Two new resources added to the website:
Ian Harris’s latest ODT article: Say goodbye to belief and welcome to faith
A liturgical resource Affirmation of Faith—Living as if we matter by liturgist Bronwyn Angela White
Books by both these writers will be on sale at the Common Ground 2018 Conference, 7-9 September, St Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wellington – along with titles from St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society) including Ian’s “Creating God, Re-Creating Christ” (SATRS, 1999)
Here’s an example from St Andrew’s on The Terrace’s 2013 Matariki service:
Do you know your own story, your birth story, your life story? Did someone tell it to you, or have you made it up from memory and experience? It’s worth keeping in mind that there are different Matariki stories, different meanings depending on the location of the tribe who tells them: in some, Matariki is a time for planting; in others, that’s not the case at all. There are many variations of the calendar and many ways the different tribes used stellar guides for their own specific environment.
So, Matariki isn’t just a time to learn the legends of the stars, fascinating as they are. Learning about family and whakapapa is also important. Around Matariki the harvests such as kumara were in, and this cold part of the year was a time for hui, for korero, to exchange stories, learn about ancestors who have passed from this world to the next, and hand down knowledge and practices to ensure the culture is preserved. Memories, good and bad, are powerful…
By Bronwyn Angela White, Wellington, NZ
By faith, Sarah and Abraham left family, household and land for the promise of a new life in Canaan.
This faith may take us, too, through labyrinths of doubt, to greener fields.
By faith, Moses led his people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the desert.
This faith might sometimes lead down unpaved tracks to destinations we did not intend.
Faith is the opposite of belief: a shiny coin whose shadow-side is hope.
In his “New Testament and Mythology”, Bultmann claims that “modern man is convinced that the mythical view of the world is obsolete”, that “all our thinking today is shaped for good and ill by modern science”, “the miracles of the new testament have ceased to be miraculous”, and—astonishingly—that “the mythical view of the world must be accepted or rejected in its entirety”.
I have to differ!
Progressive Christianity Aotearoa 