Baaack!

Well, I am seriously out of the blogging loop - so far out that I had forgotten that there was a loop. Graduating, being ordained, moving, moving again, getting broken in at the new churches, finding it easier to post links and thoughts to Facebook than to the blog...all added up to no blogging for quite some time. But I promise to be a more conscientious blogger from now on.

Just back from the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Montreal, where I presented a paper on French-language evangelism in the United Church of Canada, 1925-1975. Great conference - heard Tariq Ramadan (one of the world's leading Muslim intellectuals) twice, the Black Liberation theologian James Cone, a panel on multifaith understandings of death and dying in hospice care, a panel on the "death of God" theme, a presentation on Iroquois spirituality and culture with Ellen Gabriel (familiar to many Canadians from the Oka crisis 19 years ago), and saw the Bill Maher anti-religion documentary Religulous. Best line heard during the conference goes to James Cone: "Anyone who does not address the liberation of the poor and weak does not have the gospel. Maybe another gospel, but not the Christian gospel." He went on to say, "It's hard to preach the gospel and not be offensive. They just don't go together." Inspiring, enlightening, thought-provoking.