Documents obtained from a recent meeting of the Mainstream apostolic team confirm that John Milbank is to be the headline speaker at their next Swanwick conference. The former doyen of Radical Orthodoxy is a little different to most recent Mainstream speakers.
We at Baptileaks understand that Milbank underwent a dramatic conversion experience while listening John Lewis preach at last year's Gorsley Flower Festival. We have not been able to discover why he decided to attend in the first place.
Since this experience, behind the scenes, Mr. Milbank (he now eschews the title Reverend describing it as an unhelpful ecclesial trapping with unfortunate priestly overtones) has been throwing himself enthusiastically into his newly discovered evangelicalism. Sources at Premier Radio have confirmed that he is to be the voice of a new Back to the Bible programme that will air next spring. The broadcasts will, we are told, "cut through all the crap of tradition so that the listener can discover what the Bible actually says."
We also understand that Stuart Murray Williams has recently commissioned Milbank to write the next book in the popular After Christendom series. The working title is said to be Heterodoxy after Christendom.
On a more personal level Milbank has told trusted friends just how excited he about his new online prayer triplet with Steve Chalke and Mark Driscoll. He is said to be delighted to have found two such stimulating guides to today's church and contemporary popular culture.
We also know for a fact that Milbank is deep into conversations with Graham Cray about the possibility of becoming the new Baptist advocate of Fresh Expressions. That's right dear reader, Baptist advocate. Milbank, who has been known in the past to be rude about Baptist Ministers, is himself to become a Baptist. Apparently Ian Bunce has been acting on behalf of the BUGB in an attempt to straighten out Milbank's theology. Word has it that Mr Bunce has done a first rate job of responding to a wide variety of philosophical objections. "He just needed someone to tell him straight" says Bunce.
More likely than not Milbank will be attending the forthcoming Baptist Assembly in Blackpool - he says he has always harbored a desire to worship God in a dingy hotel nightclub accompanied by a band playing more or less contemporary middle of the road music. If you see him, be sure to give him a hug.
"Could become as important a journalistic tool as the pencil." - Baptist Times
No comments:
Post a Comment