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‘Bonhoeffer’s strangely joyful prison letters’ with Dr Ashley Cocksworth

Tue 7 May 2024 Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm

We're delighted to be hosting a special summer term of Keene Lectures at the Cathedral this year with an exciting line-up of guest speakers. 

This year we have a series of five lectures in the summer term, where we have asked theologians and university lecturers to talk about a subject of their choice, something that they feel passionate about.

In this lecture, Ashley explores the strangely joyful nature of Bonhoeffer’s letters from Tegel prison. He will show that the letters witness to a complex process of labouring for joy in the midst of and despite the suffering he was experiencing in prison. He will also show that the letters are strangely joyful not only in the sense of the discovery of joy in the unlikely context prison life, but also because they suggest the rather strange idea that there might be a particular form of suffering in the experience of joy itself.

Dr Ashley Cocksworth is Reader in Theology and Practice at the University of Roehampton. He is the author of several books on prayer and has recently published with David F. Ford a book on glorification as well as with Rachel Muers the fourth edition of The Modern Theologians. He is currently writing a book on joy.

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