Life in the Round

Upcoming Events - Spring 2012

'New Testament and qur'an: textual history and views of inspiration'

THURSDAY 10th may 2012

REV DR KEITH SMALL

Rev Dr Keith Small is an associate research fellow and visiting lecturer for the Centre for Islamic Studies and Muslim-Christian Relations at the London School of Theology. He is the author of ‘Textual Criticism and Qu’ran Manuscripts’ (2011) and ‘Holy Books Have a History’ (2010).

SO FAR THIS SPRING:

'W. E. GLadstone: Christian Politician?'

Thursday 19th April 2012

Professor Eugenio Biagini

In the 19th cetury, W. E. Gladstone was the Prime Minister of Britain on four separate occasions. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequor four times. When he resigned for the last time, he was Britain's oldest Prime Minister at 84 years old. But to what extent did Christianity influence Gladstone's policies?

Click here to listen to the audio.

Professor Biagini is a Fellow in History at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. His biography on W. E. Gladstone has been described as the 'most concise but also arguably the most profound' biography of Gladstone available.

Through its core operations, business has the potential to increase human well-being. Peter Heslam explores how the institutional, relational, moral and spiritual dimensions of business can help realize this potential.

Dr Peter S Heslam is Director of Transforming Business. This is a research and development project at the University of Cambridge on the role of business in human development. Based in the Faculty of Divinity, his focus is on the contribution of moral and spiritual values to enterprise solutions to poverty.

To listen to the audio from this excellent talk, which was packed to capacity, click here.

HEAVEN IN A NIGHTCLUB

SPECIAL EVENT - Friday 16TH MARCH 2012

Heaven in a Nightclub was a 90-minute jazz concert interspersed with historical information about the spiritual roots of jazz.

Dr William Edgar, professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, together with professional jazz singer Ruth Naomi Floyd and professional musician Randy Pendleton, visited Cambridge as part of a two week tour of Europe.

Dr Edgar has been described as 'one of the foremost apologists and cultural thinkers of our generation'.

'Our philosophy,' Dr Edgar writes, 'is that jazz ought to entertain, but that its background is in the spiritual experience of African-American people, reared in slavery and nurtured on the Gospel message. It carries the twin themes of suffering and hope, so characteristic of Black culture. Specifically, we take the audience through some of the history of African-American music, both sacred and secular, mixing narrative with music. We outline the problem of finding spiritual roots in the music, and then go on to explore specific genres, including ragtime, blues, spirituals, funeral bands, and so on."

You can see a video of the 2009 performance here.

The Passion and Resurrection of Christ have been central to the history of western painting. This series of art history talks examined the ways painters working between 1400 and 1700 pictured four episodes from the Gospels, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Examination of Jesus, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Our starting point was the visual cues painters found in the Gospel themselves, together with the glosses of popular commentaries. At the centre of our study was the challenge artists faced in attempting to find appropriate ways to represent both the physical suffering and the conflicted mind of the incarnated son of God.

Paul Shakeshaft is an affiliated lecturer in the History of Art Department

of the University of Cambridge.

To listen the audio from the four sessions in this series,

visit www.christianheritage.org.uk/recordings.