Archived GFCF Lectures:

1991-2003 || 03-04 || 04-05 || 05-06 || 06-07 || 07-08 || 08-09 ||

09-10 || 10-11

Note: For some lectures, there is no audio-file available. We can provide the lecture on Audio-CD as well. Please contact Guillaume Badinier.

ABSTRACT:
Lynn White, Jr. in his 1967 paper on the Historical Roots of our
Ecologic Crisis identified the cause for our environmental crisis with the biblical teaching of human dominion over the earth. In this lecture, Prof. DeWitt contributes new research that broadens the base of ecological teachings to discover a number of biblical ecological principles that not only have provided a basis for responsible environmental stewardship for a number of millennia but also have contributed historically to the rise of environmentalism in North America. A renewal of the biblical ecological ethic holds substantial promise for re-invigorating responsible earthkeeping.

BIOGRAPHY:
Professor DeWitt is a scientist, writer, and conservationist. After teaching at Calvin College and the University of Michigan he moved to Wisconsin in 1972 and now lives near Madison. Early in his career as a professor at Michigan he found that, across the country and around the world, the animals he was studying were having their habitats taken away. This brought him to contribute to the development of Au Sable Institute, to prepare students for environmental careers, to do wetlands research, to probe environmental beliefs, and to reach out to help people incorporate environmental integrity into their worldviews and beliefs. His principal book is Earth-Wise: A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues (CRC Publications).

JOHN CONWAY, Professor emeritus of History, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia

Tuesday October 26th 2004, 4:00pm
Woodward IRC 3, 2194 Health Sciences Mall

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer"

ABSTRACT:
John Conway will introduce and answer questions on the documentary film: BONHOEFFER - A film by Martin Doblmeier
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the first, and strongest, voices of resistance to Adolf Hitler. An acclaimed preacher, pacifist and author, Bonhoeffer came to the famed Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on a teaching fellowship. When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1932 he had a new awareness of racial prejudice and challenged Christian churches to stand with the Jews in their moment of need. Bonhoeffer eventually joined the unsuccessful plots to assassinate Hitler and was executed three weeks before the end of the war.
"Though structured as the biography of the late German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Doblmeier's engrossing documentary also offers a well-researched history of his times” - New York Daily News, “A touching narrative on the nature of faith.” - The New York Times

BIOGRAPHY:
John Conway’s principal scholarly work has been to research the role of the German churches in the 1930s and 1940s, as a result of which he wrote his book The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945, which was first published in Britain in 1968, and subsequently was translated into German, French and Spanish, and was reissued in 1997.

In 1970 he was a founding member of the Scholars' Conference on the German Church and the Holocaust, and has since written a large number of articles dealing with the role of the European churches and the Vatican during the Holocaust, as well as on the topic of Christian-Jewish relations during the twentieth century. He has paid three visits to Israel, and lectured at the Yad Vashem Memorial Foundation in Jerusalem in 1993.

John Conway has played an active part in several associations connected with international relations in Vancouver, including chairing the Vancouver Branch of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. For ten years he was the executive vice-chairman of the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society of Canada, and in this connection made several visits to India. In 1977 he was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal. He is currently Professor Emeritus of History at the University of British Columbia.

PRESTON MANNING, Senior Fellow at the Canada West Foundation, and Distinguished Visitor at the University of Calgary and the University of Toronto

Monday November 15th 2004, 5:00pm
Geography 100, 1984 West Mall

"The Lion & the Lamb: Tensions and Opportunities in the Interface between Faith & Political Discourse"

Drawing on his extensive experience in the political arena Mr. Manning will speak about faith, politics and their convergence in his life and in society as a whole.

BIOGRAPHY:
Preston Manning served as a member of Parliament from 1993 to 2001. He helped found two political parties - the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance - both of which became the official Opposition in Parliament. Mr. Manning served as Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2000 and was also his party's critic for science and technology. He is a Christian with a life-long interest in the relationship between faith and science, faith and business, faith and politics, and faith and conflict resolution. Since retirement from Parliament in 2001, Mr. Manning has become a Senior Fellow of two major Canadian research bodies - the Fraser Institute and the Canada West Foundation. He is also a Distinguished Visitor and lecturer at the University of Calgary, the University of Toronto and Harvard University. In 2002, he released a book entitled Think Big (published by McClelland & Stewart), in which he describes his use of the tools and institutions of democracy to change Canada's national agenda. Mr. Manning continues to write, speak, and teach on such subjects as the revitalization of democracy in the West, Canada-U.S. relations, strengthening relations between the scientific and political communities, the development of North American transportation infrastructure, the revitalization of Canadian federalism, and the regulation of the genetic revolution.

JOHN STACKHOUSE, Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia

Wednesday January 26th 2005, 4:00pm
The Dodson Room, Main Library

"Reinhold Niebuhr: Prophet of Christian Political Realism"

ABSTRACT:
Reinhold Niebuhr was acclaimed as America's foremost public theologian fifty years ago. And no one has similar prominence and influence today. But is his a voice properly forgotten as a relic of World War II and the Cold War? Was he a highwater mark for a liberal Protestantism now badly receded throughout North America? Or does Niebuhr's "Christian Realism" offer wisdom for politicians, preachers, and practitioners of Biblical religion yet today?

BIOGRAPHY:
Born and raised in Canada, John Stackhouse was educated in history and religious studies at Queen's University in Ontario (B.A., First Class), Wheaton College in Illinois (M.A., with Highest Honors), and the University of Chicago (Ph.D.). He has taught at colleges and universities in both the U.S. and Canada, where he lectures regularly. Currently, John Stackhouse holds the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Chair of Theology and Culture at Regent College. He has served also as Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at McGill University and presently at UBC, where he is responsible for supervising Ph.D. students.

Professor Stackhouse is the author of five books (his publishers include Oxford University Press, the University of Toronto Press, and Baker Book House); the editor of four volumes; and the author of more than 400 articles, book chapters, and reviews in leading academic journals, major newspapers, and magazines. His writings range over history, sociology, philosophy, theology, and comparative religion. His commentary on religion and contemporary culture has been discussed by major broadcast media, such as ABC News, NBC News, and PBS in the United States and by CBC TV and Radio, CTV News, and Global TV News in Canada. He has been reviewed or quoted in major print media as well, such as The Times Literary Supplement, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Time, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, and Maclean's.

DEL RATZSCH, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College, Michigan

Tuesday February 22nd 2005, 4:00pm
The Dodson Room, Main Library

"The Death of Religion and the Birth of Science"

Downloads available:
a)"Intelligent Design:" here (13,854kb) Powerpoint slides here (2,596kb)
b)"Was the Birth of Science Really The Death of Religion?" here (12,520kb) Powerpoint slides here (2,937kb)
These lectures are available at the Regent bookstore in CD format.

JENS ZIMMERMANN, Associate professor of German and English, Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia

Tuesday March 22nd 2005, 4:00pm
The Dodson Room, Main Library

"Being in Time: The Interpretive Nature of the Christian Faith"

ABSTRACT:
The Christian faith remains offensive to many. Although the (now increasingly obsolete) cultural phenomenon of postmodernism has enabled a revival of religion and spirituality, the Christian faith is still regarded as naïve in its reliance on the bible as divine revelation, narrow-minded in its exclusivist claims and, because of these claims, liable to incite conflict and violence. This lecture explores the validity of these prejudices by outlining the radically hermeneutic nature of the Christian faith. By drawing on the works of Martin Heidegger, Hans Georg Gadamer, Gianni Vattimo, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Zimmermann argues that the Christian faith can relinquish neither its supposed naïve trust in a central text as revelation nor its universal claim to be the only true religion. Yet these claims have to be understood in the right way, and Christians themselves often missunderstand their true nature. The main thesis of this lecture is that Christianity is a deeply historical faith whose constitutive relation to God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ has to be lived out interpretively. Only when the Christian faith understands itself as essentially hermeneutical can it uphold its universal claim to be the only true religion with the humility necessary to serve as a witness to the one who died to save the world.

BIOGRAPHY:
Jens Zimmermann emigrated from Germany to Canada in 1988 to begin his studies at the University of British Columbia. Since 1998, after graduating with a Ph.D. in comparative literature from UBC, he has taught at Trinity Western University where he is now a associate professor of German and English, and works in the Religion, Culture, and Ethics graduate program. Among Zimmermann's publications is his recent book, Recovering Theological Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004).