Kirby Laing Centre Conference: First Things First

 

This week I've been at the Kirby Laing Centre Conference in Cambridge.

The Kirby Laing Centre is an academic research centre concerned with public theology we seek to do rigorous scholarship across the disciplines addressing the great issues of our day from a Christian view point. They also seek to foster and nurture Christian scholarship that is rooted in spirituality and practised in community.

The theme for their inaugural conference was First Things First: Spirituality and Public Theology. Our aim at KLC is to accompany the Spirit on his mission, and in order to do this we need continually to attend to our spiritual formation. The journey in – spirituality – opens out to the journey out – our vocations in the world, and both are essential if we are to be salt and light. The conference explored the vital importance of deep spiritual formation for Christian public engagement, and promises thought-provoking key-note presentations, art, music, poetry, book launches, community, and many other avenues of enjoyment of God’s good world. KLC Director Craig Bartholomew gave two keynote addresses on The One Thing Necessary.

The arts track at the Conference was put together by Otto Bam, a musician, writer and researcher born and raised in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He is the Arts Manager for the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology and editor of ArtWay.eu.

We heard from the following:

• Violist Rachel Yonan, who has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in concert halls across the United States, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and China. A lover of chamber music, Rachel co-founded the Marinus Ensemble with her brother, cellist Joseph Kuipers. Marinus aim to allow culture and excellence to reach broader audiences. She spoke on music’s gratuitous beauty in a logocentric world.
• Playwright and author, Murray Watts, gave a lecture on art and spirituality. He has worked in TV, radio, film and theatre, winning awards and critical acclaim.and set up The Wayfarer Trust, a charity which seeks to encourage people from all walks of life to value the arts and to actively support all those striving for excellence and spiritual inspiration in the world of arts and media.
• Fr Dominic White OP is a Dominican friar and priest at Blackfriars, Cambridge. He is the author of The Lost Knowledge of Christ: Contemporary Spiritualities, Christian Cosmology and the Arts (Liturgical Press, 2015), and How Do I Look: Theology in the Age of the Selfie (SCM, 2020). He is also an organist, pianist and composer.
• Roger Henderson led us in celebrating the launch of his and Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker’s new edited volume, The Artistic Sphere, and unveiling the brand-new ArtWay.eu website (which will be online at the end of June), an online arts and faith publication founded by Marleen, which came under KLC’s stewardship in 2023.
• Bishop Graham Kings guided us in thinking about the potential of art for facilitating missional and spiritual encounters, referencing Bulgarian artist Silvia Dimitrova’s paintings of Seven Women of the Bible, which he and his wife commissioned. The series includes Sarah, Miriam, Ruth, Esther, Magdalene, Lydia and Priscilla. Bishop Graham has written a poem on each painting and Tristan Latchford has written an anthem on each painting and poem.

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Oddo Bam - The MorningThe Morning.