Lloyd Geering - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Thu, 10 Apr 2014 05:42:33 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg Lloyd Geering - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 Lloyd Geering to end his lectureship career aged 96 https://cathnews.co.nz/2014/04/11/lloyd-geering-end-lectureship-career-aged-96/ Thu, 10 Apr 2014 19:06:32 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=56675 When he recently turned 96 years of age, Professor Lloyd Geering decided to retire from his role as Principal Lecturer of the St Andrew's Trust for the Study of Religion and Society. His final talk in that capacity will be given during the week of the opening of the new St Andrew's Centre on Tuesday Read more

Lloyd Geering to end his lectureship career aged 96... Read more]]> When he recently turned 96 years of age, Professor Lloyd Geering decided to retire from his role as Principal Lecturer of the St Andrew's Trust for the Study of Religion and Society. His final talk in that capacity will be given during the week of the opening of the new St Andrew's Centre on Tuesday 6 May, 2014 at St Andrew's on The Terrace in Wellington.

"I am in good health and enjoying my tenth decade," Professor Geering said.

"Through a long lifetime of publishing and lecturing, both within and outside of the St Andrew's Trust, Professor Geering has offered a view of religion that appeals to mature and questing people as well as being vitally necessary in a world that is becoming more politically fractured and environmentally fragile," said broadcaster and Trustee Noel Cheer. Continue reading

Lloyd Geering to end his lectureship career aged 96]]> 56675 The wonder of Benedict, Geering and my Mum https://cathnews.co.nz/2013/03/08/the-wonder-of-benedict-geering-and-my-mum/ Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:10:10 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=40549

No matter how much my Mum tried to speak softly about the outrageous goings on in the Presbyterian Church with 'that man Geering', I could hear her telephone whisperings. One of the great advantages of my childhood bedroom was its proximity to the telephone. A significant cream instrument with braided cord, set upon a clever combination Read more

The wonder of Benedict, Geering and my Mum... Read more]]> No matter how much my Mum tried to speak softly about the outrageous goings on in the Presbyterian Church with 'that man Geering', I could hear her telephone whisperings.

One of the great advantages of my childhood bedroom was its proximity to the telephone. A significant cream instrument with braided cord, set upon a clever combination of table and seat, which gave the telephone an exalted status, only to be used for important calls.
Apart that is from the cascading morning calls to my nana and aunts where all the significant family decisions were made, despite the menfolk believing they did that in my Uncle's shed up the back of Nana's property.
According to the string of phone calls I was eavesdropping on, Lloyd Geering, although a Presbyterian minister himself, couldn't possibly be a man of God with his heretical idea that Jesus of Nazareth hadn't bodily risen from the dead. He was, mused my mum, undermining our Baptist home and quite possibly the whole of Christianity.
Naturally, this heresy sounded appealing if a little confusing to my 13 year old ears. Did it mean I couldn't talk to Presbyterians in the same way as I wasn't meant to talk to Catholics?
All Catholics that is apart from my Great Uncle Jim, who was so Catholic he went to mass every day. Then there was his sister the nun. Both sidled past the heretic barrier on a relative pass. I found the casual blurring of boundaries bewildering.
I imagine it was my rellies influence that had me sneaking out to haunt the back rows of the Catholic Church reveling in chants, incense and candles. Needless to say, I didn't mention any of this outrageous popery to Mum. Continue reading
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Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.

The wonder of Benedict, Geering and my Mum]]> 40549 Geering says not enough religion in schools https://cathnews.co.nz/2012/07/13/geering-says-not-enough-religion-in-schools/ Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:30:36 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=29470

Sir Lloyd Geering believes there are good reasons for teaching religion in schools. He thinks parents' confusion about the word "religion", can make them more likely to remove their children from religion classes. "I think 'religion' is probably a word that is confusing the whole situation. What we really should be talking about is culture. Read more

Geering says not enough religion in schools... Read more]]> Sir Lloyd Geering believes there are good reasons for teaching religion in schools. He thinks parents' confusion about the word "religion", can make them more likely to remove their children from religion classes.

"I think 'religion' is probably a word that is confusing the whole situation. What we really should be talking about is culture. Religion is simply the spiritual dimension of culture - every culture has a spiritual dimension."

He said that in most countries, there is some form of educating people in what are the important things of culture, which includes its spiritual dimension.

Geering believes "This is an aspect of culture that has been sadly lacking in our curriculum," and as a consequence many New Zealanders do not know much about religion.

David Hines, of the Secular Education Network, said some members of his group believed religion should be taken out of the curriculum altogether.

Others believed schools should teach children about a range of beliefs, not just Christianity, provided they were taught in a fair and objective way.

The Secular Education Network and religious experts plan to meet within the next few weeks to discuss the issue.

Sir Lloyd Geering is a well-known New Zealand theologian and emeritus professor of religious studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

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Geering says not enough religion in schools]]> 29470 Teaching religious studies in schools https://cathnews.co.nz/2011/12/06/teaching-religious-studies-in-schools/ Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:30:48 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=17535

Religious Studies is a vitally important, though neglected area of education. Religions underpin the cultural and philosophical heritages which shape our current worldviews. If we are to understand the various cultures of today's world, we need to know something of the worldviews and values that underlie them. In addition, an understanding of ways in which Read more

Teaching religious studies in schools... Read more]]> Religious Studies is a vitally important, though neglected area of education. Religions underpin the cultural and philosophical heritages which shape our current worldviews. If we are to understand the various cultures of today's world, we need to know something of the worldviews and values that underlie them. In addition, an understanding of ways in which other peoples and cultures have approached the timeless questions in life can help us to reach our own beliefs and values.

Traditionally, in western society, Religious Studies has been taught doctrinally. Indeed, what has passed as Religious Studies has frequently been ‘Christian Education' and then often with a narrow, dogmatic idea of what constitutes Christianity. Moreover, even comparative religions have been taught from a doctrinal perspective, failing to recognise religions (or aspects of religions) that do not fit the doctrinal mould. As a result, false distinctions have been constructed and a multitude of religious experiences and practices have been trivialised, ignored, or remained simply invisible to western scholarship.

Ninian Smart's approach to the teaching of religions is to look at different aspects or ‘dimensions' of religion in each religious tradition. Thus he looks at the practical and ritual dimension; the experiential and emotional dimension; the narrative or mythical dimension; the doctrinal and philosophical dimension; the ethical and legal dimension; the social and institutional dimension and the material dimension of the different religions. By taking such an approach, Smart avoids the difficulties of trying to define religion while providing a framework within which religions can be compared with each other and with secular ideologies.

Smart's progressive, even Hegelian, view of religions is one commonly adopted in the teaching of Religious Studies. Lloyd Geering , the father of Religious Studies in New Zealand takes a similarly progressive view, strongly reminiscent of Sigmund Freud's Future of an Illusion. It is a view that lends itself particularly well to the ideology of globalisation. But this is by no means the only approach.

 

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