SOFiA Newsletter 174 October 2024
 
 
Exploring Values, Meaning and SpiritualityImage of dover beach
 
Limestone cliffs like those at Dover, scene of the poem “Dover Beach”

Mary Ellen Warren, Committee member
Book review: In Praise of the secular
 
Lloyd Geering published In Praise of the Secular in conjunction with St Andrew’s Trust in 2007. Margaret Mayman, from the St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, provided the Foreword. The book is 56 pages, with no illustrations.  The four chapters that comprise the book each stand by themselves:  What Does Secular Mean? The Emergence of the Secular Age, The Value of Being Secular, and Spirituality in the Secular World.   More…

In Praise of the secular book cover 
An Excerpt from In Praise of the Secular
Religio, and hence religion, basically meant conscientiousness, and in particular ‘a conscientious concern for what really matters’. This is what Paul Tillich was recovering for the word when he defined religion as ‘the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of the meaning of life’. Carla Della Casa, an Italian scholar of modern religion, put it even more simply: ‘Religion is a total mode of the interpreting and living of life’.   More...

Window pane 4 from Ephesus website
Ephesus- Recent Impressions and Reflections

This article by Murray Jansen, a more recent member of Ephesus, a Wellington based group closely aligned with SOFiA, contains current information  on the group and some considerations regarding the future. It follows on from the article by Ian Harris in the previous newsletter.  More...

Rev Dr Clive Yates
Towards the Future

Summary of Presentation by Cleveland Yates to SOFiA (Sea of Faith in Aotearoa), Sept 21, 2024

Clive gave us a summary of Christian and Pre-Christian theology over 5000 years.  It has changed over that time; but the average person doesn’t realize that. Some say that religion is finished.  But Clive says no. In this day of increasing religious freedom, you are enabled to find God for yourself. But along with God, show respect and care. 
More...

Tom Hall, USA
Saving God from Religion and Spiritual Defiance

Both by Robin Meyers. A review by Tom Hall.

Robin Myers is a phenomenon. This thoroughly progressive Christian of the stamp and calibre of Jack Spong, Dom Crossan, and Lloyd Geering has been for nearly four decades senior pastor of Mayflower Christian Church UCC in Oklahoma City – the epicenter of evangelicalism.) Then note that he is an emeritus professor of philosophy at Oklahoma City University and the author of eight widely regarded books on matters religious and spiritual. See more…
Dame Anne Salmond
How to Split Our Society: the Follow-on

The February edition of the newsletter contained an article by Dame Anne Salmond, reprinted from Newsroom. This so resonated with Maria Cash that she was determined to take action. The result: a well-attended meeting on October 7 at St Andrews On-the-Terrace jointly organised by the Wellington Ephesus group and St Andrews, at which Anne Salmond and Professor Jonathan Boston spoke on Divisiveness and Democracy in our Society.

You can listen to this conversation at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvO2rwWoiIM


Editor's note
 
Thanks to Mary Ellen for her book review of ‘In Praise of the Secular’. It was her first attempt at a review. Also apologies for not including the third and final part of my series on Death; with the flood of offers for publication, there was no room left in this issue.
 
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