Holy Comforter's Awareness Course

Session Seven - Incarnation and the Transcendence of God

We draw this Course on ‘Sharing God?’ to a conclusion by asking how Christian belief that in Jesus Christ ‘all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell’ (Col. 1:15) takes our understanding of monotheism to a new level.

In Session 3 we saw how the witness of Scripture and the Christian experience of God ‘over us, for us and in us’ drove the Church forward to formulate its doctrine of the Trinity. In this Session we will explore something of the mystery of God embracing humanity in the Incarnation.

This doctrine, like that of the Trinity has given Christianity its characteristic shape and it is at the heart of the distinctively Christian witness to the One God. But the notion that the man Jesus is the embodiment of the eternal God appears to contradict the fundamental principle of monotheistic belief that God transcends this world. So what are Christians claiming? How does the concept of Incarnation relate to perspectives of other monotheistic faiths? And what are the implications of the Incarnation for our discipleship?

Join Fr. Rick in this final session before the celebration of Holy Week and Easter.  This Sunday, 9:15 in the Sanctuary.

Rabbi Sir Jonathon Sacks Video

At our Awareness Course this past Sunday, we watched a forcefully eloquent address by Rabbi Sir Jonathon Sacks given to the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.  Sacks opens the stories of sibling rivalry in the Book of Genesis (Cain/Abel; Isaac/Ishmael; Jacob/Esau; Joseph/brothers) and connects them to  the religious histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Listening more deeply to these narratives reveals a profound example and call beyond rivalry and violence to reconciliation and forgiveness. 

If you have iTunes on your computer you can find the lecture here.  If not, you can find the video on the Duke University website here.  Quicktime software is required.

Session Five: The Roots of Islam In Its Cultural and Religous Context

Join us this Sunday, February 17, at 9:15 in the Sanctuary as we trace the religious and cultural roots of the Muslim faith and thus gain a better understanding of how Islam relates to Christianity in respect of their core beliefs. 

Islam, which is the religion of self-surrender to the one God revealed in the message of his Prophet Muhammed, took off from the northwest part of Arabia in the 7th century. Today it is the second largest of the world’s religions, with 44 or more Muslim countries, stretching from Senegal to Indonesia. Islam is the youngest of the Semitic world faiths. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have in common:

• belief in one God, who reveals himself in creation, in history, in prophecy and in Scripture;
• belief in the righteousness of God, individual moral responsibility and God’s final judgment,
• belief in life after death and the ultimate fulfillment of God’s purposes.

Muslims, like Jews and Christians trace their religious roots back to Abraham (El and the Arabic ilah, ‘god’ share the same root) and this close religious relationship with Christianity has been a source of mutual benefit and misunderstanding.

What is the difference between God and Allah? How important is culture in shaping our faiths and beliefs? How can we know other faiths without being threatened – or compromising our own faith?

Session Four: The Hebrew Bible In Its Cultural Context

Join us Sunday for a study on how the Israelite people embraced contemporary Near Eastern mythology and transformed its theology in the light of their covenant relationship with God.

Israel’s faith and scriptures did not emerge in a vacuum. When the Hebrew people arrived in Palestine they came with a culture in the making and were in daily contact with their neighbours’ cultures and religions. Israel’s God includes features of the Canaanite High God, El, and the Midianite’s nomadic
god, Yahweh.

People believed that other gods existed alongside Yahweh; their concept of Israel’s God was deeply influenced by beliefs about the gods of Canaan and Assyria/Babylon. The exclusive worship of Yahweh, a major theme in prophecy, had profound implications for Israel’s attitude towards the religion and culture of her neighbours.

Presenter: Fr. Rick Lord

Session Three: The Concept of God in Three Monotheistic Faiths

This Session opens up discussion about Judaism, Christianity and Islam and introduces the ‘Common Ground and Divergence’ of the Course’s title! Misconceptions are identified  and the ‘family tree’ of the three Abrahamic faiths is revealed, showing that we are all cousins in faith.

Learning Objectives for this Session:

• To trace monotheistic tendencies in the religious culture of the ancient Middle East.
• To compare and contrast how Judaism, Islam and Christianity understand the Oneness of God.
• To consider how belief in a Triune God affects our personal faith and our engagement with other religious traditions.

Presenter: Fr. Lou Mattia

Session Two - An Introduction to Mythology

The use of the word ‘myth’ in the modern study of religions is widely misunderstood and urgently needs to be ‘de-mythologised’. First and foremost, myth does not mean something that is fictitious, false or untrue. Quite the contrary, sacred myths found in the scriptures of all religious traditions may express the deepest and most profound truths about the spiritual dimension of life.

Join us this Sunday as we consider the role of myth in religious traditions and its value as a vehicle for religous truth in the 21st century.

Awaress Course Resumes - Epiphany Sunday

On Epiphany Sunday, January 6th, Holy Comforter will present Module Two of the Awareness Course.  We begin at 9:15 in the Sanctuary.  Student guides will be available for all who attend.  Below is a basic outline of the course entitled, "Sharing God?  Judaism, Islam & Christianity":

Belief in one God as the ultimate source of the world’s being and destiny is common ground amongst Jews, Christians and Muslims. All three trace their spiritual roots back to Abraham. All agree that God exists apart from our material world and is not subject to the limitations of the material universe yet is personal (not merely a guiding principle, a blind creative force or a philosophical ideal). All agree that God’s purposes are worked out in human history and in creation. But they diverge on how God has made himself known, and consequently their understanding of what it means to call God ‘one’ are fundamentally different.

Sharing God? explores those similarities and differences by looking back at the emergence of a belief in one true God in the Old Testament. The course asks how the New Testament witness to God’s self-disclosure in Jesus Christ challenged belief in a unitary God, issuing in the distinctively Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

Monotheism did not arise in a vacuum, and we shall look at the religious culture and world view of people of the ancient Near East as the backcloth to Israel’s pilgrimage and the birth of Christianity and Islam. Throughout we will discover a tension between the religious inheritance of a community and a radically new revelation from God. This may prompt us to reflect on the experiences that have formed our own faith and how we can be alert and open to let God surprise us with fresh insights and challenges.

Like the other courses in the TFCC Awareness Course, it is intended to strengthen participants in their Christian life and enable them to engage positively with the challenges and opportunities of living in a culturally and religiously diverse society.

Topics in the course:

Session 1 The Origin of Religion
Session 2 An Introduction to Mythology
Session 3 The Concept of God in Three Monotheistic Faiths
Session 4 The Hebrew Bible in its Cultural Context
Session 5 Islam in its Cultural and Religious Context
Session 6 Jesus and the Gospels in their Cultural Context
Session 7 The Challenge of the Incarnation

Jews and Muslims Set Up Big Interfaith Effort

From the Washington Post:

Two major Jewish and Muslim organizations unveiled an interfaith dialogue curriculum yesterday and are urging their hundreds of thousands of members to use it. Both sides say it is the broadest Jewish-Muslim interfaith effort in the continent's history.  Read the article here.

Conclusion of Module 1 "Citizens of Two Kingdoms"

We will wrap up the first module of the Awareness Course this Sunday.  Our objectives are:

• To consider how Christians can engage with society and begin to transform it.
• To appreciate that Christians need to be secure in their personal knowledge of God to share space with others in a multi-cultural society.
• To draw together what we have learned from this Course.

We'll also save some time to discuss our plans for January. 

A blessed Christmas all!

Session VI "The Culture of God and the Cultures of the World"

Our learning objectives for this coming Sunday (Dec 16 @ 9:15 am) are:

1. To understand better how the relationships within the Trinity model for us the divine culture of self-giving love.

2. To consider how the culture of the Trinity challenges contemporary culture and indicates how it can be transformed into an hospitable space for all to meet.

Through all religions, we can come to know something about God. This knowledge about God can be discerned through the words of prophets and sages, the lives of holy people, scriptures, shared human awareness of fundamental moral values and the imprint of God the Creator, in his creation. God reveals his attributes in many different ways, thus requiring us to respect and listen seriously to other mainstream religions.

However, only Christianity claims that ‘in the fullness of time’ God revealed Himself, not through philosophy or teaching, religious observance or moral behaviour, but by inviting us into a living relationship with Him, through His Son Jesus the Christ. Jesus not only shows us what God is truly like, but gives us access to a different, personal knowledge of God by being Himself ‘the way’ to God. In some languages there are different words to express two different kinds of knowledge – information about something and knowledge of someone. In French, for example, ‘savoir’ knowledge is information, while ‘connaitre’ knowledge only comes about by being in relationship with a person. This is the knowledge St. Paul pursued:  ‘I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection.’ (Phil. 3:10)

Session V - Fear, Faith, and Change

At the Adult Formation Class this Sunday (Dec. 9) we will discuss how the affirmation that the Christian revelation is embodied in a Person affects the way we read and interpret Holy Scripture.  We will also explore the increasing polarization between the fundamentalism of certainty and a form of liberalism which may appear to amount to little more than agnosticism. It is important and a matter of urgency for all religions and ideologies to recover the essential core of their beliefs and practices. The true middle way would assert comprehensiveness for the sake of truth, rather than compromise for the sake of peace.

Join Fr. Rick Lord at 9:15 a.m. in the Sanctuary for this Sunday's session of the Awareness Course.

Welcome to the Awareness Course Blog

Background on the Awareness Course

Welcome to Holy Comforter's Awareness Course Blog.  This site is dedicated to the sharing of viewpoints as well as print and internet resources related to the topics covered in the course.

The Trinity Foundation for Christianity and Culture (TFCC) is an educational, international, ecumenical institution that seeks to foster community harmony through education with a difference - by teaching Christians about their own faith, and that of their neighbors, so that they can live in a diverse society without fear and without compromising their faith - while respecting difference.

TFCC was founded and developed by Bishop Michael Marshall (Assistant Bishop of London and Rector of Holy Trinity, Sloane Square) and The Reverend Nadim Nassar (the only Syrian priest in the Anglican Church).  TFCC was inaugurated by the Archbishop of Canterbury on September 14, 2003.

TFCC is a worldwide network comprising churches and educational institutions that span multiple Christian denominations. The network today includes representatives of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A., the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, the Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and the Congregational and Armenian Protestant Churches.