Paul Tripp Conference – A Dangerous Calling
Thursday, 17th August
Paul Tripp Conference – Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands
and 7:00pm – 9:15pm Paul Tripp – ‘Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands’ At Chandler Theatre, Sleeman Sports Complex
Find out more at Queensland Theological College https://www.qtc.edu.au/

Friday Aug 18, 2017, 2pm-4pm Room E319 in the Forgan Smith building (No. 1)

David McEwan.  ‘Unite the pair so long disjoined, knowledge and vital piety:’ what is the role of research in this process?
David shows how understanding the interrelationship between ‘knowledge’ and ‘vital piety’ is critical if we are to guide students in the task of implementing effective ministry in today’s multicultural and multi-faith environment.

Rena Macleod. ‘Psalm 22 and the Transformation of Male Victimhood and Violence: A Liberating Model of Interpretation’

Rena shows how reading this poem in its original language, through the combined lens of mimetic theory and feminist theory, of violence and victimhood disclosed in this text…so we may be liberated from them, while at once cultivating within the reader an ethical imagination of care grounded in the encounter with the victim. See the attached flier for details.

David_Rena_Seminar_August_2017 

The next UQ Theology seminar is on Friday June 16^th from 2pm -4pm. Please note the change of room. We will be in E303 in Forgan Smith. It is at the western end of the School of Historical & Philosophical Inquiry precinct.

Di Crowther will address pastoral and theological questions around the, sadly, too often neglected issue of dementia care.

Peter Hobson will set up a conversation between Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language and Bonhoeffer’s theology of discipleship to help us think in fresh ways about Christian ‘followship’. Both extremely important and timely topics.

Please pass these details on to those who may find this of value.

Let me know of other useful seminars in the circles of influence and networks that you participate in. Kind regards, Sam Hey, email  shey@citipointechurch.com

Further details –  Di_Peter_Seminar_June 16_2017

https://iash.uq.edu.au/event/1653/‘-history-person-scholasticism-and-human-rights 

Friday May 12 – UQ Studies in Religion Seminars – School of Historical & Philosophical Inquiry – The University of Queensland

Friday May 12, 2017, 2pm-4pm
Room W349 in Forgan Smith Building (No. 1)

Sam Hey. ‘Finding Purpose amid Claims of a Purposeless Universe?’ While humans appear to have an innate drive to find purpose in the universe, many scientific discoveries including those of physics and cosmology, the huge age and size of the universe, biological natural selection theories, and the rise of post-modern approaches to the social sciences have challenged traditional Christian claims that the universe was created by a personal God who has an interest in and purpose for the creation. At the same time, the writings of many philosophers from the time of Plato to Aquinas, and more recent scholars like George Ellis, point to the sense of order and beauty in mathematical, ethical, and relational realities that appear to predate a material universe. Many contend this offers support for Christian claims of the involvement of a personal, purposeful God in a providential universe.

Dean Smith & Rob Fringer. ‘Exploring the Nexus between Academic Freedom and Ecclesial Expectations’.
Most denominational ministry training today is carried out in a higher education context. Such a context requires college leaders to adhere to a policy on academic freedom. Faculty and students must be able to enjoy the freedom to explore ideas even if those ideas do not align with a denomination’s confessional stance. While the idea of academic freedom is mostly encouraged in theological colleges,
anecdotal evidence suggests that there can be points of tension where the desire to uphold academic freedom clashes with ecclesial expectations that candidates for ministry be strongly formed in a confessional ethos. In this paper, we suggest that confessional formation and training need not be at odds with a policy of academic freedom. Rather, this tension, if embraced, can provide a space for deeper
formation and commitment to one’s denominational distinctives.

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Registrations are now open for the 2017 ANZATS Conference

Sunday 9 July to Wednesday 12 July, 2017
The main theme is Kinship and Family in contemporary Australia and New Zealand

Keynote speakers – Dr Lynn Cohick, Wheaton College – Dr Stephen Barton, University of Durham

Hosted by South Australia’s theological colleges at Australian Lutheran College, 104 Jeffcott Street, North Adelaide.
Registration and further details can be found at https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1972512

Unfortunately, Janice McRandal is unable to present her paper this Friday. It has been postponed until September 29^th. Peter Kline has kindly agreed to step in and offer what will be a fascinating paper on Kierkegaard and the imago Dei. Chris Dalton. is speaking on the topic ‘What’s Fraccing Theology Got to Do with the Mining of Coal Seam Gas?’ Friday April 7, 2017, 2pm-4pm Room W349 in Forgan Smith Building (No. 1)

Chris Dalton. ‘What’s Fraccing Theology Got to Do with the Mining of Coal Seam Gas?’ In the polarised public debate surrounding the mining of Coal Seam Gas, that industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing (fraccing) generates much emotion and conflict. This paper suggests an interrogative rather than propositional process to ‘release’ an alternative public theology approach for a post-secular age. It encompasses visiting a Divine Art Gallery, initiating a conversation about the Rights of Nature, engaging in imaginative apologetics and regarding Land as a Beloved Companion. It is an approach, however, that is not without its risks.

Peter Kline. ‘Imaging Nothing: Kierkegaard and the Imago Dei’. When considering what makes the human being uniquely human, or how it ‘images God’ within the created order, Søren Kierkegaard does not turn to Genesis 1:27, the privileged passage of the Western theological tradition. He turns instead to Matthew 6, a passage in which the reader is instructed to ‘consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air’. In several rounds of ‘upbuilding discourses’ on this passage, Kierkegaard develops what I would call an ‘apophatic’ approach to the imago dei. The imaging of God that the human being is called to enact has no positive or stable content. It does not consist in any self-possessed capability, nor does it set the human being at the top of a hierarchically ordered creation. Rather, the human being images God only when it ‘becomes nothing’ as Kierkegaard puts it.

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With the retirement in July of the Rev Dr Lynne Baab, the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Otago is now seeking a new Jack Somerville Lecturer in Pastoral Theology.

The closing date for applications is 30 June 2017, and it is hoped that the new appointee will begin on 1 February 2018, or as soon as possible thereafter.
https://otago.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=1700719)

Information for Candidates, Jack Somerville Lecturer in Pastoral Theology (2)

UQ Studies in Religion Seminar with Chris Dalton. ‘What’s Fraccing Theology Got to Do with the Mining of Coal Seam Gas?’ In the polarised public debate surrounding the mining of Coal Seam Gas, that industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing (fraccing) generates much emotion and conflict. This paper suggests an interrogative rather than propositional process to ‘release’ an alternative public theology approach for a post-secular age. It encompasses visiting a Divine Art Gallery, initiating a conversation about the Rights of Nature, engaging in imaginative apologetics and regarding Land as a Beloved Companion. It is an approach, however, that is not without its risks.

Janice McRandal. ‘Dancing Abandonment: Theology, Time, and Eternal Memory’. For contemporary theology, time is a matter of both physics and metaphysics. Whether in the search for ‘narrated time’ (Ricoeur), or reclaimed Trinitarian accounts (Augustine), systematic theology tends towards a concept of memory to shape hermeneutical approaches to time and relativity. Contemporary dance theory frames time within a subtle dialectic of keeping and abandoning time, of embodied memory and embodied forgetfulness. However, the relationality implied — of dancer, music, movement, time, performance etc. — resists moves towards a concrete conception of time. This paper will explore the double demand of dance: a passion for the moment and stillness for time, and consider the ways through which the dancer empties out memory into an excessive ‘elsewheres’ beyond the normative questions of time, beyond all necessity.

Friday April 7, 2017, 2pm-4pm Room W349 in Forgan Smith Building (No. 1) at the University of Queensland.

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