The Abbey holds a variety of lectures and seminars given by both guest speakers, and members of the Abbey clergy and staff. The lectures are usually free and open to all. This part of the website contains information for forthcoming lectures, and a record, often including the text of previous lectures. The annual lectures are the Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lectures, the Gore Lectures, and the One People Orations.
Forthcoming Lectures & seminars
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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.
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2 May 2013 6:15 pm 28th Eric Symes Abbott memorial lecture: Constantine's Vision and the Church Today
Speaker: Professor Dame Averil Cameron FSA FKC, Former Warden of Keble College, Oxford.
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7 June 2013 6:30 pm Coronation Lecture by the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dr Richard Chartres, Bishop of London
Admission free but booking required (opens in April 2013)
Past Lectures & seminars
Click here to view past lectures & seminars at Westminster Abbey.