L’Abri Rochester

2023 Conference Highlights: Higher Ed. - Western Education and its Telos (Purpose) Through Time - Peter Merz - Rochester L'Abri Conference The First in our interim 'conference highlights' series, this lecture deals with the changes in western education's purpose through time. Peter Merz of English L'Abri takes us from the ancient Greeks right up to our present moment, illuminating many ubiquitous...

Church historians sometimes speak of the Greek East and the Latin West, as if Christian history were neatly divided between the two. This tidy division omits a third branch of the early church: Syriac Christianity. This lecture will introduce the Syriac tradition with special emphasis on the value of Syriac literature for Biblical studies, including textual criticism, translation, and the history...

Nothings is more emblematic of Modernity than the ‘Machine’. Their power and efficiency have long entranced the Modern Mind. But, as the power of technique was applied not just to the Natural World but to Human Society itself, proper concerns arose. Were machines serving Man or was Man getting reduced to a cog in the machine. And today, with the rise of self-driving cars and Artificial Intelligenc...

This 40 minute lecture (followed by discussion) will introduce the vision of atonement (reconciliation and redemption) in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, the popular seven volume fairytale of magical beasts and the beloved lion, Aslan, a Christ figure. The atonement involves what is known as the Ransom Theory which can be found in some interpretations of the Bible and in early Christian the...

Science and Faith -- for many Christians (and non-Christians) this can be a difficult combination. Major flashpoints are often around theories of origins (cosmology, evolution) and neuroscience, and are seen as the cause of doubt and the road to unbelief. And discussions about science, whether among Christians or with people who are not Christian, often devolve into rather technical discussions, s...