Michael J. Leyden

I have just started reading this book, Spiritual Fitness by Graham Tomlin (London: Continuum, 2006). It is a really good read, and quite challenging in places. I'm not in total agreement with Tomlin in every area, but find him a very stimulating conversation partner (this ought to be expected after his Provocative Church (2002)). The premise of the book is partly as a follow up to his earlier work, and partly as a fleshing out of the question "what would happen if Christians started to put huge amounts of time and energy into developing their spiritual health and fitness?" There is a missional drive to this: such lives would be attractive to others, doubly so in our post-modern world in which people are looking for points of reference (if Zygmunt Bauman is to be believed). I thought I would have a go at blogging my way through, chapter by chapter - partly as good practice for me when it comes to blogging, and partly for fun! So here goes... Ch. 1: Church in a Cultu...

"This book is about American Evangelicals. More precisely, it explores how some Evangelicals are consuming and enacting knowledge produced as part of the Emergining Church movement. Even more precisely, it is an ethnographic analysis of identities fashioned, practices performed, discourses articulated, histories claimed, institutions created, and ideas interrogated in this cultural field. Emerging Evangelicalism, we will come to see, is a movement organized by cultural critique, a desire for change, and grounded in the conditions of both modernity and late modernity." (p. 5) It only seemed fair to let James Bielo outline his own argument rather than me do it for him, so there you go. I'm reading this book to review it for Anvil Journal (UK) and started off thinking that a) this would be another typical ethnographic study that does not attend to any theology, and 2) that it would concern itself primarily with USA and have little or nothing to say to me in a British co...

I have been thinking a bit about ordained ministry this week, and the shift of emphasis to leadership - "Church Leaders" - that has happened in recent years. It is a very strong notion in Liverpool Diocese, I suspect because of its evangelical heritage (where the concept seems to be very strong). It is a theme that I have come back to many times in the last ten years or so. I have so far avoided blogging on this topic because I have struggled to articulate my thoughts coherently. I'm not now claiming to have gotten to that point, but I feel able to get a few things down and perhaps get some feedback that will help me think more clearly about the area of leadership and priesthood. (When I say priesthood here I really mean ordained ministry - for those of you not from a traditon that calls its presbyters priests.) It is something that genuinely bothers me - not in the sense that I am profoundly disturbed by others' opinions, but because I haven't landed my own th...

I have had a great evening listening to a whole stack of theological podcasts from St Paul's Theological Centre, London, UK. There are over 60 podcasts available from the St Paul's website or on iTunes that cover a whole range of topics in Christian ethics, spirituality, systematic theology, history, Christian biography etc.with experts from across UK. The format is pretty simple: a three way discussion between Dr Jane Williams, Revd Dr Mike Lloyd, Revd Dr Graham Tomlin and a special guest or two each session (I've listenind to Prof. Nigel Biggar, Prof. NT Wright, Dr David Hilborn, Prof. Andrew Walker, Prof. Alister McGrath, and a hosts of others so far). Each lasts a bit less than an hour, but there's plenty to think about and chew over. If you're looking for some really good input, and some fun theological discussion from leading evangelical thinkers, then head over to St Paul's Centre and their Godpod page.

Those of you who have been following this blog through 2011 may or may not be pleased to know neither I nor it has(ve) died, and will be carrying on in 2012 -- though as you might have guessed, my workload will need managing in order to write more often! No-one mentioned that the final quarter of the year would be so busy for clergy...I probably ought to have worked it out earlier. Anyway, now that Advent and Christmas is over, and Epiphany is underway, I have had some time for reading and thinking and thought I would share a bit of what I'm reading. As far as academic work goes, I've been reviewing four books over the past few months. Three of them have been on the subject of Christian ethics, and the fourth another account of the meaning of the atonement. Of these the ethics books have been the most interesting: Neil Messer, Respecting Life: Theology and Bioethics published by SCM (2011); Edward Dowler, Theological Ethics also published by SCM as part of their core texts ...