Around Town: First United – 103 new homes, Jimmy Lai, Extraterrestrial Life

The non-residential portion of the project on floors one through four, will be the new purpose-built First United facility offering a range of social services and programming for residents and the surrounding community.

Amenities will include two low-barrier drop-in spaces, a heating and cooling centre, outdoor deck, computer lab, administrative and program spaces and a commercial kitchen and dining hall. Residents will have access to all First United services, including two meals a day through their Community Meals Program.

Construction on 320 E Hastings Street [one block east of Main] is expected to be complete in late 2025. The residential floors will have a separate street entrance at 438 Gore Avenue.

Funding provided for this project is as follows:

• • $5.15 million from the federal government, through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund
  • Approximately $28.4 million from the provincial government, through BC Housing, including approximately $15.3 million through the Building BC: Indigenous Housing Fund and approximately $13.06 million through the Supportive Housing Fund
  • Approximately $24.4 million in land costs and equity fundraised by First United, with an additional $9.6 million still to be raised through the First Forward Capital Campaign
  • Approximately $6.73 million in funding and municipal waivers from the City of Vancouver, including $4.83 million through the Community Housing Incentive Program (CHIP)

Go here for the full statement. I wrote three years ago about plans for redevelopment here.

Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller is among a group of 10 Catholic leaders from around the world this week who called upon the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to release prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and Catholic Jimmy Lai, who has been imprisoned there for nearly three years.

Noting the situation in Hong Kong “greatly concerns” Vancouver Catholics, especially in the Asian Catholic community, Archbishop Miller told The B.C. Catholic there is an obligation to help those unjustly persecuted. . . .

Lai has been an outspoken democracy advocate in Hong Kong for years. He founded the tabloid Apple Daily in 1995 which took a strong pro-democracy stance in the administrative region.

Lai was originally arrested in August of 2020 under that year’s controversial national security law, which was passed by China’s communist-controlled government and sharply curtailed free speech in the region in an effort to quash what the Chinese Communist Party considered subversion and sedition in the separately administered region of Hong Kong.

Go here for the full article.

Andrew Davison will present three lectures next week.

A Cambridge professor will help us to think outside the box during three lectures next week. The first two – at Trinity Western University in Langley (November 22) and Corpus Christi College on the UBC campus (November 23) –  will deal with the same material:

Until 1993, we could not be sure whether there were planets around any other stars. We now know that there are billions of billions. That science is new, but thinking about what life beyond earth would mean for Christianity is not, with more or less continual theological interest stretching back to the middle of the 15th century.

In this talk, Professor Andrew Davison will introduce the science of astrobiology, tell some of that Christian theological story and ask what the implications of other life in the universe would be for some of the main pillars of the faith, including creation, revelation, Christology, and sin and salvation.

The third lecture, also on the UBC campus November 23, will discuss ‘Theological Implications of the Natural Origins of Life’:

Widespread scientific confidence in there being a natural origin of life, rather than a supernatural one, is a latecomer in the history of thought, held back as much by scientific considerations as by belief that this is more the purview of religion. Yet, over the course of the past century, a natural origin has become the default position.

Surprisingly little theological thought has been given to that, with the mainstream churches taking a natural origin for granted, while some more conservative traditions hold out against the possibility. In this talk, Professor Davison will sketch this history, and argue that while Christian theology can take a natural origin to life in its stride, that deserves more attention than it often gets.

One of the founders of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, Davison is the Starbridge Professor of Theology and Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow in Theology and Dean of Chapel at Corpus Christi College. Before moving into theology, he was a scientist; he has a DPhil in Biochemistry (Oxford, 2000) and a PhD in Theology (Cambridge, 2013).

He is the author of many books, including Participation in God: A Study in Christian Doctrine and  Metaphysics and Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine: Exploring the Implications of Life in the Universe (both Cambridge University Press).

All three talks are co-sponsored with the Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation, the first with TWU, the second with Corpus Christi College and the Society of Catholic Scientists (Vancouver Chapter) and the third with UBC Graduate and Faculty Christian Forum.

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