[Ely Announce] Inaugural Lecture: Professor Sarah Coakley

[Bridget Nichols]

Faculty of Divinity Inaugural Lecture

Professor Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, will deliver
her inaugural lecture entitled, 'Sacrifice Regained:  Reconsidering the
Rationality of Christian Belief', at 5pm on Tuesday 13 October, in the
Runcie Room of the Faculty of Divinity. There will be a wine reception
afterwards. All are welcome.

Synopsis:  This lecture considers the striking cultural dominance, in the
latter part of the 20th century, of a violent and negative rendition of the
notion of sacrifice, and asks whether it is a coincidence that in this same
time span philosophers of religion have tended to be in notable retreat from
bold claims about the rationality of Christian truth.  In contrast, and in
riposte to the 'New Atheism' of the secularists, it is argued that the most
recent deliveries from evolutionary biology augur a vision of sacrifice both
rationally defensible and biologically grounded.  Evolutionary dynamics,
religious practice and hermeneutics, and new arguments for the rationality
of belief belong together, and demand the closest attention as we confront
the profoundest ecological crisis yet known.


Professor Coakley will also give a lecture in the Cathedral on Tuesday 24th November. Details below:

24 November 2009 - 7:30 PM 
Prof Sarah Coakley - Taming Desire: Freud vs the Church 
Free Admission. 

For further details please contact Canon Alan Hargrave on 01353 660304 or email: a.hargrave at cathedral.ely.anglican.org