The national committee is proud to announce that there will be no charge for newsletter subscriptions between 1 July 2023 and 20 June 2024. The editor suggests that you use this holiday to encourage some new subscribers. Email
treasurer@sofia.org.nz with their names.
SOFiA AGM Talk on Bob Marley now on Website
John Thornley’s keynote talk on Bob Marley and Rastafari, opened the Zoom AGM held on 2 September 2023. The full text, including eleven pictures, can be downloaded from the SOFiA website. Go to
sofia.org.nz/Conference.html.
Lloyd Geering on Israeli-Palestinian Conflicts
The following quotation has new relevance, given the latest war in the Middle East.
“As we move into the 21st century, within a process of rapid globalisation, the western world has to learn the hard lesson that, though domination by force may quell violence and appear to restore order, it does not bring peace. That point was made more than 2500 years ago by a prophetic voice that came out of Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet proclaimed: “They are saying peace, peace, when there is no peace“. It is not for nothing the Holy Land is regarded as the religious centre of the world by nearly half of humankind. Jerusalem remains to this day a powerful symbol for the world. In many ways, it is a microcosm of the world at large and of the international tensions within it. In particular, there runs through this city the major fault line between two of the earth’s “civilisation plates”, Islam and the West. When we have found a way of establishing peace in the Holy Land, we shall have some chance of creating a stable, global peace.”
Lloyd Geering “Who Owns the Holy Land?” concluding paragraph.
The Editor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Conspiritor, Martyr
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) exploded on to the English-speaking world with the publication of John Robinson’s book Honest to God in 1963. There it was the exploratory thoughts from his Letters and Papers from Prison that held centre stage. Religionless Christianity, man come of age, and the god of the gaps were key concepts.
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