2007-08 Ebor Lectures Series 2
Theme: Globalisation and Identity
Globalisation has benefited modern society in terms of rapid increase of mass information and economic wealth in certain nations but, at the same time, it has brought vast inequality on a global and domestic scale. It has also challenged the sense of identity of individuals and communities, which in turn, has contributed to various recent conflicts. The Ebor Lectures 2007-8 aim to address the relationship between globalisation and identity by looking at it from social, political, economic, cultural, religious and theological perspectives. The series will examine tensions and conflicts between communities which have affected public life in different parts of the world. It will deal with issues such as: global financial systems and their impact on micro and macro economic patterns world-wide; the impact of globalisation on culture; global politics in the context of diverse national and regional interests; the causes and effects of the rise of religious fundamentalism.
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Some of the talks in this series of Ebor Lectures were published in a book:
Sebastian C. H. Kim and Jonathan Draper (eds.) Christianity and the Renewal of Nature: Creation, Climate Change and Human Responsibility London: SPCK, 2011. |
Speakers
N.B. Biographical details and lecture descriptions were those written in advance of the lectures and have not been updated since.
Professor John de Gruchy - University of Cape Town
'Christian Identity amidst Global Contradictions: A Christian Humanist Perspective’
19 September 2007 at York Minster
'Christian Identity amidst Global Contradictions: A Christian Humanist Perspective’
19 September 2007 at York Minster
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After a century of remarkable growth and expansion, and a millennium of religious dominance in many contexts, Christianity today is being forced to renegotiate its place in a world characterised by global contradictions. Rampant secularism and scientism, on the one hand, and militant religious fundamentalism, on the other, require of Christians the reassertion of a humanism that is distinctly Christian yet affirms a common humanity in responding to both the opportunities and crises associated with globalisation and a floundering “new world order.”
Professor John de Gruchy is South African; an ordained minister serving in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. He was the main architect of the theological basis for the truth and reconciliation commission. For the past 35 years he has taught at the University of Cape Town as Professor of Christian Studies, and finally Director of the Graduate School of Humanities. He has doctorates in both theology and the social sciences, as well as honorary doctorates. He has written and published 20 books on, amongst others, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, public theology and South African issues. He is now retired but engaged in research and writing projects, running workshops and lecturing in different parts of the world, and making furniture. |
Professor Christopher Rowland - University of Oxford
'William Blake 250 years on – Prophet for our Time?’
17 October 2007 at York St John University
'William Blake 250 years on – Prophet for our Time?’
17 October 2007 at York St John University
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‘William Blake saw himself as a prophet and summoned all his contemporaries and readers of his work to join in the struggle for a more fair and compassionate society’.
This lecture commemorated the 250th anniversary of William Blake’s birth. It showed how this (in his own life time, unimportant) engraver, artist and poet regarded the major task of ‘all God’s people was to prophesy’. His work is an original, and sophisticated, way of engaging in public theology, through image and text and attention to what he termed ‘minute particulars’. He set out to challenge adherence to received wisdom (what he termed ‘memory’), by unlocking of the imaginative potential of all people, of whatever creed, or none, to engage in a ‘mental fight’ to build the New Jerusalem. The public theology of the prophet, therefore, was done on the streets, and in human relationships. Attention to ‘minute particulars’ is the basis of prophetic comment rather than generalisations and abstractions, however eloquent. Blake’s interpretation of the Book of Job as a description of the journey that was needed from convention to a more imaginative theology and the practice of the forgiveness of sins is a summary of his life’s work of engagement with the Bible. Professor Christopher Rowland, Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford. has written widely on the New Testament and the history of the interpretation of the Book of Revelation. He is involved in contextual theology and social responsibility issues in the life of church and society. Professor Christopher Rowland specialises in research on the Interpretation of the New Testament; the apocalyptic tradition in ancient Judaism and Christianity; the reception history of the Apocalypse; the biblical hermeneutics of William Blake; the theology of liberation; the radical tradition in Christianity; methods in grassroots readings of Scripture; group work and biblical study; and the interpretation of the Bible and developments in adult education. He is also co-editor of the Blackwell Bible Commentaries which focus on reception history. His publications include: Revelation(1998); Introduction: The Theology of Liberation (1999); Apocalyptic, Mysticism and the New Testament (1996); Christology, Controversy and Apocalypse: New Testament Exegesis in the Light of the Work of William Blake (2000); Radical Christian Writings: A Reader (2002; with Andrew Bradstock); Christian Origins: The Setting and Character of the Most Important Messianic Sect of Judaism (2002), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (2005) and The Nature of New Testament Theology: Essays in Honour of Robert Morgan (2006). |
Professor Grace Davie - University of Exeter
'Patterns of Religion in Modern Europe: A Global Perspective’
13 February 2008 at York Minster
The lecture was accompanied by the book launch of Liberating Texts, a compilation of the first series of Ebor Lectures.
'Patterns of Religion in Modern Europe: A Global Perspective’
13 February 2008 at York Minster
The lecture was accompanied by the book launch of Liberating Texts, a compilation of the first series of Ebor Lectures.
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Professor Davies' lecture considered six factors that are currently shaping the religious life of Europe. These are the Judaeo-Christian heritage, the continuing influence of the historic churches, the changing patterns of church-going, new arrivals from outside, secular reactions to these changes, and the growing significance of religion in the modern world. Any assessment of the future of religion in Europe must take all of these into account, not least their mutual and complex interactions.
Professor Davie BA (Exon) PhD (London) began her sociological career with an undergraduate degree in Sociology at Exeter, this was followed by a doctorate at the London School of Economics. It was at this stage that she developed both her interest in the sociology of religion and an acquaintance with both France and French sociology. Her PhD was on the political aspects of the French Protestant community in the interwar period. After a break from academic life when her children were small, Professor Davie returned to the Department of Sociology in Exeter where she has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She has also been involved with the Socrates-Erasmus Exchange Programme at both Department and School level. From 2002-06 she was the Director of the Centre for European Studies. Grace Davie has a personal Chair in the Sociology of Religion in the University of Exeter. She is a past-president of the American Association for the Sociology of Religion (2003) and of the Research Committee 22 (Sociology of Religion) of the International Sociological Association (2002-06). In 2000-01 she was the Kerstin-Hesselgren Professor in the University of Uppsala, where she has returned for the 2006-07 academic session. In 2005 she spent a semester researching and teaching at Hartford Seminary, CT. In addition to numerous chapters and articles, she is the author of Religion in Britain since 1945 (Blackwell 1994), Religion in Modern Europe: a Memory Mutates (OUP 2000), Europe: the Exceptional Case (DLT 2002) and The Sociology of Religion(Sage 2007); she is co-editor of Predicting Religion (Ashgate 2003). She is a Lay Canon of the Diocese of Europe and served on the Doctrine Commission that produced Being Human: A Christian Understanding of Personhood in 2003. |
Dr Daleep Mukarji - Director, Christian Aid
‘Poverty and Prophets: Faith based Agencies and Social Justice’
5 March 2008 at York St John University
‘Poverty and Prophets: Faith based Agencies and Social Justice’
5 March 2008 at York St John University
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Poverty is a major scandal today. 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty and one child dies every 8 seconds from preventable conditions. The injustice, inequality and discrimination that exists in the world should challenge all people to do something about building a better world. Christians will need to reclaim their prophetic ministry and heritage, to be agents of change and the Kingdom, to work with others for social justice and poverty eradication. Recent movements such as Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History have shown how faith based agencies can take a lead. This is a revitalisation of mission – Christians putting their faith into action and preaching a gospel that must be good news to the poor.
Daleep Mukarji trained as a medical doctor in a Christian Medical College in Vellore, India. He began his career in a leprosy hospital in Andhra Pradesh before moving to Medak, where he ran a 125-bed mission hospital. In 1977 he established a rural health and community development programme at the College in Vellore, and in 1985 was appointed General Secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India - the health agency of the National Christian Council of Churches in India. In 1994 he took up the post of Executive Secretary for Health, Community and Justice at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. His post as Director of Christian Aid began in April 1998. Having spent his childhood and most of his adult life in India, he and his family have since lived in London (for the past 10 years). He is a committed Christian whose faith and passion for justice and poverty eradication inspires him in his work. He has been chair of APRODEV (a network of European development agencies), of BOAG (British Overseas Aid Agencies) and is a trustee of the Disasters Emergencies Committee (DEC). There was also an exhibition of art by York St John University student Jenny Baker. Jenny Baker is a part-time postgraduate student in Theology & Religious Studies at York St John University, with a particular interest in the relationships between theology and the visual arts. As a painter she is intrigued with the theological insights which can result from the painting process; and as a non-stipendiary Anglican priest (in rural Shropshire) she experiments with using the visual arts in ministry. |
Professor Tariq Ramadan - President, European Muslim Network/University of Oxford
'Globalisation and Muslim Identity in Europe’
23 April 2008 at York St John University
'Globalisation and Muslim Identity in Europe’
23 April 2008 at York St John University
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Tariq Ramadan is Professor of Islamic Studies. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at St Antony’s College (Oxford), Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan) and at the Lokahi Foundation (London). He is a Visiting Professor (in charge of the chair: Identity and Citizenship) at Erasmus University (Netherlands).Through his writings and lectures he has contributed substantially to the debate on the issues of Muslims in the West and Islamic revival in the Muslim world. He is active both at the academic and grassroots levels lecturing extensively throughout the world on social justice and dialogue between civilizations. Professor Tariq Ramadan is currently President of the European think tank: European Muslim Network (EMN) in Brussels.
Professor Ramadan’s latest book is: The Messenger: The Meaning of the Life of Muhammed (Penguin, February 2007). For further information about Professor Ramadan please see his website. |
The Rt Hon Clare Short MP
‘Apocalypse Now – Global Equity and Sustainable Living, the Preconditions for Human Survival’
21 May 2008 at York Minster
‘Apocalypse Now – Global Equity and Sustainable Living, the Preconditions for Human Survival’
21 May 2008 at York Minster
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Clare Short was Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to May 2003. DFID was a new Ministry created after the 1997 general election to promote policies for sustainable development and the elimination of poverty.
Of Irish ancestry, Ms Short was born in Birmingham on 15 February 1946. She was educated at St Paul's Grammar School, Birmingham, and at the Universities of Keele and Leeds. She graduated as Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Political Science. She previously worked as a Civil Servant at the Home Office, as a Director of Youthaid and the Unemployment Unit and as a Director of AFFOR, a community based organisation promoting racial equality in Birmingham. She entered the House of Commons in 1983 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Ladywood, which she has held since then, and is the area where she was born and grew up. From 1996 until the 1997 General Election she was Opposition spokesperson on Overseas Development. She was Shadow Minister for Women from 1993 to 1995 and Shadow Secretary of State for Transport from 1995 to 1996. She has been Opposition spokesperson on Environment Protection, Social Security and Employment. A member of the Home Affairs Select Committee from 1983-85, she was Chair of the All-Party Group on Race Relations from 1985-1986, member of Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) from 1988-1997 and Chair of the NEC Women's Committee from 1993-1996. In 2003, Ms Short resigned from the Government over the Iraq war and in 2006 she resigned the Labour whip. She now sits as an Independent. Since 2003 she has been a member of the International Advisory Board for the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (GDAF) and in 2004 she became an Associate of Oxford Research Group. Since 2006, Ms Short has been a member of the Policy Advisory Board of Cities Alliance, which is an alliance of the World Bank, UN –HABITAT, local government and development partners committed to meeting the UN target to develop cities without slums. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Tiri, is a member of the Advisory Committee of International Lawyers for Africa and also a member of the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament. She chairs the International Advisory Board of the Cranfield Masters in Security Sector Management Programme and is Chair of a Working Group on Mining in the Philippines. She is also Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Trafficking of Women and Children. In November 2004, Ms Short’s book “An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power” was published as an attempt to explain why Tony Blair did what he did on Iraq so that lessons could be learned and things put right. In 2005, it was awarded Political Book of the Year by Channel 4. Widowed with one son, she lists swimming and her family as her main leisure pursuits. |
