2008 Oxford Summer School

"In Their Footsteps"

29 June - 5 July 2008
Oriel College, Oxford

Nearly 2000 years ago, a small group of people were commissioned with what seemed an impossible task – to preach the message of Christ crucified. As one commentator put it, “a crucified Messiah, son of God or God, must have seemed a contradiction in terms to anyone, Jew, Greek, Roman or barbarian, asked to believe such a claim, and it will certainly be thought offensive and foolish.” Yet the Early Church Fathers reached the world with the gospel and a number of the same objections and complaints that they faced, we still face today.

What can we learn from them? How do we engage with our world today? Despite the fiercest of opposition, the early church did not give up – yet, in the west today, we sometimes feel defeated before we have even tried. How can we allow ourselves to be challenged by their example and how should we respond to the obstacles we come up against?

Oxford itself is no stranger to religious controversy. Many of the world’s leading atheists, agnostics and theists have studied and taught here – and still do. This is a city where bishops have been burned alive at the stake for being protestant heretics and where Wilberforce and Huxley famously debated the origin of man. Yet, nowadays, it is not uncommon for the very notion of God to be dismissed “out of hand” in lectures. How can Christians respond to this? What can be learnt from those who were prepared to face death for the sake of Christ?

Years ago, a hymn was very popular with the China Inland Mission:

Facing a task unfinished, that drives us to our knees,
A task that, undiminished, rebukes out slothful ease.
We, who rejoice to know thee, renew before Thy throne,
The solemn pledge we owe thee, to go and make thee known.

Where other lords beside thee, hold their unhindered sway
Where forces that defy thee, defy thee still today
With none to heed their crying, for life, and love, and light
Unnumbered souls are dying, and pass into the night.

We bear the torch that flaming, fell from the hands of those,
Who gave their lives proclaiming, that Jesus died and rose.
Ours is the same commission, the same glad mission ours,
Fired by the same ambition, to thee we yield our powers.

O Father who sustained them, O Spirit who inspired,
Saviour, whose love constrained them, to toil with zeal untired,
From cowardice defend us, from lethargy awake!
Forth on Thine errands send us, to labour for Thy sake.

Frank Houghton

We hope to see you at our 2008 annual Oxford Summer School, where we will explore all this and more.

 

 

 

" The development of the mind was exceeded only by the surgery on the heart. "

Endorsement from Summer School 2006 attendee