thing about the Ogden book is his focus on God's presence and, importantly, God's absence when suffering occurs (and by golly there's been a lot of that in the Asia-Pacific of late - typhoons in Philippines / Taiwan; floods in India; tsunamis in Samoa, etc). His idea is that we stop thinking of an interventionist, supernatural God and recognise God as existing in the web of human relationships. He deals pretty briefly with the resurrection, except to say "something happened" and that it has to be understood symbolically. It seems weird, but I hadn't really looked into the resurrection much before, so I googled it and went from there.
There are an astounding list of arguments for and against a literal interpretation of the recurrection, and I won't run through them all here. After reading a list of the pro-literal, I felt strong in that belief. Then I read a list of the responses from atheists, and changed my mind. After reading Ogden again and Spong's book about saving the Bible from fundamentalists, I think I am now somewhere in the middle, still trying to sort it out. I agree with Spong and others that the gospel accounts are very hard to reconcile. I was particularly disturbed by the verses in late Matthew, suggesting that zombies were seen walking around etc! I'd forgotten about those.
I was also disturbed by a quote from Phillip Yancey, where he says he finds the account of the Ascension to be a serious problem in terms of believing the accounts of the resurrection, and I know what he means. I'll need to read more about these things, but I felt heartened by John Spong, I must say. The meaning of the resurrection continues to be essential, he says, but we need to find a way of adjusting the Christian mindset to handle the non-literal interpretations and this is crucial. More about this to come.

All sorts of stuff

Hi ho, Sunday night. Weekend disappeared yet again. At least some of it was productive - Magazine report for chess club, drafting etc, and on the home front, finally got around to cleaning and partly oiling the pool deck which was looking a bit overdue. Will try to get home early tomorrow to finish it off.
Declan away on cub camp all weekend. Had to drive to Sandgate and back Friday night, and same this afternoon - 2 hr round trip each time. Still, seems like he had a lot of fun, and of course any time spent away from family is good experience for a young lad, I would argue. Didn't get into too many scrapes by the sound of it.
Still going with the Chess Fiends on chessmaniac.com. Had an awesome win over a guy where I sacrificed my Queen with only a slim likelihood of success, but it came together and I prevailed. I resigned my other game against him, but it was the kind of buzz that chess like this is meant to create.
What else? This week is going to be big. Ekka day on Wednesday so a day off to do marking and get ready for the days afterwards. Thursday night we are heading up to Toowoomba to see the TGS production of JC Superstar and then I have to be at Brisbane airport next morning at the appalling time of 5am for a 6am flight to Sydney then Adelaide for an Anglican conference. Hope I can sleep on the plane or at least not stay out late on the Friday. Never been to Adelaide before but looking forward to it - won't be much time to look around though, I suspect. We get back 7.30 Sunday night and then straight back into school on Monday, so no time to fool around.
OK, better hit the sack - but I should mention we had Bp Tom Frame preaching again at church this morning and it was one of the greatest sermons I've heard in a long, long time. Admittedly, he was at least partly plugging his latest book 'Losing my Religion' but by golly, I'm going to buy a copy because it sounds great. He didn't have any with him today because he says they don't actually come out until Friday, but I'll be on it when they do, you bet. Ciao now.