On Tuesday evening, we attended a talk at a local church by Dave Tomlinson, author of The Post-Evangelical and How to Be a Bad Christian. It’s hard to believe the latter was published 14 years ago already, while the former is over 30 years old and coincided with a growing social shift away from conservative Christianity-as-usual in the UK and USA. Other authors who have been particularly influential on my thinking such as Brian McLaren and Peter Rollins were allied with this movement, which was sometimes called “the emerging church.”

What is a ‘bad’ Christian? One who’s not fussed about dogma. Tomlinson is an Anglican priest and believes the Church still has value for people at times of joy or sorrow – a bereavement, a wedding, a baptism – moments of epiphany that might encourage them to stop skating on the surface of life and go deeper in a search for spirituality and meaning. However, he stressed how easy it is to find people who are following the way of Jesus outside of churches: anyone working toward peace, justice, or environmental restoration, for instance. He’d rather people focus on ethical lifestyles rather than beliefs. This resonated with me as I don’t believe a line of the creed literally and most of the time don’t think the supernatural exists, yet keep attending church and reading theology. But I know I’ll get more spiritual uplift from the Queer Folk Festival at the end of the month than I often do at a Sunday service, and my secular community volunteering sometimes seems to be of more practical use.

Photo by Rev. Gary Collins

Yesterday (13 May) was World Cocktail Day – the second year I’ve known of its existence and planned to ‘celebrate’ it. Often, I can’t make appealing cocktails because I don’t have the right ingredients, and leaving them out or substituting is frustrating. So, in preparation, I picked up a modest click-and-collect order from Sainsbury’s on Tuesday of dry vermouth, fino sherry, and Angostura orange bitters to take my cocktail-making to the next level.

It may surprise you given that I’m such a gin lover, but I’d never actually had a martini. I’m not sure how authentic my version, the “England” dry martini from the hilarious 1976 handbook above, was, but it was tasty! (I’ve always thought a Noilly Prat would be a good thing to call a Tory.) Then I tried a “London Calling” (recipe from the book Equal Parts Cocktails by Fred Siggins – I have a habit of downloading any cocktail cookbooks I find on Edelweiss and browsing them on screen to find one or two recipes to save as screenshots) combining navy-strength gin and fino sherry. It was a strong, complex and satisfying drink.

After C got home from band practice, I made him his first whisky old fashioned. The orange bitters went in all three of those so were a good purchase. I wasn’t feeling great yesterday, so had a few sips of each of my two cocktails and then used a funnel to store them in miniature bottles in the fridge for another night. I capped off the evening with a thimbleful of what I’m calling a Chocolate Cherry Truffle: chocolate rum and Portuguese sour cherry liqueur in a 4:1 ratio.