Chaplaincy Network meetings

What's here :

It is our general practice to meet weekly for an hour or so, interpreted flexibly. The day and time is determined semester by semester, according to our several timetables and whatever other constraints apply. We usually meet only during lecturing times. ( If you want to know why, ask the others; the restriction means that it is never possible to find a time at which everyone can turn up during lecturing periods, and as we never meet at any other time our group is always diminished. But I just do what I'm told. )

In the second semester of 2007, we meet weekly on Mondays somewhat after 1.00 p.m. in university lecturing weeks.

Our meetings usually happen at Newman Hall, in Seminar Room 1. That's on the top floor, to the right at the top of the stairs. Occasionally circumstances decree that we have to meet elsewhere; in such cases, the meeting notice should give details.


What we shall do in the second semester, 2007 :

NOTHING

Finished for this year.


What we did in the first semester, 2007 :

March 5th Alan Creak Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton : chapter 3.

We continued from where we were at the end of last year. This time we paid more attention to GKC's arguments, and perhaps got more out of the study.

March 12th Alan Creak Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton : chapter 3.

Carried on from last week; that's from about half-way through the first full paragraph on page 8 - and we finished the chapter !

March 19th Don Nield Latest news in the Science & Christianity debates : reviews of two books -

"LIVING WITH DARWIN: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith" by Phillip Kitcher;
"COSMIC JACKPOT: Why Our Universe is Just Right for Life" by Paul Davies.

( Well, in fact we only talked about the first one, after which a significant proportion of those present had to go somewhere else, leaving just two, so we deferred the other book until next week. )

March 26th Don Nield Latest news in the Science & Christianity debates : the other book, and also -

"THE LANGUAGE OF GOD: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" by Francis S. Collins.

April 2nd Alan Creak At the two previous meetings, Don reviewed two books, one of which was

"THE LANGUAGE OF GOD: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" by Francis S. Collins.

We inspected some other comments on this book, which include some couched in quite picturesque language. The comments are :

Sam Harris: The Language of Ignorance;

Book Review by Rich Deem;

DAVID VAN BIEMA : Reconciling God and Science.

- then came the mid-semester break -
April 23rd ( St. George's day, though it's probably not significant. ) Alan Creak We continued our inspection of critical comments on "THE LANGUAGE OF GOD" by Francis S. Collins. For want of anything better, we started working through my annotated collection of the collected comments, which you should be able to get here.
April 30th Alan Creak We carried on with our perusal of objections to the "Language of God" discussion.
May 7th Alan Creak Ditto. ( Why "Ditto" ? - from the OED : "It. ditto (Florio), detto said, spoken, aforesaid (:-L. dictus, -um). Used in It. with a n. like 'said' in Eng.: (il) detto libro '(the) said book'; also, absolutely, to avoid repetition of the name of a month, thus (Vocab. Della Crusca) 'Sotto li 22 di dicembre mi fu significato..che per li 26 detto..io dovessi' etc. (on the 22nd December it was signified to me..that by the 26th aforesaid (ditto)..I should have, etc.). This was the original sense in which the word was adopted in English, where it has been transferred to other uses, quite unknown to Italian." Well, I just thought I'd like to know. )
May 14th Alan Creak Ditto ( see above ).
May 21st Alan Creak Ditto ( see above )

- was the idea, but it didn't quite happen. A pleasant student wandered in and we spent the time discussing science, religion, truth, faith, and so on. You might say that we've been discussing the theory for a long time, and this was the practical. It probably did us all good.

May 28th Alan Creak We continued, yet again, our discussion of some critical reactions to "THE LANGUAGE OF GOD: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" by Francis S. Collins.

We discussed the reactions of David Klinghoffer, the final author in the set of examples.


What we did in the second semester, 2007 :

July 23rd Alan Creak Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton : chapter 4.

A new chapter ! There should be some notes here. They're not yet complete, but should do us for the first meeting, and maybe a bit more.

This meeting will be in the Chaplain's Office, at the back of the building at the Waterloo Quadrant level.

July 30th Alan Creak Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton : chapter 4.

... continued.

August 6th Alan Creak Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton : chapter 4, continued.

The notes are still not yet complete, but they've worked so far.

This meeting will be BACK IN THE UPPER SEMINAR ROOM.

August 13th Alan Creak Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton : chapter 4, continued.

The notes are complete ( at last ).

This meeting will be BACK IN THE UPPER SEMINAR ROOM.

August 20th Alan Creak Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton : chapter 4, continued.

The notes are complete ( at last ).

We started from the first paragraph break on page 9 of the notes ( "This was my first conviction ..." ), and finished chapter 4.

And there came the mid-semester break when we did

NOTHING

But then -

September 10th Don Nield A review of the book "RENDER UNTO DARWIN : Philosophical Aspects of the Christian Right's Crusade against Science" by James H. Fetzer, Open Court, Chicago, 2007.
September 17th Alan Creak We'll discuss an article by Bishop Brian Tamaki about New Zealand's Christian Heritage. The article, with some suggested questions, is here.

- but we didn't, because very few people turned up.

September 24th Alan Creak We'll discuss an article by Bishop Brian Tamaki about New Zealand's Christian Heritage. The article, with some suggested questions, is here.

( - and this time it worked. )

October 1st Don Nield Book review : Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath : "The Dawkins Delusion ? : Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine", IVP Books, 2007.
October 8th Robert Sheehan Circular theologies
October 15th Sean Henricus "The role of religion in modern society"

It is intended that the title should be taken broadly, including education, politics, law etc.

Keeping up to date.

I mean well, but I'm unlikely to keep this page up to date week by week - if you want to find out what's happening, ask me to add you to the E-mail list.

More about the Chaplaincy Network  ?

Current affairs

From time to time we might have a "current affairs session". The intention is to discuss current affairs from a Christian viewpoint, whatever that means. This does not include topics of general interest, presented as "What is the Christian position on <topic> ?"; at least we need a particular position as a starter.

The idea is therefore that anyone with a topic to raise should bring along a relevant newspaper cutting ( short and snappy for preference ) published during the previous week. Please mark the date of publication on the cutting. ( See below. )

In the interests of smooth running, we have some rules :

  1. Anyone supplying a cutting should also be ready to present a short introduction - say, a couple of minutes speech. It makes life easier ( but is not obligatory ) if you can write it down and pass round copies - then we don't wander away from the subject so much.
  2. Should there be lots of topics, they will be taken in increasing order of age of the newspaper cutting. Ties will be resolved by amicable agreement, voting, or tossing coins, whichever seems likely to be fastest.
  3. Discussion of a topic will not be artificially curtailed; we shall move to the next topic only when passion on the current topic is spent. ( I'm not so sure about that one, but the principle is that one thorough discussion is better than two unresolved bits. )

Alan Creak,
2007 September.