Does the Reformation still matter?

Chairman: Revd Professor John Morrill, FBA, Selwyn College, Cambridge 

The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1

Wednesday 25 May 2005
6.00-7.30pm
followed by a complimentary drinks reception

The sixteenth-century upheavals in western Latin Christianity represent the greatest fault-line to have appeared in Christian culture since the Latin and Greek halves of the Roman Empire went their separate ways a thousand years before. Western society was now torn apart by deep disagreements about how human beings should exercise the power of God in the world, arguments even about what it was to be human. The division of Reformation and Counter-Reformation which followed from this between Catholic and Protestant still marks Europe west of the lands of Orthodox Christianity – most obviously for the British in northern Ireland, but everywhere in the continent in a host of attitudes, assumptions and habits of life. The decay of actual religious practice in Europe, and the continuing vigour of Reformation practice in the United States, makes it all the more urgent a task to examine the reasons for this continuing diversity, and assess what it means for Europeans today.

A conversation evening between Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, FBA (St Cross College, Oxford), winner of the 2004 British Academy Book Prize for Reformation and Professor Eamon Duffy, FBA (Magdalene College, Cambridge).

Please note our seating policy: No tickets will be issued for this event. All seats will be allocated on a strict first-come, first-served basis. The first 100 audience members arriving at the Academy will be offered a seat in our Lecture Room where this event will take place. The next 50 people to arrive will be offered a seat in our Overflow Room which has a video and audio link to the Lecture Room.