17 February 2005: The new SCMA website is being launched tonight. New and updated information will be available at http://www.scm.org.nz/home/ from this time. Please direct any questions to webmaster@scm.org.nz.
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17 February 2005: The new SCMA website is being launched tonight. New and updated information will be available at http://www.scm.org.nz/home/ from this time. Please direct any questions to webmaster@scm.org.nz. |
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The Newsletter of the Student Christian Movement of AotearoaMarch 1998No 32http://www.godzone.gen.nz/scm------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- NATIONAL CONFERENCE The dates have been set for the 1998 SCM Aotearoa National Conference: Monday 29th June to Friday 3rd July, with the Annual General Meeting starting in the morning of the 4th July 1998 in Auckland. (This is official notice.) Mark these dates now! SCM Auckland will be hosting the conference in or near Auckland, with further details to be announced. The National Conference is the major event of the year for SCM Aotearoa. It is a great place to get to know new people, start romances and friendships, visit another city, and have your mind expanded. Learn about what Christian tradition has to offer us in our own context, and experience justice-based spirituality! Now is the time to do some local fundraising! The contact people for the Conference Working Group are Ngozi Everts and Quentin Duthie, SCM Auckland, AUSA, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- SCM OTAGO Hugh McCafferty, the Ecumenical Chaplain at Otago University has led a discussion about leadership and power in groups. The discussion explored how leadership operates in an organisation such as SCM which is non-hierarchical. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- SCM AUCKLAND SCM Auckland has been taken on in the University magazine Craccum., with two really good questions being raised, "Elder Bob" says: "One reason I find "Libs" so bizarre is that their world view seems completely unsustainable...'there isn't really a God, but we'll pretend there is one so that people will be nice to each other'. all well and good, but a pretend god is far more likely to make me the most hedonistic, Machiavellian sonovabitch alive. If God is just some ethereal benevolent force who can't condemn me to the fires of hell, then why should I care about anyone other than myself?" and then... "If Libs claim that some of the Bible is not the word of God, it casts great aspersion on whether the rest of it is." It is great to hear the SCM message getting through: that Christianity is not just a simple matter of proof-texting, but of really understanding the Bible and how to use it in our own context. Obviously the author is starting to understand that to take the great and complex understanding of the "Word of God" (See John 1:1) and equate it with bits and pieces of the scriptures is pretty dumb. Also, that Christian ethics are no longer based on the "pie in the sky when you die" motivation, but that we can validly explore what it is to live a life of integrity, meaning and compassion in the real context of personal and political existence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- SCM CANTERBURY Has had three weeks of forums on the government's discussion document on the Code of Social and Family Responsibility. They have put together a response, and are sharing it with the other local SCM groups, who are invited to copy, discuss, or critique it! Responses must be in by Friday the 24th April. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- SCM VICTORIA Has printed its own newsletter, with a timetable for the semester. It also says that their orientation was a great success, with much interest being shown in SCM, as well as the pikelets with jam and cream they were handing out! They are having regular prayer meetings on Friday nights with other Christian groups on the campus. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- SOCIAL CAPITAL AND STRONG COMMUNITIES Proceedings of the conference which was organised by Capital City Forum in Nov. 1997, are available at $10 per copy from Ruth Smithies, PO Box 1937, Whanganui-a- Tara/Wellington. The forward is by our own Richard Davis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- CCANZ Public Issues Programme is holding a "Just Networking" weekend at the Lady Goodfellow Chapel, University of Waikato from 26- 28 June 1998. The pamphlet describes it as "a unique opportunity for those working in the areas of social justice and social welfare to share information, insights and resources. Keynote speakers are Ruth Smithies, Campbell Roberts, Katrina Ings and Charles Waldegrave. It will be facilitated by the Anglican Social Justice Commissioners Stephanie McIntyre and Jim Greenaway. Beginning Friday evening, it is the weekend before conference so you may be able to build it into your plans for travel to National Conference. Travel Subsidies are available on application to Just Netwoking, CCANZ, PO Box 4353, Hamilton. Registrations close Friday 5th June. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- STOP PRESS Students have the wonderful opportunity of joining the very select group of humans on this planet that are real, legal, signed up members of a particularly wonderful, in fact divine, organisation called the Student Christian Movement of Aotearoa (Incorporated). All you have to do to take advantage of this amazing offer is send a cheque for Five Dollars and membership form (optional) to the National Office (or hand it to your Local SCM Group Administrator). Then you will be able to participate in the AGM, and other such wonders! We will also be able to keep sending you this glam Newsletter! Do, do , do it now! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- OLD SCMer LESSLIE NEWBIGIN Died at the age of 89 years this January. He joined SCM in Cambridge, and went on to be a missionary in India, where he became one of the first bishops of the united Church of South India, which included the Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregationalist churches. He was representing the CSI at the beginning of the World Council of Churches in 1948, and played a key role in the theology of its formation. He wrote over 209 works, including The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1987) discussing Christianity in the age of post- modernism and secularism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- WSCF ASIA-PACIFIC Yock Leng has been appointed as staff person for SCM Singapore, and Bp Poulose Mar Poulose "the bishop in jeans" has died in India. He was chairperson of WSCF-Asia Pacific from 1984 to 1986, and of the Federation in 1986. The Standing Committee Meeting is on 23- 26 April, and Kiersten Larsen, the vice-chairperson is from SCM Aotearoa. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- STUDENT EMPOWERMENT FOR TRANSFORMATION The programme, run by the World Student Christian Federation - Asia Pacific, will have the theme "Globilization and Economic Crisis in Asia-Pacific: Its Impact to Higher Education", and will be held in Chaingmai, Thailand from August 16th to 30th. SCM Aotearoa will probably be able to send a participant. Application forms will be circulated soon. Contact Martin at the National Office if you are interested. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- RECENT ARRIVALS AT THE OFFICE From our own stable: SCMA Women's Talk, produced by our women's coordinators Hilary Mather and Fiona McLaughlin and Praxis - the Newsletter of the World Student Christian Federation, Asia-Pacific Region, July-Dec. 1997.. CWS Update for April, and International Movement of Catholic Students - Asia Pacific Newsletter 1998,. The March issue of PQ Broadsheet is available at your Local SCM Group now. It addresses the Methodist Conference decisions about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and the ban on nuclear ship visits. Mean Times Special discusses the Code of Social and Family Responsibility. The Auckland Unemployed Workers Rights Centre who publish it oppose the Code because: It will mean workfare for all, It is a totalitarian intrusion into peoples' lives, and It has already been written - the consultation is a sham. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- SCM UPDATE is compiled by the National Administrator of SCM Aotearoa. Your contributions, news and information are welcome! Submission date is the 25th of each month. Back to Update archive |
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