The second Northern Theological Consultation on April 7th at the Blackley Centre drew 23 people together from a wide area – Durham to Grantham and Nottingham, York to Manchester. Revd Dr Anna Robbins from the London School of Theology, whose specialist areas of teaching and research are social ethics, contemporary culture and apologetics, gave the challenging keynote lecture under the title: ‘Can Societies repent?’. The idea behind the consultation is for scholars and practitioners to share ‘work in progress’ on an equal footing, so in that spirit, Anna spoke of some of her recent and developing thinking around these issues.
Starting with the apologies Baptist Unions have offered for the slave trade, she raised questions about the balance between individual and communal responsibility for society’s structural sin, and whether societies rather than individuals alone were capable of moral development. Taking us through the writings of scholars as varied as Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, Thistleton, and Brueggemann, she invited us to consider whether the social change the church should be working towards is evolutionary or revolutionary. Recognising the limited influence the church has of itself to effect any change within western society, and that our faith story (individual and social) moves forward most at moments of disjunction (‘wrenching transformations’ such as Israel’s exile, Jesus’ crucifixion, 9/11), rather than equilibrium, she suggested that the morally credible role of the church might be so to live within that paradigm that it is preparing itself to ‘be there’ for society, not with easy answers but with appropriate interpretive responses offering hope for new futures when such disjunction occurs – as it always will.
Throughout the remainder of the day, smaller groups met to hear and discuss a smorgasbord of interesting papers from people ‘doing theology’ in their own context, engage in conversation around good food, and enjoy the Yorkshire weather and scenery.
Another Consultation will be held in Spring next year. For more information contact Anne Phillips or Sally Nelson
We hope soon to put some of the papers on the websites of TINY (Theology in Yorkshire) and NBLC.
