Last night we had the second Thinking Aloud Allowed Conversazione ... this time the topic was "The Stranger at the Gate" - Libby Hogarth was our Thought Provoker; her comments stimulated a lively discussion for the next hour and a half. Here is the YouTube link of her opening comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8esx-dGde4

Strangers at the Gate: Thinking Aloud Allowed Conversazione. June 11, 7-...

Next week - on Wednesday June 11th at 7pm in the Cynthia Poulton Hall, next to St Peter's Cathedral, Libby Hogarth will be our Thought Provoker for our next Thinking Aloud Allowed Conversazione, which this time will be on "The Stranger at the Gate", about refugees and asylum seekers.

Back in 2010, I gave the Anne Hawke Memorial Lecture at University of South Australia on the topic of the Asylum Seeker debate. This is the link to the YouTube clip of that lecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR9cq8xR_7Q

Reading for an essay this evening, I came across this piece from Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, written in prison in 1945 just weeks before his execution for opposing the Nazi regime:
"Is there a God who takes part in the personal destiny of man? It becomes difficult for me to believe so, for this God has now for years permitted torrents of blood and suffering, mountains of horror and despair, to be engendered against mankind by a few hundred thousand bestialised, spiritually diseased and deluded individuals ... He has allowed millions of decent people to suffer and to die ... Is it not possible that with our arbitrary nationalism we have affronted God and practised idolatry? Yes, in that case the things that are happening would have meaning: God desires to root out thoroughly in all nations the propensity to harness him to their national ambitions. If this be true, we can only beg God to let it suffice, and in the place of tears and death, to give ascendancy to the apostles of reconciliation who have recognised this spirit in God and this purpose in his judgments. For this I pray to him."from Richard Bauckham, "The Bible in Politics: How to read the Bible politically", SPCK, 1989; p58].

After my sermon on Reconcliation yesterday morning, Baden Teague pointed out to me the very powerful Cedar Prest window above the western side of the pews. The window is a very powerful piece of social commentary. I have highlighted one particular part of this window - in it are portrayed the tragedy of two Aboriginal men in custody having committed suicide. This window was one of a number done as part of the Cathedral restoration in the early 1990s, in other words done at the time of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. For more information about Cedar Prest go to http://www.cedarprest.com.au/about_intro.htm  and about her wonderful windows in St Peter's Cathedral, the booklet "Inspired Windows" is available for just $2 in the Cathedral Shop, (which is open every day - check opening hours on the web).

 

The next Thinking Aloud Allowed Conversazione of Faith in the Public Square - St Peters Anglican Cathedral...will be on 'The Stranger at the Gate"- Libby Hogarth will be the Thought Provoker. June 11, 7-9pm in the Cynthia Poulton Hall, St Peter's Cathedral

Chris McLeod on Reconciliation 2