Annual Tyndale Lecture Gloucester Cathedral 2002

Humanity As Victim: From Tyndale To 2002

Followed by evensong and supper

To be given by Chas Raws
Friday 4 October 2002, 3pm

Tickets £11.50 from David Green tel +44 (0)1295 821651

As announced in the last issue of the Journal, the 2002 Tyndale Gloucester Lecture will be given by Chas Raws, a Life Member of the Tyndale Society who joined after attending the initial Oxford Conference in 1994. As a graduate in English and Divinity from the University of London, he treasures Tyndale both for his matchless command of the language and for his theological thinking but the lecture will focus on another of Chas’s concerns, that of human rights. He has been an active member of Amnesty International since founding a local Group in 1981 and now works as UK Coordinator for South East Asia (mainland) and some of the island states such as The Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. He was involved in the establishment of Action by Christians Against Torture in 1984 and has served as its Chairman for the past two years. Also in the last two years he has been able to ensure that Quakers in Wirral, Chester and North Wales have assumed responsibility on behalf of the whole Society of Friends in Britain for the historic Quaker concern for the abolition of torture.

His lecture will draw on some of this experience, suggesting why torture remains a very real problem in today’s world (documented in 111 countries in the recently published Annual Report of Amnesty International) and why Christians have a special responsibility to work for its abolition. This will involve developing a theological perspective which has engaged him for a few years.

Recognizing that torture is not a subject to attract an audience, Chas assures members that, while the lecture will not offer light entertainment, he will not be dwelling on the physical and psychological aspects of torture but rather on the movement for its prevention and the churches’ potential role in this.