A reminder that Joy in Enough has an email newsletter, written by John Payne and Ruth Jarman. If you’re not a subscriber already, below is the New Year edition so you can see what you’re missing. You can sign up here.
Talks
The next two Joy in Enough talks will be:
Wednesday 17 January 2024 – Adding insult to injury – offshore finance
Cat Jenkins will be talking about the ways in which offshore finance centres (and those who make use of them) compound the climate injustices meted out on the global South, by the global North; and she discusses the reasons why campaigning for international corporate tax justice matters to climate-ravaged countries.
Before working in the environmental/social justice sectors, Cat spent some 25 years in offshore finance, variously as a policy adviser to a regulator, risk director of AXA’s offshore life business and a lecturer/author on various financial services and governance issues. She’s now a part-time Administrator for Green Christian; she also works part time for various other UK-based charities, mainly on campaigns and communications. Her first degree is in finance, with post-graduate qualifications in online education and in digital theology.
Wednesday 21 February 2024 – Joy in a time of crisis – For the darkness and the light are both alike to God
In this talk Helen Stanton will draw upon Christian virtue ethics and the apophatic Christian Tradition to encourage the practice of joy and hope in a world that feels on a desperate and destructive trajectory. Her focus will be on how God’s work in us can create a place of joy and freedom, even while our eyes are open to the sin and suffering of the world; a joy that transforms.
Helen Stanton has worked in theological education, and the training of clergy, for most of her working life. Currently she is Warden of Holland House, an ecumenical retreat house in Worcestershire.
Further talks include one, on 20 March, by Ian Christie, senior lecturer at the Centre for Environment and Sustainability. Other speakers will be confirmed soon.
On the blog
There have been some more great stories and articles recently on the Joy in Enough website. Do have a look at the following:
- Book review: Badvertising, by Andrew Simms & Leo Murray by Jeremy Williams
And, thinking ahead now to the next festive season, Ruth Jarman’s great article gives lot of advice on how to do it better next time!
The latest on Plenty!
Have a look at this report on The Plenty course around the world.
More resources to support Plenty!
The Joy in Enough team is currently working on additional material which groups can look at once they have completed the 6 sessions of Plenty! Have a look at Recommended resources for further discussion. There are collections of audio and video material here on similar themes to Plenty! Browse them in your own time, or you might want to organise your Plenty! group to discuss them together….. If you’ve got further suggestions for things we should add here, let us know and we’ll add some links to the web page.
Plenty! facilitator training
Facilitator training on Zoom continues to be available for anyone who wants it prior to facilitating the Plenty! course. Please contact catturner@greenchristian.org.uk if you would like to book the training.
If you don’t want to be a facilitator but are interested in being a Plenty! participant, and can’t find a local group to be part of, do write to Cat (address as above). We may be able to find a group near you or put together a virtual group using Zoom.
We would love to hear about your Plenty! experiences if you are in the middle of, or have completed, the Plenty! discussion resource. Do write to Cat about them.
Call for volunteers
We’re always looking for volunteers to help with the various Joy in Enough activities. This could be:
- writing articles for the website
- helping to disseminate information and interesting links via social media
- being part of the Joy in Enough steering group
- taking on other ad hoc admin. tasks
If you’re interested and want to help, please contact johnpayne@greenchristian.org.uk
Further reading
- Have a look at Jeremy’s book review on his other web site, The Earthbound Report, of the new book by Guy Standing, The Politics of Time.
- Here’s a reminder of something Colin McCulloch sent round on Celink – an interesting article for those into economics and its interaction with climate and ecological crises. Colin said at the time that “it seems like I’m now with the majority (! of this group of experts!) in seeing ‘green growth’ as an oxymoron.”
Our partners and friends
Some more interesting blogs and articles from CUSP (Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity):
- Have a listen to the podcast mentioned here: Neoliberalism and its Discontents | C40 Cities podcast with Tim Jackson
- And there’s a fun paper here – Doctor Who and the seeds of anxiety: exploring popular narratives of energy justice and exploitation. Dr Who’s “narratives of paternalistic rescue and technological progress remain highly relevant to current energy transition discussions.”
Joy in Enough 