A trip to the Philippines....

Just been in the Philippines, filming some lectures for a video version of our SPTC ‘School of Theology’ .Jane (Williams) and Mike (Lloyd) were there too & it as good to listen to some other lectures – they are good! It’s also good to know we roughly believe the same things! We did a few ‘video Godpods’ – in other words, Q&A from the audience, video’d for the course. We do have slight disagreements over things like whether God can be said to suffer or not (Mike says yes, Jane says no) and whether go to heaven when we die (I say yes, Mike says no, though we both think the final destination is the new heaven and the new earth – long story – ask us sometime!) The Philippines was very interesting and very wet – typhoon season. Lovely people, friendly, warm, eager to learn. The 4th largest Christian country in the world, yet suffering from higher levels of corruption than most Asian countries, which is why it lags behind Hong Kong, Singapore & China etc economically. Having a large Christian population doesn’t protect you from leaders like Marcos & the culture of corruption he fostered, which the place does not seem to have recovered from.