Wednesday 26 January 2011

Stark choices (3.5)

Before launching into Thom Stark's book in earnest, a quick dive across the Atlantic to press an ear to Don Cupitt's door at Cambridge. The relevance of this droll quote from A New Great Story will be apparent to anyone who is already familiar with The Human Faces of God.

... much or most of the entire history of religions can be found in the Hebrew Bible - including some startlingly-archaic ideas of God (coupled with indignant denials by God of his own past) ... There are relics of a time when God commanded and accepted human sacrifice, including child sacrifice, together with God's later attempts to distance himself from this very unfortunate fact about his past history. (p.33)

I certainly don't agree with Cupitt on everything, but I admire anyone who can skilfully eviscerate a Calvinist construct before you even notice that he's unsheathed the knife.

5 comments:

  1. For the theologically challenged, do you mind spelling out the calvinist construct? :)

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  3. Um. That's an interesting analysis of Calvinism. But, definitely not one I would have recognised.

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  5. If I find any "Wise One" willing to reply to you PH, I'll ask them to.

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