IBTS Community Blog

Andrii has been taking some photos around the campus a few days ago. Dangerous but beautiful, isn’t it?

Most of Europe is in the grip of an icy blast. In Praha snow has been falling steadily and softly for many hours. About six snow ploughs gritting pass the end of our drive each hour from the City of Prague. Heavy duty Tatra trucks fitted with workman like ploughs. The Czech-made Karosa buses have never stopped going up and down our valley taking us to the metro station and even the pavements have been ploughed this morning.

Meanwhile, the City of Bradford in Yorkshire is struggling. They are running out of grit and their much-lighter more elegant ploughs and gritters are having a hard time of it. If you saw one plough in five hours between Bingley and Eldwick it was amazing. Meanwhile British bus companies with their low-height rear-engined buses have been returning to depots in cities like Liverpool and in Bradford the service to our home at Gilstead has been terminated in Bingley most days.

What lessons are to be drawn from this? Czech vehicles may not be as elegantly designed, but they are engineered for the extremes. 40 cm of snow is not enough to stop them running. Praha is better equipped with specialist equipment for keeping streets and minor roads open unlike, say, the City of Hull, which has abandoned the attempt in pedestrian shopping areas. Above all, Czechs still have plentiful supplies of grit and no emergency national committee has had to be formed to ration supplies. Often, I blog about the failings of Czech politics, but in the midst of the big winter freeze three cheers for Praha DPP, H.M.Praha and Praha Sluzby (Prague City Transport, the Metropolitan City of Prague and Prague Services) !

- Keith

At a time when life can seem dark - nationally, internationally and in our own personal plans - it is important that we remember and remind each other that the promise of Advent is of the coming of the light, the light that shines in the darkness, that the darkness cannot overcome.
Turn our eyes to the light, O Lord, and shine in and through us.

And may all of us in the IBTS community know the blessing of Christmas once more this year

- Ruth (Chair, BoT)

So Nobel Laureate Barack Obama went to Copenhagen but he might as well not have bothered. Eye witness accounts from people in the conference hall report his lack lustre speech - the Obama rhetoric under par - offered nothing by way of action and so it looks like the Copenhagen event will produce no useful outcome.

Our son, Tim, an accredited NGO delegate, was in the hall and felt the disappointment. One African delegate sat next to him expressed deep frustration and sadness. Here was the chance for a grandson of Kenya to do something from the richest nation to stand with the poorest, but the opportunity has been lost.

I confess our family owns various Obama inauguration souvenirs and now we are exchanging emails as to how we can ceremonially dispose of them as the corrupt powers attempt to quench our Advent hope.

- Keith

Have I just become a soft liberal or am I right to be concerned at the heavy-handed tactics adopted by the Danish State Police against those protesting peaceably about lack of progress at the climate change conference?

Sure, there are some anarchist disruptors there - no doubt well known to the Danish secret police, but images broadcast across global TV and comments on blog sites from respectable Christian activists suggest Denmark has “lost the plot” and that the police force is engaged in repressive tactics more reminiscent of China or the “old” USSR than a modern EU member state of liberal ideals.

Shame on the Danish police force and government! If you were not prepared for peaceable activist protest why offer to host the event (which you seem to be doing very badly!)

- Keith

At IBTS, as an Eco-seminary, we are taking a keen interest in what politicians from across the world are up to in Copenhagen. Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer will be there with other world leaders, but thankfully not Mr Sceptic, President Klaus.

Our IBTS Baptist community has several technical experts in our lecturing team, including Professor Graham Ashworth and the Revd Dr John Weaver. In our module on the Theology of Creation Care we explore issues under scrutiny in Copenhagen from a Christian theological and ethical perspective.

We have our active participants in the Copenhagen events who are keeping us up to date on the inside issues.

Tim Jones, a Deacon of Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church and a policy officer for the World Development Movement is there and providing daily “blog” news. The Revd Alex Alexander, a minister of E1 Community Church, Shadwell, and an alumnus of IBTS, is also there, having cycled from London to Copenhagen with a group from Christian Aid to help raise awareness of the importance of the issues.

- Keith

…is not here yet, but this is how it’s going to look like… at least for this and the next few winters(Copenhagen summit will give an idea for how long, perhaps!).order clomid without a prescription in our online pharmacy

- Lina, with nostalgy

We have now entered the four week period of the year set aside as a preparation for the celebration of the incarnation, or the nativity. In the Latin west, Advent began this past weekend on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. The name is derived from the Latin root meaning “coming” or “arrival”.

The early western church from the sixth century onwards had a period of six weeks of fasting and penitence before Christmas, certainly now forgotten in Old Town Square, Praha, where the vendors vie with each other to fill you up with “Old Praha Ham” and glu wine. The reduction to four weeks was a gradual development, but is now almost universally accepted.  Today, the accent of the Advent season is on “getting ready” for the coming of Christ - at Bethlehem, into our prepared lives and the final coming of Christ in glory. There are a variety of interpretations about the themes to emphasis which churches adopt for each Advent Sunday and these are reflected throughout Europe. Here at IBTS our Advent ring of four bright red candles, with the larger “Christ Candle” in the centre (the Advent wreaths for sale in Old Town Square omit this central candle as befits the most secularised nation in Europe !) focuses on Advent 1 as the Advent hope. Advent 2 on the prophetic voices. Advent 3 this year focuses on the heralds of the Messiah, such as John the Baptist, and Advent 4 on the role of Mary.

Others arrange the order as

Advent 1         God’s people waiting expectantly.

                        The Eschatological Hope

                        The God who comes

Advent 2         The prophets,

                        The Announcement of the coming of the Messiah

                        The God who speaks

Advent 3         John the Baptist,

                        The call to repentance

                        The Forerunner (John the Baptist)

Advent 4         Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

The Annunciation to Mary

Mary’s Faith

Each option has a logic and there is certainly no uniformity of application; in some communities no such clear four week theme is used. However, whatever the nuances of the theme, our Advent wreath is now centred in the chapel.

At IBTS we enjoy our Advent season as we explore the deeper mysteries of waiting expectantly in hope for the Incarnation. We hope blog readers will share that sense of expectancy too!

- Keith