You resident black sheep has some serious reading to do over the summer! The plan is to plough through as much of Karl Barth's "Church Dogmatics" as possible. The CD is possibly one of the greatest works of Reformed theology ever written and certainly one of the longest from the pen of an individual author. It's title, in English, combines two of the (currently) dirtiest words in the English language
Church: this summer we are witnessing the Anglican communion struggling not to blow itself to bits over homosexuality, not the most edifying spectacle even for those who know enough to understand why this is a necessary debate. From the outside the church looks like a strange body of people with distinctly odd views about sex, and otherwise uninteresting.
but it gets worse
Dogmatics: nobody wants to be thought dogmatic any more - the word is associated with the arrogance of those who "know it all" in fields where such clarity is considered at best impossible and at worst, at least in the UK, impolite. Religion is just such a field! Dogmatics actually means just "teachings" - and if the Church has nothing to teach it has nothing to say (apart from "sorry", which we often need to say). Church Dogmatics is an exploration of the teachings of the church across ten thousand pages.
Should be fun - watch this space!!
Thoughts which occur while chewing things over. Mainly grass.
