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Subject: News from the University Church

Theology for a burning world

by the Revd Naomi Gardom

I doubt I’m alone in having read the news of the recent heatwave in Southern Europe, and of the attendant wildfires, with a combination of horror, helplessness, and hopelessness. The effects of human-created climate change appear to have rapidly accelerated in recent years, and the future is frightening.

Does theology provide us with the tools to face our fears, in ways that go beyond giving us a false sense of security? For many decades, eco-theology has been responding to these issues, through Biblical hermeneutics, environmental ethics, and reflection on the relationship between doctrine and the environment. However, in the face of the climate breakdown we’re now experiencing, we might need another set of tools, which come from the branch of theology known as trauma theology. Trauma goes beyond mere suffering: it is understood as a series of ruptures. For the sufferer, there is breakdown in their ability to communicate, or to use language to describe their experience. There is a physical rupture – even if the traumatic event is experienced solely psychologically, its effects will be felt in the body too. And there is a rupture in the person’s sense of time.

Eco-trauma-theologians such as Dr Tim Middleton have taken this definition and argued that what the climate is now going through fulfils these criteria, so that we can now think of the world as communicating its experience of trauma. The physical effects of this are the clearly visible, from deforestation in the Amazon to the death of coral reefs. There has been disruption of time, as we have now entered the ‘anthropocene’, a geological age predominantly shaped by the actions of human beings. And the way in which the world around us communicates with us is increasingly chaotic and difficult to interpret.

This insight might help us to interpret our own fears and feelings of hopelessness in the face of climate change: if the world is going through trauma, we will also be experiencing trauma vicariously, albeit we are sheltered in this country from the most acute effects. More than that, trauma theology argues that trauma is already deeply embedded in the Christian tradition, because of the centrality of the Crucifixion. We have already experienced the worst possible thing, in the death of the Son of God. We have a tendency to think of the redemption obtained through the Crucifixion a purely human affair, making it all about us, but the vision of the redeemed world in the book of Revelation points to ‘a new heaven and a new earth’: a perfected creation, which nonetheless, like Jesus’ resurrected body, bears its scars.

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Check out our services and events during the Long Vacation.

Notices

CHORAL EVENSONG - 3.30PM, THIS SUNDAY 30 JULY

Join us for the last in our series of our summer Choral Evensongs according to the Book of Common Prayer, sung by the University Church Choir, at which The Revd Naomi Gardom, Assistant Curate will preach. The service draws on Scripture and the ancient monastic offices of Vespers and Compline, offering a simple, elegant framework for reflection and prayer.

FOOD BANK DONATIONS NEEDED

The Community Emergency Foodbank (CEF) is extremely grateful for the ongoing food donations and toiletries collected weekly by the University Church. However, while donations of any kind are welcome, CEF is currently in particular need of tinned meat, long-life milk, jam, and sauces for pasta (they have a plentiful supply of pasta but no sauces to accompany it). The CEF is a church based organisation, operating from cafes in Barton, Cowley and Littlemore, and offers food parcels to those in Oxford who are experiencing food poverty particularly in emergency situations (https://www.cefoxford.co.uk/). A box is put out in the DeBrome Chapel every week during the 10.30 service and coffee time to collect donations.

CHILDREN'S PICNIC AND PLAY - 10.30AM THIS WEDNESDAY 2 AUGUST

Join us for some playtime and a picnic in Florence Park; just bring a blanket and a tasty picnic lunch and meet Hannah at the Florence Park cafe entrance at 10.30am on Wednesday 2nd August for the kids to enjoy the playground together. If you can't see us in the park on the day just call 07885719780.

AN EVENING WITH VOUET - 6PM FRIDAY 11 AUGUST

Join Katherine Wodehouse, Print Room Manager at the Western Art Print Room at the Ashmolean Museum, for 'An Evening with Vouet' in the University Church, speaking on the painting above the High Altar in the Chancel: 'The Virgin & Child' by Simon Vouet. Book your ticket here.

ORGAN RECITAL SERIES - 3.30PM, SUNDAYS IN AUGUST

Our August Organ Recital Series begins next week as we welcome a host of esteemed organists from across the UK including: Robert Quinney, New College Oxford; James Brown, The University Church, Oxford; George de Voil, St James's, Sussex Gardens, London; and David Terry, St Mary Brookfield, London. They will play an exciting range of works on our classical instrument built in 1986 by the Swiss firm Metzler Orgelbau.

WELCOMERS NEEDED

We are especially busy over the summer months welcoming visitors to the University Church as people from all over the world come to explore this historic and beautiful building and to seek a quiet place for prayer and reflection. We looking to recruit some more welcomer volunteers, especially to help over the summer period, to join our dedicated team. It is a really enjoyable and social role in which you also get to learn more about the history of this great building and to extend the hospitality of St Mary’s to our many tourists and pilgrims. If you think you might be interested in giving few hours a week and would like to talk about the role, please email ana-maria.niculcea@universitychurch.ox.ac.uk

SERVERS, STEWARDS, INTERCESSORS & EUCHARISTIC ASSISTANTS

Leading worship is a whole-church activity. When we gather and welcome others, it takes many people to play a part in ministries of service, coordination, prayer and administration. If you would like to find out more about assisting on Sundays and at special services, especially as part of the serving, stewarding, intercessors or eucharistic assistants’ teams please contact Hannah for an informal conversation: hannah.cartwright@universitychurch.org

SUPPORTING OUR MINISTRY
If you would like to support the ministry of the University Church, you may wish to make a cash donation at the offertory or via the contactless card machine by the High Street entrance. You can also make a donation online (please use the QR code) through the Parish Giving Scheme or by sending a text: Text "SMV X" to 70085 to donate £X. E.g.: "SMV 5" to 70085 will donate £5.00. Texts cost £X plus one standard rate message. Thank you!

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Subject: News from the University Church