Iain Provan in Sydney: The Rise of Seriously Dangerous Religion (Aug 12-20)
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How Moses and his God shook the ancient world and laid the foundations for Christianity and modern civilization
At this two-weekend event hosted by Gospel Conversations and the Centre for Public Christianity, Iain Provan peels back the layers of the Old Testament – and particularly the works of Moses – to discover the radical innovations about belief in God that made Jerusalem so unique and disruptive in the ideas and religions of the ancient world. This tiny outpost not only withstood the intellectual might of Greece, but laid the foundations for an alternative thinking tradition that ended up taking over the world. How did this happen?
Building on Edwin Judge’s previous Gospel Conversations talks on the impact of the Christian gospel on the Graeco-Roman world-view, this series develops the idea of the Jerusalem exception: that Jewish belief and practice offered a startling alternative not only to “Athens” (the default Greek worldview) in the centuries before Christ, but also to various other emerging alternatives to “old religion” across the globe.
It was this Jerusalemite religion – the “seriously dangerous religion” Professor Provan explored in his 2014 book of that name – that formed the foundation for what Jesus said and did in the first century AD, and ultimately has profoundly shaped the world in which we now live.
This series won’t just be an intellectually intriguing journey. It will help us to understand and explain the uniqueness of the Gospel today.
We all live in a world that has been shaped and blessed by the Gospel – but the forces of secularisation forget or deny this heritage. By taking us back to what the ancient world was like – everywhere ‘except in Jerusalem’ – we will much more deeply appreciate the massive achievements, blessings and influences of the Gospel that built on the Jerusalem heritage and revelation about the nature of reality. Thus we will be much better equipped to read our contemporary world, and know how to live in a distinctively Christian way within it. And it will better equip us to explain the Gospel to this world.
Cost:
Single Friday: $15.00
Single Saturday: $20.00
All 4 events: $50.00
Itinerary
Weekend 1:
| Date | Time | Topic |
|
August 12 |
7:30 - 9:00 PM | Seriously Dangerous Religion: the Hebrew Origins of Christianity's Subversive Idea |
|
August 13 |
9:30 - 10:30 AM | Let's Get Real: The Cosmos Seen from Jerusalem |
| 10:30 - 10:45 AM | Tea and Coffee | |
| 10:45 AM - 12:00 PM | It Ain't Natural: Evil and Suffering in Jerusalem | |
| 12:00 - 3:00 PM | Break | |
| 3:00 - 4:00 PM |
On Living in a Blighted World: The Jerusalem Guide |
|
| 4:00 - 4:15 PM | Tea and Coffee | |
| 4:15 - 5:00 PM | Open Discussion |
Weekend 2:
| Date | Time | Topic |
| August 19 | 7:30 - 9:00 PM | Even the Stork Knows: Right Relationships in Jerusalem |
| August 20 | 9:30 - 10:30 AM | I Saw the Heavenly City: Jerusalem and Politics |
| 10:30 - 10:45 AM | Tea and Coffee | |
| 10:45 AM - 12:00 PM | Of Humus and Humanity: Human Nature in Jerusalem | |
| 12:00 - 3:00 PM | Break | |
| 3:00 - 4:00 PM | Dreams of Hope: Jerusalem Looking Forward | |
| 4:00 - 4:15 PM | Tea and Coffee | |
| 4:15 - 5:00 PM | Open discussion |
Location
Scots Presbyterian Church Sydney, 44 Margaret St, Sydney NSW 2000
