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RTS Orlando is pleased to welcome Dr. Nigel Biggar to deliver the 2023 Hughes Lecture on October 4, 2023. Dr. Biggar serves as Regius Professor of Moral Theology at Oxford. All are welcome to attend the lecture and to join Dr. Biggar for a Q&A luncheon (please register here). The schedule for the series is as follows:
Wednesday, Oct. 4
- 11:00 – 11:50 – Lecture
- 12:00 – 12:50 – Lunchtime Q & A with Dr. Biggar
In recent years, history has become a political battleground as clamour rises for the righting of the wrongs of the past—whether slavery or the colonial theft of land. Christians believe in telling the whole truth and in doing justice, as well as in the confession of sin and repentance. But what exactly is our moral responsibility in studying the past? What Christian principles and virtues should shape our approach? And what guidance might Christians offer fellow citizens as they seek to manage fierce political polarisation over the truth about history?
Bio:
Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford, and former founder-director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago.
Described as “one of the leading living Western ethicists” (by John Gray, formerly Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, in New Statesman, 25 November 2020), Professor Biggar was appointed Commander of the British Empire “for services to higher education” in Her Majesty the Queen’s 2021 Birthday Honours list.
Among his books are Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (William Collins, 2023), What’s Wrong with Rights? (Oxford University Press, 2020), In Defence of War (OUP, 2013), and Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict (Georgetown, 2001).
In the press, he has written on the possibility of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Northern Ireland in the Irish Times, on the Iraq war in the Financial Times, on Scottish independence in Standpoint magazine, on the morality of Britain’s nuclear deterrent in The Scottish Review, and on Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech in The Times.
He has lectured at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London; the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham; the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, Hamburg; the US Military Academy, West Point; the US Naval Academy, Annapolis; and the National Defense University, Washington, DC.
His hobbies include walking over battlefields. In 1973 he drove a Morris Traveller from Scotland to Afghanistan; and in 2015 and 2017 he trekked across the mountains of central Crete in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh-Fermor and his comrades, when they abducted General Kreipe in April-May 1944.