Click here for Info & application form for JCMA conference 3-6 July 2011

Email JCMA for further details: registrations@jcma.org.au

The film features the work of Afghan NGO Mahboba’s Promise.  Rev. Simon Moyle has recently returned from visiting Mahboba’s Promise in Kabul and he will be present to take your questions after the screening (concluding at 9pm).  All proceeds from the evening will go to support Mahboba’s Promise in Afghanistan.  We warmly encourage all members of the Carlton community and beyond to attend this important and deeply affecting film.

Devastation in the far northern reaches of Tonga (photo: ABC News)

Many members of the Church of All Nations have close personal connections and knowledge of the places and people affected.  How many Australians do you suppose have been to the remote Tongan island of Niuatoputapu?  Well Damian, a member of our congregation, visited in 2001 and he says:

“It’s a small island with a large, flat expanse around a small mountain.  Two of the 3 villages have been wiped out by the tsunami, leaving 1,000 out of the total population of 1,600 homeless.

“It’s one of the most remote islands in the world.  It’s the kind of place that gets its groceries delivered once every 3 months.  There’s only one plane in Tonga that can land on the island and it can only take a dozen or so passengers.  All these factors make the relief and rebuilding of this remote community very difficult.”

We know well how extreme weather events like typhoons are increasing with global warming.  It’s not widely appreciated how climate change is also increasing tectonic movements that cause earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.

Our Synod Moderator, Isabel Thomas Dobson, urges us to support the Disaster Appeal and to pray.  She offers this prayer:

Living and Loving God,

We pray for your people and your creation battered by natural disasters in the Philippines, Samoa, Indonesia and nearby countries.

Sumatra, where more than 1,000 people are thought to have died in Wednesday's earthquake (photo: Oxfam Australia)

Give strength to those involved in rescue and relief efforts,
comfort to those who mourn,
help and healing to the injured and homeless
and a spirit of generosity to your church.

In the midst of heartache, confusion and desolation
may your Holy Spirit bring courage and peace.
In the name of Christ we pray.

Amen

Donations to the International Disaster Appeal will be sent to our partner churches in the affected areas.  To donate, you can ring the toll-free number 1800 998 122 or donate online.

Alternately, the National Council of Churches has a specific appeal, as does Oxfam Australia.

Intended as a symbolic stand against racism and all forms of discrimination, the Walk is a way to express solidarity across differences of race, religion, sexual orientation and disability.

This community event will be led by Premier John Brumby.  “Victorians come from more than 230 nations, speak 180 languages, and follow more than 116 religions,” he reminds us.  “We want to see everyone come together for the inaugural Harmony Walk.”

The Walk will start at Carlton Gardens at 12:30pm on Sunday 12 July and  proceed through the city centre to Federation Square.

Prof. Joe Camilleri, a member of the ideas forum on 21 June

Pax Christi is hosting and ideas forum exploring how Christians and Muslims can work together for peace with justice.  Among the distinguished speakers is our own Wes Campbell.

Click here for further details of this event to be held in Elsternwick on Sunday 21 June.

Bernhard Schlink

Last month ABC broadcaster Phillip Adams interviewed Bernhard Schlink, retired German law professor and author of a number of books including the novel The Reader, now a celebrated and controversial film of the same title (still showing at the Nova five times a day).

Born in 1944, Schlink has dealt a great deal with the question of guilt, especially guilt ‘inherited’ by his generation of Germans born during or after the terror of the Third Reich.  A brief extract of the interview:

Adams: “You identify another danger resulting from your generation’s preoccupation with the Third Reich and Holocaust, and that is that the lesson you drew from the past was a moral one rather than an institutional one.  What’s that mean?”

Schlink:

“What we thought we had to learn was, we need more individual moral courage to resist, to say the truth, to not waver in the face of pressure, all of that.

“And in retrospect, I think one has to realise that resistance against the Third Reich was only possible, or mostly possible, in those circles where there was an institutional background like the church for Bonhoeffer, like traditions of the military and nobility for those who resisted in the army, like the communist or socialist movement for workers.

“So I think that individual morality needs an institutional background, needs an institutional support and once this has been destroyed it’s almost impossible to resist, at least in a successful way, just by using one’s individual morality.

“And so that’s what I mean: the lesson that we should have learned as much as the moral lesson, is the lesson that we have to take care of our institutions.”

Schlink’s latest book is Guilt about the Past, a collection of six essays exploring the phenomenon of collective guilt and how it attaches to a whole society, not just to individual perpetrators.

Sunday 21 September
1:30-4:30pm (with vegetarian feast to follow)

Aboriginal Advancement League
2 Watt St, Thornbury

This event is hosted by the Aboriginal Advancement League in Thornbury, the oldest, continuously operating, Aboriginal-run community organisation in Australia. The event has been planned by COMMON (centre of Melbourne multifaith and others network) in consultation with faith community representatives, Aboriginal organisations and traditional Wurundjeri owners.

RSVP jessieeks@hotmail.com or 0411300655

Persepolis (2007) is a poignant coming-of-age story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution.

Amnesty International’s local Carlton Group is hosting a fundraising screening of Persepolis at 7pm on Thursday 21 August at Cinema Nova (380 Lygon Street, Carlton).

Tickets are $15 and must be booked in advance; call Sarah on 0422 995 096.

* Carlton’s own Amnesty group meets on the second Tuesday of each month and always welcomes new members. Find out more about what they get up to.

Hosted by the Leo Baeck Centre, the discussion will continue over three consecutive weeks, but attendance at all sessions is not necessary. Those who can attend only one or two sessions are most welcome.

Thursdays 7, 14 & 21 August, beginning at 7:30pm
Venue: Leo Baeck Centre, 31 Harp Road, East Kew
Melway 45 H4 – Entrance from rear car park.

Enquiries: 9819 7160 (9am-2pm, Tue-Fri) or office@lbc.org.au

Read an extract of People Like Us here to whet your appetite.

Time: Monday 30 June, 7pm

Venue: Sidney Myer Asia Centre, Cnr Swanston St & Monash Rd

Entry: $10, Concession $5, payable at the door.

The forum is the official opening of a conference “From the Middle East to Asia Pacific: Arc of Conflict or Dialogue of Cultures & Religions,” designed to explore the far-reaching ramifications of conflict in the Middle East (broadly defined) for the religious, cultural and political landscape of the Asia-Pacific region. Former Uniting Church president Rev. Prof. James Haire will be among the speakers at the conference which runs until Friday 4 July. You can attend any day session, payable at the door.

Details: enquiries@gcgmelbourne or ring 9479 2479.