I made it one of my goals during my sabbatical to spend some time looking at how the Bible is (or could be) used in our urban communities: sites.google.com/site/stmichaelbartleygreen/calendar/what-s-on/revddrkevinellissabbatical

I thought it might be good to reflect on what I have learnt so far. First, I have met some fantastic people from directors of ministry, bishops, academics and ordinary clergy who are in reality quite brilliant.

In the course of the sabbatical, I want to float some of what I find. The first area revolves around the fact that we live in a time when the Bible is accessible and unread. It is accessible. There are a wide-variety of translations (both print and media). For those who do not read, there are audio-tapes available from a number of sources, including the Bible Society’s You’ve Got The Time, which deserves a hat-tip for helping to re-introduce the Bible to those who might be expected to use it: www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society/our-work/youve-got-the-time/.

The Bible is also unread. We know from national surveys that Christians in general do not read the bible habitually as a matter of routine. We also know that Christians find the Bible difficult and hard to relate to everyday life. This would seem to suggest that licensed preachers struggle to connect the Bible with 21st Century living. There are initiatives that seek to address this in urban contexts. Groups like Unlock (formerly the Evangelical Urban Training Project www.unlock-urban.org.uk) and the Urban Theology Unit (www.utusheffield.org.uk) have been pivotal in trying to relate text to context; each organisation in different ways building on contextual or liberation theology. I will in a later blog suggest that such approaches struggle today because people no longer know the stories of the bible which are the basic ingrediants of the liberational task. I am aware of other groups like Urban Expression and Eden also engaging with the scriptures.

I wonder though whether a more pertinant reason for lack of engagement with the scriptures is not a paucity of time or a fear of irrelevance, but that the such wrestling presupposes discipleship; and in general terms, discipleship is not a fashionable word. One of the major works on practical theology of late contained the following remark, which I paraphrase. We used to talk about sitting under the authority of scripture, but such thoughts often led to abuse because of particular interpretations of the text. This is of course a statement that carries truth. It is also true, I think, that sitting under the scriptures leaves us open to be challenged about how we live, and as a society, and church, we have grown accustomed to having our own way.