Theologian Jeremy Begbie, of Duke Divinity School and Cambridge University, will give the inaugural Calvin M. Bower Lecture. His topic is: “Circling around the Triduum: James MacMillan’s Musico-Theological Vision.” Professor Begbie is a systematician who works on aesthetics, and especially at the intersection of music and religious thought and experience. This lecture will examine the ways that the music of a leading Roman Catholic composer is integrally bound up with his vision of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.
Jeremy Begbie is Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Professor in Theology at Duke Divinity School. He is also Senior Member at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge. He is Founding Director of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, one of the main aims of which is to foster theological-artistic links between Duke and Cambridge. Prior to his present appointment, he held a personal chair at the University of St Andrews and was Associate Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge.
Educated largely in Scotland, before studying theology at Aberdeen and Cambridge, he read music and philosophy at Edinburgh University. Holding piano performing and teaching qualifications, he is also an oboist, and a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music.
He has published extensively, his particular interest being the interplay between the arts and theology, bringing to light the different ways they can illuminate and benefit each other. His books include A Peculiar Orthodoxy: Reflections on Theology and the Arts (Baker Academic), Redeeming Transcendence in the Arts: Bearing Witness to the Triune God (Eerdmans), Theology, Music and Time (CUP), Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Baker), and Music, Modernity, and God (OUP). He tours widely as a speaker, specializing in multimedia performance-lectures. Recent engagements have included preaching, speaking and performing in universities and churches in North America, Hong Kong and Australia.