house group 9th May

Next meeting will be as above - we will be thinking about faith & politics, do they mix? should they mix? see Julia's original post below for more details. Thoughts links etc. can be added to comments of this post...

hg after this will be looking at "The Trap" documentary

Science& Faith

interesting article in guardian...

"The God disunion: there is a place for faith in science, insists Winston"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2064897,00.html

/ link should work now if anyone has tried it before and had problems.

housegroup discussion material

Is it right for church leaders to make pronouncements about politics? Can it be classified as being 'prohetic'? When should they speak out and within what boundaries? This came out of an article I read in the Church Times a few weeks ago written by Canon Alan Billings who among other things is Director for Ethics and religion at Lancaster University. I quote a little at the end of his article :- ' The modernchurch seeks to make up for its loss of political power by being preachy and didactic. As long as it does that, it will give its members the impression that the real business of politics can be done somewhere other than through the practise of politics itself. Those who think they are being prophetic are contributing to the disillusion with politics'. He had started his article by commenting on Archbishop John Sentamu pitching his tent in the cathedral and making some comments on the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah in the Lebannon.

Rowan Williams - the church needs to listen properly to the bible

Rowan Williams gave a lecture on this topic in Canada recently, link to full text below. But I want to quote once section in particular speaking about scripture...

"... a written text requires re-reading; it is never read for the last time, and it continuously generates new events of interpretation. It is fruitful of renewed communication in a way that the spoken word alone cannot be. So to identify a written text as sacred is to claim that the continuous possibility of re-reading, the impossibility of reading for the last time, is a continuous openness to the intention of God to communicate".

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/070416.htm

Warning, it's pretty dense stuff :-)

house group 25th April 2007

Any thoughts on what anyone might want to do? please post a comment.

Huw