– social divisions on issues like the vaccine and te reo…

with Derek Handley

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Derek Handley © 24th October 2021.

No text this week.

Meditation / Conversation starter:

When division confronts us and we are ready to quickly judge or react:-

• How can each of us serve to unite rather than divide,
• in our conversations,
• in our deeds,
• in our acts,
• and in our thoughts?

Links

First Reading from “The Importance Of Living” by Lin YuTang

Chalice Lighting is from “Chalice Lighting for Challenging Times” By Lisa Doege

and from “Chalice Lighting” By Oberlin UU Fellowship, OH, USA

Second Reading:- “Uriel” by Ralph Waldo Emerson – 1803-1882

Third Reading features wise words from Marcus Aurelius, Heraclitus

Closing words include:- “As We Go Forward” By Cheryl Block

with John DiLeo

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John DiLeo © 17th October 2021.

Well, it finally happened. On the 17^th of August, New Zealand joined the rest of the world in dealing with an outbreak of the Delta COVID variant in the community. Our government’s “short, sharp” response announced that afternoon turned out not to be all that short…and, recently, has lost a great deal of its sharpness, as well.

with David Hines,

Sally Mabelle, Nina Khouri.

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David Hines © 10th October 2021.

Intro

When I agreed to preach at this service a couple of weeks ago, I had to pick a topic off the cuff, so I said I’d talk about how we can help people who are especially hard hit by the lockdown. In our Prime Minister’s words “Be kind”.

But eight days ago that story was overtaken by Brian Tamaki running his protest against the lockdown ….

So I’ve changed the topic a little: Be kind, most of the time.

with David Hines,

Sally Mabelle, Nina Khouri.

Read below, or download the PDF – to come.

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David Hines © 3rd October 2021.

In July I was surprised to get a call from a member of the Association of Rationalists and Humanists asking if I had written a submission on the government’s new hate speech proposal. I hadn’t, but I was grateful for the suggestion.

I had written a a similar article a couple of years ago – taking a free speech approach, and found my thoughts had shifted a little in between.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 26 September 2021

Before Mohammed, before Jesus, before Buddha, there was Zoroaster. Some 3,500 years ago, in Bronze Age Iran, he had a vision of the one supreme God. A thousand years later, Zoroastrianism, the world’s first great monotheistic religion, was the official faith of the mighty Persian Empire, its fire temples attended by millions of adherents. A thousand years after that, the empire collapsed, and the followers of Zoroaster were persecuted and converted to the new faith of their conquerors, Islam.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 19 September 2021

In a letter to Robert Hooke in 1675, Isaac Newton wrote: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”.

The phrase is understood to mean that if Newton had been able to discover more about the universe than others, then it was because he was working in the light of discoveries made by fellow scientists, either in his own time or earlier.

I stand on the shoulders of John Shelby Spong and he stood on the shoulders of John A T Robinson, an English New Testament scholar, author and the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, his friend and mentor. Robinson stood on the shoulders of Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and situational ethicist Joseph Fletcher, when he published a highly controversial book in 1963, Honest to God.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 12 September 2021

Last week in my musings about conspiracy theorists I relied on my pastoral training to encourage you “to respect their human dignity and listen to them. Ask questions about their fears. Remain connected to them. Love them.” What the hell was I thinking? This is a case of do as I say, not as I do. Those who spread conspiracy theories that endanger people, enrage me.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 5 September 2021

Ever since the pandemic began the tin hat brigade has been out in force, spreading misinformation and, worse, disinformation. The former is “false information that people didn’t create with the intention to hurt others,” and the latter is “false information created with the intention of harming a person, group, or organisation, or even a country.” They have always been around, but this time, thanks to social media, conspiracy theories have never been more deadly. I have seen videos of people in ICU dying of Covid still claiming it is a government hoax and that Bill Gates has put microchips in the vaccine to control us. It beggars belief. Up to now I’ve just dismissed them without a second thought, lumping them in with the few who believe in the Flat Earth Society and those who believe the moon landing was a hoax spoon fed to the “sheeple”. But now their nonsense is threatening extinction. With the world increasingly on fire or underwater, their denouncing of climate change as not real and their undermining public health efforts to eliminate a deadly virus are a real threat. They have forced me to take them seriously and consider why people come up with conspiracy theories in the first place and why others are taken in by them even when it isn’t in their best interest.