The below schedule is subject to minor alteration.

Saturday 28 January 2012

9:00 a.m. Registration opens at Jesus College’s Ship Street Conference Centre, just off Cornmarket Street.

9:30 a.m. How Christians relate to the world (Alister McGrath)

This lecture sets out the different ways in which Christians relate to the world, be they positive, negative or mixed. What is the value of these models of relating for understanding our relationship to secular academic disciplines?

11:00 a.m. Coffee & Tea

11:30 a.m. A Christian worldview? (Benno van den Toren)

This lecture discusses the notion of ‘worldview’ and its influence on the development of a Christian mind in the contemporary world. It outlines main elements of Christian worldview and the implications for Christian attitudes to life, the world, and science.

1:00 p.m.  Catered buffet lunch at the Ship Street Centre

2 p.m. The doctrine of creation and the science of nature (Ard Louis)

This lecture explores how far the Judaeo-Christian understanding of creation has been fundamental in the development of modern science. It also explores the tensions between modern science and the Christian understanding of reality and how to enable constructive dialogue

3:30 p.m. Coffee & Tea

4 p.m. What does it mean to be human? (Elaine Storkey)

This lecture discusses how the Christian understanding of the human being steers a course between individualism and collectivism, between fatalism and personal freedom, between materialism and ‘idealism’; and how its personal and communitarian understanding of the human being is grounded in the Trinitarian God.

5:30 p.m.  Conference closing

To be confirmed:  Dinners hosted in homes across Oxford

Sunday 29 January 2012

9:00-9:30 a.m. Coffee & croissants

9:30 a.m. Devotional (Donald Hay)

10:00 What went wrong with humankind? (Elaine Storkey)

The social sciences in particular have implicit or explicit convictions about what is wrong with the world, and many individual scholars are driven by the desire to improve society and to alleviate suffering. How do these understandings relate to the Christian understanding of sin and evil?

11:30  What is salvation? (Benno van den Toren)

Salvation in Christ is not just a spiritual reality – it touches the whole of our being, the whole of humanity, and has cosmic dimensions. Salvation therefore has implications for how we relate to the world in our disciplines and professions. The lecture is an introduction to the different dimensions of redemption through Christ

1:00 p.m. Conference close