Blog category – Bible in Politics

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  Now is the Time!11th July 2023
  Research Associate Peter King reports on the recent German Kirchentag in Nürnberg and the challenges he brings home from it.
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  Bottom of the Well Theology: A Christian Perspective from Ukraine2nd May 2023
  Roman Soloviy reflects from ‘the bottom of the well’ considering the conflict in Ukraine from a Ukrainian Evangelical perspective.
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  In the Presence of Whose Enemies?8th March 2023
  An exploration by Research Student Carolyn Whitnall of the song ‘Raise a Hallelujah’ in its role during the #LetUsWorship ‘protest tour’ arranged by Sean Feucht.
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  The Jealous god of Nationalism1st February 2023
  Nowadays there is preached and practised a twofold doctrine, (1) that each nationality should constitute a united independent sovereign state, and (2) that every national state should expect and require
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  Psalm 33 – ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’16th August 2022
  In this guest blog, Steve Langton considers the interpretation of Psalm 33 and its use to justify the idea of ‘Christian country’ or ‘state church’.
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  Making Peace in a Violent & Fragmented World14th March 2022
  Research Associate Peter King invites us to consider how the recent Declaration on the “Russian World” Teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church might speak to our own context.
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  Hopelessness in the Wilderness of War9th March 2022
  In this guest post, Will Moore shares his sermon on Lent, preached on 6th March 2022.
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  A Violent Fast6th March 2022
  This sermon on Isaiah 58 was preached by CSBV director Helen Paynter during Lent of 2022.
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  National Churches & Trans-National God28th February 2022
  Research associate Peter King considers the role of the national church in contributing to nationalism, and offers practical solutions for the church to instead reflect a trans-national God.
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  Signs of Contradiction20th July 2021
  Shouldn’t a revolution … differ vastly, in action and feeling, from the forces it seeks to dismantle ? Kathleen Alcott, America Was Hard To Find (Harper Collins, Ecco, 2019),
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  Canadian Residential Schools – one Canadian Christian responds28th June 2021
  If someone told me of the discovery of an unmarked mass burial site, containing 215 (or 104 or 751) little bodies disposed of like so much garbage, I would
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  Faith and the Crisis of a Nation, 202122nd March 2021
  By guest blogger Rhys Llwyd To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of R. Tudur Jones I had the privilege of delivering a lecture under the auspices of
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  The violent turn in Christian politics: what is to be done?3rd March 2021
  By guest blogger Paul Lusk Extremist political ideas are like a virus nurtured in a laboratory. Stored safely, they may do no harm. But transmitted to where defences are
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  What Now for American Christians?13th January 2021
  By guest blogger Steven Harmon In November 2013 when our son was 7, we made a family trip to Washington, D.C. for me to attend the American Academy of
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  QAnon, Christian apocalypticism and the threat to US Democracy12th January 2021
  By Valerie Hobbs and Helen Paynter In the wake of the violence carried out by a white supremacist mob at the United States Capitol last week, fascist rhetoric has
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  Should Christians join the military? A Forgotten Perspective.7th December 2020
  By CSBV research associate Brandon Hurlbert Should Christians join the military? A Forgotten Perspective. I have hesitated to write this post for some time now. Military service holds a
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  The (American) Civil War as a Crisis of Theology30th November 2020
  Review of Mark Noll’s book, by Helen Paynter. Noll, Mark E. The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (The Steven and Janice Brose Lectures in the Civil War Era).  University
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  Response to the UK government’s ‘Declaration of Humanity’19th November 2020
  This week the UK Government has published a ‘Declaration of Humanity’ by Faith and Belief Leaders in the UK, to condemn all forms of sexual violence. Here is our
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  Will America Resemble what it Reveres? The Debate About Celebrating and Confronting History1st November 2020
  Guest blog by Matthew Rowley For all the debate over the public commemoration of statues, there is considerable common ground on one issue: monuments mould the societies that they
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  A Bible, a Statue, and a Whip of Cords: Can symbolic violence be prophetic?21st June 2020
  By CSBV director Helen Paynter On 1st June 2020, Donald Trump walked out of the White House accompanied by his entire entourage, including the chair of the Joint Chiefs
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  The Christian imagination: Theology and the origins of Race15th June 2020
  The Christian imagination: Theology and the origins of Race, by Willie James Jennings. London: Yale University Press, 2010. Book review by Sara Améstegui Deik Introduction Willie Jennings is an
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  Sermon: The Way of Jesus in a World on Fire9th June 2020
  Sermon on 1 Peter 3:8-22, preached at St Nic’s, Durham, by CSBV Research Associate Brandon Hurlbert, on 7th June 2020, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests
• Trump’s White Supremacist Bible: A Christian Leader and an Atheist Respond.3rd June 2020
  Following recent events in Washington, CSBV director Helen Paynter and atheist biblical scholar Katie Edwards decided to put out a joint statement on President Trump’s use of the Bible.
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  Thomas Merton: Catholic humanist?22nd May 2020
  By Matthew Feldman. Professor Feldman is a specialist on fascist ideology and the far-right in Europe and the USA. He has written widely on these subjects, for both academic and
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  Porous Borders and Textual Ambiguity: Why ancient Israel is no model for modern nationalism27th November 2019
  Consultation paper offered to the theological consultation of the Theology and Education Commission of the European Baptist Federation, November 2019. Helen Paynter, Centre for the Study of Bible and
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  A sermon for Remembrance Day10th November 2019
  Sermon on 1 Samuel 25 delivered by Helen Paynter at Westbury on Trym Baptist Church, 10th November 2019. You can listen to it here. The 9th November, 1938, was
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  Guest blog: The Ethics of Vengeful Psalms5th October 2019
  Carmen Joy Imes is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Prairie College in Three Hills, Alberta. She is the author of Bearing YHWH’s Name at Sinai: A Reexamination of the
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  Guest Blog: Christianity, Revelation and Violence at the Home Office26th March 2019
  James Crossley is Professor of Bible, Society and Politics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and academic director of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements