The Calvin W. Didier Annual Seminar on Religion and Contemporary Thought was endowed in 1993 as a retirement tribute to Reverend Didier in honor of a ministry mindful of the many voices of the spirit and the profound changes we continue to experience in contemporary thought and culture. This yearly seminar is dedicated to spiritual growth through the best comprehensive thinking in religion, the arts, letters and science. We seek to present inspiring and acknowledged leaders in their various fields.
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John Bell is a preacher, hymn writer, composer, lecturer, and broadcaster, who spends much of the year traveling, mostly in the Americas and Europe. He is an ordained minister of the Church of Scotland and a member of the Iona Community. During his studies in Theology, he became the first (and last) student Rector of the University of Glasgow. After a period in the Netherlands and two posts in church youth work, he became employed, first in youth work and then in the areas of music and worship, founding during that time, with Graham Maule, the Wild Goose Worship Group and the Wild Goose Resource Group. He is a past convenor of the Church of Scotland’s Panel on Worship and the committee that produced the ground-breaking Church Hymnary 4. In 1999, he was honored by the Presbyterian Church of Canada and the Royal School of Church Music which bestowed on him a Fellowship. In 2002, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Glasgow. In 2013, he was awarded the Community of Christ International Peace Award, and in 2018, presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Thomas Cranmer Award for Worship, and for his outstanding Christian witness, through hymn writing, broadcasting and social action. John has produced many collections of liturgy, scripts, sermons and reflections, original hymns, and songs (some in collaboration with Graham) and three collections of songs of the World Church. These are published by Wild Goose Publications, the Iona Community’s publishing arm, in Scotland and by G.I.A. Publications (Chicago) in N. America. He lectures in theological colleges in Britain and U.S., but is primarily concerned with the renewal of congregational worship at grass roots level. |
Click here to watch the 2025 Didier Seminar featuring Caroline Oakes.
2025 Caroline Oakes: Practice the Pause: The Good News of Neuroscience and the Gospels
2024 Stephen J. Patterson PhD and Elizabeth Schrader Polczer PhD: Recovering Lost Voices from early Christianity
2023 Rev. Paul Raushenbush: Building the Multi-faith Future: Freedom of Religion in a Democracy
2022 Jeannine Hill Fletcher: Christianity and Religious Diversity: Challenges and Opportunities
2021 Jeannine Hill Fletcher: Christian Entanglement in Racism: Facing the Past, Transforming the Future
2020 Theologian John Haught: The New Cosmic Story: Inside our Awakening Universe
2019 Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers: Progressive Christianity
2018 Dr. J. Andrew Overman: When Stones Speak: Digging Deeper into Jesus Movements, Formative Judaism, and the Rise and Expansion of Islam
2017 Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul
2016 Diana Butler Bass: What Does It Mean To Say “I Am Spiritual But Not Religious”?
2015 Rev. Dr. Marilyn Salmon: Jesus Then and Now
2014 Dr. Amy-Jill Levine: Jesus, Judaism and Christianity
2013 Professor Paul Knitter: Must My God be Bigger Than Your God? Moving Beyond Competition to Cooperation
2012 John Phillip Newell: A New Harmony: The Spirit, The Earth, The Earth and the Human Soul
2011 Dr. Wilson Yates, Prof. Michael Dennis Browne, Dr. Stephen Paulus, and Rev. David Miller and Dr. Aaron David Miller: Theology, Spirituality and the Arts
2010 Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault: Meditation and Visionary Seeing in the Christian Tradition
2009 Dr. Imam Seyyed Hossein Nasr: The Heart of Islam
2008 Dr. Philip Jenkins: The Next Christendom
2007 Rev. Dr. Martin Marty: Must Faiths Collide?
2006 Dr. Don Swearer: Buddhism
2005 Dr. Dominic Crossan: The Historical Jesus and the Kingdom of God Then and Now
2004 Rev. Dr. (Sir) John Polkinghorne: Belief of God in and Age of Science
2003 Gordon Kaufman: Do ideas of God change?
2002 Dr. Elaine Pagels: The Challenge of the Gospel of Thomas. Different Views of Jesus and His Message
2001 Dr. Marilyn Salmon, Rev. Dr. Calvin Roetzel, Rabbi Barry Cytron: What Have We Learned and What Does it Matter?
2000 Dr. Richard Horsley: Jesus, Paul, and the New World Order
1999 Rev. Dr. Marcus Borg: Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship
1998 Rev. Dr. J. Andrew Overman: Jews and Christians: How Did We Start and Where Are We Headed?
