Colloquium at Windsor Castle
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Colloquium at Windsor Castle | |
St George’s House has 40 years’ unique experience of listening to people from every walk of life: we shall draw upon this, through input from current members of staff, as well as our own experience, to try and discern, at the deepest level possible, ‘what makes this country tick’.
Major contributions will also be made by Canon Professor Martyn Percy (Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, Oxford) and by the Revd Dr Timothy Jenkins (Dean of Jesus College, and Assistant Director of Research (Implicit Religion), Cambridge). However, advantage will also be taken of our residence inside Windsor Castle, not only to attend any Services we may wish to attend in the Chapel, but also to have a private tour of the Chapel, when it is closed to the public.
Our grateful thanks are due to St George’s House for their very generous grant towards this event. A full explanation of our topic, by Dr Andrew Carter (the Warden of St George’s House) follows:
Organised by St George’s House and the Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spirituality
Monday – Tuesday (lunchtime–lunchtime), 11-12 February 2008
The aim of the consultation is to explore the concepts of motivation and commitment in contemporary society. We hope to attract participants from varied walks of life – education, politics, business, the arts, the professions, as well as the religions. We shall discuss the ethics and values which conventionally underpin or govern these activities; make possible co-existence and co-operation in society; and thereby serve a pragmatic or utilitarian function. But, more than that – we want to examine the origins and motives of the enthusiasm which leads people to choose a given career or lifestyle, to espouse a cause, or to behave in a certain way.
In other words – what makes people tick? What is it that, in the first decade of the 21st century, generates passions which surpass the mere satisfaction of selfish material needs? And how many people actually experience such passions?
The sort of conventional organised religion which argues the case for faith in face of rational scepticism is, in Europe at least, struggling to retain or attract adherents. Literalist interpretation of sacred texts, and the absolutes of fundamentalism, offer to a certain type of mind a reassuring sense of authority and certainty. Yet while, for some, enthusiasm and selfless commitment require no transcendental component, for others a sense of the numinous and transcendent – a spiritual dimension to life – is a reality to be explored and cultivated, and one which motivates choice and action.
Our language is imbued with the vocabulary of religion. We speak of hero ‘worship’, of family ‘devotion’ and national ‘sacrifice’. Even The Guardian admits that humanism, secularism, and even atheism, have failed to develop a popular language of morality. ‘Gordon Brown uses a Biblical tradition of language, character and morality... If you want to convince a sceptical electorate of your moral purpose, you have to use the shorthand of faith’.
To quote this is not simplistically to suggest that the majority of people are conventionally religious without realising it. It could mean, however, that our deepest instincts and impulses can be addressed only in terms which relate to religious experience (however that may be defined): in other words, that we speak in similes rather than metaphors. Such a perception could have significance for our understanding of the wellsprings of human conduct, and of the nature of human personality.
These and related questions will be tackled in a 24hr consultation at St George’s House. We shall be guided and stimulated by addresses from Canon Professor Martyn Percy (Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, Oxford) and the Revd Dr Timothy Jenkins (Dean of Jesus College, and Assistant Director of Research (Implicit Religion), Cambridge). But the emphasis will be on free-ranging debate, under the chairmanship of Canon Professor Edward Bailey.