Theos

Home / Events / Archive

The Political Samaritan: What a Parable Tells Us About Politics and Religion Today

The Political Samaritan: What a Parable Tells Us About Politics and Religion Today

On 16th March 2018, Nick Spencer delivered the 2018 Edgar W. Conrad Memorial Lecture in St Lucia, Australia.

Interested by this? Share it on social media. Join our monthly e–newsletter to keep up to date with our latest research and events. And check out our Supporter Programme to find out how you can help our work.


Why is it – in our supposedly secular age – that so many politicians like to quote Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan? From Left, Right and Centre, MPs and PMs have used the famous story – although not all in the same way. 

On 16th March 2018, drawing on his highly regarded book, The Political Samaritan, Nick Spencer looked at how the parable has been used (and abused), and what that says about religion, politics and public speech today. And then he asked the killer questions: what does the parable actually mean and which – if any – of the politicians actually get it right?

Emmanuel College

Sir William MacGregor Drive

Saint Lucia, QLD 4067

Australia

7.30–9.00pm

 Image from the Emmanuel Centre

Nick Spencer

Nick Spencer

Nick is Senior Fellow at Theos. He is the author of The Landscapes of Science and Religion (OUP, 2025), Playing God: Science, Religion and the Future of Humanity (2024), and Magisteria: the entangled histories of science and religion (Oneworld, 2023). Nick is host of the podcast Reading Our Times.

Watch, listen to or read more from Nick Spencer

Riverview Room
Emmanuel College
University of Queensland
Sir William MacGregor Drive
St Lucia, Australia QLD 4067

Research

See all

In the news

See all

Comment

See all

Get regular email updates on our latest research and events.

Please confirm your subscription in the email we have sent you.

Want to keep up to date with the latest news, reports, blogs and events from Theos? Get updates direct to your inbox once or twice a month.

Thank you for signing up.

Our use of cookies

This site relies on cookies to work. We'd also like to set optional analytics cookies to help us improve it.

You can read more in our Cookie Notice

Necessary

We use cookies to protect our site and users, and to enable necessary functionality.

Analytics cookies

We would like to set analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it.