2025 Laing Lectures
Dr. Janet Martin Soskice
Janet Martin Soskice was born in Vancouver and brought up in the West Kootenays. After a BA at Cornell University, she studied at Regent in 1973–74, before doing an MA in Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield followed by a doctorate in philosophy of religion at Oxford University. After teaching at an Anglican Theological College at Oxford for four years, she was appointed to a lectureship at Cambridge University where she taught for over 30 years and was Professor of Philosophical Theology. On retiring from Cambridge, she accepted a Research Professorship at Duke University Divinity School, where she now teaches.
Her works include Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford, 1985), The Kindness of God (Oxford, 2008), and Naming God: Addressing the Divine in Philosophy, Theology and Scripture (Cambridge, 2023). She has also written Sisters of Sinai (Knopf, NY, 2009), the true story of Agnes and Margaret Smith, valiant Presbyterian twin sisters who made many trips to the Sinai desert in the 19th century in quest of ancient manuscripts of the Bible.
Janet is really interested in God.
God & Creation
2025 marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the Council which gave us the most commonly used Creed across all Christian confessions. The opening of this Creed is to confess belief “in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible…” In spring 2024, an ecumenical colloquium was held in Assisi to see if the denominations could come together in celebrating a “Feast of Creation” each year. Dr. Janet Martin Soskice spoke on the wider ramifications of confessing the One God as Creator, and these talks unfold the same theme, which is of heightened resonance for us today.
Lecture 1 • Have We Forgotten God, the Creator?
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
The Christian teaching about God as Creator has been neglected to disastrous effect in modern times. Many who don't believe in a Creator God speak loosely of creation, but what is the Christian teaching on God, the Creator?
Watch Lecture 1
Lecture 2 • Creation & the God Who Speaks
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
What does the doctrine of creation have to say about our intense entanglement with the whole created order?
Watch Lecture 2
Lecture 3 • Christ & Creation: What Is It to be Creatures Today?
Thursday, February 6, 2025
The doctrine of Creation has the widest implications for our prayer, for the possibility of revelation, and for miracles. What does it mean to confess Christ as Creator and Redeemer?
Watch Lecture 3
About the Laing Lectures
The Laing Lectures began at Regent College in 1999 in cooperation with Roger and Carol Laing and in honour of their father, William John Laing. The purpose of the lectures is to encourage persons recognized for scholarship, wisdom, and creativity to undertake serious thought and original writing on an issue of significance for the Christian church and to promote the sharing of such thoughts through a series of public lectures.
The material presented by Laing Lecturers is intended to move beyond an analysis of historic and current concerns to provide proposals for alternative action for the Christian church. In doing so, lecturers are invited to explore in an interdisciplinary way the relationship between Christianity and culture, and to suggest ways in which that relationship might lead to greater flourishing of the church, the larger human household, and the whole community of creation.
The following speakers have delivered Laing Lectures: Neil Postman (2000), Charles Taylor (2001), Peter Berger (2002), Margaret Visser (2004), Miroslav Volf (2006), Nicholas Wolterstorff (2007), Walter Brueggemann (2008), Susan Wise Bauer (2010), Albert Borgmann (2011), Rex Murphy (2012), Ellen T. Charry (Spring 2014), Ross Douthat (Fall 2014), Iain McGilchrist (2016), Marilynne Robinson (2017), Stanley Hauerwas (2018), Malcolm Guite (2019), John Milbank (2022), Curt Thompson (2023), George Yancey (2024), and Janet Martin Soskice (2025).
