FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Larry Rasmussen as the 2008 Geering Lecturer. Professor Rasmussen will present a series of four lectures on the themes of his award-winning book Earth Community Earth Ethics on Tuesdays and Thursdays, February 26 to March 6. There will also be a workshop/seminar on Saturday 1 March.

Larry Rasmussen is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York. Rasmussen's volume, Earth Community Earth Ethics, won the prestigious Grawerneyer Award in 1997. He served as a member of the Science, Ethics, and Religion Advisory Committee of the AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science) and received the Joseph Sittler Award for Outstanding Leadership in Theological Education.

Study Trust chairperson Rev Dr Margaret Mayman is thrilled that St Andrew’s has attracted a global leader in the field of environmental ethics. “Larry Rasmussen makes a unique contribution to the current concern about the human impact on the environment by making connections between the eco-system, economic justice and global security,” she says.

Rasmussen argues for sustainable community rather than sustainable development. “ I do not want to assume that the global economy -- and its tendencies toward monocultures and its tendencies toward disrupting local democracy, removing people's capacities for their own self-provisioning, self-organizing, self-directing activities -- is that which should necessarily be sustained. I want something where folks -- all the folks -- have a greater say in what their life together will be, and that requires a kind of decentralization that ‘community’ indicates and ‘sustainable development’ does not,” he says.

The following are details of his speaking engagements.

Earth-Honouring Faith Four Lunchtime Lectures at St Andrews on The Terrace, Wellington

- Tuesday 26 February, 12:15 pm: Simplified Living & Global Consumerism

- Thursday 28 February, 12:15 pm: The Sacred & All Goods as Things

- Tuesday 4 March, 12:15 pm: The Mystical & All Things as Objects

- Thursday 6 March, 12:15 pm: The Prophetic & The Power to Change

- Workshop 'Is Global Community Possible' at St Andrew's on The Terrace March 1st, 9:30 am - 1 pm Cost $20. $10 unwaged.

Larry arrives in Wellington on Monday. He would be an excellent interviewee for radio, television or a print media feature. A high resolution jpg is available on request.

ENDS

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