Dr Meredith Lake presented a public lecture Under the Skin? Debating the Bible in Australian History at the Sydney College of Divinity on 17 October 2018.

From the outset of its career in Australia, the Bible has been a many splendored thing – a word read, gossiped, preached and tattooed, thought to be everything from a resented imposition to the very Word of God. All kinds of people have had their opinion on its authority and meaning, too, with dynamic and defining consequences for Australian society and culture. At a time when the public conversation about Christianity is often stale and almost always polarised, the lecture explored some of the surprising ways that the Bible has found its way under Australian skin.

Dr Meredith Lake is an Honorary Associate in the Department of History at the University of Sydney. She is an historian of religion, culture and society in Australia, with a PhD from the University of Sydney. Meredith is the author of The Bible in Australia: a cultural history (NewSouth Books, 2018), as well as a student guide to The Bible Down Under (Bible Society, 2016) and a major study of faith-based social welfare (Faith in Action: Hammondcare, (UNSW Press, 2013).