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For more than fifty years I've been reading the Bible. For the same amount of time I've been studying the Bible. And all that time since University, I've consulted, learned from and valued the dedicated scholarship of the academic guild of Biblical Studies. Commentaries and grammars, dictionaries and lexicons, biblical theologies and ethics, the social background and history of biblical times, theories of hermeneutics and various approaches to biblical literary studies; there is no shortage of resources to dig, to dig deeply, and go on digging into the biblcal text.

One of my particular interests is the history of biblical interpretation, and in particular how historical context decisively influences how a text is understood, interpreted and applied in faith communities and the wider culture. In the nineteenth century, biblical criticism created widely varied responses. There was generally deep suspicion and hostility of conservative scholars to any approach which seemed to undermine the authority of the Bible. On the other side, a growing enthusiastic pursuit of new knowledge and approaches to the biblical texts as historic documents, and the view that they were to be studied and interpreted like other ancient documents, and open to the same tests of historical and literary analysis.

Evangelicalism has at best been cautious and indeed resistant to the more thoroughgoing approaches of historical and literary critics working on the Bible. Words such as "liberal" and "critical" became shorthand epithets for those who were believed to practice a reductionist science which undermined the historical veracity and spiritual authority of the Old and New Testaments. Fear led to witholding trust in a form of scholarship claiming to be objective, historically impartial and increasingly approved in the academy. The result was general reluctance amongst conservative evangelical scholars to read and use and learn from the writing and teaching of "liberal scholarship". Much of conservative evangelical biblical scholarship was apologetic in content, intended either to contradict the findings of the critics, or offering a different textual interpretation controlled in both content and approach by a high doctrine of biblical inspiration.

Those days of polarised positions with parallel but separate tracks of faith and scholarship which seemed destined never to meet, are now much changed. It has taken time, a hundred and fifty years or so. But today some of the finest biblical scholars of international reputation in the Academy are writing from firm confessional convictions which, they argue, are quite consistent with rigorous critical scholarship and analysis of the biblical text and world.

Which brings me to a book which showcases leading biblical scholars who are comfortable with a "both / and" approach to biblical study. Faith and scholarship are not incompatible, they argue. Indeed they need each other, and are indispensable pre-requisites to the proper study of the biblical texts with results both useful to the church and intellectually honest in their claims.  Of course for evangelicals engaged in critical academic biblical studies, tensions inevitably remain. Questions about the nature of biblical authority, the preferred hermeneutical approach, the fruits and outcomes of academic study of the Bible; these will vary. But as shown by the authors of the essays in this book, questions and tensions are held within a strong commitment to the Bible as normative for the life of the Christian and for the Church as the community of faith.

I (Still) Believe is an unusual, and unusually helpful book. The words of the dedication are telling in their pastoral tone. We are told the book is written "For all who have struggled, wrestled, been discouraged, lamented, lost hope, wanted to give up, wondered if it all made sense, but still believe…" That was enough to pull me in.

Eighteen Christian academics who are at the top of their game and who have international reputations as biblical scholars have each written an autobiographical essay on their own faith journey, and the tensions of being a critical biblical scholar and a practising member of a Christian faith community. Some of them are quite moving in their honesty, while others describe how their intellectual and spiritual journey became a coincidence of study and practice. Still others write of how their scholarship compels new understanding, persuades towards changing conviction, and has personal consequences in life transformation and self-understanding.

Now whether you're interested in biblical studies or not, this is an important book. Reading it exposes you the reader to questions others have asked before you, and have persevered in looking for the answers. If you are a Bible reader, and let's face it that's a core practice of Christian living, then you'll discover the so many other ways of reading the Bible responsibly, wrestling  with this transformative, subversive, disturbing and ultimately life saving book. Even if you're not a frequent Bible reader, take time to listen to the why and how of people who are, and whose life work is the study of these ancient texts from ancient cultures. They may well encourage you to go looking for that Bible and try again. 

These are essays of testimony, each an attempt at an honest account of what it means to wrestle with the Bible as Jacob wrestled with the angel, and like Jacob, hanging on for dear life, saying through gritted teeth, "I will not let you go until you bless me." If that sounds like an exaggeration, just wait till you read the essay which tells of the losing of a loved one, and how that loss has impelled the writer to explore the depths of troubling Bible texts and how they relate to human suffering and comfort.

Another, writing of her upbringing in a racially segregated southern church, tells how that experience made such an impression she "would never again read scriptural texts in a way that excludes others." Here is what she writes:"I have ever since been deeply distressed by attempts to draw circles that exclude, whatever feeble grounds are offered, especially when such circles are presented as 'Christian'".  

This is a book that will do good if it is read in the spirit in which it is written. This is heart speaking to heart about how to use, and not abuse, the Bible. It is testimony, academic scholars helping us to put their own writing and studies and scholarship in their own and personal life context. It is a reassuring book, not because it minimises the challenges of critical scholarship, or argues away the problems the Bible poses to 21st Century readers (and the problems are many and they range from big to humungous). But because each writer in and through their scholarly work, has faced up to those hard questions that might put faith in jeopardy. But in obedience to God and in faithfulness to the truth they seek, they have lived with the tension, neither surrendering intellectual integrity nor that faith which requires trust in the One of whom and to whom these ancient texts bear witness.

The essayists in this book are professional and vocational scholars. Day and daily they engage with the Bible critically and honestly, and with the best intellectual tools available; and they still believe.  

One of the rules of thumb of Kant's moral philosophy is the universalising principle. In evaluating the validity of a moral choice ask, "Can this principle and this choice be univeralised?" I've found that a really useful and nearly always clarifying question about my own choices, behaviour and attitudes. If everyone acted as I am acting now, what would the world look like? Would it add to or subtract from human flourishing?

Here's what got me thinking about this. I came across this gift bag in a garden centre today and asked my Kantian kind of question. What would happen if everyone today adopted the attitude encouraged by the birthday advice – "Today is all about you?" I confess to being nervous about giving myself permission to be self-interested, self-satisfied, self as centre of attention. I might become addicted to it! It doesn't mean I don't do or think or feel like that sometimes – the fantasy of having a day that's all about me. And maybe I've had days like that.

I guess I'm asking what the world would be like if we all decided today is all about me. That said, it's a gift bag, and on those special days someone is giving permission to be self-undulgent. Do what you want; eat what you like; think about yourself instead of others; don't say no for today is all about you and all about yes.

Self care is a thing these days. In fact, it's a big thing, because if we don't look after ourselves we become so neglected and badly maintained we're likely to break down. So, yes, the occasional day when it's all about you, or me, is ok.

Problem is there is an underlying suspicion that if we had our own way, and had the resources we might seriously consider adopting "today is all about me" as a lifestyle. And that is something else. But isn't that exactly the life plan or life fantasy that the advertising, consumer and image generating culture is dedicated to creating? Make the self central, and its happiness and satisfaction the priority. Suggest, persuade, seduce us into linking that self-satisfaction to purchasbale products, feed our sense of worth and identity with a continuous stream of promises, project into our minds enhanced images of the self we could be, and urging us to enjoy the imagined envy of others. And all of this achieved through buying and possessing things in order to construct a self with enough inbuilt insecurity to never be satisfied, always hungry for more, and newer and better. But it's worth it, because you're worth it, because when it comes down to it, this life, it's all about you. So the philosophy of consumerist self-construction.

And if everybody thought like that, acted on that view of the world and ourself, what then of relationships, community, and the humanity to which we all belong? The "today is all about you" treat for my birthday is one thing. But it carries an assumption, and perhaps a temptation, to think that in an ideal world, this is what it should be like. And as a Christian I'm uncomfortable in ceding that much credence and inner space to such an idea and way of thinking. Placing the satisfaction and fulfilment of the self at the prioritising centre of each person's life project, is perhaps the most spiritually dangerous and morally reckless decisions a human heart can make.

You are no longer your own, you are bought with a price. He who saves his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will find it. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me,…and you will find rest for your soul. What does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?

These are blank contradictions of any "all about me" approach to life. If Jesus is Lord, and that Lordship is embodied in self-giving love and other-centred service, then that is what it is all about. Not all about me, ever – on the contrary, it's all about the loving grace and forgiving mercy of the one who is the Gift beyond words to the world.

This, then, is not a call to self-negation. It's a recognition that human life and Christian life under God is a gift that defines us as creatures of the gift. Each day is all about God, not us; all about love and the joy of others in which we find our meaning and God's purposes. And on those days of celebration and of self care when someone says, "Today is all about you", that's fine. Receive such days as gift, not entitlement; as occasions of renewal for all those other days that are all about others; and as reminders that when it comes down to it, each day lived in self-forgetful gratitude and self-giving care for the world of people and things around us, becomes all about you doing and being what God intended. Which means each day is all about you, doing God's thing. That is a principle that could, and in the Kingdom of God will, be universalised. 

It's now a good number of weeks since we had rain in Aberdeenshire. The grass has lost much of its green, the soil is dusty and the humans are trying to get used to temperatures in constant double figures and with days when it reached 28 degrees!

I know! Anything around 20 degrees is moderate, temperate and pleasant. But for a couple of months leading into Spring the temperatures weren't often in double figures, and it was also a relatively dry winter.

Water conservation, hose-pipe bans and watering the garden with dishwater and not a hose, doesn't happen often in Aberdeenshire.

Despite the lack of rain, the climate has brought out the roses, some of them astonishingly beautiful. As a short break in the dry spell we had a couple of days of what can only be called smizzle; it wasn't heavy enough to be drizzle and it was more than haar. But it was wet, gently and soothingly wet; and it refreshed the roses.

This photo in the early morning hardly does justice to the complex beauty of petals, colours, water, light and stillness. And it reminded me of words from the Bible where often the dew or the soft rain is a metaphor for the refreshment of the human spirit. The words from Deuteronomy 32.2 speak for a rich symbol of God's presence restoring vitality, bathing with life.

" Let my teaching fall like rain
    and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
    like abundant rain on tender plants."

Health, fulfilment, vitality, hopefulness – hearing and heeding and doing the words and works of God are part of the relationship between the God of life and the life we live. The photo was, for me, a lovely reminder not only of what side my bread is buttered on, but who it is that is the bread of life itself.

In her book Sharing the Darkness, doctor Sheila Cassidy explores the forms of caring and support available within a hospice environment, and how these relate to pastoral care. Her work in palliative care, and her close interaction with patients and their families, brought her into contact with folk for whom suffering, fear and questions of mortality were daily realities.

How to sustain people in hopefulness, support their relatives through the anxiety, sadness and process of bereavement, and yet keep working with dedication and compassion towards their healing and the alleviation their pain, was aburden borne as part of a dual vocation.

As she tells in her early autobiography, Audacity to Believe, Cassidy had trained as a doctor, and had worked in Chile in the 1970's, and been arrested during the coup d'etat and its aftermath. She had treated a wounded insurgent and was tortured by state secret police to extract information which in fact she did not have.

Following her release after a major diplomatic crisis between the UK and Chile, Cassidy became a nun. But her medical training, itself a gift of God and too valuable to simply be abandoned, led her into work with the dying, and into further medical training.

By the time she wrote her book about her hospice experience she was workin in Plymouth. I remember reading that book, and being moved deeply by its model of care based on affirming and upholding the dignity and value of each person within and on the periphery of the hospice community – patients, relatives, carers and staff. It is in this context that she told of one of her inner strategies for coping with people's pain, fear and sadness, and how to bear the burden of expectations placed on her as medical director.

Here's what she did. She looked each day for the sign of the cross, a reminder of the eternal love of God intersecting in our own daily time. The suffering love of Christ, and the hope of resurrection beyond the cross, helped uphold her own faith and emotional resilience day in and day out. She looked for the sign of the cross and found it on window lattices, door panels, floorboards, garden fences, furniture joints. Over the years I started doing the same thing; not in the same continuous way as a form of devotional discipline, but alert to cruciformity wherever it turns up.

Today, standing in John Lewis waiting to pay for a new mattress, there was this old repair to the floor tiles with tape worn thin by the walking of a few thousand feet. And I remembered Sheila Cassidy, hospice director, doctor, former nun and outspoken and outstanding Christian, and her daily attentiveness to the sign of the cross. And I gave thanks.

In the previous post I mentioned this book. There were good reasons for doing so. Amongst the most constant if controversial and significant Christian voices in Germany throughout the 1930's, and until his death by execution in 1945, was the German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Famous for his involvement with the resistance movement, Bonhoeffer remains implicated in plans and actions which led to the notorious assassination attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler. The various judgments of posterity as to the extent of his specific involvement and on the moral and theological principles he followed, remain undecided and fiercely contested.

What is beyond doubt was his opposition to National Socialism on theological grounds. The claims of the Nazi party and of Hitler and his propagandists he believed were nothing short of blasphemous, and required of the church the same level of resistance as first generation Christians faced in the face of the totalitarian and religious claims of Caesar. Hitler required nothing less than total allegiance, and the fusion of those political and religious claims were denounced as tantamount to idolatry by the Christians who eventually formed the Confessing Church. The issues were political, but they threatened the theological integrity and spiritual freedom of the entire German people. Hence the title of Barnett's book; the struggle was nothing less than For the Soul of the People.

Victoria Barnett is one of the world's leading authorities on the thought and historical context of Bonhoeffer. Her acccount, which includes interviews with over 50 survivors of the Nazi years, is a carefully considered analysis of what goes so wrong in a nation's cultural and political life that catastrophic and destructive forces are detonated. Out of such research and expertise she worked for decades with the international team of scholars editing The Works of Dietirch Bonhoeffer. Her analysis of 1930's Germany, and of what led a nation to such catastrophic conflicts and subsequent programmatic evils such as Auschwitz, must not be lightly set aside by anyone open to the evidence of those historical realities from which such consequences derive.

When parallels are drawn between the 1930's in Germany, and recent events in our own day, they can too easily be dismissed as exaggerated or even ruled out as invalid. But a reading of Barnett's book is a sobering reality check for those who argue that we have learned the lessons of the past and we are better than those earlier generations who saw their democratic freedoms dissolved by the acids of an ideology founded on making Germany great again.

Her book is also a warning to those who simply dismiss the comparison as ludicrous and an hysterical reaction to a form of politics that has become necessary in order to halt the bogeyman of "liberal progressivism". Barnett demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the strategies and rhetoric of Hitler and his party machine appealed to populist emotions of resentment, neglect, powerlessness and deprivation; and they promised the reversal of the causes of resentment and neglect, and a recovery of power and material prosperity. Sound familiar, in Western democracies today? When there is an upsurge of complaint and claim that the culture is degenerate and needs to be cleansed, and old values recovered, that too is an echo of 1930's Germany.

If we consider the discourse and developments in western liberal democracies in recent years, there are further ominous echoes to be heard and pondered; pervasive and recurring anti-immigrant rhetoric, rising statistics for hate crimes against minorities, demeaning of the judiciary and branding judges the enemies of the people, reversing freedoms and tightening rules by which the poor and vulnerable can be helped and cared for at public expense, finding scapegoats for social ills and "our" failed hopes, turning some media into instruments of state propaganda and seeking to silence opposition and criticism, laying blame for present ills on others than ourselves whether in Brussels, North Africa, Mexico or anywhere else distant and alien enough to be made into a plausible threat. These are not novelties of 21st Century tensions and anxieties. We've been here before, and it wasn't good. 

In this book Barnett doesn't make connections from 1930's Germany to our 21st Century times of cultural flux and political ferment. The book is 25 years old. But its analysis remains relevant to situations like the present in which extremes of language, reactionary politics, nationalistic revivals all point to a different and no less dangerous kind of climate change. An environment previously friendly to freedom and trust, liberal thought and progressive thinking, now encounters opposition which challenges the very nature of those freedoms, institutions and structures on which for several generations the world's security ultimately has depended.

Social improvement and cultural correctives are an inescapable part of healthy and responsible human life and society. But when such correctives are driven by fomented discontent and scapegoating of others for any and each social reversal, then echoes from a time and place no longer familiar, need to be identified and named. The relevance of Bonhoeffer for our times may well be in his absolute rejection of all claims to authority and power and public allegiance which are attached to political ideologies and their accompanying mytholgies. These are claims to which the church cannot concur, and indeed must resist in the name of the One whose Lorsdship is cruciform and whose power is life-giving. 

The letter of James has some wise warnings about teaching and the qualities needed in a good teacher. The Jewish Wisdom background of James becomes obvious when, more than once, he urges the importance of wisdom, maturity and responsibility in the ways we use words. 

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check……

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.  (James 3.1-2,13ff)

Reading, even praying these words every day would be an interesting exercise in quality control of the inner climate that generates the words we speak and the way we say them. The concept of the speech-act is not a modern (or post-modern) form of rhetorical analysis. James and a whole tradition going back to the book of Proverbs was there long before us. Words are active deeds, performative acts, transformative vocal events. When words are said, things happen. James is interested in what words do, and what they set out to do. The good life of the wise and understanding teacher is self-evident in "deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom." Amongst the many deeds done are words wisely spoken.

What we say is who we are. That truth raises questions about what people say online. There is a potent afterlife in words. The good that comes from wise and peaceable words doesn't merely evaporate; lives are challenged or changed by words that forgive and reach out. Words offered as gifts of peace are like seeds sown in hope.

Words that sprout from hate, fear, resentment and a distorted view of others also encapsulate toxins with a long afterlife. Lives are wounded and people's dignity, value and hopefulness are sometimes decisively diminished by hate speech, fear speech, and bitter speech. James' analysis of such bitter envy and toxic words may well offend a culture like our own, slowly but surely getting used to extremes of speech. Rhetorical combat and the weaponising of words is a serious threat to our human security and our social and political future. Words are made to carry such destructive payloads when we devalue their capacity for reasoned truth, and increase their power in polarising and dividing, harnessing their energy towards making those who disagree with us our enemies. Such sinister wisdom allied to the will to power is "earthly, unspiritual, demonic."

The rhetoric around questions of immigrants and refugees, the latent and blatant racism of policies and discourse using terms such as "hostile environment" and "zero-tolerance", are alike rhetorical trends that James would describe as "earthly, unspiritual, demonic". Unearthly means a way of speaking by a mind set on lower values, self-interest, material gain. Much contemporary political discourse has "earthly" as its default setting. "Unspiritual" is very similar but pushes the selfishness and ruthlessnes to the next level where questions of ethics, right and the good are lower order values and goals of gain, influence and power become priorities.

But it is the word "demonic" that is the most illuminating, and worrying. James is not using the word for effect by exaggeration. He is talking about what happpens when hate words take on a life of their own. Envy and unrestrained selfishness are powerful drivers towards power, and once let loose there is "every evil and disorder." Paul uses the same concept of evil hijacking the persuasive power of words to fly beneath the moral radar. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." The older translation captures exactly the menace of intentional malice and unintended consequences in the clash of values between the wisdom from below and the wisdom from above.

Whether on Twitter or at rallies, political press conferences or election and referendum campaigns, whether in Parliament or party politically biased news headlines, the effect is the same. Degenerating discourse is both a symptom and a contagious cause of cultural peril.

Some anxious commentators suggest historical parallels between recent rises in nationalism and nationalistic sentiments accompanied by suspicion of minority groups and the dilemmas of immigration, with similar social disruptions in the 1930's in central Europe. Others call appeal to such historical precedents alarmist, insulting, hysterical, and naive historical anachronism.

It is interesting that when warning voices were raised in Germany on the election of Hitler and the National Socialist party to power, the same dismissive disclaimers were voiced by many of the most respected voices in the nation. My own advice to those who are so dismissive of historical parallels is to read the history. Wisdom is seldom served by hanging loose to evidence, nor in being over-confident in what we are so sure of. A good starting place is Victoria Barnett's For the Soul of a People. Protestant Protest Against Hitler. It's in the title. Words both form and reveal the soul of a nation. Amongst other things that is why the phrase "create a hostile environment" used in relation to other human beings is so dangerous, foolish and morally indefensible. Does that phrase define the soul of the British people?   

The words of James about the risks of being a teacher extend to the risks of everyone who uses words persuasively and powerfully. Words are deeds and have consequences. Words are performative acts which persuade towards change, for good or ill. Words have transformative power as they change minds, harden attitudes, motivate wills and form character. The character of a society is not an abstract thing. When someone says this is not my true character, as an apology for damaging and diminishing words they have spoken or written, they use a disclaimer that lacks evidential credibility.

Likewise in a community, whether church or local neighbourhood, the quality of discourse by those in influential positions, is a telling index of character. Of course character is not fixed. People change. And amongst the most effective instruments of change are words, other words, that challenge our assumptionsand open our eyes to new truth. By their power and freedoms, words expose those other false and self-interested words that are more about the speaker's fears, prejudices and unacknowledged desires to have the world only as they wish it to be. Boasting and truth denial are close rhetorical cousins according to James. But so are mercy and peace-loving consideration of others.  

I only meet with my good friend Ken once or twice a year when he is back in Scotland. We meet somewhere halfway, have coffee, a walk, a long conversation about the things that matter most, lunch and that's it for another while. Phone, Facebook, email are all good for keeping up to date. But face to face in a meeting of friends is a renewal of companionship in which presence to each other is the deepest gift celebrated in laughter, confidences, and shared enjoyment of the adventure that is our lives.

In a friendship that has lasted well over thirty something years, that's enough. That kind of friendship is a gift entrusted, to be valued and enjoyed by wise and grateful stewards of that which we realise doesn't come along often in life.

Yesterday while walking along the country road behind Glendoick Garden Centre on a warm summer morning, we fell into the familiar rhythms of conversation, reflection on family, life, books, football, theology and even politics and the worrying trends of a world unsettled by reverting to narrowing nationalisms and fomented discontent.

It's hard to put the world to rights in one morning, but we made a start. More important was the process of remembering in each other's company the importance of those rare but essential friendships that provide ballast against the changeable, the transient and the unforeseen. The meeting of minds and the intersection of life stories was embodied by two people walking together in a rich and enriching fellowship, to use precisely a word worn thin by overuse. 

As we walked I stopped only a couple of times to take photos. This tall grass spike, luminous with sunlight, was framed by trees with which it moved in a synchronised life dance. The orchestration of breeze and sunlight, grass and trees, birdsong and two voices talking, and all this in the context of two people going to some trouble to be present to each other is impossible to capture in image or word. And yet so much was distilled into this photo, and that one moment of recognition when beauty and warmth, companionship and conversation, movement and stillness coalesced in blessing.

Amongst the flowers of the field grass has its own grace and beauty. Jesus used the telling metaphor of how grass is 'clothed' by the creator, provided its own beauty and its inner capacity to renew itself through seed and flower.

But grass is transient, as is each day of life. Time is also gift, but one that cannot be stored, and how we choose to spend time, and who we spend it with, becomes one of the key questions to a life lived wisely and well.

As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field.

The wind blows over it and it is gone,

and its place remembers him no more. (Psalm 103.15-16

Life's deepest blessings and most cherished relationships are also subject to the passing of time. Trust the Psalm poet to nudge us awake with a note of realism. But that same Psalm starts and ends on praise and gratitude. "Praise the Lord O my soul, and forget not all his benefits." Indeed. And amongst the life-shaping benefits are those friendships and loves that define who we are and encourage from us what we may become. Yesterday was a day that acknowledged once again one of the great benefits for which I don't forget to thank God.

Collected essays of a Scottish presbyterian dogmatician of global repute, early provocative work of the Methodist doyen of American homileticians, a French sociologist with a penchant for theology deconstructs human fascination with the city, a later title from the Catholic priest and original initiator of Latin American liberation theology, and the published thesis of an ecumenical church historian wrestling with atonement and the means of grace.

I love the serendipity of the Oxfam bookshop, the excitement of the 'you never know what you might find' feeling, so different from the online targeted searching for what I already know I'm looking for.

Looking in a second-hand bookshop is an exercise in accidental purchasing! What makes any book lover buy a book is neither explicable nor necessary to explain. My own interests are wide but I also have my particular subject areas to which I come back again and again. The thing about these five books, apart from the eclectic contents, is that they are the chosen ones. A number of others were left on the shelves which were equally interesting. So why these ones?

Indeed why any at all given the creaking shelves in the study, and the probably creaking floorboards holding them up? A spur of the moment surrender takes place while standing browsing at bookshelves. All the rationalising in the world won't reverse that capitulation. Each book is chosen, and has its reasons for being bought.

There is a book I've been looking for (Torrance). 

That looks interesting, I've never read that one before (Ellul).

Oh I didn't know he had written that (Craddock).

Thirty years on does this writer still speak into the mess of the world (Guttierez).

I used the library copy of this in my doctoral research years ago and remember how good it is (R S Paul).  

So when will you read them Jim?

Oh quite soon.

The Craddock then the Guttierez. A

fter that we'll see.

Over the decades that I've bought books, sold books, given away and been given books, and yes read books, lots of books, I've never given up the chase for whatever it is a book brings to the mind and soul of the reader. Amongst the most mind expanding conversations we ever have, are those with other minds. Thinking meticulously with an Edinburgh dogmatics professor, born in China the son of missionary parents; learning the overlap of technique and inspiration from an American preacher who teaches preaching; developing cultural criticism from a French sociologist deconstructing social institutions and urban ideologies with a mixture of philosophy and theology; sharing the passion and anger and love of a ninety year old Peruvian priest who lives in a Lima slum and whose writings critique oppressive power structures of wealth, militarism and social division; listening and seeking to model a church historian, previously director of lay training for the World Council of Churches, seeking dialogue with the people of God under the cross that unites in order to overcome the tragedy of sacraments that divide.

All that from twenty minutes browsing innocently with intent in Oxfam.