ADM Public Lecture
ADM Public Lecture
The ADM Annual Public Lecture recognises and provides a platform for Christian women who are established leaders in their field and who have developed a distinctive approach to engaging our world with the good news of Jesus. The Lecture serves the church and wider public in Sydney and beyond by inviting lecturers who can enrich the public conversation about Christianity and who can inspire and equip Christians with imaginative ways to make the gospel intelligible in their own spheres.
Watch the Annual Public Lecture delivered by Stephanie Kate Judd
Welcome, announcement of the 2022 ADM Fellows and interview with 2021 Fellow Dr Ruth Lukabyo
Q & A Session with Stephanie Kate Judd
Vote of Thanks from Sandy Grant, Dean of Sydney
The Dignity of Our Limits
The emotional register of the past year or more has been dominated by fear and frustration, disappointment and despair. Plans in disarray, divisions inflamed, grief pervasive, our resilience is exhausted and so are we. The constraints imposed on us have forced us to grapple with uncomfortable realities in our common life, in our relationships, and in our selves.
Moments like this afford each of us an opportunity for reflection and introspection into how we are to think about the limitations that are inherent to human life.
In this Annual Lecture traversing law and literature, philosophy and politics, boundaries and bioethics, Stephanie invites you to come alongside her as she explores what it is to be human and finite and very much out of control.
Rather than resisting and railing against them, she suggests that perhaps it is in embracing our frailties and limitations that we come to inhabit a fuller, truer version of humanity – one that befits the dignity bestowed on each of us by a loving Creator and illuminates our place within the Christian story.
Stephanie Kate Judd
Stephanie Kate Judd is a lawyer based on Gadigal land in Sydney. She briefly read theological studies in Oxford, where she pursued an academic interest in disability, dignity, and human rights. Her abiding interest in limitations stems from her experience of living with a physical disability for more than half her life. She has been an ADM Senior Fellow in 2021 and has relished the opportunity to spend more time writing for a broad public readership. Stephanie has written on human dignity in aged care for Eternity, life in lockdown for the Sydney Morning Herald, hosted an episode of Undeceptions podcast on unhealthy anger and most recently has had a poem published in Meanjin.
Photo Gallery
To receive news and updates about the Annual Public Lecture, subscribe to the ADM newsletter:
2020 Annual Public Lecture
2020 Annual Public Lecture
‘Desire, Fear, and Being Human’
Watch the 2020 ADM Annual Public Lecture, delivered by Rev. Dr Katy Smith
Welcome & Acknowledgement of Country
Vote of Thanks from Dr Natasha Moore
Q&A Session
The 2020 ADM Annual Public Lecture - Rev. Dr Katy Smith
Desire reveals what we long for and for the most part should not be denied, so western culture upholds. Yet fear often restrains our desires as expressed by Giordano Bruno, a 16th-century thinker, “desire urges me on, but fear bridles me.” In this worldview, desire and fear conflict causing anxiety or an even more intense desire to conquer or at least harness our fears. When we harness our fears, we will be free to achieve the impossible.
But is this true? Is conflict the only way to understand the immense power that desire and fear have in human life? Is desire good? Can fear be harnessed? Or conquered? Dr Katy Smith offers a different viewpoint shaped by the Bible – one she believes is deeply transformative – as she reflects on desire and fear as part of being human.
Rev. Dr Katy Smith
𝗥𝗲𝘃. 𝗗𝗿 𝗞𝗮𝘁𝘆 𝗦𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗵 is an Old Testament scholar, currently writing a commentary on Exodus for Zondervan. She was Principal of Mary Andrews College, and prior to that Lecturer in Old Testament and Director of Postgraduate Studies at Bible College of South Australia. Katy completed her PhD through Trinity College at the University of Bristol on 'The Persuasive Intent of the Book of Leviticus’.
The 2020 Annual Lecture was held at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney, however in 2020 it was also live streamed online! Watch the video of the lecture above.
Event details:
Thursday 22 October 2020, 7.30pm-9pm
(Livestreamed from St Andrew’s Cathedral)
Photo Gallery
2019 Annual Public Lecture
2019 Annual Public Lecture
‘The Pleasures of Pessimism: On hope, culture and the end of the world’
Watch the 2019 ADM Annual Public Lecture, delivered by Dr Natasha Moore.
Highlights
Welcome & Acknowledgment of Country
Vote of Thanks
Q&A Session
The 2019 ADM Annual Public Lecture - Dr Natasha Moore
It’s 2019, and many of us have a creeping sense that things are getting worse. The post-antibiotic age, late capitalism, populism, transhumanism, not to mention the cascading effects of climate change … are we more fearful than our ancestors? And should we be?
At our 2019 Annual Public Lecture, Dr Natasha Moore, one of Australia’s most distinctive public commentators on Christianity and culture, considered the stories we tell about the future, their net cultural effect, and the rationality or irrationality of hope.
Dr Natasha Moore is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX). She has written for the mainstream media on topics that include politics, books, movies, domestic violence, food, Scripture in schools, war, Thanksgiving, death, taxes, and freedom of speech. She has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and is the author of Victorian Poetry and Modern Life: The Unpoetical Age, as well as the forthcoming For the Love of God: How the church is better and worse than you ever imagined, based on the CPX documentary of the same title.
“The Pleasures of Pessimism”
Dr Natasha Moore explores hope, culture and the end of the world in fourth Annual Public Lecture
Global decay, nuclear war and Zombie apocalypses aren’t exactly the stuff of cheery evening discussions. But Dr Natasha Moore’s address for ADM’s fourth Annual Public Lecture on 7 Nov. at St Andrews Cathedral provided an insightful, far-reaching and even optimistic guide through what she called, “The Pleasures of Pessimism: On hope, culture and the end of the world”. Read more
“The Pleasures of Pessimism” continued
With Dr Natasha Moore
Dr Moore delivered ADM’s fourth Annual Public Lecture on 7 November 2019 at St Andrews Cathedral on “The Pleasures of Pessimism: On hope, culture and the end of the world”. Then came a global pandemic, lockdown and panic buying. And we at ADM wondered how the new isolation affected Dr Moore’s perspective. Read more
2018 Annual Public Lecture
2018 Annual Public Lecture
‘Beautiful Lies? History, religion and our common life’
The Lecture: The full-length version of ADM's 2018 Annual Public Lecture, delivered by Dr Meredith Lake. Hear Meredith speak on 'Beautiful Lies? History, religion and our common life'.
Q&A: Dr Meredith Lake answers questions from ADM CEO, Dr Kate Harrison Brennan and questions from the audience at the 2018 ADM Annual Public Lecture.
The 2018 ADM Annual Public Lecture – Dr Meredith Lake
In an era of fake news, echo chambers and tribal politics, the stories we tell ourselves have enormous power. Some diminish our sympathies and deepen divides. What kinds of stories help enrich our common life? Is it possible to transcend the culture war around religion in society? How does history help us re-imagine Australia now?
DR MEREDITH LAKE
Dr Meredith Lake is an award-winning historian interested in the social and cultural aspects of religion. She is an Honorary Associate of the Department of History, University of Sydney. In 2017 Meredith was an ADM Senior Research Fellow, during which time she completed her most recent book, The Bible in Australia: a cultural history (NewSouth Publishing, 2018). Read more about Meredith at meredithlake.com
Date: Thursday 8 November, 2018
Time: 7:30pm
Location: St Andrew’s Cathedral, Corner of George & Bathurst Streets, Sydney NSW 2000
2017 Annual Public Lecture
2017 Annual Public Lecture
‘Why Pop Culture is Obsessed with Religion’
The 2017 ADM Annual Public Lecture - Alissa Wilkinson
For a long time, religion wasn’t a topic of concern on our screens and stages. In the past few years, that’s changed... So why are we suddenly obsessed with religion?
At the Annual Public Lecture on 12 October, Alissa Wilkinson tackled the topic ‘Why pop culture is obsessed with religion’, exploring the sudden re-emergence of religion as a prominent theme in film and television. She took the audience of 160 people on a tour through contemporary pop culture, uncovering the religious questions at the heart of movies and TV shows.
Alissa Wilkinson
Alissa Wilkinson was the 2017 ADM Visiting Fellow. She is a staff writer and critic at Vox, where she covers film, culture and, sometimes, religion. Alissa is also Associate Professor of English and Humanities at The King's College in New York City, where she teaches courses on criticism and cultural theory. Until September 2016, Alissa was the critic at large at Christianity Today and regularly contributed to a number of publications, including Rolling Stone, Vulture, RogerEbert.com, Pacific Standard, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Books & Culture. Her book, How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, and Politics at the End of the World, co-written with Robert Joustra, was published by Eerdmans in May 2016.
2016 ADM Annual Public Lecture
2016 ADM Annual Public Lecture
‘Is Europe Still Christian'?’
Listen to the lecture:
2016 ADM Annual Public Lecture – Elizabeth Oldfield
Elizabeth Oldfield
Elizabeth Oldfield is the Director of Theos, the UK's leading religion and society think tank. Elizabeth appears regularly in the media, including BBC One, Sky News, the World Service, and writing in The Financial Times. She is a regular conference speaker and chair. Before joining Theos in August 2011, Elizabeth worked for BBC TV and radio. She has an MA in Theology from King’s College London.