NCL-30th-Anniversary-History-Book-WEB

CASE titled ‘Education as Formation,’ which
applied this idea to education.
Both events were given unity by the
underpinning of the act of ‘sending’ God’s
people into the world. Smith argued that the
goal of worship and education are to form
disciples of Jesus, who bear God’s image to and
for the world. Each seeks the formation of actors
who bear witness to God’s coming kingdom.
In the Lectures, Prof Smith challenged some
of our assumptions about why and how we
act, and the central role of the imagination
in shaping our perception of the world and
our action within it. Prof Smith’s address at
the CASE conference was titled ‘Educating the
Imagination: Christian Education as a Pedagogy
of Desire’. Other speakers included Archbishop
Peter Jensen, Prof Trevor Cairney (UNSW),
Dr James Pietsch (St Luke’s Grammar School),
Anne Johnstone (St Catherine’s at Waverley),
David Hastie (Presbyterian Ladies’ College) and
Richard Ford (St Andrew’s Cathedral School).
The conference also offered an opportunity
for Archbishop Jensen to launch the book New
Perspectives on Anglican Education: Reconsidering
Purpose and Plotting a Future Direction (Cairney,
Cowling and Jensen), which also explored
many of the themes of the Lectures and the
conference.
One outcome of the conference was that all
the speakers contributed articles which formed
Issue 31 of Case Quarterly titled ‘Formative
Education’.
2013
The 2013 lectures were delivered by Professor
Stanley Hauerwas from Duke University, who
had also spoken previously at the New College
Lectures in 1990.
The overall theme of the series was The
Work of Theology: Thinking, writing and acting
politically. In the talks, Professor Hauerwas
reflected on his own life and development
as a theologian set against the work of other
theologians, literary theorists, philosophers
and ethicists.
He reminded us that we must never forget
the value of the Church as a place where
the body of Christ worships God in varied
ways as a community of wonder, love and
praise. In particular, he spoke about the many
communities of practice that we inhabit –
families, schools, the church. He also stressed
the role of story in our lives and that of
formation in the life of all of us. He argued that
good theology requires us to make the familiar
strange, and to use language that brings
contrast between our finiteness and God’s
infiniteness.
Case Quarterly Issue 36 featured a paper
from Professor Hauerwas titled ‘Citizens of
Heaven’.
2014
Dr Peter Harrison (now an Australian Research
Council Laureate Fellow), Director of the
Centre of the History of European Discourses
at the University of Queensland, was
chosen to deliver the 2014 lectures. He has
published extensively in the area of cultural
and intellectual history with a focus on the
philosophical, scientific and religious thought
of the early modern period.
The purpose of the three lectures was to
consider the changing boundaries of science
and religion, and consider how the positive
interactions of the past offer insights into
2002-2016 | PROF TREVOR CAIRNEY
Archbishop Jensen to launch the book
NEW COLLEGE LECTURES 30TH ANNIVERSARY
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