Here are links to audio recordings of two of today’s keynote talks.
Both of these presentations were outstanding and I strongly recommend listening to it all.
Louis Weil on When Signs Signify
Lucy Winkett on Our sound is our wound
(Text versions of these will also be available later.)
Meanwhile the full text of two other talks are already available:
Each of us was given grace: an address by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa (audio linked here previously).
Out of the silence: an address by the Revd Dr Sharon Moughtin-Mumby
(Dr Moughtin-Mumby was unable to be present but her address was read by the Revd Canon Giles Goddard, chair of Inclusive Church.)
Louis Weil’s presentation about symbols working beyond a simple literalism (and too often being interpreted at a such a level for validity) relates to my own reading at the moment – Douglas Davies’s book Theology and Anthropology, Oxford: Berg. He too relates Christian religion as active and related to embodiment: it goes on to notions of grace and merit, giving and receiving (exchange).
Thanks for these links Simon, I confess that I prefer to read rather than listen, I absorb information better that way. Dr Jenny Plane Te Pa’s talk was simply inspirational. Her strategy was similar to Paul’s as she chose to come “not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4) I would have loved to quote so much of what she wrote but settled for this one: “We are… being challenged in the current circumstance not so much to focus too intently and singularly on the bad behaviour of the few, but… Read more »
I also loved Rev’d Dr Sharon Moughtin-Mumby’s paper. It was an insightful reminder that God doesn’t just serve up pleasant dishes but even the unpleasant, and that sometimes it is necessary to bring bad news in order that good might come from the healing. The book of Ezekiel is difficult but it is also inspirational, God confronts the legalistic harshness of his people, and confounds their opportunistic dodgings. God repeatedly confronts us “Is it my ways that are harsh, O Israel – or is it yours?” God confounds and announces that the one who does the sin dies for the… Read more »
From Lucy Winkett’s address: On a lighter note I am reminded too here, while we’re on the subject of vestries, of the distinction with which I am sure you are all familiar and for which I am indebted to my friend Mark Oakley, that you can always tell which denomination’s vestry you’re in by what is hanging on the wall. In a Roman Catholic vestry you’ll see a picture of Jesus’s sacred heart; in a Methodist vestry you’ll see a picture of Jesus the Good Shepherd, and in an Anglican vestry what you’ll invariably find on the wall is a… Read more »
Very good from Lucy Winkett; here is another telling chunk: Our current predicament in the UK with our own internal and shrill conversations reminded me of the story reported in the press last week of two men in Mexico who are the last known speakers of an indigenous language: they’ve fallen out with each other and are not speaking. So the very language they’re speak is under threat. That tragic story can be translated into a situation where the disconnection between Church and society in twenty first century Britain is clear. You will know of the ordinand who was told… Read more »
Moving story about the Mexicans – but wrong connection from Lucy Winkett. It is more an example of what is transpiring with the Anglican Communion’s internal debate. It renders much of our language completely irrelevant in the eyes of the world. Though, I remain confident that ‘the Victory is certain’ to quote Bonhoeffer, so the true message of the gospel will never become extinct. The liberals certainly seem to be undergoing a death and are due a resurrection soon in terms of ‘church politics’. The NPs of this world are due a certain death within the AC, but no doubt… Read more »
…and re the story attributed to Mark Oakley! He clearly got it from somebody else. For the version I heard was that the Catholic church had a crucifix on the wall – the Methodist a plain cross – and the Anglican one a mirror. I had to laugh too because that is exactly what is up in our vestry!