Critic Cal

“What is it again that you're doing?” Is the question I’m ever eschewing; But it’s time to face fears Cos in two-point-four years I’ve got one hundred thousand words due in… When asked what I’m up to these days, I typically reply with a confus(ed/ing) flurry of apologies and caveats. [1] So I thought I’d have a go at actually answering the question, for those of my friends who are polite enough to still be interested. Yes, so, I’m doing a(nother) PhD. [2] A sort of “activist” one, motivated by popular and (to me) troubling influences within my immediate and wider Christian circles. Three years full time, at Aberdeen University via Bristol Baptist College. I love being a part of the college and usually spend around 3 days a week there, using the library and exploiting the friendliness and wisdom of staff and fellow students. I have an excellent supervisor here in Bristol and an also-excellent co-supervisor with whom I interact remotely. The Baptist college is partnered with a nearby

Jordan Peterson gets ALL the YouTube views but PLEASE don't think that makes him emulation-worthy!  I recently received an email invite to an event named "Preaching like Peterson: Can a preacher learn anything from the rhetoric of Jordan Peterson?" Now, I don't know how the event organisers plan on answering this question. I am quite willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have prepared something rigorously critically attentive and resistant to Peterson's toxic and dehumanising ideologies.  I'm considerably less willing, however, to actually go and find out for myself... My own answer to what Christians can learn from Peterson about preaching is quite simply "how not to do it." Dog-whistling, contrarianism, fear-mongering and distorted, reductive, pseudo-intellectual, agenda-serving interpretation of the Bible and other venerated sources of authority? Nah, yer alright thanks.  In fact, the very first essay I submitted for m

Right from the start of my MA I knew I wanted to "get to grips with" biblical hermeneutics – what it is I think Christians are  doing (or should be) when we read and interpret the Bible. And though I've got more than enough remaining questions to keep me going through a PhD (and no doubt the rest of my life whatever I do afterwards), the course was a great help towards making sense of sense-making. I've said before  that I'd like to write down some of the things I've come to understand about hermeneutics as it relates to LGBTQ+ inclusion within the Christian community. Because I strongly believe it's vital to begin with an appreciation of the complexity of the Christian canon and of the weighty task of receiving it in diverse, Spirit-led community together. There's no single definitive "biblical position" and no "safe side" answers: all interpretations involve interpretation, and all of them have consequences.  Realistically, it fee