In a world of conspicuous consumption the gospel is sometimes cast as the antithesis of a consuming society. Dr Colin Greene is a theologian who has for many years been at the forefront of research into gospel and culture. In this lecture he will consider what the Christian gospel has to say to 21st century consumerism and whether there might not be points of contact between the two.
Colin lectures at Sarum College where he is the Programme Leader, for the MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture.
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Human language is a very fascinating thing. We use it to pass on information, to express our deepest emotions, to pray, to praise, to encourage and, sadly, sometimes to denigrate. The conduit for all these is language, spoken and written. Language defines who we are, preselects our friends, links us with our heritage and sets our expectations.
“Of all the great world religions, it is Christianity that has the most obvious and pervasive investment in translation. We do not have a sacred language; from the very first, Christians have been convinced that every human language can become the bearer of scriptural revelation. The words in which revelation is first expressed are not solid, impenetrable containers of the mystery; they are living realities which spark recognition across even the deepest of gulfs between cultures, and generate new words native to diverse cultures which will in turn become alive and prompt fresh surprise and recognition.
When a translation is completed the whole community gathers to celebrate. Copies of the new scripture are distributed and eager eyes scan the pages. “Now!”, they say, “now we know that God is one of us, that he understands us and shares our lives”! That’s a powerful thing. But perhaps the most exciting thing is that, just as the English and German speakers saw different things in the photograph of the woman walking across a street, so too in their new translation a community may discover things about God that you and I may not have seen through our Bibles.
Dr Keith Lamdin asks what gospel truth looks like in the post-modern world. How can our message be both holy and true to the witness of the church through the ages but still accessible and acceptable to the world around us.
