Engaging Faith
This Programme was held last autumn (2009). details have been retained here
Mayfield Salisbury Parish Church organise a series of lectures under the banner of Engaging Faith. Engaging Faith is a programme which hopes to offer an informed, pertinent, faith based response to contemporary issues.
On the first weekend of the months of October to December and February to April the church hosts an evening lecture. Previous speakers have included Prof Peter Brand FRSE, Prof Heather Cubie, and Rev’d Prof David Fergusson FRSE, all of whom offered an accessible but in no way dumbed down introduction to some interesting and varied issues.
Lecture Programme
October - December 2009
That would be an Environmental Matter!
A Lecture on Climate Change
Sunday 4th October
7pm
There is no escaping that fact that climate change is impacting on the lives of everyone on the planet. For some this impact is terrible, with regular flooding or irregular seasons. For others the impact has been less intrusive but scientists tell us that climate change is a time bomb waiting to explode.
Mayfield Salisbury Parish Church invite you to join Michael Northcott, Professor of Ethics at Edinburgh University, as we reflect on this most pressing issue and consider our responses
Giddy as a Schoolboy?
A lecture considering the well-being of our children
Sunday 1st November
7pm
Evidence would seem to confirm what people have known for a long time; the lives of our children are changing at dramatic speed.
But is this progress always for the better? Are our children happier and better off than they were 20 years ago?
Jennifer McGee, Principle Teacher at St Margaret’s School and Children 1st (RSSPC) offer some insight into the lives of our children.
Responses to HIV/AIDS
A lecture for World AIDS Week
Sunday 6th December
7pm
The beginning of December is the time of year when the world joins together in focussing on worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic. Every 15 seconds someone dies from an AIDS related illness and yet treatment and care programmes mean that HIV is no longer a death sentence for many.
This December Engaging Faith looks at how changes in HIV treatments offer us challenges and hope. Join Brother Barnabas Francis SSF and Martha Baillie, Senior Manager, Waverley Care Community Projects as we reflect on responses to HIV/AIDS.
Past Engaging Faith Lectures:
Responces to HIV/AIDS - Engaging Faith Dec 2008
To mark World AIDS Day Engaging Faith organised a lecture and act of worship at the beginning of December. The lecture invited two speakers to reflect on their differing experience of the world wide HIV pandemic and to help us engage with contemporary responses to what is a condition that now affects every echelon of society in every part of the world. Those speakers were Prof. Heather Cubie and Rev James Matarazzo.
Professor Heather Cubie is a virologist from the University of Edinburgh who works in a field that researches links between HIV and other infections which can go on to cause cancer. Offering a short history of HIV/AIDS she explained not only the nature of growth of HIV/AIDS in a European and in indeed Edinburgh context but also the differing responses to the virus in a western and African environment. Prof. Cubie’s lecture proved informed and interesting and prompted many questions. Her full text (which also appeared in the December 08 issue of ‘Grapervine’) can be found below.
Responses to HIV AIDS by Professor Heather Cubie.pdf
Rev’d James Matarazzo is an American ordained minister who is HIV+. His short lecture focuses on his journey as a gay Christian man with HIV. It is a moving story set around theological quotes from John Calvin and Martin Luther. His words offer us a perspective no less hopeful than that of Professor Cubie’s but one informed by a belief in the love of God and in the hope that faith offers us even in the darkest of times. Like Professor Cubie's lecture, Rev’d Matarazzo’s was also printed in ‘Grapevine’ and can be accessed by the link below.
