St Michael's Lectures

Saint Michael's Lectures are open to all and admission is free (retiring collection).

For further information about the lectures, please contact Connie Cannon 01392 218590

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*Sunday* 25th January 2009 7.30 pm

 

SHAME AND FORGIVENESS

John Milbank
Professor of Theology at Nottingham, formerly of Virginia 

and Cambridge, author of Theology and Social Theory, 

The Word made Strange, Being Reconciled, 

co-founder of ‘Radical Orthodoxy’

 

 

*Sunday* 15th February 2009 7.30pm

 

CHRISTIANITY, CREATION AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

Dominic Coad

 

In recent years the state of our environment has gained increasing prominence. What used to be the concern of a few enthusiasts has become headline news and campaign pledges. The Church has sometimes appeared to be playing catch-up, searching for new policies and initiatives which will interest its membership and ward off the perennial fear that the Church will become out of date and out of touch. Exodus does not say ‘thou shalt recycle’ and Augustine does not warn us against the dangers of trans-Atlantic air travel. In fact, many critics have claimed that the human-centred nature of Christianity is responsible for the ecologically destructive behaviour of the modern West. How may we respond? Must we adapt our beliefs and outlook to keep up with the modern world? Or even hang our head in shame and keep silence?

Dominic Coad is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Exeter

 

 

 

Wednesday 25th May 2009 7.30 pm

PLASTER SAINTS OR SUICIDAL LOONIES?

THE IMPULSE TO MARTYRDOM IN THE EARLY CHURCH

Oliver Nicholson

 

No one escapes fear and pain. Christians have distinctive ways of coping with them. These attitudes owe much to the formative traumas of persecution suffered by the Church in the 2nd-4th centuries AD – Early Christians, said a Roman detractor, had the habit of dying gladly. This lecture will elucidate the complex ways, both practical and spiritual, by which Christians in the Roman Empire came to face the threat and reality of trial, torture and execution.

 

Oliver Nicholson is an historian of Late Antiquity. He was brought up in Tiverton, educated in Oxford, teaches at the University of Minnesota, and when at home in Devon sings tenor in S Michael’s choir. He is the General Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, and is also writing a thematic study of the persecutions which will be fair to all those involved, accusers, judges, apostates, refugees, martyrs, - even the lions.