I'm knackered today. Gave all my essays in this morning, which was a great relief. Then we had church history with Dr. Massey. He seems to be doing ok. (His son died unexpectedly of a heart attack last week, age 36). The funeral is on Monday. He was talking about the birth of liberal theology in the 19th Century. With modernism -Darwin,Kant, Marx, Freud etc the rise of critical scholarship, then the conservative reaction to it, the birth of evangelicalism -Lightfoot, Warfield, the preaching of Spurgeon. He also covered the 20th century, how liberal theology emptied the mainline churches, the social gospel, the ecumenical movement, Vatican II and his speciality the rise and rise of Pentacostalism and then the charismatics/third wave etc. Not bad for a 2 hour lecture. Made me think about how so many movements (all?) are born out of a pendulum swing reaction to what had gone before. I remember Brian Mclaren saying in 'Finding Faith' about Deism being a reactionary movement, and how reactionary movements rarely last. Thought that was quite ironic for a book that was basically a reaction to Modern versions of how Christ has been presented. Oh well, I seem to be being pretty virbose today. I feel sorry for any poor fool who ends up reading this stuff. It would bore them half to death I should think.
I have been feeling a bit closer to God recently. Its wierd, it kind of makes me feel like a child. Like I'm innocent. But at the same time that makes me feel quite vulnerable, like I'm having some protective layers peeled off. anyway nuff said for now.