3rd Annual Colloquium Announced

This is just a quick note to inform you well ahead of time about the third annual “Associated Parishes Colloquium” at Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in Berkeley, California, Thursday, November 11, 2010.

This year’s presenter is Dr. Jeremy Begbie. His topic: “Music and Emotion in Worship: Have We Anything to Fear?”

The emotional power of music is proverbial. Yet, it is this power that, even when valued, often fuels suspicion among many within the church. This year’s lecture will consider the nature of emotion, how music might achieve its emotional effect, and whether any of our anxieties about music in worship are well grounded. The presentation will be illustrated extensively with music, both recorded and performed at the piano.

Specializing in the interface between theology and the arts, Jeremy Begbie’s particular research interest is the interplay between music and theology. He is the inaugural holder of the Thomas A. Langford Research Professorship in Theology at Duke Divinity School, North Carolina, and Founding Director of “Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts.” He is also Senior Member at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculties of Divinity and Music at the University of Cambridge. Previously he has been Associate Principal at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews where he directed the research project, “Theology Through the Arts” at the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts. In short, he has taught widely in the UK, North America and South Africa, specializing in multimedia performance-lectures.

Begbie is author of a number of books, including “Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts” (T & T Clark); “Theology, Music and Time” (CUP), and most recently, “Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music” (Baker/SPCK) which won the Christianity Today 2008 Book Award in the Theology/Ethics Category.

If you will or can be in the Berkeley area in mid-November this year, mark your calendar now and plan to be at CDSP for APLM’s 3rd annual colloquium. Please share this information, too, with anyone you think might benefit from this event.

Scroll down to see the videos of the first 1st and 2nd APLM Colloquium posted at this blog.