October 11, 2019 (7:30pm – 9:00pm)
All Saints Anglican Church: 3889 Ivy Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Galations 5:1

The Fall 2019 Areopagus Lecture at All Saints Anglican Church will feature Dr. D.C. Schindler on the Christian understanding of religious liberty.

The Areopagus Lectures are sponsored by MARS HILL AUDIO to promote a deeper understanding of the theological resources needed to live faithfully amid the challenges of a post-Christian society.

Religious liberty is one of the founding principles of the American political order, and it also lies at the center of Christian existence. But is the meaning of liberty the same in the two contexts? This lecture will argue that not only are these two senses of liberty different, but that they in fact sit uneasily together. In order to see why there is a tension between them, Professor Schindler will spend some time filling out the content of the distinctively Christian notion of freedom, which arises out of the confluence of three traditions: that of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans. Professor Schindler will then compare this to the particular notion of freedom embedded in the right to religious liberty as it is generally conceived today. Given the difference between these two approaches, attempts to protect Christian existence in the contemporary world through appeals to religious liberty threaten to do more harm than good. The challenges we face today call for a return to genuine first principles—not just those of the American founders—and a fundamental rethinking of the basic realities of Christian, and indeed of human, existence.  The contribution of the classical philosophical tradition, because it proceeds and orients itself precisely from first principles, will prove to be indispensable in this regard.

Please RSVP for the event at https://marshillaudio.org/areopagus.

This lecture’s recording is available for purchase from Mars Hill Audio.

Poster image: The Crucified Christ by Rubens