Lord Williams invited the capacity audience to engage in “theological behavior” that was unafraid of self-scrutiny, patient with life’s deepest mysteries, and hospitable to conversation.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams of Oystermouth delivered the 2014 Dunning Lecture at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore last week, speaking on the topic “Theology as a Way of Life”. In his 3 April 2014 address Lord Williams invited the capacity audience to engage in “theological behavior” that was unafraid of self-scrutiny, patient with life’s deepest mysteries, and hospitable to conversation. Theological living occurs in discrete moments of encounter, both individually and collectively. These encounters could include the classic conversion experience of an individual, or the awakening of an entire society was the case in Britain in 1807 upon the abolition of the slave trade. Such moments were not only experiences of liberation, he said, but steps into a “positive new identity.” Inviting hearers to reflect on moments of new possibility and on practices of prayer and contemplation, Lord Williams concluded that “what it all adds up to is joy.”