Sea of Faith — Dunedin

September 2017 Newsletter

We Start With…
A two minute period of silence – a moment of peace.

Our Last Meeting:
At the August meeting Marjorie Spittle reminded us our Sea of Faith group has a long history of discussing euthanasia. She read a paragraph from a presentation by Roberta Higham, whose wisdom is as relevant now as it was nearly ten years ago, and David Kitchingman gave us a piece he had written in 2015.
Marjorie provided an overview of David Seymour’s bill, which will be debated next year if he is returned to parliament at the election. From our discussion, it seems there is a gulf between what we want for ourselves, and our loved ones, and what we’d wish to see in an Act of Parliament. The latter is a really vexed issue, and needs lots of debate between people such as ourselves, as well as in the Select Committee process. We will watch, and discuss, with interest.
The morning after Marjorie brought us up to date, the Opinion Page of the ODT carried a Faith and Reason piece by Ken Bragan which for me progressed the debate. He suggested that, in cases of extreme suffering, a person’s spirit can be broken and they long to die. A society-sanctioned way to end the suffering could be acceptable, even desirable. On the other hand, others can experience extreme suffering yet retain their strength of spirit. For them euthanasia, or assisted dying, may not be appropriate. While we could take such an important consideration into account for ourselves, or our loved ones, this would not be at
all easy to legislate for. Ken’s piece is at https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/loaded-words-must-not-be-used
Gretchen
[email protected] (03) 473 0031

Next Meeting:

Freedom of Speech
Discussion led by
Alan Jackson
Thursday, 28th SEPTEMBER
St John’s Church Hall,
Cnr Wright Street
& Highgate
Tea and Coffee
will be available from 5.30pm
The programme will start at 6.00pm
Contribution – $5
On 7th January 2015, an attack was carried out at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It was in response to cartoons published by the magazine which portrayed Allah in a way offensive to some Muslim radicals. They killed 12 and injured 11 others. A refusal to accept the violence and an expression of solidarity with all those around the world who prize freedom of expression came into our vocabulary “Je Suis Charlie”. World leaders and millions of others used the phrase, and marches were held around the world in support of freedom of speech.
This was not the first time extremists had reacted violently to cartoons. A Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons in 2005 – later demonstrations led to 200 deaths (according to an estimate in Wikipedia).
In May 2017 Stephen Fry and Radio Telefis Eireann were investigated by Irish police after an interview on a TV show in which he asked “Why should I respect a mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world so full of injustice and pain? Because the god who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish. We have to spend our lives on our knees thanking him. What kind of god would do that?”
The host of the programme, Gay Byrne, said that Stephen hadn’t wished to cause offence. But that’s what the internet is for, controversy, debate and people’s opinions.”
The police dropped the investigation because there were no injured parties.
In recent times, the visit to New Zealand by the Dalai Lama attracted opposition from China. The University of Otago and the Dunedin City Council came under huge pressure to prevent him from speaking, and the Mayor had to plead alternate engagements and deputise Counsellor Jinty McTavish to hold the interview which was held in a Town Hall packed with New Zealanders (including several of you and me) who were keen to hear what the Peacemaker had to say.
Very recently there has been a Palestinian Christian speaker whose visit to New Zealand has been opposed strongly by Zionists. He spoke about the possibilities of peace and the two-state solution for Palestine – Israel.
In a play Henrik Ibsen showed how a medical doctor with evidence which might harm the economic welfare of the community (but likely cause harm to visitors by drinking the polluted waters from the spa town) might be denied the right to bring his views to the attention of the community – and the doctor was labelled An Enemy of the People.
We have some famous whistle-blowers; Karen Silkwood who investigated problems at a nuclear power plant (immortalised in the film bearing her name), Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange are all well-known names. If you Google “Whistle-blower” you will see a huge list of people who have opposed cover-ups. They are vigorously opposed by those (mostly in power) who would wish their actions to remain secret.
The investigation into the US-Vietnam war by the US Department of Defense was leaked by Daniel Ellsberg and led to an accusation in 1971 by The New York Times that the Johnson administration had lied to Congress and the public.
Everyone remembers Watergate – the Democratic National Committee headquarters which was broken into in 1972 during the reign of President Richard Nixon. He resigned as a result of the revelations by The Washington Post.
Prof David Tombs highlighted the CIA lies to Senate over torture in a recent Archibald Baxter Memorial lecture.
Openness, the right to know – freedom to speak, where do we draw the line?
This is the topic for the month.

Newsletter Editor:
Alan Jackson
55 Evans Street
DUNEDIN 9010
Ph: 473 6947
[email protected]

We Start With…
A two minute period of silence – a moment of peace.
From the ‘Chair’
Ethical questions are always appearing in new guises; this election period is providing some purlers.
I met one I had to resolve for myself early in my career as a leaflet-deliverer for a political party. Should I deliver to boxes with ‘no junk mail’ and similar? My letterbox has such a notice and I felt quite strongly about it. However, I decided (to my own satisfaction) that political leaflets are more likely than not to be welcome by householders, and were in fact important to the democratic process. So I felt ready for a debate with anyone on my route (and would of course never insist that anyone receive something they didn’t want).
Good wishes to everyone as you work your way to making your decisions on Election Day.
Gretchen
[email protected] (03) 473 0031
Next Meeting
With David Seymour’s End of Life Bill coming up in the near future it seems an opportune time for us to visit the euthanasia question again and look at any new developments that may aid us in making informed decisions. Whatever our persuasion on this matter it presents some complicated issues. As a past member, Roberta Highton, wrote: “The devil is in the detail”. It is one of those ‘new’ scenarios where we are not able to fall back on the wisdom of the past but
have to find ethical approaches for a contemporary challenge.
We will look at some of a power point presented at a recent U3A meeting by Dr Simon Walker from the Bioethics Centre of the University and have plenty of time for discussion.

Sea of Faith – Dunedin
Exploring Meaning in Life
Newsletter AUGUST 2017
Euthanasia Debate
Discussion led by
Marjorie Spittle
Thursday, 24th AUGUST
St John’s Church Hall,
Cnr Wright Street
& Highgate
Tea and Coffee
will be available from 5.30pm
The programme will start at 6.00pm
Contribution – $5

Explaining the Bill: http://www.lifechoice.org.nz/

Opposing the Bill: http://euthanasiadebate.org.nz/resources-2/end-of-life-choice-bill/

The last moments of King George V
The Guardian Weekly 31st March 2017 by Sam Knight
“The King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close,” was the final notice issued by George V’s doctor, Lord Dawson, at 9.30pm on the night of 20th January 1936. Not long afterwards, Dawson injected the king with 750mg of morphine and a gram of cocaine – enough to kill him twice over – in order to ease the monarch’s suffering, and to have him expire in time for the printing presses of the Times, which rolled at midnight.

Nuclear Destruction
It is 72 years this week since the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Kevin Clements noted at the Peace Vigil to commemorate the event, that it was a wholly unnecessary act. Japan had virtually capitulated and to waste so may lives at the point of explosion and then to destroy so many more with slow death from radiation-induced cancer was an outrageous decision.
At a public lecture on nuclear weapons this week the point was made that we are inclined to say “this new bomb is ten times more powerful than the one dropped on Nagasaki”. The presenter suggested a significant change in language “this new bomb is ten times more destructive than the one dropped on Nagasaki”.
We are peaceful people who value human life – the proliferation of nuclear weapons must be opposed with all our energies.

SPAM
I always thought this stood for Stupid Person’s Advertising Message and maybe in the beginning it was. Now we get so many e-mails attempting to persuade us to go to a web site and log in with our password to get a tax refund or certify our Pay Pal or Apple Store details that it is hard to know which are fake messages.
A talented friend advises me to let my mouse hover over the site the message wishes you to go to and look at the little window that opens up. If the address looks like a place you go to frequently, then it is fairly safe – but most often the link will take you to a fake site and intercept your details.
Someone knows I have an interest in religion and so is trying to get me to authorise the purchase of a Hebrew Bible from the Apple Store. To be even safer – keep an eye on your internet bank account and report anything suspicious to VISA or your bank immediately.
Caring for each other and helping to avoid these sort of pitfalls is what makes us the sort of people we are.

Homo Deus (Again)
Gretchen’s study of the book a couple of months ago couldn’t have been more timely. We learned that whilst we read books on the tablet, the inbuilt camera can read us; it can see which parts of the book make us sad or happy, and can measure how fast we turn the pages as well as when we gave up on a book. The idea is to find out more about us and to target advertising especially to us.
I thought that a bit fanciful until I read in the last fortnight that Facebook has patented that technology (although it doesn’t seem to be in use yet).
The author argued that as the computer learns more and more about us (like the sites we visit when we surf the net, the places we go using Google maps and so on) the machine will know us better than we know ourselves. What is the implication of that if you decided to use a dating site? As Marjorie has written, we cannot fall back on the wisdom of the past to solve this.

Newsletter Editor:
Alan Jackson
55 Evans Street
DUNEDIN 9010
Ph: 473 6947
[email protected]

Sea of Faith – Dunedin
Exploring Meaning in Life
Newsletter JULY 2017

We Start With…
A two minute period of silence – a moment of peace.
From the ‘Chair’
Our meeting time, from 5.30 to 7.30 pm, spans a meal time. From 5.30 to 6 pm we share some chat and catch-up time together, with a hot savoury, a sandwich and a cuppa. While not exactly a meal, it seems to meet the immediate needs! Please feel welcome to join us for this welcome and friendly time.
Our meetings usually start with a speaker, a book review, or a video piece on some topic of interest. This is followed by discussion and comment. By the end of the evening most people have contributed, and we have all heard things to take away and think about.
What happens between meetings – the thinking – is our valuable outcome. If you’d like to hear, talk about, and continue to think about something new and interesting, new folk are welcome to any of our meetings Gretchen
[email protected] (03) 473 0031
Next Meeting
Marion Christie will review the book “Leaving Alexandria: a memoir of faith and doubt”, by Richard Holloway, former Episcopalian Primus and Bishop of Edinburgh, whose doubts about the authority and certainties of organised religion led to him resigning from his role within the Church. He now describes himself as an “after-religionist”. It is a moving and thought-provoking account of his life and his struggles with some of the core beliefs of the Church.
Richard Holloway
In reviewing the book, The Independent newspaper asked “There’s one question about Leaving Alexandria – otherwise a quiet epic of a biography about faith, doubt, class, philosophy and social action – that won’t go away. How did such an innate dissimulator and self-dramatist as Richard Holloway, wracked with crippling, carnal doubts about the authority and certainties of organised religion, actually get to become the Episcopalian Primus and Bishop of Edinburgh?”
Sea of Faith – Dunedin
Exploring Meaning in Life
Newsletter JULY 2017
Leaving Alexandria
Book Review by
Marion Christie
Thursday, 27th JULY
St John’s Church Hall,
Cnr Wright Street
& Highgate
Tea and Coffee
will be available from 5.30pm
The programme will start at 6.00pm
Contribution – $5
Yuval Noah Harari
Last month Gretchen introduced us to two books written by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens and Homo Deus. I had never heard of either the writer or the books before the meeting and was pleased, as always, to come away from a Sea of Faith meeting with new ideas and stimulating thoughts. So when thinking about the newsletter for this month, I thought it would be a good idea to look further at Prof Harari and the two books, especially as they come highly recommended not only by Gretchen but also Barak Obama and Bill Gates.
I have such a great pile of books, which I have bought, awaiting attention that I resorted to listening to YouTube and IntelligenceSquared interviews on each book. The interviews are a bit like the Reith Lectures in which the speaker makes the case and then there is time for audience questions. I will say at the outset that I found both books quite riveting and can unreservedly recommend the two interviews (locations below) to anyone with an open mind.
I was on comfortable ground with most of Sapiens and the start of Homo Deus as Lloyd Geering has told us much of that material. Our success to date has been our ability to believe in shared fictions. Religions, nations and money, Harari argues, are all human fictions that have enabled collaboration and organisation on a massive scale. Harari tells much more about how the artificial intelligence and algorithms in such things as driverless cars and free e-mail software (g-mail for example) are affecting our lives. He sets the scene for a new stage in our evolution where many of us will have jobs replaced by automation (we covered some of that earlier in the year when we discussed Universal Basic Income) and thus will emerge a group of people who are largely without use or function. The elite (well Calvin had his elite group too) will become very rich (a process already happening) and will be at the front of the new developments – but they will not be actually steering the new society, it will steer itself in the same way as the growth of the internet and cell phone technology is not being steered by any one group but by a number of different forces (companies – think Microsoft, Google, FaceBook and the rest).

From Sapiens
“We did not domesticate wheat,” he wrote, “wheat domesticated us”; or “How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.”
From Homo Deus
“Modernity is a deal,” Harari writes. “The entire contract can be summarised in a single phrase: humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power.”
The new longevity and super-human qualities are likely to be the preserve of the techno super-rich, the masters of the data universe. Meanwhile, the redundancy of labour, supplanted by efficient machines, will create an enormous “useless class”, without economic or military purpose. In the absence of religion, overarching fictions will be required to make sense of the world.
Guardian review – by Andrew Anthony
Sapiens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOO5xrEiC0M
Homo Deus http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/yuval-noah-harari-on-the-rise-of-homo-deus/
Newsletter Editor:
Alan Jackson
55 Evans Street
DUNEDIN 9010
Ph: 473 6947
[email protected]

2017-05 Newsletter

We Start With…

A two minute period of silence – a moment of peace.

From the ‘Chair’

Our March meeting was a first for our group, we watched a TED talk, by Dan Dennett ‘Let’s teach religion – all religion – in schools’.  He introduced a topic important to New Zealand right now.  We had a good discussion, and interestingly decided we didn’t agree with Dennett’s particular approach – but that’s fine.  We’re all certainly more aware of the issues.

We hope to use this way of introducing a topic, using TED or other resources from the internet, at future meetings.  There is no limit of interesting speakers available to us, though it was the discussion led by Marion that followed that we found the more valuable last month.

Gretchen

[email protected]    (03) 473 0031

Next Meeting (April)

This year marks the generally accepted 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s “nailing of the 95 theses” on the church door at Wittenberg. Sea of Faith couldn’t let that anniversary pass without spending at least one meeting looking at Luther and the consequences. The National Conference in Wellington later in the year will take that theme too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086nzhk

We plan to listen to this BBC (radio) podcast and hear the discussion on what led Luther to take his step, how his thought and personality affected the course of the Reformation and whether – were he to walk into the 21st century – he might actually find himself to be a good Catholic.

The podcast bears listening to more than once and if you can find 30 minutes to tune in to it ahead of time you will be in an even better position to discuss the topic.

At Otago we are lucky to have Prof Peter Mathieson, a world expert on The Reformation, as part of the team in the Theology Dept. There is a series of lectures and seminars on this subject during the semester.

http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/events/index.html?eventtype=lecture&days=30

Several of our Group’s members have been attending the lectures and we will all agree that they are fascinating. In addition there is a Special Collection of materials in the University Library (admission free) – first floor – de Beer gallery.

Luther was a monk and Professor of Theology at the University of Wittenberg and he posed some opinions (theses) to which he invited responses and argument (like any of our contemporary Professors who write a paper on climate change for example).

Luther didn’t set out to split the Catholic Church but to reform it. He objected to the selling of indulgences (a sort of “get out of hell free” card) which were used by the Pope and some others to raise funds for themselves and the rebuilding of St Peter’s in Rome and taught that the only true path to salvation lay through the faithfulness to Jesus and his teachings. He translated the bible into the local language that people could read (German) and some people were surprised to find “that Jesus could speak such good German”. His ideas spread widely and rapidly thanks to the printing press – a new technology then which we can equate with social media today. The church did split and it responded with a catholic reformation, an inquisition and the Council of Trent (held in Trento and Bologna, northern Italy from 1545-63, it lasted through three Popes). The destabilised states of Europe entered a period called the 30 Years’ War during which power amongst the controlling factions of Europe were more to the fore than religion.

John Calvin, a humanist French theologian, was a strong supporter of Luther’s Reforms but the Protestant French Reformed community (Huguenots – 10% of the French community) were harried by the Catholics especially at the siege of the township of La Rochelle, and many fled to England (my ancestors amongst them).

In amongst the characters of the Reformation we find the Borgias, Ignatius Loyola and the formation of the Jesuits, and the ancestors of Queen Elizabeth. It was a massively turbulent time in European history with consequences for all the countries that the Europeans later colonised. It accounts for much of the violent loss of life in Ireland, the two major sorts of Christian school that we find in Dunedin as well as much rivalry on the rugby fields here and elsewhere.

May Meeting

At our May meeting we are to hear from Derek McCullough, the minister with the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Christchurch.  Unitarian Universalism is found is seventeen countries, and is particularly strong in the USA and Canada; there are UU communities in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Blenheim.

I have found people who have belonged to a UU church before coming the New Zealand, and not living in one of the above cities, have found their local Sea of Faith to meet some of their beliefs and needs.

We extend a warm welcome to all who would be interested to know more about Unitarian Universalism to join us at our May meeting, to hear from Derek and join our discussion.

We Start With…

A two minute period of silence – a moment of peace.

From the ‘Chair’

At our February meeting we discussed some of the most vexed issues of our time.  Robots, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are reducing the numbers of jobs for unskilled and semiskilled workers, and for professionals too (anything that can be learned about how you do the job by observation can be taken over by technology).  The implications of the rapidly reducing number of jobs (and thus income) lead to consideration of the possibility of a Universal Basic Income, and we explored the nature and benefits of a UBI to a community (just a little).

Gretchen

[email protected]    (03) 473 0031

Next Meeting

Marion Christie will introduce a 24 minute video, a TED talk by Dan Dennett entitled ‘Let’s teach religion – all religion – in schools’, and then lead a discussion on the many points of interest raised by the video.  If you wish, you can watch the video beforehand, at www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_s_response_to_rick_warren

Robots

The problem with a lot of this new technology is the rate of change – Alvin Toffler called it “Future Shock”. I confess to having been able to keep up with most of it so far, although I don’t use the social media ‘FaceBook’ or ‘Twitter’ at all.

British comedian Peter Kay says his grandma calls it “FaceTube” and when the two of them went into MacDonald’s to get food she asked him to get her some “Wi-Fi” as they were free (Free “Wi-Fi”). His grandma gives him a lot of inspiration for his jokes (you can find him on YouTube and have a really good laugh).

I look forward to a driverless electric car as I get older. I like the thought of being able to get into the car and tell it to go to “Sea of Faith meeting” and then sit back until I get there. When all is over I will say “Home” and afterwards plug it in like an electric toothbrush. That may enable people to stay in their own home for longer (as I think many folk make the move to a retirement village shortly after the driving licence goes).

My new computer came with Windows 10. I was happy with Windows 7, and my old computer would link up to Bruce’s data projector – my new one has a fancy link called HDMI (that’s High Definition Multi-media Interface just in case you need to know). Anyhow, it won’t talk to Bruce’s projector so we must try to find a different one. I think the Freemasons can help.

Here is my point – we need to keep up to date with all the changes and developments. Not easy. That’s a good reason for U3A courses but also for helping each other. Sometimes a helping hand from someone just a bit more skilled than yourself is all that’s needed to help you take that next step and be able to use the new ‘phone, video, TV or whatever. Young ones seem to do things so easily – but when I was their age I stripped a car apart, gearbox, clutch, big end overhaul the lot. Many of today’s youngsters can’t do that. I know a lot of you make wonderful baking and cooking – I’m not much good at that and I’ll bet a lot of youngsters are not either. We all have skills to share – we are all still very good at something and when we get together and pool our skills, we can keep up with today’s world.

Feeding the 5000

I heard an interesting take on the story of the loaves and fishes. The speaker said that at the meeting Jesus took the food that he had and shared it around. That inspired all the others in the crowd to do the same (which they may well not have done without his inspiration and example) and there was food for all.

Helping each other, sharing what we have seems to me to be in that mold.

Luther and the Reformation

It is 500 years since Luther (the monk) made his stand against the Catholic Church. He objected to priests selling indulgences. He wanted people to be able to read the bible in their own language – German – so he made a translation from the Latin. Did he actually nail his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg? One programme I have listened to says that the story is apocryphal, however I’m looking forward to this series of lectures at our generous University to find out more.

I think it is high time we had another Reformation and sorted some of the awful things out – what would you put on the list if you were to write 95 theses? You don’t need to get as far as 95 – but maybe you’ll have more than that.

Pen and paper time now.

Refugees

I spotted this in a Newsletter from Opoho Church which a good friend loaned me

They have no need of our help

So do not tell me

These haggard faces could belong to you or me

Should life have dealt a different hand

We need to see them for who they really are

Chancers and scroungers

Layabouts and loungers

With bombs up their sleeves

Cut-throats and thieves

They are not

Welcome here

We should make them

Go back to where they came from

They cannot

Share our food

Share our homes

Share our countries

Instead let us

Build a wall to keep them out

It is not okay to say

These are people just like us

A place should only belong to those who are born there

Do not be so stupid as to think that

The world can be looked at another way

Brian Bilston

Read more at https://brianbilston.com/

AGM 23 March 2017

Hello Dunedin Sea of faith Friends

We shall hold our Annual General Meeting on our next meeting day – the Fourth Thursday of the month – 23^rd March 2017 at 6pm in St John’s church hall.

The attached papers are in two formats (except the finance which is .pdf only).

The committee has offered to continue and we are delighted to have had a volunteer to swell the ranks. We are always in need of good people with good fresh ideas, so others will be welcome.

We are a very small group, and our business will not take long – so the main theme for the evening will be that of Religion in Schools – a TED video and discussion led by Marion Christie.

Gretchen asks me to stress that there are five Thursdays this month – we are on the FOURTH THURSDAY – 23^rd March.

Appreciatively

Alan

2016-03-24 AGM Minutes 2017 – AGM Finances 2017 AGM – Newsletter Report 2017 AGM Chair’s Report

Psychology and neuroscience have for years been throwing up wave after wave of new knowledge about human life – but where does that leave religious experience? What about spirituality? Notions of the soul?
Those questions will be explored over the first weekend in October as Dunedin hosts the annual conference of the Sea of Faith Network in New Zealand.
Essentially, this is a network whose groups across the country offer a space where people can discuss religious thought and expression without the constraint of creeds and dogmas.
Members have found it a safe place to discuss unsafe things. Among them are Christians who attend a church and others who don’t.
Buddhists, atheists, agnostics – anyone who thinks religion is worth exploring for what it still may offer, even though they may differ on what that might be.
The New Zealand network was formed in 1993, four years after a similar movement began in Britain. The spark was a six part documentary series called The Sea Of Faith, broadcast in Britain in 1984. In it, Cambridge theologian and philosopher the Rev Don Cupitt, an Anglican priest, looked back over 400years of pivotal changes in Western science, philosophy and religion – changes that help to, explain why the churches no longer appeal to so many people in the West today.
The title comes from the poem Dover Beach, which Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold wrote after watching the tide going out below the cliffs on the coast of Kent:

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

The series aroused much interest in Britain. TVNZ rejected requests to screen it here, although eventually it went to air via Massey University’s former Educational TV service.
People drawn to the Rev Cupitt’s approach began meeting in Britain to discuss the ideas, then held a national conference. New Zealand theologian Sir Lloyd Geering initiated a parallel network here.
2014-09-26 ODT Ian Harris.docx Page 2
The Sea of Faith is not a mass movement and the network does not proselytise. In New Zealand it comprises about 500 members and participants, who meet in 18 groups around the country. It is valued by people, lay and clergy alike, who value the freedom to question and explore ideas, including some that would discomfort, even shock, people in local churches.
Accordingly, the Sea of Faith makes no attempt to define what members are expected to believe. The focus of the British network is ‘exploring and promoting religious faith as a human creation’. The New Zealand network describes itself as ‘exploring religious thought and expression from a non-dogmatic and human-oriented standpoint’.
It also affirms the continuing importance of religious thought and practice ‘as a vehicle for awe and wonder for the celebration of key social and spiritual values’, drawing freely on the Judaeo-Christian heritage without being bound by it.
Twelve years ago, the Australian Broadcasting Commission found this of sufficient interest to send a television crew to the network’s conference in Timaru, attracted by the presence of Rev Cupitt, Sir Lloyd and British Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor. It afforded an excellent opportunity to get a fix on the Sea of Faith at a time when a similar network was getting off the ground in Australia.
In the resulting Compass programme, the Rev Cupitt cut to the chase. “I think the traditional world religions are coming to the end of their historical 1ife,” he said. “The question is what should take their place?
“Some people would say a globalised eco-humanism, a kind of environmental humanism. I’d have a stronger, element of philosophy and spirituality than that. I want religion to break with ideas of power and tradition. I want it to become more matter of freedom, of spirituality, of the way people relate to each other in the here and now. I believe religion has a future, but it will be very different from the past”.
This points not to religion turning its back on modern life, as some urge in all religions, but to engaging contemporary thinking across a wide front, reassessing its own traditions, and reinventing itself in the light of both.
The church has done this more than once during its 2000-year history, and it marked a new beginning. The tide came back in.

Otago Daily Times
Faith and Reason
Friday 26th September 2014

Sea of Faith – Dunedin

Next Meeting

Dr Taneli Kukkonen

‘Islam, faith, and theological realism’

Thursday, 24th APRIL

*****

We Start With…

*****

From the Chair

Those who attended last month’s AGM [thank you ] will know you have a small committee doing all the behind-the-scenes work for our Sea of Faith meetings. Most things run like clockwork but we need some help in two matters:
We need extra help each meeting, from 5 – 6pm, with serving and washing up. We’d like to have different people helping each month, so please do offer if you can.
The SoF library is now without a home. The role of Librarian has a physical aspect – moving six boxes of books to and from each meeting – as well as providing spiritual and intellectual refreshment. I will discuss this vacant position at our May meeting.

A Key Diary Date

Our Next Meeting

Thoughts from a Member
Should the Sea of Faith be more outward looking?

More Equality

Sea of Faith – Dunedin

Next Meeting

Thursday, 24th October

*****

We Start With…

A two minute period of silence.

*****

From the Chair

For our September meeting Ian Fleming ran a very interesting session on Prayer. Did you find yourself saying something you’d never said before? I did. Did you hear things you’d never known or thought about before? I did. These are hallmarks of a good conversation. I hope you enjoyed your conversation as I did mine.

Thanks Ian

Gretchen

Next Meeting

Nigel Leaves was a keynote speaker at the 2013 Sea of Faith conference in Hastings, 4th to 6th October. Nigel is based in Brisbane, on the staff of St Francis Theological College and as a Canon of St John’s Anglican Cathedral, where he is responsible for adult theological education. His address

Too many stories! Which one should we tell?

was very well received by the 100+ members at the conference. The paper provides an interesting framework for SoFers to understand where Christianity and post-Christianity is today, at least in the Western world.
At the October Dunedin SoF meeting Marjorie and Gretchen will present Nigel Leaves’ seven ‘stories’, with plenty of time for discussion and contribution.

Gretchen

Dunedin Group News

It’s always good to welcome a new member to our group and this month Mick Chagger (you’ll recognise his London accent) enjoyed our company and we hope will be back next meeting. We missed Wilson Daniel’s company but it is good to hear that he has had both knees fixed and his convalescence is going well.
Bruce Spittle does an expert job of serving out the food each month and later ensuring none is wasted. If the food is eaten by 5.30 p.m. then the kitchen volunteers have a better chance to be all clear for the start of the meeting. Tea and coffee can still be enjoyed after that but can we try to hand in all dishes by 5.45 p.m. please?
We have some newly-printed brochures which publicise the work of the Sea of Faith nationally and at a Dunedin level. If you would like to take one of these to give to a “prospective member” or an enquiring member of the public, please pick one up at any meeting. They are in colour and a bit too expensive to spread around with gay abandon.

Maryan Street has withdrawn her “euthanasia bill”, as she is aware that 2014 is election year and she wishes any discussion of it to be removed from any electioneering. She will resubmit her bill in the new Parliament and hope it is again drawn for debate.

With great sadness I record the passing of a great friend and a dignified lady who was a long term member of our group. Pen Whitaker slipped away peacefully at the Otago Hospice on 3rd October. Pen worked out her arrangements well before the end came and there will be an opportunity to celebrate her life and friendship on Saturday 16th November at 11.30 at Holy Name Church.

Last Meeting

18 folk joined in with Ian Fleming who led an extremely lively discussion on the very personal subject of prayer. He posed three questions which we went into groups to tease out our responses and then shared our thoughts.

• How or when did you first begin to pray?
• Are you aware of a time, or times, when your praying, or your attitude to prayer, changed? Can you say what that change was?
• Some of us might still pray in some places, or at some times. Some mightn’t. Some might even miss it. What process has brought you to where you are now?

The wide variety of responses showed the range of thinking amongst members and also the journeys that we have taken, from (in some cases) being taught what and how to pray in a home of Christian and regularly-worshipping parents to others who have discovered the power of prayer for themselves as they have grown and faced life’s challenges. Prayer takes all forms, and for some the ritual of clasped hands, closed eyes in a silent setting has been replaced with an acute awareness of the inter-connectedness of life whilst looking at the beauty of a garden or talking to a friend.

Happiness

There is a “Happiness Index” used to measure the well-being of society, and the World Happiness Report 2013 was released in September following a world-wide survey of governments to measure the well-being of their societies. Here is a paragraph from the introduction…
“There is now a rising worldwide demand that (government) policy be more closely aligned with what really matters to people as they themselves characterize their well-being, More and more world leaders are talking about the importance of well-being as a guide for their nations and the world. The World Happiness Report 2013 offers rich evidence that the systematic measurement and analysis of happiness can teach us a lot about ways to improve the world’s well-being and sustainable development.”

So wrote Professor Jeffery Sachs (Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General).
Virtue Ethics (of the days when Christian Values held sway) have been replaced by a doctrine of utility once economists came on the scene.
They developed a “utility theory” in which each individual’s utility (or well-being) is determined by the possession and consumption of material goods, mainly through market purchases. By the 20th century, utility theory is marked by an unrestrained consumerism, where advertising and PR fill the public space, even the pulpits in many churches.

Ring any bells?

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Personal Perspectives on the Jesus Seminar

There are three ways in which I would sum up the Jesus Seminar and its contribution to Jesus studies.

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The Sea of Faith Network: Exploring Meaning in Life

http//:dsof.blogtown.co.nz

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MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE DUNEDIN SEA OF FAITH 28th MARCH 2013

 Sea of Faith Dunedin

Chairperson’s Annual Report March 28th 2013

I am pleased to report that Continue Reading »

Geoff Neilson presented the new statement of the purpose of the Sea of Faith and introduced the “Charter of Compassion” instigated by the religious historian Karen Armstrong, for discussion. Continue Reading »