The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.
This week was a bit different as my wife, Eleri, has a new regime where she doesn't usually work on Tuesdays and so the first half of the day I was with her. We drove over to Highgate but were unable to park there at first and so we went to Kenwood House for a cuppa and them went to see the current art exhibition called double vision. Kenwood has a Vermeer, the Guitar Player. It turns out there is a copy of this in Philadelphia and they are currently showing the two together. Quite interesting. In Highgate later we had a little look at the shops and I left a pile of books at Oxfam, which I was also able to do last week in West Hampstead. The rest of the day was mopstly reading (a book on Landscapes, a short biography of James Brindley, a travelogue by Shackleton, a book on the Irish famine and a little book onanger byRichard Baxter) and TV and some episodes of the Likely Lads. Good day.
I recently bought a copy of Ranulph Fiennes' biography of Sir Ernest Shackleton. I haven't really thought about polar explorers since I was a child. Shackleton was something of an adventurer with several downsides to his character. It was right, however, that Antarctica should be explored and so, although he did not achieve many of his goals (reaching the South Pole being the main one) he did advance science and understanding through his intrepid work. While I was reading the book, which is informed by Fiennes' own experiences in this field, I noticed a film on Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, on BBC iplayer (more here) and enjoyed watching that. Amundsen was presented in a similar light to what I had read about Shackleton. They can't all have been the same as Birdie Bowers, part of Scott's team, was a decided Christian, as notd in Peter Masters's book Men of Destiny. (see here) I must check out again the Vangelis album of music for the film Antarctica (see here) and Colin Harper's album Titaniium flag a concept album on similar themes. (see here)
