The Archbishop of Canterbury Visits St John’s College and argues for the important place of theology in any world-class University.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rt Rev Rowan Williams, gave the 2009 St John’s Borderlands Lecture to a packed lecture hall of over 350 people. The lecture was chaired by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Chris Higgins, and was followed by a dinner at the College where church leaders, academic staff and students engaged in further conversation with the Archbishop.

James Menzies, a theology graduate and current student at Cranmer Hall writes:

In an age when the discipline of Theology is re-negotiating its place within the university and the world, Archbishop Rowan William’s Borderlands Lecture, Theology and the Reading of Books comes as a timely assessment of how Theology can meaningfully and distinctively inform the humanities.

Texts, he argues, are not simply inert, not simply “voiceless things” to quote Mihail Baktim. Rather, they invite a response from the imagination, the process by which the text comes into existence. As we read the text something happens: the text becomes alive. Yet because reading is “always an act of translation”, it is not simply an entry into the mind of the author. When we read, there is always present an element of our own interpretation, as we seek to make sense of the textual
communicative meaning in light of our own experience and conceptual framework. So reading is, in a sense, never a completed act; there is always space for re-reading that draws out “afresh and anew” different meanings and ideas from the text as we and others come to it again and again from our own differing perspectives.

Such re-reading finds a natural place in Theology, which “is about reading books”. The difference here though is the nature of the text: the Holy Scriptures as revelations of Divine origin are inexhaustible, and so no reading will ever get to the point where it can safely corral a definitive meaning of the text. There will always be “excess”, and the “freedom of excess”, an unbounded creative freedom that finds its source in the overflowing, intra-personal relationship of the Trinity.

Thus Theology, as the “tutor of the humanities”, has a vital role to play in maintaining the constant generation of new ideas and understanding, by drawing attention back to the excess of meaning present in texts. For, as those who engage with the ultimate source of this excess, Theologians have a responsibility to maintain a focus on the generative element of texts. This entails that if Theology is to have a place amongst the humanities, it cannot be one of a mere “reduction to other disciplines”- too often there has been a move to re-define Theology in terms of history, sociology, and anthropology and so on. Instead, Theology is here specifically to help all those involved in humane enquiry to “learn something of excess”- and consequently needs to be held to account if it does not.

One particular instance of the insight Theology can bring to the humanities as a whole is an awareness of the contemporary phenomenon of “consumerist reading”. Such reading, which seeks to mine a text for its informational content, does damage to the integrity of that text. Because it does not take into account the text’s capacity for excess and thus its creative and generative quality, a vital element of it has been lost, to the point of devaluation and collapse. Instead, Theology’s awareness of textual excess demands a listening to and engagement with texts to realise their full potential, to reclaim their innate identity and imaginative possibilities.

Inherently postmodern yet historically aware, Archbishop Rowan’s provocative and stimulating address gave cause to reconsider how and why we read books, and in particular how Theology is able to contribute beyond its own traditionally-accepted bounds to return to a more appropriate place within the academy. ‘

The annual Borderlands Lecture is hosted by St John’s College, University of Durham as part of the wider Borderlands project. The project seeks to explore and investigate the “borderlands” between Theology and other academic disciplines.