The overarching theme for Progressive Christianity Forum 2025 is Challenges, Questions and Values we face in engaging with the Church and the World.

Our November speaker is Rev Michael Dowling, asking What in our faith is indispensable and what isn’t?

What aspects of the Christian faith are, quite simply, indispensable?
What aspects of the Christian faith are, when closely inspected, surplus to requirements?

Is the answer to these questions constant, or does it, and has it changed over time?

But in order to answer such questions, we first need to ask another question: do we agree on what faith actually means?

Does having Christian “faith” simply equate to a bunch of stuff that we happen to believe?
Or is faith a rather more multi-dimensional reality?

Rev Michael Dowling will explore these and other aspects of that intriguing word “faith” on the night.

Raised in the Roman Catholic faith, by his early twenties, traditional Christianity had become so meaningless for Michael that he walked away from the Church for some fourteen years. After completing a B.Sc. (Hons) degree, Michael worked as an analytical chemist, before moving into the field of scientific instruments for twenty years.

In 1993, Michael’s trajectory as a faith outsider altered radically during a personal development workshop, due to a profound experiential realization of connectedness: to his deepest self, to other people, and to the Ultimate Reality we call God. He commenced a Bachelor of Ministry in 2008, starting a pathway to ordination in the Uniting Church in Australia.

Michael has worked as an aged care chaplain and is now a retired minister in the Uniting Church in Australia. An avid and lifelong learner, he maintains an enduring fascination with the interface between science, faith and lived experience.

General admission $15, Concession $12, Live stream $5

Please book online here.