You’re invited to come and hear Peter Tatchell give a human rights lecture on Saturday 19 July 2014 at 6.30 pm in St Mary’s.
He’s also going to be doing a forum after the 10.30 am service on Sunday.
Helpful, thank you
What is the concern with the reproaches? I’m not familiar with them
They can be interpreted as being directed at us the listeners. But they can also be interpreted as speaking to Jewish people as all the imagery is from the Hebrew Scriptures and doesn’t reference the experience of those who actually were around Jesus during his life on earth.
For example:
“I led you out of Egypt, having drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea:
and you have delivered me to the chief priests.”
Who is being addressed here?
I must admit I had always read the Reproaches as directed to the listener. That the Egypt from which we are delivered is the Egypt of the modern world, the slavery of ghastly jobs (I’ve had a few, in fact a lot) and the oppression of terrible political systems. But I come from a totally different thought world to that of most people today, and I absolutely see they wouldn’t commonly be read that way.
But I think it would benefit everyone to find a way of expressing BOTH what faith can offer in terms of freedom AND the mess we do make of the world, and sitting with that tension.
And I think the church as a whole urgently needs to find a compelling and deep reaching way of doing both.
You might be interested that we’re looking at Isaiah 59 as a helpful text for this year, given the current ways of the world.
I’m of much the same mind. (A mind that is still blown away when I hear them sung)
Thank you
Just a reminder about the petition that is before the Scottish Parliament on opening up civil and religious marriage to everyone in Scotland. (That means opening it up to same-sex couples). Nick Henderson, the original petitioner came to St Mary’s last night to talk to the LGBT group about the petition. It only has a…
Two rather fun innovations at church yesterday. It had been suggested to me that it might be a good idea to run a guided tour of the church. Indeed, it was. About 30 people gathered after the 1030 service for a guided tour. The theme of the tour was the seven traditional sacraments so we…
Perhaps the most surprising thing about this version of Educating Rita was that it emphasised the fact that the play has become something of a period piece. The academic’s room has no computer, essays are delivered by hand not e-mail, student work is written in handwriting. The ideas are rather dated too. A new English…
Well, last week it was the meeting of Primates of the Anglican Communion in Egypt. You can read +Idris’s take on the events here. Rather more interestingly, an angry and despairing letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury purporting to be from Archbishop of Nigeria has been issued (on an American website) which quotes +Idris directly.…
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