Editorial
Covers
- Front cover image: Boating Lake, Regent’s Park, London, photo
by the Editor. - Back cover image : River Jordan, postcard by Kerimeh Abbud.
commons.wikimedia.org.
Articles
- Streaming Toward by Edwin Salter
- Baptism by Tony Windross
- Afresh! Afresh! Afresh! by Frank Walker
- Reconsidering a Crucifix by Dominic Kirkham
- Theology and/or Philosophy by Jasbir Bhoda
Poetry
- The Lesson of the Rain by Jeremy Peyton
- Thirst by Dinah Livingstone
- The H2 Owner by Dinah Livingstone
Reviews
- Edward Nickell reviews Unknowing God: Towards a Post-Abusive Theology by Nicholas Peter Harvey and Linda Woodhead
- Dominic Kirkham reviews Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership by Ally Kateusz
Regulars and Occasionals
- Going Green. John Pearson warns about water shortage
- A Penn’orth. Penny Mawdsley asks ‘Blessed are the Wealth Makers?’
Water
by Dinah Livingstone | editor@sofn.uk
The title of this Sofia is Water, which is the chief component of human bodies and indispensable for all life on Earth. With climate change there is a risk of water shortage. As John Pearson writes in his Going Green column: ‘On a global scale water systems have become stressed. Rivers, lakes and aquifers are drying up or becoming too polluted to use. In the UK we are beset by tales of excessive loss through poor maintenance, sewage leaks into watercourses and the like.’
A recent BBC programme reported that Uruguay is suffering its worst drought in 74 years and water shortages are so severe that a state of emergency has been declared; the authorities have started adding sea water to the public drinking water supplies. This has prompted widespread protests, in particular against the plan to build a Google data centre that will use millions of litres of water a day. Critics claim that the government is prioritising water for transnationals and agribusiness at the expense of its own citizens.
In Britain there were strong protests against prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s plan to privatise water in the 1980s. Nevertheless, the privatisation went ahead and now our water is dispensed by private companies with a profit motive. Recently there have been reports of sewage seeping into the tap water.
In this Sofia, Edwin Salter writes about water ‘Streaming Towards’. Next Tony Windross writes about baptism, saying ‘to refuse to baptise a child (or to place such obstacles in the way, that it amounts in practice to the same thing) is bound to seem like a rejection – which of course it is.’ In his Summa Thomas Aquinas replies to the objection that because baptism is such a noble sacrament why don’t we baptise with wine instead of water, by saying that water is better for washing (wine is for drinking!). Dominic Kirkham writes on the significance of the crucifix and how the encounter with the Norse gods changed Christianity and created Christendom.
Below this editorial you will see a notice of SOF Network’s annual Day Conference entitled Faith for Now – Looking Back, Looking Forward with speakers Anthony Freemen, Tony Windross and Linda Woodhead. There will also be opportunities for discussion. The notice gives details of how to enrol for it. We hope that plenty of people will come and it will be a splendid day.