More than sixty (60) Communications and Media professionals drawn from across the Church of England and the Anglican Communion in the British Isles are heading to Durham this September to attend a conference discussing the communication challenges facing the Church today.
The annual Church of England Diocesan Communications Conference is this year heading to Durham week beginning the 19th September for four days discussing the challenges of Church communications Past Present and Future. Durham2016, is different in most respects from past conferences in that it is being staged in and around the Unesco World Heritage site that is Durham Cathedral, Palace Green and Durham Castle.
The conference programme draws on the outstanding resources of the City, Cathedral and University of Durham to take us on a journey through the Church’s changing role in a changing world and society.
Keith Blundy, Communications Adviser to the Church of England in The Diocese of Durham and one of the Conference Organisers said: “The Church of England’s past still defines aspects of its place in today’s world, socially, theologically and in terms of its popular image.
“Durham’s Cathedral and colleges give a backdrop dating back over a thousand years to revisit who we have been as a church, ask what treasures we still have to offer, and what understandings and assumptions we may need to let go or change.
“As the Church of England’s theological training is increasingly centred on Durham the conference will tap into the thought and debate about what we offer in an online, self-assertive, iconoclastic, post-crash and post-millennial age.”
“The conference will chart a range of possible futures with some of the Church’s most incisive thinkers as we search for a glimpse of who and what God is calling us to be, and how do we respond in an age that is defined by much uncertainty.
“The conference is deliberately being staged in a way that is far removed from the usual blandness of a conference facility so we can constantly reflect on our place in the past / present / future.”
The outcomes of the conference will ask: ‘How do we set our agenda – and what is it? What will it really mean in England in the 2020s to be a Christian; to be a Church; to be the Church of England? What opportunities will the future offer?’
For more details please visit: www.durham2016.info
Notes:
- The conference runs from Monday 19th September until Thursday 22nd September
- Speakers include:
- Canon Professor Elaine Graham – the Grosvenor Research Professor at the University of Chester
- Revd Canon Mark Tanner – Warden of Cranmer Hall and soon to be Bishop of Berwick
- Revd Professor David Wilkinson – minister, theologian, astrophysicist and academic’. He is Principal of St John’s College, Durham, and a professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University.
- Catherine Fox – Conference Dinner, Theologian and Celebrated Author.
- The Right Revd Mark Bryant – Bishop of Jarrow in the Diocese of Durham
- Revd Canon Dr Alan Barlett – Vicar in Durham Diocese and tutor in Church History, Spirituality and Anglican Studies at Durham University.
- Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes – Vicar in Durham Diocese, Theologian, Author and Historian, Fellow in History at Durham University.
- Revd Dr Hannah Cleugh (Conference Chaplain) – Chaplain in University College Durham, Solway Fellow in Theology and Religion at Durham University.
- Revd David Tomlinson – Vicar, Area Dean and Chair of the House of Clergy in Durham Diocese
- Graham Tilby – National Safeguarding Adviser to the Church of England.