Women and men pray together at the Noor Cultural Centre and Mosque, Toronto.
Pastor speaks at Mosque
The Noor Cultural Centre and Mosque invited Rev. Dr. Harris Athanasiadis, minister at St. Mark’s, Toronto, to be the guest speaker at a Friday service on March 22.
“The people from Noor have a real respect for authentic Christianity,” said Athanasiadis. “The centre is a place for people who are looking for a more progressive approach to Islam. It’s run primarily by women, with a rotating roll of imams who come in and do the preaching.
“I’ll be talking about the idea of God being human; which is often perceived as weakness. The idea of God suffering on the cross is strange to many people.
“After I’m done, an imam will respond creatively, building on the ideas I present,” Athanasiadis told the Record prior to the event.
The event was part of an ongoing interfaith dialogue between St. Mark’s and Noor, both located in the Don Mills neighbourhood. The previous week, members of Noor visited St. Mark’s to present the basics of Islam to the congregation, followed by a question and answer period and a time of fellowship.
“My agenda is to help my people actually meet Muslims who are serious about their faith, who are open and gracious people.
“Interfaith dialogue is a creative and meaningful way to develop understanding of our own faith as Christians. The more we have relationships with other people and take their faiths seriously, the more we’re inspired to really understand our own much better.” ¦ —SV
VST Ends State of Financial Exigency
In February, the Vancouver School of Theology ended its state of financial exigency, a step it took last year in order to make some deep cuts to its operating expenses.
According to the Association of Theological Schools’ guidelines, “Financial exigency is declared when an institution needs to take extraordinary action to reduce expenditures and preserve resources.”
Such steps can include laying off tenured professors, something which cannot be done under normal circumstances.
“We’ve cut the deficit in half,” said Rev. Dr. Stephen Farris, acting principal of VST. He said cost-cutting steps have included, among other things, laying off one tenured professor and eliminating a number of staff positions.
“[The deficit] is still too high,” he said. “There are some things still to be done. But we’re not in crisis anymore. We have a very smart group of people working on financial sustainability. We’re going to come out of this just fine.”
VST declared a state of financial exigency on Jan. 4, 2012. The board cited low investment returns and reductions in funding from the United and Anglican churches as reasons for its financial struggles.
St. Andrew’s Hall, a Presbyterian college that exercises its charter through VST, is in “good financial shape,” said Farris, who also serves as the college’s dean. It is administered by its own board of directors. It supports VST with an annual grant and shares the professors it employs. ¦ —Connie Wardle
CCC Welcomes Office of Religious Freedom
The Canadian Council of Churches has congratulated Stephen Harper on the establishment of an Office of Religious Freedom and the appointment of its first ambassador.
In a letter to the prime minister dated Feb. 26, Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, the organization’s general secretary, said the CCC “welcomes and looks forward to co-operating” with the new office in “its stated mandate to protect and advocate on behalf of religious minorities under threat, opposing religious hatred and intolerance, and promoting pluralism abroad.”
The CCC represents 25 denominations including the Presbyterian Church.
“The Canadian Council of Churches works closely with representative bodies of other faith communities in Canada,” the letter says. This includes involvement with the Canadian Interfaith Conversation, “whose charter vision is to be an advocate for religion in a pluralistic society and in Canadian public life, promoting harmony and spiritual insight among religions and religious communities in Canada.
“We believe that our depth, breadth and expertise make us a very important component of future consultations and announcements regarding the Office of Religious Freedom.”
The office, which is part of the Foreign Affairs department, officially opened on Feb. 19. According to the government, it is intended to “speak out against egregious violations of freedom of religion, denounce violence against human-rights defenders and condemn attacks on worshippers and places of worship around the world.” It has an annual budget of $5 million.
Its first ambassador is Andrew Bennett, a Catholic and the former dean of Augustine College, a private Christian college in Ottawa. ¦—CW
Livingstone Celebrated
Two hundred years after the birth of 19th-century explorer, missionary and anti-slavery activist Dr. David Livingstone, events around the world celebrated his life and work.
The majority of the bicentennial events were held in Great Britain and countries in southern Africa, like Zambia and Malawi.
“He’s celebrated in most places in the Western world, but his legacy is still relatively unknown in Canada,” said David Livingstone, the namesake’s great-great-nephew, a retired elementary school principal originally from Listowel, Ont.
David Livingstone was born March 19, 1813, in Blantyre, Scotland, to a lower class family. As a 10-year-old, Livingstone laboured 14 hours a day in the Blantyre Cotton Works before spending two hours attending to his school work.
His strong work ethic served him well. He went on to study science and medicine, eventually combining his love of science and faith to become a medical missionary at the age of 27.
Posted first to South Africa, Dr. Livingstone became fascinated by the continent. After a few brief expeditions he began to explore it in earnest. He walked coast-to-coast mapping the land, charting its natural life and learning languages along the way. (It’s estimated that in the 30 years he lived in Africa he traveled more than 46,000 km throughout the continent, most of it on foot.) More interested in getting to know the land and its people than spending his time proselytizing, he was eventually fired by the missionary society.
While travelling, he saw first-hand the damage the slave trade brought to Africa. He began to campaign against slavery and seek ways to bring legitimate trade to the countries there.
“He treated Africans with respect, care and kindness. For many there, he was the first white person to behave differently toward them. He was very influential in stopping the slave trade in Africa,” said Livingstone.
He remains beloved in many of the African countries he explored. After gaining their independence from colonial rule, many countries began changing street names from the ones given by European colonizers. Yet, as his great-great-nephew discovered, streets named after Livingstone remained unchanged.
“His legacy, whether it be his fight to end the evil slave trade, the kindness and affection he showed to the African people, or the perseverance he showed in his quest to open the countries to civilization is quite remarkable,” he wrote in an email to the Record.
“It’s not surprising that 150 years ago he was literally the most famous person in the western world.” ¦ —SV
