HISTORY & HOPE
Why our culture of self-invention needs an anchor in the past and how the Christian story can help.

Join us for a special evening with Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Assoc. Prof. History and Western Civilisation, Australian Catholic University in North Sydney; and Atheist-turned-Christian.

Date: Wed 24 July, 2024
Time: 6.30pm Canapes | 7pm Address and Q&A | 8pm Finish
Venue: St Catherine's School Chapel, Waverley
Enter via Gate 3, Albion Street, or Gate 6 Macpherson St (the Performing Arts & Aquatic Centre) and take stairs/lift to Level 3 and through to the Chapel.
Cost: Adults $15 (inc. light snacks) Students (free)

All welcome!

Speaker
Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is Associate Professor of History in the Western Civilisation Program at ACU. Sarah was educated at Wenona, then attained her Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours, and was awarded the University Medal in 2003. She holds a PhD from Cambridge University and was then a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford University. Her first book “Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire” won the Royal Society of Literature Award for Nonfiction.

Topic
Contemporary culture holds that life is about self-invention and self-fulfilment; the past has little to teach us. We live in an “Ahistoric Age” in which we are profoundly disconnected from history - and our obsession with the novel has unintended consequences. However, there is hope to be found in the Christian story. Drawing upon her expertise as an academic historian and her experience as an atheist who has become a Christian, Irving-Stonebraker presents a positive vision for history and for inhabiting the historic, biblical Christian faith which gives us hope in a rootless age.