Scripture quotations taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.

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Browsing Category " social justice "
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A New Time: How To Be A Bible Believer In A Changing World (Episode #100)

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The four cubits podcast has always been about taking seriously both our ancient Bible and our modern lives, even when doing so leads us away from easy, neat answers. Often, that approach will lead us towards personal and communal change - and despite what you might have heard from some Christians, theres nothing more biblical than change!

This episode explores some of the ways in which the people of God in scripture not only navigated changes in themselves, their communities, and their world, but how their experiences of God often drove those changes.

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Letter From A Birmingham Jail

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A police dog held by a white police officer tears the trouser leg of a Black man, who looks calmly over his shoulder.
An image from the non-violent Civil Rights protests of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama (USA).

I am coming to feel that people of ill-will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

– Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From A Birmingham Jail (April 1963)

From a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama in April 1963, Dr King wrote one of the most powerful Christian essays of the 20th century. It was a response to an open letter by eight local Alabama clergymen that criticised the non-violent Civil Rights protests in the city. It was the response of a Christian whose faith was not merely a set of beliefs and actions that he shared, but the reality in which he lived and the lens through which he both experienced the world as it was, and saw the world as it would one day be.

In this special episode we consider the background to King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail and then we read it together. As Christians in July 2020, we should not need to be reminded that Black lives matter - and yet, here we are. We need only look back to Dr King for an appropriate Christian response, but it also behoves us to join his lament. It is nearly 60 years since King wrote this essay, and still our societies - let alone our churches - have failed to internalise some of the most basic tenets of racial justice and Christian fellowship.

Transcript for introduction coming soon!

What Is God Made Of? (2 Corinthians 3)

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We're back! This is the Sunday morning talk that I would have given in church this morning, if we weren't all locked down trying to squash what's left of COVID-19 in Scotland. My wife and I prepared this together, and the subject - how do we connect with God? - has been on our minds for quite some time now. When a young friend posed the eponymous question we really just went off.

Transcript coming soon!

Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus

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In December 2019, I took part in the Living Faith day, in Dorridge in the UK Midlands. This is my paper from that day, on the subject of "Christian Ethics and Social Justice". It went really well, and I shared my script and slides here while we were waiting for the videos to be produced. You can now see the full talk on YouTube


proclaim (2019/11/23)

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Looking at how a biblical text is written can help us focus on the right things when we're reading it. That's what we're looking at in Nehemiah and 2 Timothy this week: how the message is proclaimed and why it matters. On the other hand there's also Amos, who takes a prophetic flamethrower to his people in a scathing indictment of a religious piety devoid of social justice.

Don't forget, you can now register for the Living Faith Study Day 2019 on EventBrite! It's a gathering for those exploring their relationship to faith, the Bible, and community. There'll be four thought-provoking topics packaged in short talks, with ample time for questions and discussion. I'll be giving one of those talks, "Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus". It's going to be a great day for building faith, and for taking the Bible seriously - both in its ancient context, and in the present day.

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Of Justice and the Conscience

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The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

- Dr Martin Luther King, Jr (after Theodore Parker). 1964, Middletown, Connecticut.


Something a little different this week! In an essay in 1853, Theodore Parker set up ideas on social responsibility, justice, conscience, and the nature of God reflected in human beings that still resonate today. The quotation made famous by Dr King, is actually a paraphrase from this essay, in which Parker critiques both church and state to present the gospel of a human Jesus bringing good news to the rest of humanity.

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