Jeremy Begbie

Music and lament have been very closely linked in history, yet in today's Church sung lament in worship is still relatively rare. Begbie will show how various forms of music - from blues to recitative, from Old English laments to Scottish keening - can help us understand more deeply and experience more fully what it means to say that the path to joy only comes through tears. The lecture will include piano performance.

Jeremy Begbie is the Thomas A. Langford Research Professor of Theology at Duke University. He teaches systematic theology, and specializes in the interface between theology and the arts. His particular research interests are in the interplay between music and theology.

Previously Associate Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, he has also been 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. He is a Senior Member of Wolfson College and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge.

He studied philosophy and music at Edinburgh University, and theology at Aberdeen and Cambridge. A professionally trained musician, he has performed extensively as a pianist, oboist and conductor. He is an ordained minister of the Church of England, having served for a number of years as assistant pastor of a Church in West London.

He 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. He has taught widely in the UK and North America, and delivered multimedia performance-lectures across the world, from Israel to Australia and Hong Kong.

Along with participating on the January Series 2014, Jeremy will also be a presenter at the Calvin Symposium on Worship, which is a three-day conference sponsored by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Center for Excellence in Preaching. The conference brings together a wide audience of pastors, worship leaders and planners, artists, musicians, scholars, students and other interested worshipers. People come from around the world for a time of fellowship, worship, and learning, seeking to deepen and integrate all aspects of worship, develop their gifts, encourage each other and renew their commitment to the full ministry of the church.

Presentations at Calvin University

Reshaping Lament: Music and the Way to Joy
Part of the: January Series
Tuesday, January 28, 2014 12:30:00 PM
Covenant Fine Arts Center Auditorium

Publication(s) for this event

Music, Emotion and Worship: Is There Anything to Fear?
Part of the: January Series
Friday, January 9, 2004 12:30:00 PM
Covenant Fine Arts Center Auditorium

The Music of God and the God of Music
Part of the: January Series
Friday, January 14, 2000 12:30:00 PM
Covenant Fine Arts Center Auditorium