
Filament Publishing launches a new Faith Books Division
Over the past twenty-six years, Filament has published a number of books on different aspects of faith and spirituality. It is well overdue therefore that we better recognise this important and popular genre by bringing them together under the banner of Filament Faith. This new division will be spearheaded by a highly respected Christian author, Rev Andy Roland.
Rev Andy Roland is a retired Anglican vicar with degrees in history from Oxford and in theology from Durham. He was vicar of Hackbridge in South London for 21 years, before retiring in 2015. He is married to Linda. They live in Earls Court, London and love films and walking.
He has been fascinated by the historical questions surrounding the gospels for at least 55 years and has a limitless curiosity about the Bible.
His books include ‘Bible in Brief’, ‘Discovering Psalms a Prayer’ and ‘A Week of Prayer in Jerusalem’. His most recent title has just been released, “The Church has a past, does it have a future?”
The Church has a Past - has it got a Future?
Andy Roland considers three fundamental questions:
Where were we? Where are we? Where could we be?
1 CONTINUING CONVERSATIONS
During 2,000 years of Christianity, what questions arose from society to which the Church could give a response?
(Spoiler alert – the questions kept changing)
2 NEW WORLD/NEW CONSCIOUSNESS
All major changes and developments since 2000 are described: from liberalism to autocracy, from graphene to CRISPR, from cybercrime to AI, from mindfulness to food banks.
3. BEING CREDIBLE IN THE POST-MODERN WORLD
Has the Church got a future in the public square? Only by reformulating its understanding of its sacred cows such as the Bible, other faiths, sin and death.
Enjoy the ride!
A brand new translation of the Bible goes back to original Greek and Hebrew texts to correct the translation errors of centuries
“The words that you’re liable to read in the Bible, they ain’t necessarily so.”
Looking back at history, the most dangerous job in the world used to be a Bible translator.
For those pioneers who dared to translate the Bible into English, just being burned at the stake was not enough. Forty years after his death, the bones of translator John Wycliffe were ordered to be exhumed by Pope Martin, so they could be crushed, burned, and thrown in the river as a warning to others not to attempt the same thing.. His only crime was the desire to make the words of the Bible to be available to everyone.
In the present day, it could be said then that Christopher Sparkes is putting his life on the line by even daring to make a new translation. Back in 1997, Chris was becoming increasingly frustrated by the number of translation errors in the Bibles he had over the years. Many of these errors seem to have been copied and pasted from earlier translations without being questioned. The actual words of the prophets and apostles were being lost. The word of God was being obscured.
According to Christopher Sparkes, “The only real test that a translation is accurate is that it ranslates both ways without any change in meaning. This has been achieved. There are no compromises to accommodate creeds or doctrines. Just the pure words of the prophets and apostles. After twenty-five years and thousands of hours of Christopher’s painstaking work, going back to the original Greek and Hebrew texts, the brand-new Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible has now been completed and published by Filament Publishing.