The Community at the Crossing—an ecumenical group of young people living for a year on the Cathedral close—regularly hosts distinguished guest scholars and teachers. The Bridge Seminars offer an opportunity to learn from some of these eminent thinkers in an intimate, roundtable setting, side-by-side with members of the Community at the Crossing.

What does it mean to be a human being? This is the question that has puzzled and excited thinkers in every age, and has been answered in a whole host of ways. In our sessions, we will reject the idea that either the science supersedes the theology, or conversely that the theology can ignore the science. What we will do is take the insights from contemporary scientific thinking and ask: how might these insights engage with the theological tradition? What might theology have to offer to the ‘why’ of human life in the light of so much ‘what and how’ that science can better help us understand? How might we use human knowledge constructively to learn more about who we are and what we are called to be?

The Rev. Dr. Charlie Bell is a Church of England priest and a forensic psychiatrist. He is Associate Vicar of St John the Divine, Kennington, in Southwark, England, and the Fellow in Medicine and Public Theology at Girton College, Cambridge. He is Visiting Scholar at Sarum College and a Research Fellow and Associate Tutor at St Augustine’s College of Theology.

The class schedule is
March 23, 10am - 12pm and 2:30pm - 4:30pm
March 24, 10am – 12pm and 2:30pm – 4:30pm

Attendance is required at both days of this seminar.