John Swinton: Moving Beyond the Empire of Illusion – What Do We Do About the Problem of Evil?

One of the highlights of Regent Summer Programs is our free Evening Public Lectures. This series always features a wide range of professors and topics, and this year is no exception. All lectures will be streamed online, so invite a friend and join us!

Evil hides in strange places. What does it look like? What does it do? How are we to resist it? Responding to Jesus’s words: “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil,” this lecture will focus not on the question of why evil exists, a question that is unanswerable, but rather on what evil does. We will learn that evil can be found in the banality of everyday experiences, and in radical evils such as genocide. We will also learn how easy it is for all of us to become caught up in evil in all of its dimensions. The key question is: how can we resist evil?

Dr. John Swinton is Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen. He has published widely within the area of disability theology, spirituality and health, qualitative research, and mental health. He is the author of Dementia: Living in the Memories of God.

Dr. Swinton will be teaching the course Dementia: Living in the Memories of God from May 10-14 as part of Regent’s 2021 Summer Programs.