Our Spring Conference will be held on Monday 26 March 2012 at Gladstone's Library, Hawarden. This year marks the 350th anniversary of the 1662 ejection of Nonconformist ministers from the Church of England, so our theme is '350 Years of Nonconformist History'. The speakers are all contributing to the forthcoming T&T Clark Companion to Nonconformity. They will be addressing a number of major themes:
- The Denominations: John Briggs (Keele), Densil Morgan (Trinity St David)
- Church and State: John Coffey (Leicester), John Wolffe (Open University)
- Mission and the World: David Ceri Jones (Abersytwyth), David Jeremy (Manchester Met)
- Writing the History of Nonconformity: Densil Morgan and Robert Pope (Trinity St David)
For bookings, contact Prof John Wollfe, 3 Sunny Hill, Hendon, London, NW4 4LN, or email him at j.r.wolffe@open.ac.uk
The cost is £15 per head. Lunch can be paid for in the dining room. Accomodation is also available at the Library (£39/£54) - this includes breakfast and dinner.
Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Monday, 30 January 2012
Conference on Faith and History - 2012 Conference
Our sister organisation in North America, the Conference on Faith and History holds its 28th biennial conference in October 2012 at Gordon College, Massachusetts. The theme is 'Cultural Change and Adaptation'. Further details and the Call for Papers can be found here:
http://www.huntington.edu/cfh/conference.htm
CHF and the Conference on Faith and History are keen to build closer connections, so participants from the UK would be very welcome at this conference.
The CFH publishes a refereed journal, Fides et Historia, with two issues per year. The most recent has a section on 'Reconciling the Historian's Craft and Religious Belief', with contributions from Brad Gregory, Mark Noll, David Hollinger, Anthea Butler and Bruce Kuklick. Jonathan Yeager has blogged about it here:
http://esrh.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-issues-of-fides-et-historia.html
For more information about the Conference on Faith and History see its website:
www.huntington.edu/cfh/default.htm
http://www.huntington.edu/cfh/conference.htm
CHF and the Conference on Faith and History are keen to build closer connections, so participants from the UK would be very welcome at this conference.
The CFH publishes a refereed journal, Fides et Historia, with two issues per year. The most recent has a section on 'Reconciling the Historian's Craft and Religious Belief', with contributions from Brad Gregory, Mark Noll, David Hollinger, Anthea Butler and Bruce Kuklick. Jonathan Yeager has blogged about it here:
http://esrh.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-issues-of-fides-et-historia.html
For more information about the Conference on Faith and History see its website:
www.huntington.edu/cfh/default.htm
Monday, 26 September 2011
CHF November Conference: Beyond 1611
The next CHF day conference will be held at St Peter's Vere Street on Saturday 12th November. Our subject is 'Beyond 1611: How the Bible Shaped British Culture'.
The quatercentenary of the King James Bible has focussed largely on the creation of this famous translation. But in recent years, historians and literary scholars have been making exciting new discoveries about the impact of the English Bible on British political and literary culture. This conference showcases some of this new research. The four lectures by experts in the field tell the story of how the Bible captured the British imagination from the seventeenth-century revolutions to the Victorians and beyond. A closing roundtable discussion will consider what contemporary Christians can learn from the Bible’s reception history.
10:30: Tea and Coffee
10:50 Welcome from John Coffey
11.00: Nick Spencer (Research Director, Theos): The Political Bible
12.00: Prof John Coffey (University of Leicester): The Abolitionist Bible
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00: Dr Jon Roberts (University of Liverpool): The Romantic Bible
3.00: Dr Mark Knight (University of Roehampton): The Victorian Bible
4.00-4.45: Roundtable: The Use and Abuse of the English Bible
The conference fee is £7.50 (or £5 for students, retired, non-salaried)
To book a place, please email John Coffey at jrdc1@le.ac.uk or write to him at School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH. Cheques should be made payable to 'Christianity and History Forum', though it is possible to pay on the day.
The quatercentenary of the King James Bible has focussed largely on the creation of this famous translation. But in recent years, historians and literary scholars have been making exciting new discoveries about the impact of the English Bible on British political and literary culture. This conference showcases some of this new research. The four lectures by experts in the field tell the story of how the Bible captured the British imagination from the seventeenth-century revolutions to the Victorians and beyond. A closing roundtable discussion will consider what contemporary Christians can learn from the Bible’s reception history.
10:30: Tea and Coffee
10:50 Welcome from John Coffey
11.00: Nick Spencer (Research Director, Theos): The Political Bible
12.00: Prof John Coffey (University of Leicester): The Abolitionist Bible
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00: Dr Jon Roberts (University of Liverpool): The Romantic Bible
3.00: Dr Mark Knight (University of Roehampton): The Victorian Bible
4.00-4.45: Roundtable: The Use and Abuse of the English Bible
The conference fee is £7.50 (or £5 for students, retired, non-salaried)
To book a place, please email John Coffey at jrdc1@le.ac.uk or write to him at School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH. Cheques should be made payable to 'Christianity and History Forum', though it is possible to pay on the day.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Reflections on the Dark Side of Christian History
CHF's recent day conference on the "The Dark Side of Christian History," was attended by over 80 participants. The conference was organised by Stephen Tuck (Pembroke College, Oxford), and here he offers his own review and reflections on the problem of evil in the history of the church.
I once spent an unsettling evening with a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. The meeting was part of my research for a book on the American civil rights movement - a subject that I'd chosen
to study, I now realise, because it was full of Christian heroes of social justice. What was unsettling about that evening was not so much meeting the Klansman (I was prepared for that), but the discovery that he had been a deacon of his local Baptist church at the time.
For Christopher Hitchens in his influential recent book, God is Not Great, such Christian villains throughout history are proof positive that Christianity is not only wrong, it is dangerous. (If you haven't read the book, the subtitle, How religion poisons everything, gives the gist). Hitchens trots through history, in characteristically entertaining fashion, lambasting Christian atrocity after atrocity. It's a deeply flawed book, rehashing an old argument. Some of the history is bogus, and many of the extrapolations are tenuous. Every Christian hero in Hitchens' telling is really a humanist (even Rev. Martin Luther King); every atheist villain is really religious (even
Stalin). Hitchens' main section on the civil rights movement fails to mention the prayer meetings, the (sadly, belated) condemnation of segregation by the mainstream churches, or the fact that if anybody switched sides because of their Christian faith, it was segregationists who moved to support civil rights, rather than vice versa.
But - and it's a big but - there were also plenty of racists who remained convinced that God was on their side. The Klan donated embossed bibles to local churches. And across history, there has been a dark side of Christian activity: missionaries spreading the gospel of empire, evangelical factions killing Catholics, 'Amazing Grace' composer John Newton continuing as a slave trader post-conversion. One could go on. Or as a colleague said to me, 'just a day conference?'
So how to respond?
One way is to 'reach for Wilberforce,' and list the positive influence of remarkable Christians. Or we can do a reverse Hitchens - any good done in the past is true Christianity, any evil done is because people didn't live Christianly enough. There is truth in both approaches. But on their own they ignore a very real question that some have, and a gospel-blocking presumption that most have. They also pass up a chance to learn lessons as believers, and build bridges with sceptics.
At the recent Christianity and History forum, we tried to consider the darker side of the Christian past openly and honestly. For precedent, we have the bible, which does not exactly shy away from the failings of God's people. Christian historians spoke on the subjects of Early Modern violence, the Holocaust, Apartheid, and the roots of past complaints about Christian (mis)behaviour.
The forum brought to light Christians who failed (or were late) to stand for what's good, or
sometimes advocated what's evil; through fear, neglect, apathy, wrong theology, or simply failing to let biblical standards challenge society's norms. Oh that they had lived differently, so that their good works then might earn more of a hearing for the gospel now. (And oh that we might today...)
Clearly, then, there is much to confess. Quite what that might mean in practice is a harder question, not least for church leaders. But for individuals, a starting point is to admit this past
in conversation - and, we will find, it opens up conversation. Having done so, we can begin to set the record straight. Hitchens' book carries power because so many already believe what it says about Christian atrocity after atrocity -- but such beliefs are propaganda rather than fact. We can go on about the dark side of Christian history, but not on and on.
Moreover, recognising the dark side of Christian history reminds us of the dark side of all history. The church should have done far more to oppose the holocaust and apartheid. But so should everyone. People may find solace in films like Schindler's List and heroes like Nelson Mandela. But we forget that many of Hitler's executioners were everyday folk seeking a pay increase, and many of apartheid's supporters were mothers who just wanted better opportunities for their children. People like us. What's striking is how often those who have
condemned Christianity loudest in the past have done so by showing how far it falls short of Christian ideals, rather than by appealing to other codes of behaviour. (Often, it seems, such critics have felt let down personally). What's striking, too, is that Christian wrongdoing has so often been corrected by reformers from within the Church, rather than critics from outside. In other words, we need God's standards to understand evil, and God's teaching to correct it. In sum, we need a God who is good - who won't tolerate the dark side of Christian action. We can startle people that there is One who hates the evil done in His name far more than Hitchens' does. And we need a God who is merciful - all people, not least Christians, need forgiveness. In other words, reflecting on the past, on human behaviour, should take us to the Creator and the Cross.
I once spent an unsettling evening with a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. The meeting was part of my research for a book on the American civil rights movement - a subject that I'd chosen
to study, I now realise, because it was full of Christian heroes of social justice. What was unsettling about that evening was not so much meeting the Klansman (I was prepared for that), but the discovery that he had been a deacon of his local Baptist church at the time.
For Christopher Hitchens in his influential recent book, God is Not Great, such Christian villains throughout history are proof positive that Christianity is not only wrong, it is dangerous. (If you haven't read the book, the subtitle, How religion poisons everything, gives the gist). Hitchens trots through history, in characteristically entertaining fashion, lambasting Christian atrocity after atrocity. It's a deeply flawed book, rehashing an old argument. Some of the history is bogus, and many of the extrapolations are tenuous. Every Christian hero in Hitchens' telling is really a humanist (even Rev. Martin Luther King); every atheist villain is really religious (even
Stalin). Hitchens' main section on the civil rights movement fails to mention the prayer meetings, the (sadly, belated) condemnation of segregation by the mainstream churches, or the fact that if anybody switched sides because of their Christian faith, it was segregationists who moved to support civil rights, rather than vice versa.
But - and it's a big but - there were also plenty of racists who remained convinced that God was on their side. The Klan donated embossed bibles to local churches. And across history, there has been a dark side of Christian activity: missionaries spreading the gospel of empire, evangelical factions killing Catholics, 'Amazing Grace' composer John Newton continuing as a slave trader post-conversion. One could go on. Or as a colleague said to me, 'just a day conference?'
So how to respond?
One way is to 'reach for Wilberforce,' and list the positive influence of remarkable Christians. Or we can do a reverse Hitchens - any good done in the past is true Christianity, any evil done is because people didn't live Christianly enough. There is truth in both approaches. But on their own they ignore a very real question that some have, and a gospel-blocking presumption that most have. They also pass up a chance to learn lessons as believers, and build bridges with sceptics.
At the recent Christianity and History forum, we tried to consider the darker side of the Christian past openly and honestly. For precedent, we have the bible, which does not exactly shy away from the failings of God's people. Christian historians spoke on the subjects of Early Modern violence, the Holocaust, Apartheid, and the roots of past complaints about Christian (mis)behaviour.
The forum brought to light Christians who failed (or were late) to stand for what's good, or
sometimes advocated what's evil; through fear, neglect, apathy, wrong theology, or simply failing to let biblical standards challenge society's norms. Oh that they had lived differently, so that their good works then might earn more of a hearing for the gospel now. (And oh that we might today...)
Clearly, then, there is much to confess. Quite what that might mean in practice is a harder question, not least for church leaders. But for individuals, a starting point is to admit this past
in conversation - and, we will find, it opens up conversation. Having done so, we can begin to set the record straight. Hitchens' book carries power because so many already believe what it says about Christian atrocity after atrocity -- but such beliefs are propaganda rather than fact. We can go on about the dark side of Christian history, but not on and on.
Moreover, recognising the dark side of Christian history reminds us of the dark side of all history. The church should have done far more to oppose the holocaust and apartheid. But so should everyone. People may find solace in films like Schindler's List and heroes like Nelson Mandela. But we forget that many of Hitler's executioners were everyday folk seeking a pay increase, and many of apartheid's supporters were mothers who just wanted better opportunities for their children. People like us. What's striking is how often those who have
condemned Christianity loudest in the past have done so by showing how far it falls short of Christian ideals, rather than by appealing to other codes of behaviour. (Often, it seems, such critics have felt let down personally). What's striking, too, is that Christian wrongdoing has so often been corrected by reformers from within the Church, rather than critics from outside. In other words, we need God's standards to understand evil, and God's teaching to correct it. In sum, we need a God who is good - who won't tolerate the dark side of Christian action. We can startle people that there is One who hates the evil done in His name far more than Hitchens' does. And we need a God who is merciful - all people, not least Christians, need forgiveness. In other words, reflecting on the past, on human behaviour, should take us to the Creator and the Cross.
Monday, 14 June 2010
King James Bible Quatercentenary
2011 is the 400th anniversary of publication of the King James Bible (1611). These anniversaries always generate a spurt of publications and conferences. One thinks of the recent celebrations of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 2007, Milton in 2008 and Darwin in 2009. The KJV will not attract the same level of government funding as Abolition, and it may not equal the media exposure of Darwin, though it should eclipse Milton.
There will be one big academic history conference in the UK at the University of York entitled: 'The Bible in the Seventeenth Century: The King James Bible Quatercentenary (1611-2011)'. This boasts a strong line up of seventeenth-century literary scholars and historians:
http://www.york.ac.uk/projects/bible/
The 2011 Trust (Patron: HRH The Prince of Wales; Chairman: Frank Field) has been set up to promote the Quatercentenary Year. Their website is worth browsing. It has an interactive map giving a full listing of events. They've even managed to get the endorsement of Richard Dawkins, who graces the website with a reading of the Song of Songs!
http://www.2011trust.org/home/
Books on the KJV and its impact are forthcoming from various quarters. They include a study by the literary scholar Gordon Campbell entitled The Story of the King James Bible, 1611-2011 (OUP), and a popular history of the Bible and English political thought by Nick Spencer from the think tank Theos.
CHF is planning its own day conference at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity on Sat 12th November 2011. This will come at the end of the anniversary year, but will provide an opportunity to reflect on how the occasion has been remembered, as well as on how the King James Bible has been read since 1611. More information to follow on this blog in due course.
There will be one big academic history conference in the UK at the University of York entitled: 'The Bible in the Seventeenth Century: The King James Bible Quatercentenary (1611-2011)'. This boasts a strong line up of seventeenth-century literary scholars and historians:
http://www.york.ac.uk/projects/bible/
The 2011 Trust (Patron: HRH The Prince of Wales; Chairman: Frank Field) has been set up to promote the Quatercentenary Year. Their website is worth browsing. It has an interactive map giving a full listing of events. They've even managed to get the endorsement of Richard Dawkins, who graces the website with a reading of the Song of Songs!
http://www.2011trust.org/home/
Books on the KJV and its impact are forthcoming from various quarters. They include a study by the literary scholar Gordon Campbell entitled The Story of the King James Bible, 1611-2011 (OUP), and a popular history of the Bible and English political thought by Nick Spencer from the think tank Theos.
CHF is planning its own day conference at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity on Sat 12th November 2011. This will come at the end of the anniversary year, but will provide an opportunity to reflect on how the occasion has been remembered, as well as on how the King James Bible has been read since 1611. More information to follow on this blog in due course.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Ecclesiastical History Society conference
The draft programme for this year's meeting at St Andrews is now available from the EHS site. There are a larger number of papers than usual, and the theme is 'The Church and Literature', which matches very well the theme of the study day at the IHR last autumn, on The Printed Word.
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