Rev Associate Professor Robyn Whitaker will launch the book and facilitate a conversation about the questions it raises with Naomi Wolfe, Dr Jonathan Cornford, and Rev Dr Graham Cole. Deborah Storie, Barbara Deutschmann and Michelle Eastwood will respond.
Thursday 2 May 2024 at 5:30 pm
Yuma Auditorium, Centre for Theology and Ministry
29 College Crescent Parkville,
‘Reading the Bible in Australia’ will be available for purchase at $32 (15% off RRP).
RSVP on Friday 26 April for catering purposes or to receive the livestream link.
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About ‘Reading the Bible in Australia’.
Reading the Bible in Australia invites reflection about how the Bible matters to Australia. Does it still matter? How? Why? What role does the Bible, variously interpreted, play in debates about who Australians have been, are, and aspire to become? Fourteen contributors bring a range of perspectives to critical themes – indigeneity, colonization, and migration; politics and economics; landscape, biodiversity, and climate; gender and marginality. Each chapter explores the past and present influence of a biblical text or theme. Some offer fresh contextually and ethically informed readings. All interrogate the wider outcomes of reading the Bible in different ways. As Meredith Lake’s The Bible in Australia demonstrates, “a degree of biblical literacy – along with critical skill in evaluating how the bible has been taken up and interpreted in our history – can only help Australians grapple with the choices Australia faces.” Love it, hate it, or have mixed feelings about it, there is no getting around the reality that the Bible, and how it is read, still matter.
“I am excited about this book. Why? As an Australian Christian who has read the Bible all his life, it never occurred to me to ask what it means to read it in Australia. I had read it devotionally. I have tried to read it internationally. I have read it as a church member. This book helps me to read it as an Australian in the light of our tragic history with Indigenous people and our response to this continent’s natural environment. 1 commend it.”
– TIM COSTELLO, Executive Director, Micah Australia
“What an exciting collection of ideas are gathered in this book! Here are readers of the Bible from Australia who pay close attention to their important (and fascinating) social, cultural, and geographic ‘contexts’—both past and present. Included here are Insights on Scripture from Indigenous scholars, critiques of politicized uses and abuses of the Bible, and frank confrontations with the challenges of history and contemporary issues.”
– DANIEL L. SMITH-CHRISTOPHER, Professor of Theological Studies, Lyola Marymount University
“What does it mean to read the Bible on the Country of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations? This question remains largely unanswered nearly 250 years after the colonization of Australia. In this significant new work, a diverse group of authors respond to this question in challenging, and innovative ways. This is a critically important contribution to Australian scholarship.”
– JOANNA CRUICKSHANK, Associate Professor in History, Deakin University.
Deborah R. Storie lectures in New Testament with Whitley College/University of Divinity and is Senior Pastor with East Doncaster Baptist Church.
Barbara Deutschmann is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Divinity.
Michelle Eastwood is Director of Research at Australian Lutheran College.
Cover image: “Healing Prayer” by Safina Stewart
Preview Reading the Bible in Australia here.
You are warmly invited to attend.