Look Who it Was Random video

Haunted by Christ: Modern Writers and the Struggle for Faith - The Rt Revd Lord Harries

2,282 views · Published 7 November 2018 · 59:29 · Indexed 27 September 2026

Channel: Gresham College · 2018 · Education

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00:00 // Introduction: Books, Art & Multiple Perspectives
02:10 // Dostoevsky: The First Modern Novelist & the Furnace of Doubt
04:15 // The Problem of Suffering & a Loving God
06:30 // Beauty as a Gateway to God: Edward Thomas & C.S. Lewis
08:45 // Grace & Mental Anguish: The Poetry of Elizabeth Jennings
10:30 // Grace in Failure: Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor & Shusaku Endo
13:00 // Hell, Sin & Redemption: Stevie Smith, T.S. Eliot & William Golding
16:20 // Religious Language: Auden vs. Eliot & Marilynne Robinson
19:00 // Ethics Over Doctrine: Why People Reject Faith on Moral Grounds
22:30 // Philip Pullman vs. C.S. Lewis: Competing Visions of Maturity
26:00 // Emily Dickinson: America's Greatest Poet & Mystical Intensity
30:00 // Q&A: Intense Belief in the Modern Age

In his new book, Haunted by Christ, Richard Harries explores the role of faith in the lives of twenty novelists and poets. Non-believers like Samuel Beckett and Philip Pullman as well as believers like T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden all struggled with faith. 

At a time when religions language is meaningless or feels stale for many, we can rediscover its freshness and force in the works of novelists and poets. 

Lord Harries will be in conversation with Alec Ryrie, the new Gresham Professor of Divinity.

This lecture was recorded by The Rt Revd. Lord Harries on the 25th of October 2018 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor the Rt Revd Lord Harries was the Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006. He was previously the Dean of King's College London, where he is now a Fellow and an Honorary Professor of Theology. He is an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge and of St Anne's College, Oxford. He also holds a number of other prestigious positions in other top British Universities. In 2006 he was made a Life Peer as Lord Harries of Pentregarth of Ceinewydd in the County of Dyfed and sits on the crossbenches.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/modern-writers-struggle-faith

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