Jesus stood on the margins, comforting the oppressed and challenging the comfortable. In this webinar, we will examine the prophetic call of the church in today’s world. We will look at the ways in which different churches have risen to the challenge of their calling and at recent examples of times when the churches have failed to fulfil their calling to “speak truth to power”.
On the panel:
The Very Rev Professor Martyn Percy is the former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford (2014-22). From 2004-14 Martyn was the Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, one of the largest Anglican ordination training centres in the world. He has also undertaken a number of roles with charities and in public life, including being a Director of the Advertising Standards Authority and an Advisor to the British Board of Film Classification. Martyn writes on religion in contemporary culture and modern ecclesiology. He teaches for the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, and tutors in the Social Sciences Division and at the Saïd Business School. He is currently a Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
Rev Heidi Petersen is Minister of St. Barnabas United Church, Johannesburg. She is a feminist theologian and a Christian social activist, working in particular against gender-based violence and femicide. Heidi is currently in a mission partnership with an organisation called ACT, a group that fights the scourge of child trafficking. She is also the Deputy Chairperson of the South African Church Unity Commission.
Ian Marshall was a professor of Sustainable engineering at Lancaster University. He retired early to focus on voluntary work. He is currently the Quaker Denominational Ecumenical officer at Churches Together in Lancashire and a trustee of the Ecumenical chaplaincy at Lancaster University. He is also an Authorised Lay minister in the Church of England. In addition, pre-COVID he was a member of the Quaker World relations committee, and a countryside ranger for Lancashire county council.
The Chair for the event will be Andy Pettman, the treasurer of the Society for Ecumenical Studies.
This event, on Wednesday 14 September 2022 at 6-7.30pm, is co-hosted by The Tablet.