Hi Everyone!

I hope you are having a good summer, and, if you are in Melbourne today, that you are enjoying, or have somewhere airconditioned to hide from, the heat!.

Here is what is coming up for Cafechurch over the the next little bit:

Slavery is a universal phenomenon. It stretches far back into human history and spreads itself indiscriminately across every culture. Tragically, it persists to this day. Statistics are always difficult to find (because modern slavery necessarily exists on the fringes of society), but David Batstone (2010) in his book “Not for sale” conservatively estimates that there are thirty million people presently trapped or born into slavery — a state in which a person is owned by another person.

There are a number of saints who can offer Christians inspiration for abolitionism. Two of these were of the same family and resisted the institution of slavery in different and significant ways.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (AD 335-395)

"As therefore in the life that we hope for there will be neither disease, nor curse, nor sin, nor death, so slavery also along with these will vanish away." — Saint Gregory of Nyssa, 'Against Eunomius', Book X, §4

One of the most helpful books I know about the journey which Cafechurch has been on is New Zealand pastor and sociologist Alan Jamieson's book A Churchless Faith. In it he attempts to explore the journeys on which people go after the leave Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Charismatic (EPC) churches. That story seems resonant with many people in Cafechurch, so I recently wrote a blog post about it, outlining Jamieson's stages, and pondering how well it fits Cafechurch's story.