Saturday 13 March 2010

I finished reading Steven Ogeden's little book "I met God in Bermuda" recently and found his reflections on the task of talking meaningfully about God to 21st century post-modernists.

I was initially attracted to the book for two reasons. Steven and I were in seminary together too many years ago to admit here, and my Great Grandparents (paternal) were married in Bermuda on Valentine's Day in 1884.

The work, however, does justice to the quest he began with - to answer the key question "Where on earth is God?" in terms that begin to be meaningfully connected to modern ways of thinking about the religious dimension. As Steven describes it in his Preface, "There are no simple answers (to this question). Nevertheless, a new description of God can enrich and inspire human life and community."

The key idea he grapples with in this new description of God is garnered from the work of Paul Tillich and Karl Rahner, each of whom, in different ways, explore the reality of human experience in which we "are forced to face the reality of the absence of God."

It's a great little work and well worth a read.