Whether religious or atheist, most Western people have a picture and a sense of the character of God: white robe, white beard, white man. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will trace the origin of this image and consider how it may differ from the way people envisioned God in Biblical times.

Christians talk about “the Church” as the universal body of Christ, made up of all Christians. However, in a more practical, institutional sense, Christians are actually divided into thousands of different denominations, many of which consider their rivals heretical and even non-Christian. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will trace a brief history of Christian schism, outlining the major branches of the movement historically and in the present.

The ideas about the afterlife in heaven and hell are deeply ingrained in modern, popular culture, based on Christian doctrines and imagery from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the present. However, this concept of the afterlife is almost entirely absent from the Old Testament. In making his covenant with Abraham, God does not promise eternal life in heaven. Rather, Abraham is blessed with prosperity, long life, and a vast posterity. In this lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place briefly traces the development of our modern ideas about afterlife from its pagan origins to the present.

The story of the Pharaoh that introduced the worship of one God before the time of Israel. Fourteen hundred years before Christ, the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV rejected the old gods of Egypt and introduced the worship of one God above all: Atun. Although he was able to promulgate a new henotheist (possibly even monotheist) religion during his lifetime, after his death the traditionalists won out, reversed his reforms, and deleted his name from the king lists. We'll look at this remarkably early innovation and its echoes in later monotheistic religion.

Artistic expression and religion have been intertwined since prehistory. From Antiquity to the Modern era religion has provided both inspiration and patronage for artists. Paintings of animals and hunts in caves may have related to Animism: calling upon their spiritual power. Classical sculpture and painting were focussed on depicting the gods and the stories of Greek and Roman mythology. In much the same way that casting an actor for a role in a film adaptation of a book tends to overwrite a future reader’s picture of a character (e.g., try envisioning Gandalf without seeing Ian McKellen), having a statue or a picture of a god affects the way a worshipper envisions the divine. Perhaps for this reason, religious reformers at various points in history have objected to picturing the gods, or especially picturing God. Ancient Israelites forbid graven images of Yahweh, a prohibition that expanded to any depiction or even saying his name aloud. Likewise, Islam forbids depicting God (Allah) and the prohibition has expanded to depictions of God’s prophet, and in some interpretations any human or animal forms. Christians too have a complicated history with religious imagery from the Iconoclasm which divided the Byzantine Empire to the Protestant destruction of statues and imagery during the Reformation. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will explore why artwork has been such a charged issue within the religions of the West from Antiquity to the present.

The role of women in many historical and religious narratives can be downplayed or ignored. In this talk, you will get to know about the strong and spunky women who played a pivotal role in the early days of Islam.

In the first and second centuries, Jewish people engaged in a series of large-scale insurrections against the authority of the Roman Empire. The first of these engagements, fought between 66 and 73 CE, is the most famous and resulted in the final destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the end of Judaism’s “Second Temple Period.” This had enormous consequences for Judaism and for Christianity which was evolving from its origins as a Jewish sect into a new religion in its own right. A little more than half a century later in the year 132, Jews in Judea revolted against Roman authority one final time. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, who was acclaimed as a Messiah, the rebels temporarily established an independent Jewish Kingdom. The powerful Roman Emperor Hadrian sent between 60,000 and 120,000 Roman soldiers to the theatre, which mercilessly crushed the rebellion. The Romans destroyed nearly every village in Judea and many as 100,000 Jews were sold into slavery. The failure of the revolt had enormous consequences for the development of Rabbinic Judaism — the main branch of the religion that has come down to us today. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the causes, scope, and consequences of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, including its legacies today.

The great Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas believed it was possible to prove that God exists by reason alone (i.e., without relying on scripture or revelation) and he assembled 5 arguments which he believed did just that. He was not alone. Christian theologians like Anselm of Bec and philosophers like René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz have been similarly confident. Medieval Muslim theologians including Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) came to similar conclusions as did the Medieval Jewish theologian Maimonides. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will outline some of the major arguments proposed by these figures and consider their merits.

The modern Jewish nationalist ideology of “Zionism” traces its origins to a movement founded by Theodor Herl in 1897. The movement evolved considerably during the 20th century in the wake of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine in 1948. As conflicts between Israelis, Palestinians, and their neighbors have evolved, so too have ideas about nationalism, imperialism/colonialism, rights to self-determination, and international law. The idea of Zionism is further complicated by Christians, some of whom support a “gathering of Israel” as a precursor for Armageddon and bringing about a literal end to the world. Before embarking on a trip to the West Bank of Palestine this November as a representative of Churches for Middle East Peace, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the history of “Christian Zionism” and its precursors.

Pharaoh Akhenaten promoted the exclusive worship of the Aten in ancient Egypt, rejecting all other gods centuries before monotheism developed in Israel. Was monotheism first invented during the Amarna period?

The Roman Empire a military, political, economic, social, and spiritual crisis in the 3rd century, which led to significant transformations (which historians mark as the end of the Classical period and the transition to Late Antiquity). Although many had earlier roots, mystery religions flourished in Late Antiquity. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will review various cults including the mysteries of Eleusis, Samothrace, Mithras, and Isis. Should Christianity be considered a mystery religion and/or did it absorb practices from its ancient rivals?

The Hebrew Bible limits offering sacrifice to a single location: a Temple or “house for the Lord” built in Jerusalem. The original temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 bce and the second temple, built under Persian rule and greatly enlarged by Herod was destroyed by the Romans in 70 ce. The centrality of the Temple for ancient Judaism is illustrated by the names historians give to the era: “The First Temple Period” and the “Second Temple Period.” Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity developed along diverging paths in the wake of the Second Temple’s destruction. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at what we can know about the historic temples and trace the history of the contested sacred site from Antiquity, through the Middle Ages, to the present.

Did Zoroastrianism shape the way we think about good and evil, the afterlife, and the end of the world? How much of modern Judaism and Christianity can be traced back to this tradition? The reforms of the ancient Iranian religion by the prophet Zarathustra led to the foundation of Zoroastrianism, which many religious studies scholars identify as the first “world religion.” Zarathustra focused the faith on the worship of the supreme God known in the Avestan language as Ahura Mazda (“Lord Wisdom”). Ahura Mazda is nevertheless opposed by a cosmic devil named Angra Mainyu (“Evil Spirit”), which accounts for the existence of evil in the world. This struggle is predicted to continue until the end of the world, when a savior will appear, resurrect the dead for final judgment, and establish a new world where evil has no place. While ideas like a cosmic devil, resurrection of the dead, the Apocalypse, final judgment, and an afterlife in heaven and hell were absent in Judaism in the First Temple Period, they became central to many sects of Judaism in the Second Temple Period—after the Persian conquest of Babylon allowed the Judean exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple under Persian rule. Nevertheless, dating Zoroastrian practices remains difficult due to limitations in historical sources. In this lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place surveys the available evidence to assess the extent to which Zoroastrian beliefs and practices influenced the development of Jewish and Christian traditions.

The rise of atheism in modern Western societies is often treated as a rejection of religion—but what if this cultural trend is more accurately understood as part of Protestantism itself? In this live lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place explores how Protestant reforms—especially the rejection of Catholic tradition, the doctrine of sola scriptura, the emphasis on rational inquiry, and the rise of literalist interpretations of scripture—created fertile ground for natural religion and Enlightenment-era deism, and ultimately for an ethical framework devoid of spiritual or supernatural elements. We will also consider how modern atheism continues to engage in dialogue with Evangelicalism—another modern expression of Protestantism—echoing the way theologically opposing movements have remained in conversation throughout Christian history.

The historical Jesus and his disciples were all Jewish. In his lifetime and for decades after, the followers of Jesus did not see themselves as part of a religion separate from Judaism, at most they were a sect within Judaism, like other contemporary sects including the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. That changed in the second half of the 1st century, as individuals and communities who continued to testify of Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, were expelled from synagogues. The groups, now calling themselves “Christians,” began to emerge as a new religion, which sought to separate itself from their former co-religionists. The New Testament’s gospels, written toward the end of the 1st century reflect this historical context (and not the context of Jesus’ lifetime). This is especially true in the Gospel of John where Jesus speaks of “the Jews” as if they were a separate group that he is not a part of. Unfortunately, the negative portrayal of Jews in the Gospel of John has informed attitudes among some Christians to this day, serving as a precedent for and a cause of Antisemitism. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will review the portrayal of Jews in the Gospel of John and its unfortunate legacies.

Between 1946 and 1956, a remarkable set of ancient scrolls was found buried in caves at Qumran, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank of Palestine. These scrolls proved to be the remains of the library of a Jewish community of the Second Temple Period, which most scholars identify with the sect of the Essenes. In addition to providing scholars access to the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, the scrolls included texts relating to the Essene community, including their apocalyptic beliefs as they anticipated the world’s end and their expectations of the Messiah. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will survey what the Dead Sea Scrolls tell us about the Essenes, and consider their relationship with the followers of Jesus and John the Baptist.

Jesus and his original followers were Jews, but because the first Christians quickly went into schism with their former co-religionists, Jesus’ Jewish roots have often been obscured. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the historical Jesus and the earliest Christian groups within the context of Second Temple Judaism and contemporary Jewish sects, teachings, and practices.

Exploring Muslim sources in order to understand how Islam experienced the Crusades. Can we reconstruct a less biased, more accurate picture of these "holy wars"? Can we learn lessons we can apply in 21st century world?

Encounter World Religions Centre presented "Mysticism of the Sufis" at Toronto Centre Place on April 17, 2018. Brian Carwana explored the rich traditions of Sufi mysticism. From the famous whirling dervishes to poets and ascetics, Sufism cuts across Muslim sectarian divides and provides an important, inward dimension for the religion, which receives little notice outside the movement.

How compatible is the Hebrew Bible with Greek philosophy? As interpreted by the 1st century CE Jewish Egyptian author Philo of Alexandria, the two are one and the same. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place looks at how Philo recast Moses as a philosopher king work how his allegorical interpretations presaged and influenced later Christian understandings of scripture.

The world’s religions have complex and often troubling relationships with the institution of slavery. Although some Christians fought for abolition of the slave trade based on their faith, others used the Bible to justify keeping other humans as property. The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam arose in an era of slave societies. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at their long, complex, and often unfortunate relationships with the institution.

The emergence of Sikhism in 15th Century India as an alternative path to Hinduism & Islam. FREE OPEN LECTURE with Brian Carwana, director of the Encounter World Religions Centre. Let's explore the emergence of Sikhism in 15th Century India as an alternative path to Hinduism & Islam. We'll consider how the new tradition drew from and rejected elements from the two older religions.

The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 bce ended the First Temple Period of ancient Israelite religion. The prophet Jeremiah and remnants of the army fled to Egypt, while the royal family and members of the nobility were taken captive in Babylon. That enforced exile continued until the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonians in 539 bce and allowed the exiles to return to rebuild Jerusalem (under Persian rule). John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will explore this period, which saw the beginnings of diaspora Judaism and its many lasting legacies including its impact on the development of the Bible.

Noah’s Ark is one of the best known stories of the Bible and many other cultures have flood stories that predate Genesis by centuries and millennia. While some people still read the story literally and imagine it is history, others look for a kernel of historic truth around which these legends grew. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will examine some of these theories and the likelihood that the idea of a universal Flood is entirely mythic.

What can we know about the historical Jesus of Nazareth? How and why does the life of the historic figure differ from competing (and contradictory) accounts in the New Testament? What can other sources tell us, including non-Christian accounts as well as gospels left out of the canon? John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will outline an overview of what can and cannot be known about the historical Jesus and will talk about the difference between the portrait painted by academic history, the portraits painted by scripture, and the experience of the divine Christ as understood by Christians.

A guide for westerners to make sense of the overwhelming visual iconography and rituals of Hinduism. The overwhelming visual iconography and confusing ritual practices of Hinduism defy our expectation that religion is all about Books & Belief. Let's step outside traditional Protestant-biased perspectives and explore Hinduism as a banquet to the eyes served in a thousand forms. Let's consider how spirituality is experienced through a celebration of the visual.

Hell looms large in many Christians' beliefs about the afterlife, but the idea isn't found in the Old Testament. God doesn't warn Adam and Eve that the consequences of sin include confinement to hell. Moses and the prophets don't threaten the children of Israel with hellfire. Why not? Because the idea of hell had not yet been invented or brought into Judaism. We'll look at the origins of the idea.

While Muhammed is not considered a true prophet in the Christian religion, Muslims have a very positive view of Jesus. In the Quran, Jesus is described as the Messiah, is miraculously born of a virgin, performs miracles, and calls disciples. But the Muslim picture of Jesus diverges in key ways: he is not crucified or resurrected and he is not considered God incarnate or the Son of God. Instead, he is the penultimate prophet, preceded by John the Baptist and succeeded by Muhammed (God’s ultimate prophet). John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at how Jesus is understood in Islam, connecting the origins of these traditions within early Christianity’s diverse communities.

The 19th century myth that continues to claim the heritage of pre-Columbian North Americans today. The centuries following the renewed 1492 contact between the world's eastern and western hemispheres were devastating for the indigenous peoples of the Americas whose population was continually decimated by imported diseases for which they lacked immunity. By the early 19th century, so few indigenous people remained that European Americans doubted they could have ever built the massive number of earthworks that covered the North American landscape. Instead they created a myth that the mounds must have been built by a lost civilized race that was ultimately exterminated by the American Indians. The most successful telling of this myth is found in Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon. We will look at how the myth of the mound builders evolved and its continuing consequences.

Daoism - Eastern Philosophy Series. Daoism is one of the great philosophical and religious traditions of China. Emphasizing balance, spontaneity, and action without intention, it is often contrasted with the rigid rituals and social order proposed by Confucianism. We'll explore the philosophical concept of the Dao and how it interacted with South Asian Buddhist ideas to give rise to a new and distinctive Buddhism in China.

The history of a religion that spread across the world from the Middle East to Europe and China before going extinct. Founded by the Iranian prophet Mani in the 3rd century AD, Manichaeism was a successful world religion for over a millennia and was briefly (before the founding of Islam) Christianity’s chief rival in the West. We’ll look at the teachings of Mani and the spread of his religion from Europe to China, along with its eventual decline and extermination.

Although he could not define the term “pornography,” US Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart famously declared “I know it when I see it.” Likewise, many of us think we know what religion is, but it turns out that we are not working from a meaningful definition. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will show how Western ideas about “religion” are fully rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition and have little relation to the experiences of non-Western cultures.

What is spirituality and how does it differ from religion and philosophy? John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will attempt to unpack our many different uses of the word “spirituality.” The focus will be on: (1) concern with the interior life of individuals, (2) belief in the otherworldly, (3) mysticism and ecstatic connection with the divine, (4) Western elite esotericism and occultism, (5) Anti-clericalism, (6) Western folk magic, (7) 19th Century spiritualists, (8) Western appropriation of alien traditions, (9) New Age eclecticism, and (10) Neo-paganism.

The northern Kingdom of Israel, centered on its capital Samaria, was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 720 bce. Many members of the nobility were deported to Mesopotamia where they eventually assimilated, the so-called “Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.” However, the overwhelming majority of the northern Israelite people continued to live under Assyrian rule in the provinces of Samaria, Megiddo, and Gilead. When Assyrian rule was replaced by Babylonian and finally Persian rule, the people of Samaria (the Samaritans) continued to maintain their Israelite identity and even offered to help the returning Judean exiles (the Jews) rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. This offer was refused and over time, Jews and Samaritans became bitter rivals. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at Samaritan history from antiquity to the present.

In the gospel accounts, Jesus’ ministry begins with his baptism by a figure named John the Baptist, whose own disciples continued to revere him after his execution. Many historians have argued that the historical Jesus was originally a disciple of John the Baptist. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at what is known about the historical John, his practice of baptism, and his legacy in both Christianity and also Mandaeism (a small, ancient religion which may trace its origin to John’s disciples).

The Gospel of Matthew tells us that "magi" from the East brought gifts to the infant Jesus following a mysterious star. Western Christianity commemorates this event with the feast of Epiphany, on January 6. What do we know about these wise men? Where did they come? Were they kings or Zoroastrian priests? Is there any evidence of a new star? We'll look at all these and other questions to reveal the meaning of this story from a mythological and theological view point.