Jeremy Begbie, Ph.D.
King University's Institute for Faith and Culture welcomes Jeremy Begbie, Ph.D., to speak at First Presbyterian Church, Bristol, Tenn., at 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 25. The noted musician and author speaks on the arts and theology.
"For centuries, the intersection of faith and culture has been found in the arts. Jeremy Begbie has both nourished and reflected on that intersection for many years, encouraging Christians to produce art, and publishing a nuanced and biblical theology of the arts," said Martin Dotterweich, Ph.D., associate professor of history at King. "We welcome his contribution to the ongoing discussion of faith and culture that the King Institute for Faith and Culture seeks to foster in our region."
Much of Begbie's published and practical work concerns the use of the arts in churches. He says, "If the arts are to flourish as part of the church's witness and worship, then church leaders need to get inside the skin of artists, to understand who they are, what they do and why they do it. Congregations need to be educated (yes, educated) in how to access and enter into what is sometimes a strange and unsettling world: how to "read' visual art, to hear "in between the notes' of music, and so on."
Begbie is a noted educator, speaker, author and accomplished musician, who serves as the Thomas A. Langford Research Professor in Theology at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He trained professionally as a pianist, oboist and conductor. He specializes in the interface between theology and the arts. His particular research interests are in the interplay between music and theology.
Previously an associate principal of Ridley Hall at Cambridge, he has also been an 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. Begbie is also an ordained minister of the Church of England.
He is author of a number of books, including "Voicing Creation's Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts," "Theology, Music and Time" and "Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music," which won the Christianity Today 2008 Book Award in the Theology/Ethics Category. Most recently, he wrote "Music, Modernity, and God."
Begbie has taught widely in the United Kingdom and North America and has also delivered multimedia performance-lectures around the world, most recently at universities and churches in North America, Hong Kong and Australia.
Dr. Begbie received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Edinburgh, and a Bachelor of Divinity and Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen. Additionally, he received an Associate of the Royal College of Music and a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music. He is also a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music.
For more information, visit www.faithandculture.king.edu or contact Dr. Martin Dotterweich at 423-652-4835 or mhdotter@king.edu.
