Yale theologian Professor Miroslav Volf says the church has two malfunctions: idleness and coercion. Either we wrongly make our faith private and idle, or we make it coercive, lording our beliefs over others. His vision, on the other hand, is for a thoughtful faith, practiced with integrity in community.

It is this vision of a robust public faith which will be at the heart of a new conference to be run next year in Sydney. Volf will be the keynote speaker at this new conference, called ‘Re:thinking: a public faith’, and which is hosted by the Centre for Public Christianity, Arrow Leadership and World Vision.

Apart from Volf, Re:thinking will include sessions from the ABC’s Managing Director, Mark Scott, Vice-Chancellor of Sydney University, Michael Spence, Melinda Tankard Reist (Collective Shout), Tim Costello (World Vision) Mark Sayers (Red Church) and Centre for Public Christianity’s John Dickson and Justine Toh.

The Centre for Public Christianity’s Simon Smart says there’s never been a more important time to be encouraging Christians to be public with their faith.

“Some Christians are tempted in our post-Christian environment to retreat into a holy huddle, while others might get angry and lash out at the culture. Some might even be tempted to water down the message to make it more palatable.

“I guess we’re trying to pick up on a tradition that emerges from people like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, and today, Tim Keller and Miroslav Volf, which is about marching into the public square with generous, respectful, clear, robust communication of the Christian gospel and its implications for life. So it’s in that spirit that we wanted to bring Volf out to speak on this question: how do we as a Christian community, engage post-Christian culture?”

CPX has wanted to bring Volf to Australia for some time, making his appearance at the Re:Thinking conference in March a much-anticipated event. Professor Volf is the founding Director of the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture, and is the author of a number of books, including ‘A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good’ published in 2011.

“Volf is a big name, a serious public intellectual in America, highly regarded not only in the Christian community but more broadly than that,” says Simon. “So it’s great to have him coming to Australia. But the conference will also feature other people working at a high level in their field who are practitioners and who have something to say about what Christianity has to offer.”

Also during the conference, Dr Rachel Kohn, presenter of The Spirit of Things radio programme on ABC Radio National will moderate a discussion among experts about child sexual abuse in the church. On the panel will be a clinical psychologist, a barrister, a newspaper reporter and a priest who has written extensively about the issue. This group will discuss how the church has dealt with sexual abuse historically, and what needs to happen in order for healing to take place.

Miroslav Volf will give a public lecture on the Wednesday night, speaking on whether Christianity should be given a hearing in the public sphere. The session will be open to anyone, and sold as a separate event through CPX.

Simon says Re:Thinking will be a unique opportunity for people who wish to see Christianity participating robustly in the public sphere to consider the challenges and commit to overcoming them.

“One of the biggest challenges for the church is the perception of Christianity by a society that knows very little about what Christianity, at its heart, is about. So overcoming caricatures, being able to speak in a way that recognises the resentment that’s out in the public towards Christianity and the misunderstandings and trying to overcome those, which is not straightforward. I think that’s the biggest challenge.”

Re:Thinking will be held at the Wesley Centre in Sydney from Tuesday 18th-Thursday 20th March, 2014.