Our MKC 2007 house

Not as close to the convention site as we would have liked, but a good spot to stay. After a quick game of khet, I reverted to practicing writing out greek while others continued to play settlers of catan. Retired to bed at a not-quite-crazy 1:40am – more sociable than last year, but still enough time to have five hours’ sleep before having the second shower in the house the next morning.

We may not be close to the convention site, but on the plus side, we’re a paltry 10 minutes walk from katoomba street, allowing me to find out which cafes are serving coffee this early. The results are a little disappointing: a couple of bakeries, and the elephant bean café are flying the flag as it were, but at first glance, the coffee box is still closed.

Last night’s talk was by (south african bishop) frank retief. He gave the traditional explanation-of-the-christian-message talk that always occurs at mkc, but it was a good talk. I even managed, in spite of myself, to listen to the talk, and not critique it – most of the time.

It’s a sad fact of the kind of easy access I have to good bible teaching (tough to define concisely, but let’s say it’s that where the piece of the bible being explained is taken in context of the whole book, where it’s made clear that being ok with God comes through Jesus’ death and resurrection, not by earning God’s favour by being nice, for instance ) leads me to critically evaluate talks rather than listen to them with a view to changing my life.

In this particular talk, I was encouraged by the reminder that Jesus was a historical figure, his death (and resurrection) an historical event. As much as I hesitate to write it here, for fear of alienating my non-Christian readers, the spiritual things that Christianity speaks of are just as real as the historical events that underly it. If there’s no heaven, then the Christian life is much worse than a “nice way to live”, it’s a terrible lie. The reminder that it’s all true was a timely, and a comfortable one.

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