James's Weblog

Spam is a problem that never goes away. Email spam. Comment spam.

This site has long used Mollom to protect the comment section and the contact form. They're closing down on 2nd April 2018, so lots of webmasters will be looking for alternatives.

I'd like to introduce you to Project Honey Pot.

To give credit where credit is due, some readers may spot echoes of the late Mike Ovey's CD1.1 lecture course in the pen portrait of romanticism below. They'd spot that with good reason. The section is included as a summary, and for the benefit of those not fortunate enough to have taken that course, before turning to the illustrative material which is my own contribution.

Romanticism

Romanticism is a wide-ranging movement from (mainly) the first half of the nineteenth century. It influenced literature, art, architecture, philosophy, theology, politics and more.

On Easter Sunday, I preached on Romans 8:18-30.

There wasn't time in that service to set those glorious verses in their full context in the book of Romans.

A few weeks back, I found myself in a group where we were discussing whether weapons are intrinsically evil.

When you have something you do not want to forget, do you write it on your hand? Some people write things on the palms of their hands; others write things on the back; others don't do this at all.

I often tell people that we need to listen to the gospel writers whenever we read the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke or John are teaching us something by recording the things they do. We need to let them do that. The words Jesus spoke within the gospels were spoken to other characters in the narrative, not to us directly. Our job is not to apply those words to us, but to ask what the gospel writer is wishing to communicate by recording those words in the setting they occur in.

The week before last, tragic events unfolded in London. It seems that a man drove a car at nearly 70 mph into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a policeman on duty at the entry to the Parliamentary Estate. 5 people died, including the attacker.

Not long after the event, Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary said this:

It is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide.

I'll put this here, in case it helps anyone else.

I'm owning up to Drupal Schoolboy Error #1.

I was writing a very simple module. It did so little, that I wanted to keep things as simple as possible — just a .info file, and a .module file.

I often tell people that we need to listen to the gospel writers whenever we read the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke or John are teaching us something by recording the things they do. We need to let them do that. The words Jesus spoke within the gospels were spoken to other characters in the narrative, not to us directly. Our job is not to apply those words to us, but to ask what the gospel writer is wishing to communicate by recording those words in the setting they occur in.