I've recently been reading a wonderful book by Walter Brueggemann called 'Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World'. I've never read any Brueggemann before, never had the opportunity I guess, but when a friend on the Advanced Workshop course spluttered over his coffee on hearing that I'd never read him, I thought I'd give it a go. So, I went for a Brueggemann overdose with some birthday money and got four books in one go, of which this is the first one that I've read (more from the others in due course, I'm sure).

The book is sublime, and I heartily recommend it to anyone! It's a collection of essays by Brueggemann on the theme of the meaning of Scripture in today's post-Christian society. Each essay stands alone, but there is a thread that moves through them all, that being the heart of creativity and imagination rooted in the story of Yahweh.

I've just signed up for an MPhil in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bristol. I'm going to be look at the ethical impact of contemporary Jesus studies, looking particularly at how the language of sin and forgiveness in the Gospels are handled by scholars.

Begining is a difficult thing. Where to start when there are so many possibilities? What should be the first thing when anything can be the first thing?

How about a brief history. Why not? A little story to get in the mood. But this is a story that affects us all. It is the story of how we think, or at least a story of how a certain Euro-American worldview has become so significant for the way so many think.

So, here begins a brief history of … theology.