The Rooster Crows LPCC Podcast

Today, we introduce our second co-host, Rev. Roberta Howey, who recently started with Lawrence Park and is thrilled to be here.

 

This episode, we are talking about stories; who writes them, who reads them, and  what makes a great story. Roberta chats with Marlene Bourdon-King, one of the judges for the TCTE Short Story Fiction Contest, which is held annually in Toronto."

Christmas pageants would seem to be one of those things the pandemic could have killed, but instead, they morphed. Why do churches hang onto this way of telling the Christmas story, even moving them onto zoom? In this episode, we look at the first Christmas pageants, how they evolved, and why people keep doing them.

What is it like to live on an Indigenous Reserve in Canada? Rev. Stephen talks with Leo Atlookan, a member of the Eabametoong first nation in Fort Hope, Northern Ontario. Like many reserves, the water from the taps is not safe to drink. Leo shares with us his experiences of living on a reserve that people love, but which many must leave due to a persistent lack of safe housing. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Google Play and our website at www.lawrenceparkchurch.ca.

Has the Bible helped create modern racism? That’s the question Rev. Stephen explores in our latest podcast. He talks with Professor HyeRan Kim-Cragg of the University of Toronto. Professor Kim-Cragg draws on feminism, her own Korean roots and critical race theory to provide a rich and nuanced look at how the Bible has shaped our modern situation, and how it can help us fight back against racism. The Rooster Crows LPCC podcast is available on our website, and you can subscribe to it on Apple, Google Play and Podbean. Let us know what you think, and please share with friends. This is one more way LPCC is trying to share progressive Christianity with the world. 

Spiritual traditions speak a lot about eternity, but what is it? Is eternity a long time, or something else? In this episode, we talk about religious and scientific ideas about time and eternity, with our special guest Professor Benjamin Olshin of Philadelphia. He is the author of Deciphering Reality, and has recently been writing a book on the nature of time.

What is forgiveness? And when is it time to seek our reconciliation? That's what we explore this week, by talking about the deeper meanings of the Bible story that inspired the Broadway show, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

 

 

Paradoxes: can't live with them, can't live without them. Paradoxes are those parts of life where opposites come together and refuse to part, which is both frustrating and confusing. But spiritual traditions and folk tales tell us that appreciating paradox is the key to wisdom. So how can we learn to love paradoxes, and use them to reach the next level in our understanding of the world?

 

This week’s podcast is about an old movie that gave birth to a term that we hear every day now: gaslighting. The movie is “Gaslight”, made in 1944, starring Ingrid Bergman. The film’s depiction of emotional manipulation has seen a new lease on life as people have used the same approach on the internet and in politics. How much are we as a civilization still being gaslighted today? That’s what Rev. Stephen Milton and Joyce Taylor discuss in today’s podcast.

Every year, millions of people buy Christmas trees, even in the middle of a pandemic. But why? There are no Christmas trees mentioned in the Bible, yet Christians go out of their way to buy them. In this week’s episode, Stephen and Joyce talk about the deep symbolism beneath the craze for Christmas trees. How they relate to trees in other religious traditions, and why there may actually be some very good subconscious reasons for putting them up, even in our largely secular society. 

In this podcast we feature highlights from our church’s anniversary bash, which took place in November of 2020. Lawrence Park Community Church was created 75 years ago, as a place where people from multiple Christian denominations could worship. One of our former ministers, Rev. Dr William Kervin, provides the sermon, and we hear some music from the service. There is even a very funny ditty written about the history of the church, recorded with a great sense of humour by our own Amye Sagar.