Saturday, September 2, 2017

September 10 Services at Scarborough

On Sunday September 10, Toronto Congregation will have services with our sister congregation in Scarborough in their church at 10 Eppleworth Road.  There will be no services at Toronto Centre Place on that Sunday.

Adult class will begin at 10:00 am, followed by the worship service at 11:00 am.  Following the services, all are welcome to join a salad pot luck.  Please bring salads!

Remember to bring shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child, which Scarborough Congregation is coordinating this year.

Journey of a Shoebox

Summer Lectures

Our History, Philosophy, & Theology Group met on selected Tuesday evenings this July and August.

July 4, Tues (7 pm): The King of Beaver IslandAfter the assassination of church founder Joseph Smith, most Mormons followed Brigham Young to Utah. However, a new prophet James Strang emerged as Young’s leading rival. Strang led his Mormons to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan where he was crowned king and practiced polygamy.

July 18, Tues (7 pm): The Lost Gospel QIt’s long been speculated that the authors of Matthew and Luke used a lost collection of Jesus’ sayings (called “Q” by scholars) in order to construct their own gospels. If correct, it’s possible that this lost gospel is among the earliest known writings about Jesus. What can it tell us about Jesus and the first Christians?

July 25, Tues (7 pm): The Inquisition: Medieval Heresy and IdentityThe word Inquisition is popularly associated with scenes of persecution, torture, and brutal executions that portray the medieval Church in an extremely negative light. These reprehensible and inexcusable events represent one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Church, but the facts have been distorted and exaggerated by anti-Catholic sentiments during the 19th and 20th centuries. We'll take a look at the origins and evolution of these processes of investigation and punishment in the context of law and religious developments in medieval Europe.

August 1, Tues (7 pm): Echoes of GilgameshThe epic poems about the semi-legendary King of Uruk were well known across the ancient Near East more than a millennium before the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible were composed. Some themes, elements, and characters from the Epic of Gilgamesh have counterparts in the Book of Genesis' most iconic stories: the creation, fall, and flood narratives. We will consider the academic perspective that suggests a direct Babylonian influence on the Biblical authors and the development of Israelite religion, and we will discuss how these themes continue to resonate with us 4,000 years later.

August 8, Tues (7 pm): Paganism in the BibleAlthough in its present form the Old Testament professes monotheism, the text contains many footprints that illustrate the original pagan religion of ancient Canaan. We’ll see how the Biblical narrative of “monotheists tempted by idolatry” is precisely the opposite of the actual history: “pagans who became monotheists.”

August 29, Tues (7 pm): The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. We’ll take a close look at this interesting, non-canonical text rediscovered in 1896 and compare it with other early Christian traditions of conflict between Mary Magdalene and Peter. We’ll also look at Gnosticism and other alternative forms of Christianity that ultimately lost out to Orthodoxy.