I am speaking on Melvyn Bragg’s BBC4 programme In Our Time on the Philosophy of Hope, together with Beatrice Han-Pile and Robert Stern.
Listen at the BBC Radio 4 page.
Hope (G.F. Watts, 1886, Tate Britain)
Oxford History of Modern German Theology
My colleagues Johannes Zachhuber (Oxford), David Lincicum (Notre Dame) and I have just signed a contract with Oxford University Press for a 3-volume, edited Oxford History of Modern German Theology to be published around 2022.
More information is available at the project website.
Thurber Lecture on C.S. Lewis’ Images of New Creation
A few weeks ago, I gave a Thurber Lecture at the American Church in Paris on Images of New Creation in C.S. Lewis.
Many of C.S. Lewis’s stories – Narnia, Perelandra, The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces — are inspired by images of new creation. We will be discussing what makes these images so rich and vibrant, and how they shape C.S. Lewis’s Christian outlook. We will discuss the ideas – both religious and literary – that Lewis draws upon in crafting these images of new creation, and how they can inspire us, too, as we seek to shape our life and our world according to God’s promise.
You can watch the lecture on Vimeo:
Symposium: Religion & Philosophy in Germany, 1918 – 1933
Prof. Thomas Pfau (Duke University) and I are convening a small symposium on Religion & Philosophy in Germany, 1918-1933, at Duke University in November. Please see the symposium website for more information. Spaces are very limited, but if you are interested, please email me.
Oxford Handbook of 19th-Century Christian Thought
OUP has just announced the Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought, to be published in June 2017, on which Joel Rasmussen, Johannes Zachhuber and I have been working for the last four years. Visit the catalogue or see the Table of Contents below.
Table of Contents
New website for Systematic Theology at St Andrews
We’ve been working on a brand-new website for Systematic & Historical Theology at St Andrews. Read about our programmes, activities, and people, and browse pictures and video: http://theology.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk.
School of Divinity video
With Alex Shaw Photography, we have recently created a short film about St Mary’s College, the Divinity School of St Andrews. Have a look:
Theology & Arts Initiatives
In September, St Vladimir’s Seminary (New York) hosted an unscripted workshop of a dozen scholars to think through the possibilities for a Sacred Arts Initiative within the Orthodox Church. Participants included composer Ivan Moody, iconographer George Kordis, Helen Evans (Curator of Byzantine Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), as well as scholars in literature (Mary Carruthers), art history (Annemarie Weyl Carr, Vasileios Marinis), music (Margot Fassler, Peter Jefferey), philosophy (Gordon Graham) and theology (Peter Bouteneff and Richard Schneider, organizers; me). The workshop concluded with a public panel entitled ‘Rethinking Sacred Arts’.
A report about the workshop, and links to a podcast of the public panel and to a photo gallery, can be found on the Orthodox Church in America website.
Earlier this summer, I was in London for the first of two colloquia on Image as Theology organized by Casey Strine (Sheffield),Alexis Torrance (Notre Dame), and Mark McInroy (St Thomas), and bringing together Biblical scholars and theologians around questions of images functioning as theology.
At home in the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts, we are starting our own ‘theological art’ initiative, TheoArtistry, spearheaded by my colleague George Corbett and involving our part-time professor Sir James MacMillan, which aims to bring together practising artists and our theologians to create, perform and curate new art. More information is available here.
Colloquium: “The Doctrine of God – Conversations with Paul S. Fiddes”
On Saturday, 16 April 2016, the School of Divinity at St Andrews is hosting a one-day colloquium on the Doctrine of God in conversation with Paul Fiddes.
In conversation with Paul Fiddes, we will discuss pre-circulated papers by
Steve Holmes (St Andrews)
Ian McFarland (Cambridge)
Andrew Moore (Oxford)
John Webster (St Andrews)
Judith Wolfe (St Andrews)
If you would like to participate, please email me (my address can be found on the staff page linked to in the right-hand menu).
Full information is available at the School website.
Reading Group on C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
From April to June, John Perry and I are convening a reading group on C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man for graduates and faculty in theology, philosophy and literature at the University of St Andrews.
We will meet once per week, and read through the book critically, drawing in parallel or supplementary sources such as Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein as appropriate.
After last year’s reading group on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, this is the second series of Readings in Modern Theology & Philosophy. Next year, I hope to read Edith Stein or Gillian Rose.