Ms. Garratt’s Blog
Here you’ll find a range of resources to help you get the most from your PSHE lessons. I’ve included links to recommended websites as well as a range of study materials to help you become increasingly independent and successful learners. If you need help come and see me or contact me through this Blog.Archive for Christianity
Homework Assignment for Year 11 GCSE Religious Studies Candidates
Week Commencing Monday 20th April 2009
As promised, here’s the Post you need to use to file this week’s homework assignment.
You need to write a thoughtful paragraph (about 100 words) that summarises your views on this subject:
What I Believe About God and Why I Hold the Opinions I Do.
Use the notes you made in the lesson as the basis of what you submit. Make sure that what you write is clear and can be easily understood. Remember nonsense always equals no marks!
Please put your name on your response when you send it through to me. If you’d like your comment published without your name on it, tell me this at the end of your reply. If you don’t stipulate, I’ll leave your name on it.
All responses due in by 7.00pm on Sunday, 26th April at the very latest!
Over the weekend remember to look through all the comments that have been posted, making summary notes on ideas to which you could make brief reference when tackling a Section B (Belief in God/The Nature of God) examination question.
Father Damien of Molokai – News of Canonization
You’ll have looked at the story of Father Damien as part of your Year 8 People of Faith studies.
He was born in Belgium in 1840 and was ordained as a Catholic missionary priest in Honolulu in 1864. In 1873 he volunteered to go to work as a resident priest to a large leper colony.
At a time when there was enormous fear of leprosy, little understanding of it and no effective treatment for the disease, Damien lived alongside the lepers, caring for their spiritual needs, building their accommodation, acting as their medical attendant, building their coffins, digging their graves and staying beside them as they died.
In 1885 he became infected with leprosy and died in 1888.
Following over sixty years of scrutiny by the Catholic Church, Damien is due to be made a saint later this year. On 11th October at a ceremony in Rome, conducted by the Pope, he will be canonized.
After the death of remarkable Catholics who have given their lives to the service of God, the Catholic Church begins a careful examination of every aspect of their lives. This process may take a very long time.
In order to be made a saint, several criteria have to be met. One of these is that two miracles must be proved to have happened following people’s prayers to the individual concerned. Two miracles have now occurred following people’s prayers to Damien.
See if you can find out what they are. Write a brief summary of one of them, together with your thoughts about what you’ve found out, and send it through as a comment to this Post.
If you’d like to, find out about other miracles that have happened after people have prayed for help to other notable Catholics. For example, look at what has happened when people have prayed to Mother Teresa.
Overdue Homework for Week Beginning 2nd March – A Reminder
If you have not already filed your homework (paper copies only this time please) you need to do so by this Friday,6th March. Look at the Post titled Important Homework Reminder for Week Beginning 2nd March 2009. It tells you exactly what you need to do.
Some Notes on Aspects of Christianity
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This file contains a brief summary of some basic Christian principles. These notes are rooted in an excellent book called Guidelines for Life by Mel Thompson – you’ll find copies in the Library and Learning Resources Centre if you’re interested in finding out more. Read the materials through carefully. They tell you what you need to know to write good quality examination answers. Use your own words to make notes from which you will be able to revise.
The Nature of Hell and Heaven
A while back I mentioned a play called Dr Faustus written in the sixteenth century by a man called Christopher Marlowe. If he’d lived, he would probably have been one of England’s great playwrights. As it was he lived dangerously. He was almost certainly a secret agent – a 007 prototype, I suppose – and ended up murdered in a Deptford pub. But I digress.
In the play Dr Faustus, a highly educated man, decides to sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for having everything he wants for twenty four years. Mephistopheles, Satan’s close associate, arrives from Hell to seal the deal. Faustus says life in Hell can’t be so bad for its inhabitants – after all Mephistopheles is able to go where he wanats and is able to have a civilised conversation in Faustus’s study. This is what Mephistopheles says in response:
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it./Think’st thou that I, that saw the face of God/And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,/Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,/In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss.’
At the time that Marlowe lived people thought that Hell was a physical place. The ideas in Mephistopheles’ speech are really different though and astonishingly modern. Hell isn’t simply a physical place; it is the anguish we carry with us throughout our lives. The sum of all our guilt, regret, anxiety, pain, longing, etc.
Do you think that there are even some resonances with the Buddhist idea of Dukkha and, perhaps, of Tanha too? Remember that Siddartha on his journey to find enlightenment was tempted by the demon Mara and his beautiful daughters. Mara is not anything like Satan, of course. He is, in fact, a psychological phenomenon - as a student said last year, ‘Mara’s our dark side, all the horrible stuff we have churning away inside us; if we let it take control, it can eat away at us until there’s nothing good left.’
What does Hell mean to you? A place? Particular fears? A psychological state? Other things?
What does heaven mean to you? What would you like heaven to be?
Insights into Christian Faith Through Hymns
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I finally got around to listening to the ‘The Priests’ CD I was given at Christmas time. Holy music, including hymns, is a good way of getting some insights into what Christians believe.
In addition to ‘Ave Maria’ and ‘Pie Jesu’ the Priests sang ‘Abide With Me’. It’s probably one of the most well-known and widely sung hymns in the world.
If you’ve been to a football match at Liverpool or Wembley or, for that matter, watched a match from these venues on TV, you’ll have heard it sung. It’s also used at funerals and sometimes weddings too. It was played at the funeral of Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 1997 and sung at the wedding of both George VI and his daughter, the present Queen Elizabeth II.
Henry Lyte, the man who wrote the words of ‘Abide With Me’ was an Anglican minister. His last parish was in Lower Brixham in Devon where he worked for 23 years. Lyte was inspired to write the hymn in the last few weeks of his life. He was suffering from tuberculosis which before the development of antibiotics was a fatal illness.
If you want to find out more, there’s plenty of information about him on the Internet. You’ll find he wrote the words for several other well known hymns including ’Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven’ which is very different in mood from ‘Abide With Me’.
The attached file contains the words of ‘Abide With Me’. Think about the ideas that are explored and what they reflect of Christian beliefs and,indeed, certainties about God’s care of them.
You could usefully refer to some of these ideas in an examination answer.
Thinking About Yourself – A 15 Minute Homework Task
I don’t know where this came from originally, but it was part of a footnote to an e-mail I received a few days ago.
You are not born for yourself, but for the world…..
How do you see yourself in this world? Are you here by chance? Are there particular reasons for your existence? How would Christians and Buddhists respond to these questions?
Work out your answer in no more than a hundred words, remembering to give reasons for what you say, and e-mail it through to me.
Christian Responses to Evil and Suffering
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This file contains a useful summary of Christian thinking and responses to the issue of Evil and Suffering. Read it through carefully and make a brief note of the key ideas to help you when you need to revise. Make sure you understand the terms shown in blue.
Christianity in The News
This post is an edited version of a front page news story from earlier in the week. It appeared in The Daily Telegraph.
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, says that Christians are regarded as ‘mad’ by the rest of society because ‘they are motivated by compassion rather than the reckless pursuit of money’. He insisted that religious faith cannot be separated from the world of work, and that employees should not be expected to give up their religious convictions when they walk into the office. He added that the recession should lead to a rediscovery of what is important in life.
Over the past six months Dr Sentamu has repeatedly criticsed the greed that has led to the current financial crisis. Yesterday he said: ‘It is this idolatrous love of money, pursuing profit without regard for ethic, risk or consquence, which led us to our current situation.’
He added: ‘History is littered with the moral bankruptcy of people who were Christian in name but not in behaviour and who were silent or indifferent in the face of the dehumanising and destructive power of governments.’
Think about how you could make brief reference to the key ideas in this statement to help you produce a good answer to a question on Christian attitudes and behaviour. You could also use extracts in an answer that explores the issue of suffering.
The Salvation Army – An Example of Christian Faith in Action
Another item on Breakfast News this morning was about a Salvation Army Drop In Centre in Peterborough. At the moment they can only affford to open on Mondays. Over the last few months the numbers of people arriving needing a hot meal, a drink, a shower and simply somewhere to be warm has increased dramatically – another sign of the economic times, they said. They want to do more to help but haven’t the money to do so.
If you don’t know anything about the history and work of The Salvation Army, take a few minutes to research and find out. It’s an international organisation that is well-regarded for its social services and charitable work.
In the exam if you are asked (and you may well be) to give specific examples of the kind of things Christians choose to do because of their religious beliefs, you can refer to the work of The Salvation Army.
The best web site is to find out what you need to know is at www.salvationarmy.org.uk
