51吃瓜

Where We Live: Critical Perspectives on Our Natural and Built Environments

Each year the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society collaborates with colleagues at the Anglican Diocese of Islands and Inlets to offer programming of interest to both scholars and members of the local community. This year our day-long workshop will involve scholars and professionals in a moderated public conversation about crises that beset the natural and built environments.

Session I: The Natural Environment

Highlighting our panel on the natural environment is , George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive Theology at Drew University in New Jersey. Catherine is a scholar and public intellectual renowned for her ability to think critically about religion, culture, and the relationship between the two. Her latest book, Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy and Other Last Chances, asks deep questions of the Christian tradition and our imperiled contemporary world. Catherine will discuss the most current thinking about how Christians do, can, and must connect their faith lives with the plight of our global climate.

Joining Catherine in conversation will be , Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Vancouver School of Theology. Mari has also dedicated much of her academic career to reflecting on the social implications of the biblical tradition. Her research focuses on ecology, land, migration and belonging in the Hebrew Bible. She is author of The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics: Humans, Nonhumans, and the Living Landscape.

Catherine and Mari will conclude the first session by inviting the audience to engage with them in conversation on the topic.

Session II: The Built Environment

In our second session, we turn our attention to challenges faced by many cities and regions: how to reimagine the environments we build in a manner that makes our communities more affordable, beautiful, sustainable, and conducive to good mental and spiritual health. How do we who think about urban spaces seek to connect beauty, the good life, and the importance of uplifting spaces in our shared lives? The event will be moderated by CBC radio host , author of the recent (and award-winning) Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis. Guests include: Franc D’Ambrosio, principal at in 51吃瓜, British Columbia, and senior architect for some of 51吃瓜’s most iconic and appreciated ; , principal at Wiser Projects and founder of Wiser Development Non-Profit Society, a leading light in the not-for-profit housing sector; , an environmental neuroscientist and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Future Cities Institute at the University of Waterloo; and , Executive Director of the Anglican Diocese of Islands and Inlets, and lead on the Christ Church Cathedral Precinct ‘Building for the Future’ initiative.

This diverse panel of scholars, activists, authors, architects and executives all have a vested interest in creating flourishing, beautiful and humane urban environments. They will come together to discuss big ideas, but also the application of these big ideas to local issues. Some of the questions that have been animating our discussions:

1. What role do capital-R religious communities play in shaping our shared urban spaces (e.g., the big plans underway for the re-imagination of Christ Church Cathedral's property/ies)?
2. How do the public spaces we build/share (even the religious institutions we all inherit) contribute to or work against experiences of solidarity, trauma, loneliness, repose, repair, and reconciliation?
3. What can we learn—vis-à-vis community-building, calming spaces, a sense of public safety, memorialization, etc.—from other cities?
4. What do our current understandings of human communities, or brain structure/function, have to teach us about how we can shape our buildings and public spaces in a life-affirming manner?
5. What role might public art and bold architecture play in the ways we build/use/imagine our religious as well as secular spaces?

In addition to presentations and discussion among the panelists, there will be a moderated audience question and answer period, as well as time for the panelists from each of the two sessions to interact with one another and seek connections. 

This one-day event will allow audience members not just to witness leading scholars and activists discussing issues of great importance to the planet as well our cities, but also to engage our guests and one another, to share a meal, and to become more effective members of civil society. We look forward to hosting this conversation and invite you to hold the date to join us. Register for the workshop using the registration button above.

When: February 8, 2024 5:00-6:30 pm PT

Where: David Lam Auditorium (MAC A144)

As Jeremy Atherton Lin says in his recent book on gay bars, sometimes “inclusivity might not mean everybody. It could indicate the rest of us.” Inclusivity is usually unproblematically taken to be the practice that would allow reconciliation between queerness and church: church needs to learn how to include those called ‘queer’. This talk lays out an alternative approach to queerness and inclusion that recognizes the absent space haunting inclusion: into what is one being included, and by whom? Linn was in conversation with guest respondent Aaron Devor, Chair in Transgender Studies and Professor of Sociology at UVic.

Linn Marie Tonstad is associate professor of theology, religion, and sexuality at Yale Divinity School, and secondary faculty in Religious Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She is the author of two books, God and Difference: Theology, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude (Routledge, 2016) and Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics (Cascade, 2018).

Law, Land, Religion and Reconciliation: A Colloquium.

This workshop explored the implications of the existential shifts in religious life for the stewardship of religious property in contemporary Canada. What are the moral and religious obligations of a religious community that has a lot of assets, deeply-felt religious and social commitments, but few congregants? Why (if at all) is it important for religious communities to honour the wishes of donors from generations past? Whose voices should guide decisions about the future management of institutional property? Where do tax considerations and registered charity status fit in? How are different religious communities responding to changing social realities in Canada in terms of their property use, and what can we learn from these experiences? 

There were talented scholars, clergy, religious institutional staff, and policy-makers working on these questions, and we gathered a cohort to explore and examine the intersecting issues they raise.

Read program here

Keynote Speakers:

Carmen Lansdowne, Moderator of the United Church of Canada and member of the Heiltsuk First Nation.

Kathryn Chan, UVic Law Professor and Acting Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society

David Seljak, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Waterloo.

Please visit this site or our events page for more information as we always update lecture information as soon as it becomes available.  

Watershed Moment: Spirituality, Forests and Fresh Water

featuring Christiana Zenner, Tzeporah Berman, and Deondre Smiles

Date/time: Thursday, March 3rd at 5:30 to 7:00 pm PT

Location: Zoom only

Forests and fresh water are essential to life on our planet. Not surprisingly, they also feature prominently in the ritual, ceremony and the sense of the sublime across religious and spiritual traditions. Yet it is becoming apparent that our forests and bodies of water are increasingly at risk. Around the globe, forest and water management has taken center stage in movements of resistance that emphasize ecological protection and Indigenous rights. Do religion and spirituality have a role to play in our understanding of or response to the crisis? Where do we go from here? Watch our recording from the above link button as our expert panel considered some of the pressing questions of our time.

Tzeporah Berman is an environmental activist, campaigner and writer, and International Program Director at Stand.earth. Deondre Smiles is Assistant Professor of Geography at UVic and a specialist in Indigenous geographies and ways of knowing. Christiana Zenner is Associate Professor of Theology, Science and Ethics at Fordham University and author of Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and Global Water Crises.

Resisting Structural Evil: Climate, Economy and Hope

featuring Cynthia Moe-Lobeda & David Seljak

Date/time: Thursday, December 2 at 5:00 to 6:30 pm PT

Location: Engineering and Computer Science Building 125 

Viewing online: This lecture requires registration to view online. Register with the button seen below.

Climate justice may be the foremost moral challenge of the 21st century. Race and class dimensions of the climate crisis are haunting. While caused primarily by high-consuming people, climate change is wreaking death and destruction foremost on impoverished people who also are disproportionately people of color. How are we to face this crisis with courage, wisdom, agency, and hope? What do spirituality and religion bring to this question? What is the role of economic life in building sustainable Earth-human relations? Join us for honest and hopeful inquiry into these burning questions.

Cynthia Moe-Lobeda is Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and author of the award-winning Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation.

David Seljak is Professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Waterloo.

Values for a New World: An interview with Noam Chomsky

Values Are the New Religion: An Interview with Linda Woodhead

In the 2020-2021 John Albert Hall Lecture Series "Values for a New World," Linda Woodhead delivered a lecture entitled "Values Are the New Religion." In this follow-up interview with host Ian Alexander, Linda goes deeper into aspects of her thesis. July 2021.

A video recording of this interview is available .

Up Close and Personal with Herbert O'Driscoll

Herbert O’Driscoll is a respected and beloved writer, preacher, and proponent of Celtic spirituality. Last fall, he turned ninety. This spring, his latest book is being published. Entitled A Greening of Imaginations, it imagines the “back stories” of some favourite Biblical scenes and characters. In conversation with Ian Alexander, Herbert O’Driscoll reflects on his life and reads from his new book, copies of which will be available for purchase and autographing.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Light refreshments from 9:30 am

Public Interview at 10:00 am

St. George's Anglican Church, Cadboro Bay, 3909 St. George's Lane

Please consult the  for more information.

Reforming Tradition: A Conversation with Remi De Roo

Bishop Remi de Roo and Ian Alexander

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Hickman Building, Room 105

11:45am to 1:15pm

A video recording of this lecture is available .

Interview Synopsis: One of Canada’s longest serving Catholic bishops, participant in Vatican II, scholar, author, advocate on behalf of the poor and critic of capitalism--Remi De Roo has led a remarkable 94 year life of faith in action. Join him for an intimate encounter that includes a public interview with former CBC host Ian Alexander, and questions from the audience. Light refreshments will be served.

Speaker Bio: Remi De Roo holds a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, in Rome, and is the only living Canadian bishop to have participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council. He is the author of several books, including Cries of Victims--Voice of God (1986) and Chronicles of a Vatican II Bishop (2012). Considered a radical by some for his social views and reforming spirit, De Roo has clashed with popes and prime ministers in his efforts to champion the goals of Vatican II.

An Interview with Lois Wilson

Lois Wilson and Ian Alexander

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

First Metropolitan United Church,
932 Balmoral Road at Quadra Street

7:00 to 8:30 pm

A video recording of this lecture is available .

Interview Synopsis: Retired senator, first female moderator of the United Church of Canada, prolific author, national and international advocate and administrator—Lois Wilson has led a remarkable ninety-year life of faith in action. Join her for an intimate encounter, including a first-person interview with former CBC host Ian Alexander, questions from the audience, and a chance to meet Lois in person.

Speaker Bio: Lois Miriam Wilson served as the first woman president of the Canadian Council of Churches (1976-1979), first Canadian president of the World Council of Churches (1983-1991), Chancellor of Lakehead University (1991-2000), and Canadian senator (1998-2002). She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Pearson Medal of Peace. Dr. Wilson is currently a senior fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto, and distinguished minister- in-residence at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto.

Final instalment of the Values for a New World series: 

Values for a New World: A Panel Discussion

Tuesday, March 16th, 2021  11:00 am to 12:30 pm PDT

on JAH Zoom - A video recording of this lecture is now available .

This is a panel discussion featuring:  

• Esi Edugyan (1st speaker of the series)
• Miroslav Volf (2nd speaker of the series)
• Noam Chomsky (3rd speaker of the series)
• Thomas Homer-Dixon (4th speaker of the series)
• Linda Woodhead (5th speaker of the series)

Fifth instalment of the Values for a New World series: 

Values are the New Religion with Linda Woodhead

Thursday, March 4th, 2021  11:00 am to 12:30 pm PST

on JAH Zoom 

A video recording of this lecture is now available .

‘Value statements’ have become ubiquitous, churned out by schools, hospitals, businesses and national governments. Some are enshrined in law. By examining this rush to values and considering which values are most frequently cited, we can learn much about ourselves, our institutions and our societies. But it is in understanding the tensions and clashes between values that we have the best opportunity for thinking constructively about our possible, probable and preferable futures.

Linda Woodhead is Distinguished Professor of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University in the UK. Her research focuses on the decline of institutional religion and the rise of new spiritualities, values, and nonreligious commitments.

Fourth instalment of the Values for a New World series: 

Commanding Hope with Thomas Homer-Dixon

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021  5:00 pm to 6:30 pm PST 

on JAH Zoom

A video recording of this lecture is now available .

Our environment, economy, societies, cultures and institutions are changing dramatically—too often for the worse. Without radical new approaches, our planet will become poorer, more violent, more authoritarian. Thomas Homer-Dixon offers an argument for reinvigorating our cognitive strengths and belief systems to affect urgent systemic change, and renew hope in a positive future for everyone on earth.

Following the lecture there will be a discussion with panelists Katie Stockdale (philosophy, 51吃瓜), Lisa Kretz (philosophy, University of Evansville), Britt Wray (broadcaster and writer), and Ian Alexander (CBC host and Anglican Diocese of Islands and Inlets), as well as audience Q&A.

Thomas Homer-Dixon is Director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, and University Research Chair in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo. He specializes in the use of complexity science to examine threats to global security. His latest book is Commanding Hope.

Third instalment of the Values for a New World series: 

Confluence of Challenges: The Fate of the Human Experiment with Noam Chomsky

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021  11:00 am to 12:30 pm PST

on JAH Zoom-Zoom registration is now closed.  

 

photo credit: Uli Deck/dpa

The worldwide pandemic has laid bare the existential challenges of our time, including systemic racism, economic inequality and environmental collapse. There are calls to rethink our political systems and social relations. What might this new world look like? Join us to consider the fate of the human experiment with one of the eminent thinkers of our time.

Noam Chomsky is a distinguished linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and political activist. Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, he is author of numerous groundbreaking works on topics ranging from linguistics to war, politics, and mass media. Now in his ninth decade, he remains a trenchant and timely social critic.

Second installment of the Values for a New World series: 

At Home in the World? by Miroslav Volf

Thursday, January 7, 2021  5:00 to 6:30 pm

on JAH Zoom

A video recording of this lecture is now available. Please visit this to access to the video. Thank you for your interest in our lectures.

Humans have always longed to be at home in the world. Yet today, we seem further away than ever from realizing that dream, more alienated than ever from the “world of things” around us. Drawing on the resources of the Christian tradition, this lecture will sketch a vision of the world as a “home of homes” and attempt to reignite longing for it.

Miroslav Volf is Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale University and Founding Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. He is author of numerous books, including Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation and a global leader in interfaith engagement.

First installment of the Values for a New World series: 

Writing and the Great Change Upon Us: an online conversation between Esi Edugyan & Tim Lilburn

Thursday, December 3, 2020  5:00 to 6:30 pm

on JAH Zoom 

A video recording of this lecture is now available. Please visit t to access to the video. Thank you for your interest in our lectures.

The worldwide pandemic has laid bare the existential challenges of our time, including systemic racism, economic inequality and environmental collapse. There are calls to rethink our political systems and social relations. What might this new world look like? Must it be founded on fundamentally different values and assumptions? What is the role of the writer in these times? Join us for a live discussion with two major Canadian literary figures based in 51吃瓜.

Esi Edugyan is a novelist, essayist and cultural commentator. She is author of the best selling Half-Blood Blues (2011) and Washington Black (2018), and a two-time winner of the Giller Prize, Canada’s highest literary award.

Tim Lilburn is a poet, essayist, and professor. His poetry collection Kill-site won the Governor General’s Award.

Ideafest 2020: Religion, Spirituality and Ecology in the Anthropocene

Thursday, March 5th 2020  7:00 to 9:30 pm UVic Cinecenta

A video recording of this lecture is available . 

Phosphor Tailings Pond #4, Near Lakeland, Florida, USA 2012. photo © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto. Concise photo credit: © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto​ 

Religious traditions and ideas have played many roles throughout history, but one their most common functions has been to provide guidance to humans coping with mysterious and threatening aspects of the natural world. Arguably, we are now in a period some call the “Anthropocene,” in which it is humans who have the most profound impact on the environment and climate. How might scholars understand the role religions have played in creating what many think of as a new geological epoch? How might the scale and implications of these changes be communicated to people responsibly, without inducing paralysis or terror? How might religious communities respond to this new situation? What are the most and least helpful ways of thinking about and responding to this new period? 

In this Ideafest session in the first week of March, participants met at Cinecenta to watch the recent film, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (by Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, and Nicholas de Pencier), and then engaged in a moderated conversation with the film-makers, activists, and scholars of religion, society, and the environment about the implications of this new historical period for our common lives. Our panel included Matthew Humphrey (A Rocha Canada), April Nowell (UVic) and Trevor Hancock (UVic).

This Ideafest event was a part of the 2019-2020 John Albert Hall Lecture series, a collaboration between the CSRS and the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, with generous funding from the John Albert Hall Trust.

“Crossing the Red Lines: What Sex Says about a Changing Arab World”

Thursday, January 30th

5:30 to 7:00 pm Hickman Building (HHB), Room 105

A video recording of this lecture is available .

“If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms.” For the past decade, Shereen El Feki has been travelling across the Arab region, talking to people about sex: what they do, what they don’t, what they think and why. Shereen’s research and advocacy uses sex as a lens to better understand movements on a bigger stage, in politics and economics, religion and tradition.

Shereen El Feki, journalist and Professor of Global Practice at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, is the author of Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, an award-winning look at the intersection of gender, sexuality, politics, economics and religion across the Arab region, now a series of short films airing on BBC World. As Regional Director of Promundo, Shereen is currently leading the largest ever survey on men, masculinities and gender roles in the Middle East and North Africa.

 In the Fall of 2019, University of Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch delivered two public lectures at the 51吃瓜. MacCulloch is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Early Modern Christianity and author of numerous award-winning books, including A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.   

MacCulloch’s Thursday, October 3rd lecture, “Christianity Past, Present and Future: The Big Picture,” refocused the story of Christianity to show what an unexpected product modern Western Christianity was given its origins as an Eastern religion. He emphasised the power of ideas to reshape human affairs, and considers the pasts, the presents and the futures of the world’s most widespread faith.

In his Tuesday, October 8^th lecture, “Christianity and Islam: Drawing the Right Lessons from History,” MacCulloch considered the complicated relationship between two great religions of the Middle East over 1400 years and rejects attempts to frame this relationship as a “clash of civilizations”. Rather, he argued, there was a history of borrowing between Christianity and Islam, both in terms of ideas and practices, and this history needed to be explored as part of any comprehensive effort to understand and engage present difficulties.

Both lectures was held in the Engineering and Computer Science Building (ECS) room 123 from 5:30-7:00pm. Video recordings of the lectures are available for and . Please find a poster here for the lecture information.

The Christian Left and Canadian Politics

The Hon. Bill Blaikie 

in conversation with Lisa Helps, Patricia Lane, Alex Nelson, Mary Louise Meadow and Paul Bramadat

Sunday, March 17th 2019

First Metropolitan United Church, 932 Balmoral Road, 51吃瓜

1:30 - 3:00 pm

In this election year, how might Christians (and non-Christians) interested in progressive politics act and think? Should activists prioritize certain dire global situations (e.g., climate change), other more local challenges (e.g., homelessness), or international crises (e.g., refugees in Europe)? Do progressive Christians and like-minded members of other communities have a special role to play in contemporary Canadian politics? Join us for this open conversation with one of Canada’s senior political thinkers.

For more information, please see the event poster.

Christian Fascism and the Rise of Donald Trump

Christopher Hedges

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Hickman Building, Room 105

5:00pm-6:20pm

A video recording of this lecture is available . An audio recording of the lecture is also available on our account. 

In this free public lecture, author and activist Christopher Hedges discusses the current state of religion and politics in the United States.Christopher Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, Princeton University lecturer and ordained Presbyterian minister. His latest book is  (2018).

Photo credit for posters: Michael Nigro

Light refreshments will be served. For more information, please see the event poster.

An audio recording of the lecture is now available on our account. 

Gender, Justice and the Church

Cheri DiNovo, Jennifer Henry, and Gina Messina moderated by Michelle Slater

Thursday, November 29, 2018

MacLaurin Building, Room A144

5:00pm-6:20pm

A video recording of this lecture is available .

The longstanding and systemic mistreatment, underpayment and sexual harassment of women and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community has been firmly in the public spotlight this past year thanks to movements such as #MeToo and Time’s Up. But how have Christian communities wrestled with these issues? Have there been gains in equality, empowerment and safety in Christian settings? Have Christians been advocates for change in wider society?  Three leading women reformers reflect on the implications of biblical teachings and tradition in the struggle for justice in church and society.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Cheri DiNovo is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada and a former Ontario MPP. She introduced more successful LGBTQ2S+ legislation than any other MPP in Ontario history.

Jennifer Henry is the Executive Director of Kairos: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, and one of Canada’s leading proponents of Indigenous rights, as well as gender and migrant justice.

Gina Messina is associate professor at Ursuline College, and co-founder of the online project . Her most recent book is Jesus in the White House (2018).

Michelle Slater is lead minister at Oak Bay United Church.

If you missed the event, we have a video recording of the panel discussion on .

Why the Reformation Still Matters

Brad S. Gregory

Thursday, November 30, 2017
David Turpin Building, Room A120
5:00 pm - 6:20 pm

A video recording of this lecture is available .

Lecture Synopsis: Regardless of our own religious views or even whether or not we are religious believers at all, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century continues to influence life in North America in the early twenty-first century. What started with one man, Martin Luther, and his objections to misunderstandings and abuses of indulgences quickly became a movement that escaped his control in central Europe, dividing not only evangelicals from defenders of the Roman Church but also evangelicals among themselves. The European religio-political conflicts from the 1520s through the 1640s tore apart a continent, prompting ideological and institutional changes that, taken together, forged the modern Western world as reactions to the problems inherited from the Reformation era. The Reformation unintentionally made Western Christianity into an enduring problem, the solutions to which have circumscribed religion and unintentionally led to the secularization of Western society.

Speaker Bio: Brad Gregory is Professor of History and Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also Director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. From 1996-2003 he taught at Stanford University, where he received early tenure in 2001. He specializes in the history of Christianity in Europe during the Reformation era and on the long-term influence of the Reformation era on the modern world. He has given invited lectures at many of the most prest