The Spring and Summer issue 2020 of Faith and Freedom, (Volume 73, Part 1) issue 190 is now available.

Articles include:

Sacred Stories by MARGOT STEVENSON

In Sacred Stories Margot Stevenson explores the intersection between individual stories of the sacred and the canonical stories of religious traditions. Building on six real-life stories she examines how religious convictions, spiritual experiences cannot be reduced to formulas or dogmatic positions. Unpacking the story of Pentecost in the book of Acts she shows how rather than being a foundation story for a rigid hierarchical understanding of a monolithic church it has often been an inspiration for movements for individual freedom and social equality in widely different settings. Using this as a basis she argues for democratic model of spiritual engagement.

Civility in Public Life – can it be restored? by Rabbi Baroness JULIA NEUBERGER

Rabbi Julia Neuberger delivered the Vincent Strudwick lecture on Religion in Public Life in Oxford in November 2019, just before the British general election. In it she tackles the timely question – which dominated public life just a few short months ago – of whether civility in public life could be restored. With lockdown and the coronavirus this issue has slipped off the national radar for the time being but there is no doubt that once we return to some semblance of normality it will return to the fore. Rabbi Neuberger counters the coarsening of public debate and the frequent abuse and threat of violence that many in the public eye face with the Jewish tradition of Derech Eretz, ‘the way of the earth’, following ways of courtesy rooted in but not dependent on religious practice.

The Sovereignty of Good and the Kingdom of God – a view from the hospital waiting-room by FRANK WALKER

In the Sovereignty of Good and the Kingdom of God – a view from the hospital waiting-room the Rev Frank Walker gives a very personal and moving account of his response to his late wife’s cancer diagnosis and ties that in to the care given by John Bayley to his wife Iris Murdoch who wrote ‘The Sovereignty of Good’ and suffered severely with Alzheimer’s disease towards the end of her life. In such human responses to tragedy Frank finds ‘the Good’, something not far from the Kingdom of God.

Spiritual modelling with the Findhorn Foundation by RALPH CATTS

Ralph Catts considers spirituality as the means of making meaning in life and providing the framework for social action and finds synergy within the practices of the Findhorn Foundation and Unitarian communities. Working from the experiences of groups of Unitarians who participated in the communal spiritual life of the Findhorn Foundation in 2018 he examines whether this has influenced their spirituality as part of Unitarian communities and finds that Findhorn Unitarian Experience Week allows for spiritual modelling within a permanent spiritual community while being enriched by input from a sympathetic although distinct spiritual tradition.

Images of Gertrude von Petzold by DAVID STEERS

The editor looks at images of the Rev Gertrude von Petzold, the first woman minister of an organised denomination in Britain who began her ministry in Leicester in 1904. Her entry into the ministry created an opportunity for photographers to do something that had never been done before – to photograph a woman minister. One particular photograph gained great fame and was widely used (see above) but other representations were also considered which are discussed in this short article, complete with illustrations, including the striking cover of this issue.

This article – complete with additional illustrations – can also be read online on this blog. Click here to read it.

 

Books reviewed:

Both Here, and Beyond

Stephen Lingwood, Seeking Paradise: A Unitarian Mission For Our Times, Lindsey Press, London 2020, pp 142, ISBN 978-085319-094-3. £10.00 pbk.

Reviewed by JIM CORRIGALL. [The full text of Jim’s article can be read on the Faith and Freedom website here]

‘THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK OF UNITARIAN THEOLOGY IN BRITAIN FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS’ – Jim Corrigall

 

The fountain of sweet and bitter water

Ann Peart (ed.), Unitarian Women. A Legacy of Dissent, Lindsey Press, London, 2019, pp 241. ISBN number is: 978-0-85319-092-9. £10 pbk.

Reviewed by MÁRIA PAP.

 

‘A time when new life will break through’

Marjorie Dobson, Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell, London, 2019, pp 165. ISBN 978-0-85249-959-7. £15.95 ppk.

Reviewed by STEPHANIE BISBY.

 

The Dean of the Interfaith Movement

Helen Hobbin, Afternoon Tea with Mary and Marcus, Braybrooke Press, Abingdon, OX14 3EN,  2019, pp 154, ISBN 978-0-244-96888-5, £12.95.

Reviewed by PETER B. GODFREY.

 

The Gospels, spirituality and photography

Peter Brain, The Knowable God, Circle Books, Alresford, 2019, pp 143. ISBN 978 1 78904 £12.99 pbk.

Reviewed by LENA COCKROFT.

N. Micklem, On the Lookout, Matador, Kibworth Beauchamp, 2019 (9, Priory Business Park, Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire LE8 0RX), pp.45. ISBN. 978 1789017 519. £7.99.

Reviewed by LENA COCKROFT.

Philip J. Richter, Spirituality in Photography, Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 2017, pp. 120. ISBN 978-0-232-53293-7. £9.99 pbk.

Reviewed by LENA COCKROFT.

 

Christianismi Restitutio

L. Goldstone, N. Goldstone, Out of the flames, Broadway Books, New York, 2002, pp 368. ISBN: 978–0-7679–0837–5. $24.95.

Reviewed by BARRIE NEEDHAM.

 

Interfaith worship and prayer

Christopher Lewis and Dan Cohn-Sherbok (eds.), Interfaith Worship and Prayer. We Must Pray Together. With a Foreword by His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London and Philadelphia, 2019, pp.296. ISBN 978 1 78592 120 9. £19.99 pbk.

Reviewed by DAVID STEERS.

 

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