Conference 2007

Violence: A Stubborn Pandemic

Tuesday 10 to Friday 13 July 2007
at High Leigh Conference Centre

Chair: Rt Revd John Austin, Assistant Bishop of Leicester
(For personal reasons, Bishop John had to step down as Chair)

Secretary: Revd Dr Alan Race

Chaplain: Revd Canon Angela Weaver

Violence has always been with us. It features in many of the world's stories and religious myths of origins. Pervasive in human experience, men and women of intelligence and goodwill both justify it and recoil from it. Many individuals derive their thrill of life from it. Spiritual visionaries propose pathways for overcoming it, yet the religions themselves can often seem part of the problem. In the twenty-first century religious antagonisms are once again being blamed for the world's desperate pandemic of violence. Where do the roots of violence lie and can there be hope in the face of it? The conference will explore violence in four clusters:

• a study of the roots of violence in the human psyche and relationships
• the international and ecological scene
• the ambivalence of religious and theological responses to violence in text and tradition
• conflict resolution, reconciliation and how to hope

The conference will both acknowledge the impression of violence as an abiding factor in the human condition and also seek to offer hope in the face of its complexities.

Speakers

Tuesday

Gordon Mursell

The Psalms and Violence - what kind of God?

Rt Revd Dr Gordon Mursell is Area Bishop of Stafford and specialist in the history and theology of Christian Spirituality.

Wednesday

Dorothy Rowe

Enemies and Friends

Dr Dorothy Rowe is a psychologist and author. Her latest book is Finding Your Way Out of the Prison of Depression.

Paul Rogers

Current trends in international relations affecting war and peace

Dr Paul Rodgers is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. He currently focuses on trends in international conflict, developing an analysis of the linkages between socio-economic divisions, environmental constraints and international insecurity.

Alan Billings

The Ethics of Pacifism and Just War in an Age of Terrorist Violence

Canon Dr Alan Billings is vicar of St George, Kendal. He's also director of the Centre of Ethics and Religion at the University of Lancaster.

in conversation with

Tony Kempster

Dr Tony Kempster is General Secretary of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and Chair of the Movement for the Abolition of War.

Thursday

Mark Juergensmeyer

Violence and the Religions - an Overview

Professor Mark Juergensmeyer is Director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies and Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an expert on religious violence, conflict resolution and South Asian religion and politics, and has published more than two hundred articles and a dozen books.

Dawoud El-Alami

The Israel-Palestine Conflict

Professor Dawoud El-Alami is Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Lampeter, University of Wales.

in conversation with

Dan Cohn-Sherbok

Professor of Jewish Theology and Director of the Centre for the Study of the World's Religions, Lampeter, University of Wales.

Giles Fraser

Theological Perspectives on Violence

Revd Dr Giles Fraser has been Team Rector of Putney Parish Team since 2000. He has lectured in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford since 1998.

Friday

Derick Wilson

Conflict Resolution in a violent world

Dr Derick Wilson is Assistant Director UNESCO Centre at the University of Ulster and Director of the Future Ways Programme. He has been active in the areas of youth work, community relations, community development and reconciliation work in Northern Ireland since 1965. He was awarded the MBE for services to community relations. He is a council member of the Corrymeela Community of Reconciliation and a Commissioner for the Equality Commission NI from 2003.