Hello Again from Thinking Allowed at Cairns It Is Christmas Once Again

Hello again from Thinking Allowed at Cairns

It is Christmas once again when, among other things, the dog-eared 2017 calendar, covered in scribbles and notes, is cast aside in favour of a shiny, crisp and new 2018 model. Perhaps one of your first entries will be 1st February when we here at Thinking Allowed get back into harness.

Sheriff Seith Ireland Thursday 1 February 2018 , 7.30 pm for Prof Helen Bond 8.00 pm: "A Scholars' Spotlight" Prof David Fergusson Rev Scott McKenna Three theology scholars under the watchful eye of an eminent adjudicator of the law, address questions received in advance from attendees

Our Scholars' Spotlight will be an evening of discussion around questions received from the audience, in a similar way to the BBC "Question Time" programme. In advance of the event, therefore, we are now seeking questions that you would like our panel to discuss.

Although questions can be on any matter theological, religious, social or moral, attention should be paid to what each of the scholars might bring to the debate and why many elements of ministers' education remain unshared, unsaid and undisclosed, but perhaps not unthought, at Sunday morning services throughout the land. More information on the panel is contained in the appendix at the end of this email.

Once a decision is taken on the questions to be discussed, they will be put forward to the panel in advance for their consideration.

If you would like to ask a question, can you please click on the following link www.cairnschurch.org.uk/contact.htm and use our Contact Form, state your name, your email address and the question. Whether you are successful or not in having your question selected, we will inform you before the event. If you are successful, we would like you to either personally ask the question on the night, or to nominate someone to ask it for you. Although it is our intention to table all the selected questions, we cannot guarantee that this will occur as much depends on how things develop on the night.

In the meantime, the Thinking Allowed team here at Cairns wishes you and your families a happy Christmas and look forward to seeing you again in the new year.

Appendix: The Scholars

Prof. David Fergusson OBE MA BD DPhil DD FBA FRSE is Principle of New College, the theological college of Edinburgh University. He studied philosophy and theology at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Oxford. He worked for several years as a parish minister in the Church of Scotland. Having held the Chair of Systematic Theology in the University of Aberdeen, he returned to Edinburgh as Professor of Divinity in 2000. Prof. Fergusson’s research interests include issues in Christian doctrine, theological ethics and the history of Reformed theology, especially in its Scottish context. He is one of the Queen's personal chaplains.

Prof. Helen Bond MTheol PhD has a Personal Chair in Christian Origins at New College, Edinburgh University. Her research interests include historical criticism of the documents that make up the New Testament, particularly the gospels: how these texts originated; what kind of groups found them useful; the relationships between them; and how their complex weave of history, theology and defense can be disentangled. More recently Helen has been drawn to studies of traditions and how groups remember their past, all of which can tell us a great deal about the emergence of various forms of early Christianity. Prof. Bond also participates in television series such as "Who Really Killed Jesus?".

Rev. Scott McKenna BA BD MTh MPhil is a minister in the Church of Scotland who has led "Prayers for the Day" on BBC Radio 4 and who has regularly contributed articles and prayers for Life and Work. He has led a programme of annual festivals: Meditation and Prayer; Sacred Music; and World Faiths. Scott is currently undertaking a PhD at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews. He is also one of the minority of Ministers who actually preaches much of what he absorbed during his theology education!

Appendix: The Chairman

Sheriff Seith Ireland LLB is a Sheriff of North Strathclyde at Paisley and a member of the Cairns Congregation.

Cairns Church of Scotland, 11 Buchanan Street, Milngavie, G62 8AW Tel: 0141 956 4868; email:[email protected]; website:www.cairschurch.org.uk