Ron Choong, founder and director of the Academy for Christian Thought, will give the 2018 Andrew S. Burgess Lecture in Global Mission. Join us for the lecture on Thursday, Jan. 25, at 4 p.m. in the Olson Campus Center’s Chapel of the Incarnation.
Choong will speak on “Religious Encounters along Chinese and Indian Silk Roads: Reflections on the Spiritual and Inter-Religious Issues in Christian Missions.”
One of the most formative contexts for the emergence of Christian apologetics was the Old Silk Road between Venice and X’ian via Central Asia, a route that dates from Roman times to the 17th century. Here, traders from Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic backgrounds encountered each other and exchanged ideas, which resulted in the development of new theological and cultural paradigms. In this engaging lecture, Choong will bring together his interdisciplinary approach to apologetics using the Old Silk Road as a springboard for putting history, cognitive neuroscience, human origins, inter-religious engagement, and theology in conversation with one another. The result will be insights into Choong’s spiritual quest for God’s presence in the world by detecting the fingerprints of God in the beauty and abundance of created nature.
The Burgess Lecture is made possible by a fund established in honor of the life and work of Andrew S. Burgess, former missionary, missionary executive and professor of missions at Luther Seminary.
Watch online
The 2018 Burgess Lecture will be livestreamed for free. Visit Luther Seminary’s Lifelong Learning website for a link to the presentation beginning Jan. 25 at 4 p.m. (CST).