Touchstone shares letters from readers.

Banner Pictures on Offer

I have a collection of photos of every banner and pulpit fall I came across in the North Island, including ones from Conference. The images might provide, or trigger, ideas for anyone planning to make banners or resources for their local church. The collection includes Information regarding the seasons of the year and the relevant colours associated with each.

I would be happy to pay postage to send this ‘starter kit of ideas’ to anyone who might be interested. Please email me at olga-jac@outlook.com

Rev Pat Jacobson, Masterton.

Don’t forget those who use their hands and heads

I look forward to reading Rev Solomon’s series on great thinkers who have shaped our world. What a challenge to write succinctly and informatively about these people. The bigger challenge is who to select. The proposed list (Touchstone Feb 2023) , a partial list I realise, includes the usual philosophers and theologians but I would put in an appeal for some others whose thinking has transformed the way we see the world and how we live.

The great scientific thinkers have been hugely influential: Copernicus (we are not the centre of the universe); Newton (the mechanical universe); the founders of quantum physics (certainty replaced by probability); Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley inventors of the transistor, a basis for integrated circuits, modern computers and our modern life; Mendel, Watson Crick (genetics); Borlaug (agronomist probably saved more than a billion lives) and the list goes on.

Then there are the current people whose thinking is shaped by their sociological/psychological research: E.O Wilson, Jon Haidt (our moral matrix), Michael Sandel (moral limits of markets) . An article on Karl Popper (philosopher of science) discussing ‘what is science’ would be good. The ancient Greeks thought activities of the mind were paramount, the physical a poor second – it is better to think and argue about how many teeth in a horse’s mouth than to count them. I think the Greeks were wrong and so some time should be given to those who have dirtied their hands and used their heads to change the world.

Ian Tucker