The Westminster Abbey Institute has been founded to foster faith in public life, among those working around Parliament Square and beyond. The Institute will draw on the Abbey’s resources of spirituality and scholarship, rooted in its Benedictine tradition, to become a public forum for vigorous debate, fearless questioning and lively truth-telling on issues of faith, ethics, politics and public policy-making.
Spring 2013 Programme
Doing God: Where are we now?
Join us in Spring 2013 as the Westminster Abbey Institute hosts a programme of public lectures and other events.
Public lectures
How, if at all, do we imagine God? Should we even try? Vernon White, Canon Theologian at Westminster Abbey and Visiting Professor at King’s College London, presents three lectures exploring concepts of God in scripture, philosophy and drama.
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28 February 2013 6:15 pm Drama and Dialogue: God in scriptural narrative
What sort of reality is God in the Christian tradition? The drama and dialogues of the scriptures present a picture of God as a communicative, personal, moral, agent: that is, a reality who addresses us, who causes things to happen in our world, and who give value to things in the world. This first lecture explores the plausibility and credibility of this sort of picture of God.
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7 March 2013 6:15 pm Transcendence and Perfection: God in classical orthodoxy
What happens when personal experiences of God displayed in the scriptures are subjected to philosophical scrutiny? Philosophical theology has tried to relate these experiences to other demands of the religious and intellectual life: notions of infinity, eternity, and perfection. Must these concepts also belong to our picture of God? This second lecture explores these wider themes.
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14 March 2013 6:15 pm Mystery and Play: God in mysticism and post-modernity
To hold together experiences of a personal God with concepts of an infinite and eternal God can lead to intellectual and imaginative paralysis. The puzzling and fragmented life we experience in late-modernity can do the same. Christian tradition has always acknowledged this as a necessary mystery. This final lecture explores how understanding of God, and our experience of God, must embrace such mystery.
Other events
Further events in the Doing God season, open to the audiences indicated below. To attend, please contact institute@westminster-abbey.org
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27 February 2013 1:10 pm Whitehall Conversation: Doing God in the Middle East
A 'Doing God' lecture for Civil Servants, in association with Christians in Government, Christians in Parliament, and Theos.
Speaker: Archbishop Angelos of the Coptic Church, which is the majority Christian Church in the Middle East. -
28 February 2013 10:00 am Sixth Form Conference: Doing God
A 'Doing God' conference for invited sixth forms in which students will hear a debate between Lucy Winkett, priest, and Andrew Copson, the director of the National Humanist Society, and attend workshops on Doing God in politics, ethics, art, music, finance, the Abbey, the Bible, and Not Doing God.
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7 March 2013 12:45 pm Theology Seminar: Atheists - Origin of the Species
A Work in Progress Seminar for those in Christian ministry, in association with the Diocese of London.
Speaker: Dr Nick Spencer, Research Director of Theos Think Tank -
11 March 2013 12:45 pm Interfaith Event: Commonwealth Observance Day Seminar
For invited faith leaders
Speaker: Bishop Michael Ipgrave will consider how well the Church of England is meeting the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee challenge, to ‘protect the free practice of all faiths in this country’ -
14 March 2013 9:00 am Interfaith Event: Promoting Spiritual and Religious Literacy
A 'Doing God' seminar for teachers, in association with the Christian-Muslim Forum.