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.
Down at the Globe again this week to see Richard III. With an all male cast and the most basic staging, the play relied very much on the actors, especially Mark Rylance in the lead who played the part rather unconventionally as an undoubtedly evil man but one who first let us into his confidence and then bumbled his way through countless atrocious acts in an almost disarming way. The play mentions conscience several times and that is one of the keys to Richard. He always seems to answer his conscience somehow. His final reference to it is "conscience is but a word that cowards use". It was nice to see some actors I recognised from TV (Samuel Barnett and Roger Lloyd Pack). I'm sure I saw Julian Sands in the crowd at one point.
Sadly, I had to leave before the final session at Banner, when Mark Johnston preached. I understand he was looking at trembling at God's Word. I'm sure it was fine. I also missed the question session yesterday which was a pity.
It has been a very good conference. Garry Williams two contributions were outstanding. It has all been pretty good, although some wouldn't have liked certain elements. I stayed up rather late each night (with Martin Downes, Jeremy Walker and others), which made getting to the morning prayer meetings rather difficult. It's lovely to chat though at night and through the day. On Wednesday afternoon I forsook the football field and headed off to nearby Bosworth Field in Gary Benfold's car. Brian Ellis from the Philippines, Mark Fisher from the Heath and Phil Arthur were with us. After a little drive into the countryside we came to the site, which is fairly well marked out but not as well as in the past according to Phil, the expert on all this. Anyway when we got back to the Visitor Centre a very helpful guide explained that archaeologists have been at work and major doubts had now been cast on the traditional site of Richard III's death. There are basically three theories and the jury is still out. Things are often more complicated than they appear at first.
On Wednesday night there was a gathering of the Taffia and co. There were so many crammed into Guy Davies' room that some sadly decided the heat was too much. Geoff was interviewing Sinclair Buchanan Ferguson. It was mostly an update on the great man's current very encouraging situation. He has just begun preaching through Romans in the ARP church he pastors in S Carolina (this a man who owns over a hundred Romans commentaries - he's currently on Origen which he's reading along with the letters of Ronald Reagan). Fascinating time.
My early departure was because I wanted to get down to South Wales. A bonus feature was meeting up with John Nicholls heading north to Cumbria for the weekend. He bought me a coffee (have I ever paid for my own?) and we had a nice half hour before parting.
