thedeepchurchproject

Don't get me wrong - there are some fantastic things the NHS provides including free at point of use medical care. However, there is something that worries me about the way in which it is spoken of in hallowed terms and that any critical thought or alternative is blasted down as if heresy. Philosophically speaking the NHS is not a "person" but a collection of people employed to deliver a health service on behalf of tax payers. Many, if not most, are very hardworking individuals who have a tremendous sense of vocation. But, and here is my "but" it is only a "system". Yes, it was patchy before its inception, as was most healthcare around Europe. Yet, there were some really heroic doctors and nurses before the NHS many working in church-based institutions on sacrificial wages, etc. I wonder if there is an untold story of all those ("Call the Midwives") ecclesiastical health providers who were suddenly nationalised? I mean at some point, for ...

We tend to think of Emperor Constantine(272-337) as the 'bad boy' of Christian history. Either we swallow the Dan Brown mythology that the newly converted emperor invented much of Christianity in 325 at the Council of Nicaea OR we believe that he created stuffy old 'Christendom' with all its witch hunts, power playing bishops and Spanish Inquisitions. Either way in the liberal/secular worldview and the theology of Mission-Shaped Church Constantine is bad. But, could it all be more complicated?  Perhaps Constantine is not the bete-noire of liberal Christianity but a mixed blessing and at one point a champion of a sort of mish-mash religious plurality? This is what ACTUALLY happened. Constantine was never baptised until his death bed in 337 and then it was by Arian clergy rather than orthodox ones. Constantine called the Christian Church in a grand council in 325 in Nicaea to resolve the Arian/orthodox conflict. Arius, a charismatic bishop held that Jesus was a cr...