Dr Theo Hobson looks at humanism and questions its secular credentials. In his book "God created humanism" he, in Rowan Williams's words, "invites us to recognise that the core moral values of liberal modernity did not fall ready made from a secular heaven but or the deposit of a long theological tradition. But ... he makes it clear that this is a challenge to contemporary religious complacency at least as much as to a smug and patronising secularity". We are very…

Jon Riding, in addition to his role as the coordinator of the Insight Programme here at the Abbey, has for almost 30 years lead a ground breaking research team working in computational linguistics for the Bible Societies. He is also a theologian at Sarum College where he tutors ministry candidates and teaches biblical languages. Much of his work for the Bible Societies is in building computer systems that can learn about language for themselves. In this lecture he explores the approaching…

One of the inescapable realities of being human is death. Christianity is sometimes accused of denying this reality but in fact sees death not so much as an ending but a new beginning. The Revd Andrew Edmeads MA has for many years been chaplain to a Children's Hospice and is better qualified than most to reflect on the encounter of the human being with approaching mortality. He writes: "I have become more interested in what it means to be human,…