Greg Sheridan delivers public lecture on St Paul

On Wednesday the 29th of March, Campion College had the great pleasure of hosting a public lecture on the Letters of St Paul at The Athenaeum Club in Melbourne. Our guest speaker for the evening was Greg Sheridan,  author of God is Good for You, editor at The Australian and a longtime friend of Campion College.

Greg invited those present to consider St Paul within several historical contexts and remarked on his success within a pagan culture.

"Paul was the first urban intellectual to be part of Christian leadership and he uniquely fused three worlds which he mastered," said Greg.

"The Jewish world - which he knew very deeply and was a very passionate follower of - which gave him monotheism and the relationship with God. The Greek world - whose classics he read and language he wrote in  - from which he got rationality and the insights of the great Greek philosophers. And the Roman world - of which he was, unusually for an early Christian, a full citizen - which gave him access to globalisation and to a global vision."

Greg went on to assert that with the exception of Christ, no was one was more important to the spread of Christianity than St Paul.

"Paul invented a new way of being a human being... He saw the world transformed by the presence of Christ and he would never judge things except by the standard of Christ."

The evening concluded with a poignant reflection on St Paul's diminishing presence in broader scholarship despite his significance in the ancient world and enduring influence throughout the centuries.

"The striking lack of Paul anywhere in our education system is a shocking indictment of the lack of cultural literacy and historical literacy we're giving to our students. You cannot possibly understand the modern world if you have no acquaintance with Paul."

Photos of the evening can be seen in the gallery below and a video recording of Greg's lecture will be available to view next week.