Jon Coutts
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joncoutts.bsky.social
Jon Coutts
@joncoutts.bsky.social
1.1K followers 370 following 1.5K posts
Scotch-Canadian theologian writing a book on Bonhoeffer. Film lover and lifelong fan of #LFC and the #Canucks.
🎬 http://letterboxd.com/joncoutts
✍️ http://thissideofsunday.blogspot.com
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joncoutts.bsky.social
Added six pretty great records to the collection (thanks to some sweet birthday generosity)!
Phoenix, Bankrupt! Radiohead, In Rainbows Beach House, Teen Dream Broken Social Scene, Forgiveness Rock Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Phoebe Bridgers, Punisher
October 28, 2025 at 11:33 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
This is a cool throwback but I believe if you relocate a team you shouldn't ever get to use their uniforms. #Quebec #Hartford
I guess this is the Colorado Avalanche versus the Carolina Hurricanes but they're wearing the old jerseys of Quebec's Nordiques and Hartford's Whalers
October 24, 2025 at 3:29 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Weird. I'm in Ward 6 and did not have to do this
October 21, 2025 at 5:16 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
What are the other candidates for GOAT theologian photos?
James Cone, Dorothee Soelle, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Christopher Morse, and Jürgen Moltmann at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, early 1970s. Source: Jürgen Moltmann, A Broad Place: An Autobiography (Fortress, 2009), 22. Karl Barth and Martin Luther King Jr meet at Princeton
October 18, 2025 at 3:56 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Far as I know this is the only video footage of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If anyone knows otherwise I'd love to hear it.

(I've slowed it down and muted Muggeridge's voice, from his doc The Third Testament).
October 15, 2025 at 10:02 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Lovin the new Tweedy. I feel like he's being sarcastic here
Jeff Tweedy's "Feel Free" "Feel free, To never listen and always speak, To never learn and try to teach"
October 11, 2025 at 10:47 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
How did they fail to call this "Two Jürgens study Bonhoeffer"?
Book cover: R.H. Fuller edited "Two Studies in the Theology of Bonhoeffer", one by Jürgen Moltmann and the other by Jürgen Weissbach
October 11, 2025 at 7:35 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Looking good today Calgary
Calgary skyline from Crescent Heights
September 18, 2025 at 6:29 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Last year I wrote on Gamaliel's Rule for what ended up being today's Alliance devotional. thealliancecanada.ca/updates/acts...
Read the room, Peter! Learn a thing or two about real-world politics. Teeth are gnashing and hands are looking for stones. Until Gamaliel decides to spend all his social capital on a cause he doesn’t even believe in. Why would a person do that? We don’t know much else about Gamaliel, except that the murderous Saul was his protégé. Some imagine that Gamaliel was secretly sympathetic to Jesus’ followers, shrewdly protecting their movement without attracting the whistleblowers. Others take his words at face value and hear him saying not to stoke the Jesus freaks’ fires. Whatever the reason for it, we now have what’s known as Gamaliel’s Rule: If it’s only human, it will flame out or fade. But if it’s of God, we’ll find ourselves fighting against God. At best, Gamaliel’s Rule says to hear people out, to seek truth patiently, and watch for the fruit of the Spirit to show itself even in unexpected ways. At worst, Gamaliel’s Rule is the privileged powerplay of those who can afford to not give the question oxygen. Ignore it and it goes away. At a pragmatic level, Gamaliel makes a decent case. Crucifixion and jail have only backfired so far. Eventually the movement will peter out on its own—especially since Rome is often willing to do the dirty work. The argument is persuasive enough to postpone the killing. Poor Stephen is next, but Peter lives to see another day. And the gospel continues to take off. Does Gamaliel’s Rule work? Sometimes it does. This year the church lost Gustavo Gutierrez, founder of Liberation Theology, at the age of 96. For most of his life he was enemy #1 in the upper echelons of Roman Catholicism, until he was partially and joyfully vindicated late in life. Somehow Gutierrez hung in there, losing neither his conviction nor his smile. Sadly, there were others, like Oscar Romero, who did not live long enough to see such a thing. Gamaliel’s Rule is not a guarantee. Often, it’s the wicked who prosper and the faithful who suffer. We can’t just sit on the fence and wait for the passage of time to sort us into sheep and goats. Past or future success is not the barometer of faithfulness. As the apostles will demonstrate in Acts 15, there is no shortcut around sharp dispute (15:2). Snap judgments may prove to be unnecessary stumbling blocks (15:19). Questions require careful consideration in community (15:23). And it takes time to discern the Spirit together (15:28). Who are the Gamaliels in our churches today? Is there a good-faith trust in God to guide the community? Are we making room to seek truth in love? Who are the Peters in our churches today? Is it dead-certain whether they are for or against God? Have we made room to hear them out, or are we rushing to push them out? If bystanders on the roof are trying to stop the guys from tearing up the tiles, will any Gamaliels step in and say, “We’ll help put the tiles back, but for now let’s not keep this from Jesus?”
September 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
It's all about the 80s records today
Three albums sitting on my workspace: Tonio K's Romeo Unchained, U2's Boy, and Cocteau Twins' Treasure
September 10, 2025 at 7:02 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Rewatched Chernobyl. An incredibly well written tv series
Still from the show CHERNOBYL, wherein Legasov tells the despondent Shcherbina that "they mistakenly sent the one good man"
September 10, 2025 at 4:57 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
I turned on the TV and said "who is this Italian sinner?"

Then I said "is it the author of Romans?" and I feel like someone should have laughed
Tennis score on TV: SINNER (Italy) AUGER-ALIASSIME (Canada)
September 6, 2025 at 2:45 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Meme: I am going to create [a Wordle score] that is so [bodacious]
September 5, 2025 at 6:58 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Craig Maxin really went for it in these opening lines to CHERNOBYL
What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories?
September 3, 2025 at 12:22 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
First day of my fake sabbatical
September 2, 2025 at 4:22 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Yeah that happened
Wilco, crushing it
August 30, 2025 at 5:33 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Films really came thru this week
August 22, 2025 at 4:44 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
That explains it #EPL #Fail
The horribly diminished Premier League app is powered by, you guessed it, Microsoft Copilot
August 16, 2025 at 3:43 PM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Heckuva rainbow just now
A rainbow that looks like a dome
August 16, 2025 at 2:43 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Tonio K's Romeo Unchained is the most underrated album of all time, and if you disagree you prove my point.
Tonio K, Romeo Unchained
August 15, 2025 at 4:32 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Got away for a few days camping. Decently refreshed for whatever is next.
Our forest campsite, with tent and van My wife and I in the campfire light at night A still pond flanked by pine trees and backed by mountains At night by the campfire pondering it all
August 14, 2025 at 12:42 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
RIP al-Obeid. Call em all out Mo.
Mo Salah quote tweets the UEFA tweet farewelling Palestinian footballer Suleiman al-Obeid, asking "Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?" ESPN reports that "Suleiman Al-Obeid, known fondly as the Palestinian Pele, was killed in an attack by Israeli forces while waiting for humanitarian aid, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said. Al-Obeid, who was 41, leaves behind a wife and five children."
August 10, 2025 at 12:47 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Calgary Folk Fest. This Scandinavian band is making friends with "happy songs songs about death" and "eating the rich" and "the douche down south" 🤣
Viik
July 25, 2025 at 1:10 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
Rank the sides of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories. Me:
1) 4
2) 2
3) 1
4) 3
Side 1: Give Life Back to Music The Game of Love Giorgio by Moroder Side 2: Within Instant Crush Lose Yourself to Dance Side 3: Touch Get Lucky Beyond Side 4: Motherboard Fragments of Time Doin it Right Contact
July 23, 2025 at 3:25 AM
joncoutts.bsky.social
It's not every day you run across an old picture of that moment your life was about to change
a younger me reading the early pages of Willie Jenning's Christian imagination in the corner of a picture of my kids goofing around
July 14, 2025 at 9:33 PM