Calvary Evangelical Church, Brighton, UK

We have always told stories to make sense of the world. But in the postmodern world the story is all there is. Christians must help the Western world recover the big picture, the metanarrative.

Steve Ellacott PhD FIMA (Reader in Computational Mathematics, University of Brighton)

Listen to the talk on MP3 here

There are are deep longings in our hearts. We try to fulfil them in many different ways. We all want to be happy, successful, intimate with others, healthy, safe and whole as people, attractive and popular, satisfied and content, in a place that is home to us. How have Christian thinkers like C.S. Lewis (writer of the Narnia stories) understood these longings? Can these needs be met? And how can they be met?

Tom Price, our guest speaker, is part of the team at Damaris, an educational charity that seeks to relate biblical Christian faith and contemporary popular culture. He has a degree in philosophy, and has written a number of articles on how current culture and Christianity relate to each other. He was the founding editor of the award-winning website bethinking.org from which this series of talks takes its name.

Listen to the talk on MP3 here

The culture we live in is like the air we breathe: most of the time we don't think about what we're letting inside us. But just like the air we breathe, the culture around us is vital for sustaining our lives and making us who we are, with the potential either to keep us healthy or bring us disease and even death.

Each culture has its own set of answers to questions like 'who are we?', 'what is the good life?' and 'what is truth?' Since the 1970s, the answers in our culture have been increasingly shaped by what many call 'postmodernism', causing one of the biggest cultural changes in the past 2000 years: people don't think in the same way they used to 100, or even 30 years ago. The postmodern shift has implications that Christians can't ignore, not only for our evangelism but for the way that we understand our own faith.

Answering our culture's tough questions about the Christian faith. Are reason and faith opposed? Does Christianity breed violence, intolerance and hatred? Is Christianity simply a set of rules? Aren't all religions essentially the same?

Brian Douglas (DPhil candidate, University of Sussex)

Listen to the talk on MP3 here

Fighting dragons, fairy tale endings, and the Christian faith.

Brian Douglas (DPhil candidate, University of Sussex)

Listen to the talk on MP3 here (Slides are available here as a PowerPoint PPT file.)

The resurrection of Jesus is a powerful argument for Christian faith, both to encourage Christians and to challenge atheists. (With particular reference to N. T. Wright's book with the same title.)

Philip Wells (former student, University of Sussex, and pastor of Calvary Evangelical Church)

Listen to the talk on MP3 here

Do Christians have a responsibility towards creation?

Philip and Miriam Sampson (Philip Sampson is author of Six Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization, IVP)

Listen to the talk on MP3 here (There was also a handout, with relevant Bible verses, available here as a PDF file.)

A workshop session on modernity and postmodernity in Christian perspective.

Philip and Miriam Sampson (Philip Sampson is author of Six Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization, IVP)

Listen to the talk on MP3 here

We have always told stories to make sense of the world. But in the postmodern world the story is all there is. Christians must help the Western world recover the big picture, the metanarrative.

Steve Ellacott PhD FIMA (Reader in Computational Mathematics, University of Brighton)

Listen to the 2008 repeat of the talk on MP3 here