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Tribute to John Stott (1921-2011)
Among the many signature themes of John Stott’s extraordinarily wide-ranging ministry was his conviction that a truly biblical Gospel speaks powerfully to every area of human life, including its moral and social dimensions. He was tireless in calling Christians everywhere to a life of prayer, Scripture-reading, witness and discipleship. Yet not content with a privatized or purely interior faith, he urged his fellow evangelicals to take up the ethical challenges of social engagement, both by rigorously searching the Scriptures and by carefully discerning the complexities of contemporary society – a process he called ‘double listening’. This conviction led him to found the pioneering and influential London Institute for Contemporary Christianity in 1982. His book Issues Facing Christians Today, published in 1984 and now in its fourth edition, encouraged many evangelical Christians and churches to take social engagement seriously as an integral part of discipleship and not to view it as an optional extra. He inspired numerous individuals to pursue their professional or other vocations in society as an expression of their faithfulness to Jesus Christ, supporting and mentoring many of them over many years. He served four terms as president of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) between 1961 and 1982. His work in the area of ethics and social action was decisive in preparing fertile ground on which organisations like the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, and before that its predecessor the Whitefield Institute – both part of the Research Division of UCCF – could later be established. As we join with many around the world in mourning his passing, we give great thanks to God for his remarkable leadership in this vital field of Christian ministry.
For more tributes to John Stott, visit his memorial website.
Read a wonderful obituary in the Guardian.
Read a remarkable tribute from a secular commentator in the New York Times Sunday Review.
Read a fine tribute from Graham Kings, Bishop of Sherbourne.
20th July 2011
Summer School bookings are open... KLICE's summer schools are an important dimension of the Public Leadership Programme relevant to both professionals and students. Click here for more information.
14th July 2011
KLICE Director Jonathan Chaplin will be speaking on 'Between Theocracy and Secularism: Religion and the State in Britain Today' at the IOCS 12th Summer School 'The Challenge of a Secular Age', Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 24-29 July 2011. For more information and booking please click here.
11th July 2011
Postgraduate award in Religion and Media linked to Internship with Lapido Media - application process remains open.
4th July 2011
Associate Director Joshua Hordern's doctoral thesis has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press, titled Political Affections, due for publication in 2012.
15 doctoral students attended the termly KLICE Public Leadership Programme seminar on 29 June. The visiting speaker was Dr Patrick Nullens, Rector of Evangelical Theological Faculty, Leuven, Belgium.
21st June 2011
Tomas Sedlacek spoke at a lunchtime seminar on 21 June co-sponsored by KLICE and Transforming Businesson the theme of his path-breaking new book The Economics of Good and Evil. A senior banker, Dr Sedlacek teaches at Charles University, Prague, sits on the Czech Republic's National Economic Council and is former adviser to President Vaclav Havel.
10th June 2011
A feature article by Jonathan Chaplin, Director of KLICE, entitled 'Why a "Just Society" must also be a "Big Society"', appeared in the policy journal of a Canadian Christian think tank, Cardus.
3rd June 2011
A recent media posting by the Director on why football needs a theology of liberation can be found here.
KLICE staff participated in an international conference on ‘The Future of Theological Ethics’, organised by Cambridge University Divinity Faculty, 23-25 May 2011. This is the first of a series of events at the Divinity Faculty in the next few years which, it is hoped, will invigorate and direct the development of Christian Ethics in Cambridge.
Associate Director Joshua Hordern assisted Professor Sarah Coakley as conference organiser while Director Jonathan Chaplin presented a response to papers by Professor Robin Lovin (South Methodist University) and Professor Nigel Biggar (McDonald Centre, Oxford University). Other participants included Professor Oliver O’Donovan and Dr. Joan Lockwood O’Donovan (Edinburgh), Professor Lisa Sowle Cahill (Boston), Professors Simon Blackburn and Raymond Geuss (Faculty of Philosophy, Cambridge), Professor John Hare (Yale) and Professor Hans Ulrich (Erlangen). The event was sponsored by the McDonald Agape Foundation. Papers will be published in a 2012 issue of Studies in Christian Ethics, a special issue of which Jonathan Chaplin and Joshua Hordern guest edited in 2010.
May 2011
"Does the Church Have a Mandate for Regulating Marriage? Biblical and Historical Background". Onesimus Ngundu spoke at the KLICE lunchtime seminar having done extensive research into the historical development of the relationship of church and state in regard to marriage and the biblical justification used to defend the church's role in maintaining the institution.
(Onesimus is a Tyndale House Reader and PhD candidate at the Divinity Faculty).
May 2011 - Recent media postings by Director
Law can be influenced by religion (22 Jan 2011)
Will there ever be a US president who doesn't do God? (8 February 2011)
Religion, royalty and the media (1 May 2011)
Was the Osama bin Laden killing an act of just war? (12 May 2011)
Members of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship met for a day of teaching and thinking on a range of issues for their Spring School 2011. The day was hosted by the LCF and KLICE and featured lectures from David McIlroy, Jonathan Chaplin and Joshua Hordern.
December 2010 - KLICE Chair awarded Distinguished Visiting Fellowship
Jonathan Burnside, Chair of the KLICE Advisory Council, has been appointed as the TC Beirne Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Queensland in the School of Law.
From the University of Bristol announcement: "The Fellowship is designed to provide leading scholars of international standing with the opportunity to visit the University of Queensland for a period to conduct research in their field of choice. Fellows have an established research record of an international standard within their field."
December 2010 - KLICE Chair publishes major new book on law and the Bible
Jonathan Burnside, Chair of the KLICE Advisory Council and Reader in Law at Bristol University, has published a groundbreaking book entitled God, Justice and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford University Press USA). At nearly 600 pages this is a massive new work of fresh scholarship on biblical law and its relevance to contemporary society. Paperback copies are available exclusively from the Jubilee Centre website. A companion website has also been launched containing free downloads, a study guide and podcasts. Reviews of the book can be found here.
November 2010 - Day conference in London for law students
A recent day conference in London for law students was chaired by KLICE Associate Director Josh Hordern and addressed by Jonathan Burnside (KLICE Chair) and David McIlroy and Tim Laurence (LCF). The event was held at the offices of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship, and is one of the products of a developing partnership between KLICE and the LCF to help resource Christian lawyers and students in Christian ethical and legal thought.
See more information on KLICE's Partnerships with Professionals.
November 2010 - KLICE visits St. Peter's Barge in Canary Wharf (London)
Jonathan Chaplin and Simon Webley (KLICE Advisory Council member) visited and spoke at St. Peter's Barge in Canary Wharf ('London's floating church' - www.stpetersbarge.org). Simon Webley spoke on the topic “Does business need Christian Ethics?”, and Jonathan Chaplin addressed the public role of Christian faith.
October 2010 - Associate Director addresses fringe meeting at party conference
Joshua Hordern spoke at a meeting of the Conservative Christian Fellowship during the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on 5th october 2010, attended by over 90. The event launched his publication One Nation but Two Cities: Christianity and the Conservative Party, one of three essays commisioned by a joint project between KLICE and Bible Society to feed creative political theology into the three main UK parties. All three essays are available at the Bible Society's SUSA website.
August 2010 - Director publishes book on religion and US foreign policy
Jonathan Chaplin,with Robert Joustra, has edited a book on religion and international relations: God and Global Order: The Power of Religion in American Foreign Policy (Baylor University Press, 2010). Read the book's endorsements and order here. Read an extended review here.June/September 2010 - Recent media postings by Director
On Evan Harris's view of secularism: 'A response to the 'secularist manifesto''
May 2010 - KLICE staff contribute to special issue of 'Studies in Chistian
The Director has guest edited a special issue of the leading UK journal of Christian ethics containing papers of the colloquium on Nicholas Wolterstorff's book Justice: Rights and Wrongs, held at the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life last year. The event was co-sponsored by KLICE. Associate Director Joshua Hordern contributes an article - an overview of the book - and also co-wrote the guest editorial with Jonathan Chaplin. Former KLICE Chair Julian Rivers also contributes an article on legal theory, and recent KLICE grantees Andy Draycott and Guido De Graaff write book reviews in the same issue.
February 2010 - Director speaks in Parliamentary meetings
The Director gave a response to Bishop Tom Wright's Theos Lecture 'God and Government' held in Portcullis House, Parliament on Wednesday 10 February. The event, sponsored by three MPs and organised by the public theology thinktank Theos, marked the first stage of a joint Theos/KLICE project culminating in the publication of God and Government (SPCK 2009), edited by Nick Spencer and Jonathan Chaplin. Bishop Tom contributes a chapter in the book. Bishop Tom's lecture is also available from the Theos website.
He also made a short presentation during a Briefing meeting on the Equality Bill in the House of Lords, chaired by Lord McKay of Clashfern. Dan Boucher from CARE also spoke, introducing his searching analysis of the Bill, entitled A Little Bit Against Discrimination? (CARE 2010). Several peers present were at the time actively moving amendments to the Bill as it went through the Lords. These amendments were carried a few days later, safeguarding the freedom of religious organisations to hire staff sharing their beliefs and ethos.
November 2009 - Director speaks in Cambridge Union debate on faith and democracy
Jonathan Chaplin spoke in a debate in the Cambridge Union on 18 November 2009, proposing the motion that 'This House Believes that Faith has an Essential Role in Democratic Debate'. The other proposers were Vivian Wineman, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, Assistant General Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. For further details see pp24-5 of the Michaelmas termcard.
October 2009 - Publication of 'God and Government'
God and Government, edited by Nick Spencer and Jonathan Chaplin, was published in October 2009. It completes the first phase of a joint project between KLICE and the thinktank Theos (see Projects page). The book aims to make a Christian theology of government available to political practitioners and interested citizens - and so to inform and challenge contemporary political debate.
The Archbishop of Canterbury writes: ‘God and Government offers invaluable resources for what is now a sharply urgent task – thinking through the ethical and spiritual foundations of our democracy’.
Contributors include Bishop Tom Wright, journalist Clifford Longley, former director of the Christian Socialist Movement Andrew Bradstock, economist Philip Booth (Institute of Economic Affairs), and theologian Nigel Wright (Principal of Spurgeon’s College). In the Conclusion to the book Jonathan Chaplin offers a 30-page interpretive commentary on the chapters. The book is published by SPCK at £9.99. For a review article, click here.
A launch event at Parliament, addressed by Bishop Wright, took place in February 2010 attended by over 100.
October 2009 - 2008 Book Colloquium papers published
Papers from the 2008 Colloquium, on Advisory Council member Brian Brock’s book Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture (Eerdmans 2007), have appeared in a special issue of the European Journal of Theology.
Brian Brock is Lecturer in Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Aberdeen. The leading American ethicist Stanley Hauerwas described his book as ‘extraordinary’. Find out why by reading the journal - and ordering the book.September 2009 - KLICE sponsors international evangelical response to latest papal encyclical
KLICE is one of three organisations sponsoring a widely-endorsed evangelical appreciation of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical letter on global economic development. KLICE Director Jonathan Chaplin was a member of the drafting committee. The statement, entitled ‘Doing the Truth in Love: An evangelical call for response to Caritas in Veritate’ is available here. The statement appeared in the September/October 2009 issue of Books and Culture and also at First Things. A press release is available here. The two other sponsoring organisations are Cardus (Canada) and the Center for Public Justice (USA). UK signatories include Andrew Hartropp (KLICE Advisory Council member), Elaine Storkey (Tearfund), Michael Schluter (Relationships Foundation International), Peter Heslam (Transforming Business) and Joel Edwards (Micah Challenge International). A follow-up conference (by invitation) takes place at The Marketplace Institute, Regent College, Vancouver, next April.
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