St Paul's Cathedral (Stop SK)
London EC4M
UK
Life is at once wonderful and terrible, beautiful and appalling. Most of us know this from our own experience, from the lives of others close to us, and from the knowledge of horrific suffering all over the world. It is one of the greatest stumbling blocks to faith for the believer and the non-believer alike. How can we live with this contradiction? And how can we believe in a just and loving God in the face of all the evils of the world?
Two people with different perspectives and experiences will speak about the reality of suffering and evil in the world, and how in the face of it we can possibly live lives of hope and believe in a God of love.
Richard Harries has been described by Rowan Williams as “that rarity, a Christian public intellectual.” Formerly Bishop of Oxford he continues to be active in the House of Lords on Human Rights issues, and is Honorary Professor of Theology at King’s College London. Author of numerous academic and popular books, his latest is The Beauty and the Horror: Searching for God in a Suffering World (SPCK 2016).
Loretta Minghella is the Chief Executive of Christian Aid. A lawyer by training, she has practiced as a criminal litigator, is a trustee of the Disasters Emergency Committee and the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. She is responsible for Christian Aid’s strategic direction, plans and programmes across the world and continues to travel and work in some of the worst-afflicted parts of the world.