Religion & Politics: Campion College & ABC Radio

If the Pussy Riot incident in Russia, the conviction of some its members and some of the demonstrations of support show anything, it is that the intersections of religion and politics continue to captivate the public imagination with varying levels of subtlety. 

The events and resources posted below also bear this out.

First, those who follow this blog may have been aware of Campion College’s announcement of new project entitled Seminars in Political and Religious Life (which you can follow on Facebook and Twitter). A September session of SPRL has been scheduled for Sydney for the 27th September at Campion College at 5pm. This session will feature papers on the thought of John Henry Newman on Liberalism (by Stephen McInerney of Campion College), and a Catholic Critique of Marxist engagements with Scripture (by Robert Tilley of the Catholic Institute of Sydney). Click on the links for abstracts and publicity materials. There is an option available for dinner (A$20) after the presentations, if readers could RSVP Matthew Tan at m[dot]tan[at]campion[dot]com[dot]au before 24th September.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National has also produced a couple of informative programs in podcast form in recent weeks on this very intersection. The first program is entitled  “Religious Diversity, Truth and Authenticity“, a series of interviews of participants at the Australian Philosophy of Religion Conference. It features philosophers such as Richard Kearney and Kevin Hart, and theologians such as Anthony Kelly of ACU. For some strange reason, The Divine Wedgie’s editor at large, Matthew Tan, also made it into the final edit.

The second program, “Theology and the Good Society“, discusses whether Christian Theology is emerging as a “third way” over the seemingly moribund politics of the Left and Right. It does so via interviews with figures from the theological movement known as Radical Orthodoxy, namely John Milbank (University of Nottingham), Philip Blond (of the think-tank ResPublica) and Adrian Pabst (University of Kent).

Finally, readers in Sydney might be interested in the blog Theology in Sydney, which acts as a clearing house for theologically toned events in the Sydney area.