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Public Lecture with Dr David Bebbington
Tuesday 20 May, 4.30pm
Evangelical Christianity and the Enlightenment: the ambiguities of the relationship, revealing the way in which the Enlightenment led to a mistaken rationalist path but also to Evangelical growth.
Dr Bebbington famously defined evangelicalism as biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism (now known as the Bebbington Quadrilateral). In his lecture Bebbington will argue that, contrary to much opinion, early Evangelicalism was immersed in the Enlightenment.
He will discuss the ambiguities of the relationship between the two, revealing the way in which the Enlightenment led toa mistaken rationalist path but also to Evangelical growth.
Dr Bebbington’s fascinating argument will conclude that, though a belief in free enquiry subsequently did something to undermine Evangelical convictions, there was originally a strong alignment between Evangelicalism and scientific investigation, hope for the future, and humane reform.
Join us (online or in person) at this free public lecture to hear Dr Bebbington discuss his thesis, and the implications that is has for us today. Register for this event below.
Dr David Bebbington is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Stirling in Scotland. An undergraduate and postgraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge (1968-73), he subsequently became a research fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (1973-76). From 1976 he taught at the University of Stirling, where from 1999 to 2019 he was Professor of History. He served from 2019 to 2024 as Non-Resident Director of the Evangelical Studies Program at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. He is a Fellow of the Ecclesiastical History Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His publications include Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (1989), The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer and Politics (2004); Patterns in History: A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought (4th edn, 2018), Baptists through the Centuries: A History of a Global People (2nd edn, 2018) and The Evangelical Quadrilateral (2 vols, 2021).
You can attend this lecture both online or in person at our college campus in Penrose, Auckland.
Please register below to attend this fascinating lecture.