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Can an avatar be created bad?
This is a question I was recently asked following a presentation on metaverse avatars at a digital conference. It is an interesting concept whether an avatar could be intrinsically evil, but it could depend on the understanding of the avatar concept. Definitions include – In the metaverse an avatar is a representation of the person wearing the headset or operating the computer, but how does an avatar become bad when they are just an image of an individual? Is it similar to films, where the actor plays a role? In films like RoboCop, Star Trek or Star Wars, the machines have turned against their creators and become ‘bad.’ However, is…
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Rites of Passage in Pop and Faith: Lady Gaga and the Formation of Identities
‘Our life consists not only in being but also in becoming’: so runs a memorable line from the Marriage Liturgy currently authorised for use in the Scottish Episcopal Church.[1] Such rites of passage provide opportunities for taking stock of who and how we are in the world, and for reflecting on the ways – great and small, obvious and inconspicuous, collective and individual – we emerge and evolve. Behind this lies an understanding of identity as something dynamic: a transformative journey in which we negotiate what is found (being) and what is fashioned (becoming). Rites of passage is a term coined by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in a short…
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Caution in Reformation: Re-examining Article XXII through its Contemporaries
The English Reformation saw mass destruction of religious artwork, including stained glass, images, and icons, which I suggest was in part inspired by Cranmer’s ambiguously negative attitude towards images in Article XXII of the Articles of Religion. Although the Articles were a collaborative project between a wide variety of theological positions, I will refer to Cranmer’s viewpoint throughout this article due to his reformist influence. This essay will view the Articles as confessional, with the phrase ‘requiring all Our loving Subjects to continue in the uniform Profession thereof, and prohibiting the least difference from the said Articles’.[1] However, it is crucial to recognise the breadth within the Church of England,…
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On Matrescence and Birthing myself
Becoming a mother is not the unifying ‘one-size-fits-all’ journey that popular culture would have us believe. Mothers are required to work out their identity as women, who they have been and who they are becoming all in the shadow of the myth of the Perfect Mother. It is therefore refreshing that within the last 18 months conversations about matrescence have begun to move into more mainstream thoughts and conversations (see: Lucy Jones’ book ‘Matrescence: On the metamorphosis of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood’ and Zoe Blaskey ‘Motherkind: a new way to thrive in a world of endless expectations’). Matrescence – a word my spell check does not recognise – is the…
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The Divine Nervous System
‘Be still and know that I am God.’ –Psalm 46:10 ‘Be still’ – engage the parasympathetic portion of the nervous system[1] – ‘and know’ – internally, through your embodied felt sense[2] – ‘that I am’ – that the truth of who you are – ‘God’ – is Divine. What if the Divine is the resolution of trauma and the flow of a regulated nervous system? What if making love with the Divine is living as fully human and fully divine, moving in and out of activation and deactivation, sympathetic and parasympathetic, nervous system states[3]? I have travelled a long way on my spiritual path. I have journeyed up and down,…
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Dancing in chains of traumatic suffering: a life-style in discipleship?
I reflect on the paradox of performing a discipleship ‘dance’ during ongoing suffering and trauma. The metaphor of the dance has been used extensively to describe the dynamic relationship between God and the disciples. It has been growing in popularity liturgically and academically over the past decade. Many studies reveal that dance therapy is promising for the alleviation of psychological trauma but is very dependent on the therapist, patients and their groups (Tomaszewski et al, 2023). However, most people I know in the UK dance exclusively during joyful and celebratory occasions. In pastoral ministry, I have recently realized that the very notion of Human-Divine ‘dance’ as a model of authentic…
