For those of you who would like more detail to share with your congregations, Petko
Marinov, our Digital Missioner, is creating a video based on the PowerPoint
Presentation offered by Alistair Watson (of St James the Less, Bishopbriggs) at
Synod, and it is ready to view on the Diocesan website
(http://bit.ly/GGLentAppeal2019)
I hope that these materials will serve
as useful information to encourage support of the Lent Appeal, and I will send
another email when the video is available on the Diocesan website. Please get in
touch if you have any further queries.
John Mitchell
Diocesan Secretary
0141 221 5720/2694 or 07796 662711
Credo v Credibility
Some time ago I read a book which, while not having an overtly religious theme, did
contain one phrase which stuck in my memory…
” Why is a nasty word, we prefer Credo – I believe”.
On a similar tack, Christopher Lee, addressing Edward Woodward in the cult classic,
The Wicker Man responds to Woodward’s staunch Christian character suggesting
that Lee’s old Pagan style religion was ridiculous, by pointing out that Jesus was
“born of a virgin, impregnated by a Ghost!”
Not, perhaps, a claim which merits close scrutiny.
Which leads to the question of why there is a suspension of
credible faculties when it comes to faith?
The topic is examined in Faith v Fact, a book by Jerry Coyne.
Although underpinned by arguments based almost exclusively on
the USA, Coyne raises issues applicable across the globe.
We are, he contends, living in a genuinely frightening scenario.
Religion and science are engaged in a kind of war: A war for
understanding, a war about whether we should have good
reasons for what we accept as true.
The sheer fact that over half of Americans don't believe in evolution (to say nothing of
the number of their elected representatives who don't believe in climate change) and
the resurgence of religious prejudices and strictures as factors in politics, education,
medicine, and social policy make the need for this book urgent.
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