The Didsbury Lectures
Series Preface
The Didsbury Lectures, delivered annually at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester, are now a well-established feature on the theological calendar in Britain. The lectures are planned primarily for the academic and church community in Manchester but through their publication have reached a global readership.
The name “Didsbury Lectures” was chosen for its double significance. Didsbury is the location of Nazarene Theological College, but it was also the location of Didsbury College (sometimes known as Didsbury Wesleyan College), established in 1842 for training Wesleyan Methodist ministers.
The Didsbury Lectures were inaugurated in 1979 by Professor F. F. Bruce. He was followed annually by highly regarded scholars who established the series’ standard. All have been notable for making high calibre scholarship accessible to interested and informed listeners.
The lectures give a platform for leading thinkers within the historic Christian faith to address topics of current relevance. While each lecturer is given freedom in choice of topic, the series is intended to address topics that traditionally would fall into the category of “Divinity.” Beyond that, the college does not set parameters. Didsbury lecturers, in turn, have relished the privilege of engaging in the dialogue between church and academy.
Most Didsbury lecturers have been well-known scholars in the United Kingdom. From the start, the college envisaged the series as a means by which it could contribute to theological discourse between the church and the academic community more widely in Britain and abroad. The publication is an important part of fulfilling that goal. It remains the hope and prayer of the College that each volume will have a lasting and positive impact on the life of the church, and in the service of the gospel of Christ.
1979 | Professor F. F. Bruce† | Men and Movements in the Primitive Church |
1980 | The Revd Professor I. Howard Marshall | Last Supper and Lord’s Supper |
1981 | The Revd Professor James Atkinson† | Martin Luther: Prophet to the Church Catholic |
1982 | The Very Revd Professor T. F. Torrance† | The Mediation of Christ |
1983 | The Revd Professor C. K. Barrett† | Church, Ministry and Sacraments in the New Testament |
1984 | The Revd Dr A. R. G. Deasley | The Shape of Qumran Theology |
1985 | Dr Donald P. Guthrie† | The Relevance of John’s Apocalypse |
1986 | Professor A. F. Walls | The Nineteenth-Century Missionary Movement** |
1987 | The Revd Dr A. Skevington Wood† | Reason and Revelation |
1988 | The Revd Professor Morna D. Hooker | Not Ashamed of the Gospel: New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Christ |
1989 | The Revd Professor Ronald E. Clements | Wisdom in Theology |
1990 | The Revd Professor Colin E. Gunton† | Christ and Creation |
1991 | The Revd Professor J. D. G. Dunn | Christian Liberty: A New Testament Perspective |
1992 | The Revd Dr P. M. Bassett | The Spanish Inquisition** |
1993 | Professor David J. A. Clines | The Bible in the Modern World |
1994 | The Revd Professor James B. Torrance†... |
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About Holy Trinity: Holy People
Teaching on the sanctification of Christians using the difficult word perfection has been part of Christian spirituality through the centuries. The Fathers spoke of it and Augustine particularly contributed his penetrating analysis of human motivation in terms of love. Medieval theologians such as Bernard and Thomas Aquinas developed the tradition and wrote of levels or "degrees" of "perfection" in love. However, the doctrine has not fared so well among Protestants. John Wesley was the one major Protestant leader who tried to blend this ancient tradition of Christian "perfection" with the Reformation proclamation of justification by grace through faith. |
| Support Info | 9781621895510 |