Jun 14 2012
June 2012 Newsletter
Sea of Faith – Dunedin
The house group of six members has had one meeting and three more are planned. This discussion can easily be repeated at a different time and place. The theme is to watch a film of the lectures given by Lloyd Geering on an aspect of Jung’s work, and discuss that for an hour afterwards. The Sea of Faith library has a copy of the discs. If anyone wishes to host the next group, please advise at the next meeting.
TV7
I have a routine in a morning which includes setting the video recorder for the interesting programmes I should like to watch on TV that day. By far the most numerous selections are on TV7. I only recently discovered this when we swapped our old analogue TV for a digital one. I learn almost immediately that TV7 is to be axed at the end of this month and be replaced by TV1 “an hour later”. Does it count as a separate channel if the same thing is on two of them?
I have certainly signed the petition to keep TV7 and hope the Government and TVNZ appreciate the public demand for quality programmes and do something about transferring the good ones from TV7 to TV1. I do think there is ample room for improvement with TV1 – and that wasn’t always the case.
Have you seen the programme “Ideas for a small Planet” on TV7 – it fits very well with the sustainability theme we discussed in April.
You can find out more (if you have a computer) by looking for the sundance channel.
July: Prof Tony Binns (Geography, Otago) who also works in West Africa and who will talk about development and equality issues there. Tony has spent the better part of this year on fieldwork there.
August: Jim Veitch from Wellington. Jim is a member of the Jesus Seminar and will speak on the topic “Who did Jesus think he was?” Jim is well known through the radio network. We will be opening this meeting to the wider community and expect it to be a stimulating and interesting meeting. Do feel free to bring along any friends who may be interested. SOF members will meet for tea as usual with the public meeting starting at 6pm.
Our Last Meeting on 24th May 2012
21 of us were mightily stimulated by the way David Kitchingman integrated several authors’ work on the theme of the Stages of Faith, The Ages of Christianity and the way in which the “Ages and Stages” can become “Cages” which impose rigid doctrine and stultify personal growth.
David suggested that Psalm 23 in its six verses could be interpreted as the six stages of faith and that is well worth looking at again (see below).
| Psalm 23 (King James Version) | Fowler’s Stages of Faith |
| The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want | Intuitive |
| He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters | Literal |
| He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake | Conventional |
| Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me | Reflective |
| Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over | Conjunctive |
| Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever | Universalising |
We are all indebted to David for the amount of reading he undertook, the summarising he did and the production of the four pages of hand-out which we all received at the meeting.
The Sea of Faith Conference this year, celebrates the 20th year of existence of The Sea of Faith in New Zealand