Searching for Home: belonging, identity, and finding our place

Jo Swinney, A Rocha

What does home mean in a world of fracture and individualism, when moving house, job and even country is common, and even if we stay, the places we love are changing around us? All of us have a profound need to belong. In this talk Jo will explore how the longing for home shapes the way we live, love and worship. Through storytelling, cultural reflection, and gentle spiritual insight, Jo will invite us to consider where we have sought home, what we have lost or found along the way, and how a richer, more hopeful sense of belonging is possible.

Embracing Dominion in an Age of AI

Phillip Johnston, Hope Church Greatham

At the heart of the Bible’s understanding of what it means to be human is the concept of dominion: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over all the earth’” (Genesis 1:26). This lecture will explore how human dominion is misunderstood, corrupted and blocked in our age of artificial intelligence, and why it must ultimately be embraced.

Redemptive Hiding: Visual and Verbal Poetics in Bruegel & Dostoevsky

Christina Eickenroht, PhD student, St. Andrews

What have the cluttered landscapes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder to do with the complex plots of Fyodor Dostoevsky? In each, we find subtle allusions to the holy, hidden and tucked away in the least likely of places. Why do these artists hide the holy? And what are the implications for theology and the arts in our age?

Ascension in Art: using images to explore a neglected area of our theology

Nigel Halliday, Art Historian

We will explore the significance of Jesus’ ascension with the help of a range of paintings and sculptures and think about what may be missing.

One Day I'll see You Face to Face: Encountering the Stranger

Ingvild Hellenes, L'Abri worker

People are more important than things. And yet our lives are full of interactions with invisible strangers who make our things. Who are they? And how do we treat them? This lecture will focus on how we can dignify these strangers in the face of consumer culture, new technologies, fear, greed and the lure of convenience.

No Lecture — Film Festival on 21st February "The Inconvenient Other".
For more details or to register, please contact bookings@enlishlabri.org.

The Strongest Force in the World: The Spiritual Formation of Corrie ten Boom

Marta Crilly, Head of Public Services, Burns Library, Boston College

In 1944, fifty-two year old Dutch watchmaker Corrie ten Boom was arrested by the Gestapo for sheltering Jews. After surviving Ravensbruck and losing most of her family, she embarked on a three decade ministry, sharing a message of love, forgiveness, and hope. Who was Corrie ten Boom and how did she become the kind of person who builds secret rooms, undermines Nazis, survives a concentration camp, and then goes on to share the gospel with refugees, prisoners, and the Nazis who killed her family? Join us to discuss.

Love Your (Political) Enemies? Engaging with Political & Cultural Conflicts as Christians in an Age of Rage

Ian Barrs, Friend of L'Abri

IThe longer the twenty-first century goes on, the more politically and culturally divided our societies seem. Can Christians engage as citizens in the debates and controversies that roil our societies with truth and with charity? In this lecture, we will step back from our positions on the issues and, instead, grapple with the question of how Christians engage with people who disagree with us — inside and outside the Church.

Utopian Dreams/Dystopian Nightmares — finding Christian hope for the future

Jim Paul, L'Abri worker

While some dream of a society where perfect justice is enacted or where technology allows us to live in pleasure and plenty, others foretell nightmares of climate catastrophe, cultural collapse or Artificial Intelligence making humans obsolete. Amidst these competing utopian/dystopian futures, what does it look like to have Christian hope?

What is Health & Wellness?

Joel Barricklow, L'Abri worker

How we understand health impacts how we identify and then seek to address the challenges we experience in our bodies. However, our current visions of health usually reduce it to one dimension of our person. Our hope is to examine the contemporary narratives around health & wellness with a view to building a Christian conception of health that integrates a fuller picture of our humanity (mind, body, spirit, relationships, etc) while also addressing the reality of living in a broken world.