some years back i did an installation called red tape which had a bible wrapped in red tape, a dog collar made of red tape and bread and wine ring fenced by red tape. looking back i think it must have been a moment where i was particularly frustrated with the church and its controls! i am amazed cms let me get away with at a public event – the photos are here. anyway all that to say that this week's john taylor quote from our book imagining mission uses a photo from that.

here's cathy's reflection on it

There is no such thing as safe theology. I wonder why we ever thought there was! God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not safe! We know the Spirit is wild, free and unpredictable. How have we so domesticated Jesus and theology? How have we made it all so tame, mundane and frankly boring?! Is it centuries of patriarchy? Empire? White fragility? Certainly these did not help. But we all collude somehow. Let's free ourselves of trying to protect God, police boundaries and monitor sound theology. But is this anarchy? Is this relativism? Well what did we have before? Regulatory order? Conformity? Hierarchy? Conscious and unconscious bias? I realise this is rather binary but it is only a short post! Let's trust in the power and guidance of the Spirit and try to be free to dream more expansively, imagine more generatively and theologise boldly. Let's live by courageous faith and not by fear. If mission is an adventure of the imagination, then theology is no longer safe.