Sshhhhh

I just caught the last few seconds of Rev’d Dr Giles Fraser’s Thought For The Day on Radio 4 today.

He seemed to be saying some good things: that theology is not just about information, that imagination is important and that there are what might be called poetic truths where a scientific sort of exactness is not what’s important.

He argued that the best theology will always be stuttering, reaching out to express the inexpressible and that ultimately silence is an appropriate response to the greatness of it all.

He could have mentioned Romans 3:19 at that point but I guess what he said is true. God is ultimately incomprehensible and we can only speak about him with confidence because he has graciously given us his true, reliable, clear, sufficient and authoritative Word.

But I’d say on the whole I’d be happy to hear a bit less from Dr Fraser. I’m no expert on Fraser’s theology, but in the bits I’ve read and heard he often appears very sure of himself and ready to speak in the most forthright terms. Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but it seems it’s the conservative evangelicals who really get his words flowing.

He seems to hate penal substitution, claiming it is barbaric, unbiblical and morally indefensible. He thinks homosexuality is not a sin but a gift from God. He dislikes Christendom. And takes an extraordinary attitude to parish boundaries: you shouldn’t distribute a map which shows part of someone else’s parish, or something. He even seems to reject “The idea of an omnipotent God who can calm the sea and defeat our enemies”. He thinks: “What the reformed traditions often don't get is that they have given up worshipping images only to worship a book.” And argues that “there can be few more chilling examples of theocratic fascism than Calvin's Geneva.”

Enough!