Categories: uncategorized
Date: 05 September 2012 09:17:17
Community notice board time, a couple of things have caught my eye this week which I'm in the mind to flag up as interesting but not to write full blog posts on:
First one is the Joint Public Issues Team (the fluffy social conscience team of non-conformists from Baptist, URC and Methodist churches) is organising a conference in February which looks a little more than interesting. Entitled "Think, Speak, Act: equipping Christians for mission and justice" it has Dr Giles Fraser (the Guardian vicar) speaking together with Revd Dr Martyn Atkins (General Secretary of the Methodist Church) and Revd Roberta Rominger (General Secretary of the URC). Rather than being your usual activist workshop this also contains a session on preaching and praying for justice which seems of particular interest. At £10 for the day it's an affordable conference too.
A little bit on the Ekklesia update highlighted what sounds like an exciting academic initiative coming out of Stirling called the "Critical Religion Research Group". They seem to be engaging in the in-depth, properly academic version of the lesson I always used to do with my students at the start of the Sociology of Religion module when we'd discuss what is religion and look at football and church seeking to define why one was termed as religious and the other wasn't. This lesson was designed to introduce students to specific language and ideas and make clear the distinctions between the profane and secular are sometimes very grey, particularly if you are using functional rather than substantive definitions. As with much in this field of academia it depends largely on the use and accepted meaning of language and this is part of what they appear to be discussing.
Oh and in case you hadn't worked it out these are more than just adverts - something has awoken again in me and after the post M Litt burn out I'm enjoying reading and thinking again....these are here because I think they're genuinely exciting and have the potential to allow those of us outside of academia to engage with the field from where we are.