scott, in brief

Last tuesday I was on my way to uni. I dropped of My wife at work and my son at nursery. I was flipping on the radio and came across the first of a new series of BBC radio 4. John Humphrys possibly the top radio journalist on the BBC, inviting the Archbishop of Canterbury to convert him.

Jings. What a program.
I am still recovering from the level of discussion and the ease by which the Archbishop was so clear and easy with his wisdom, and how his theological positions were conveyed.

for example here is his answer to a simple question. Is there a God?

I don't know that there is God or a God in the simple sense that I can tick that off as an item I'm familiar with. Believing is a matter of being committed to the reality of God. The knowledge that comes, that grows if you like through a relationship. I believe I commit myself, I accept what God gives me, I try to accept what God gives me. Grow in that relationship and you grow in a kind of certainty or anchorage in the belief. Knowledge well yes of a certain kind yes, but not acquaintance with a particular fact or a particular state of affairs, it's the knowledge that comes from relation and takes time.

or to the question, why did God create a world where a child can die and leave a family destroyed by death due to cancer.

Rowan Williams: My faith tells me, and it's very hard to believe in these circumstances, but it tells me and I trust this. That the world, yes, is such that suffering arises in these unspeakable ways. It also tells me that what God can do with those circumstances and those persons is not exhausted by the world, there's more.

John Humphrys: Sorry, more what?

Rowan Williams: God has more to give. God has more to do with the mother, the child, whatever the circumstances are. God has an eternity in which to heal or to lead forward the people involved in those circumstances. I don't mean make it up to them but I mean that there's a future.

amazing listening or reading.
listen again until Tuesday ::[[click here]]::
script of original program ::[[click here]]::