As per usual: This is a blog post, in rant format, rather than an academic paper. Seems unnecessary I know, but sometimes that just needs pointing that out.

I’m doing a lot of study on Restorationism, apostolic movements, and the like, and occasionally coming across cessationist views. Cessationism is a rather hilarious theology which states that, essentially, when Jesus said he’d give us another Comforter who would be with us forever, he was actually taking about a book. The idea is that he gave the Holy Spirit to the church for a bit, and we used to have supernatural power and resources for an unspecified (but obviously very short) duration, and then God decided that was a bad idea. But that’s OK, because we’ve got a book! Read more about Cessationism: Why does anyone go out to bat for this madness?

I grew up as a young Christian in a very charismatic independent church. When I came to Oxford, I sought out the most charismatic church I could find. I only moved to St Aldate's - which is reasonably charismatic - when I thought that was where God was leading me. My attitude towards theology was that it was a device to rationalise away what the Spirit of God was doing.

I wrote an article about pneumatology for OST since, well, there wasn't one.