Nigel Biggar

Nigel Biggar 2024Nigel Biggar

Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology, University of Oxford

Oxford, UK

 

 

About the Presentation

Christian Behaviour In Public

  • Why should Christians stay in the public square?
  • What are the different kinds of public squares?
  • Pristine isolation versus complicated engagement?
  • How far should Christians bite their tongues and hide what they think, to make friends and influence people?
  • How can we tell prudence from cowardice? Courage from foolhardiness?
  • Personal Attacks/challenges to credibility and reputation
  • Megaphone versus microphone – realistic implications re media
  • Keeping focussed on integrity rather than distinctiveness

My Experience of the Culture Wars as a Christian

  • Dealing with people who want a fight, not a conversation
  • 'The room is not the room': the audience beyond the zealot
  • Telling the truth to people who aren't (apparently) listening 
  • Fighting the corner of reason and virtue, because I am a Christian
  • The phenomenon of a zealous minority dominating an uncertain, conflict-averse majority
  • The phenomenon of institutional leaders acquiescing to the demands of zealous minorities, without thinking
  • Ideology, Truth & Rationality
  • Reflections on leadership in large organisations

About the Presenter

Nigel Biggar was recently named as one of the world’s top thinkers by Prospect Magazine of the UK, because “Biggar’s willingness to question prevailing ideologies and contextualise moral concerns within a historical framework make him a valuable thinker in our polarised times.” He has been described as “one of the leading living Western ethicists” (by John Gray, formerly Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, New Statesman, 25 November 2020). He was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) “for services to higher education” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Nigel Biggar is an Anglican priest, theologian and ethicist, Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from Oxford and a Ph.D. in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago.

Some of his books include: Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights? (2020), In Defence of War (2013), Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (2014) and Behaving in Public: How to do Christian Ethics (2011).

In the press, he has written on the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Spectator (London), colonialism in the National Post (Toronto), freedom of speech in the Times (London), the ‘Culture Wars’ and illegal migration in the Daily Telegraph (London), the Iraq War in the Financial Times (London) and the Straits Times (Singapore), and the possibility of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Northern Ireland in the Irish Times (Dublin).

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.