English L'Abri

Artificial Intelligence is progressing more rapidly than most of us expected. Chatbots have become scarily good at answering questions or generating just about any genre of text. A.I. image generation, video generation and voice cloning are making great strides. How do we evaluate and navigate such changes? What do such developments mean for our human identity, agency and relationships? The slides...

The books known as ‘the classics’ can seem intimidating, boring or culturally oppressive. However, they tend to represent the most psychologically and thematically complex, as well as the most technically accomplished and aesthetically satisfying, depictions of the reality in which we find ourselves. In spending time with these works throughout our lives, they and their authors become our teachers...

We want to get our relationships right, particularly our romantic and family relationships, but often end up tired, discouraged, and feeling like failures.  A primary cause is when we set out to control & change others, making rules (mostly unwritten) and attempting to modify their attitudes & responses.  Understanding the difference between God's job and ours, allowing grace to replace manipulati...

In this lecture, Merran Paul (L’Abri Worker) engages cultural approaches to parenting. Sharing her first-hand experience as a “Christian Mum”, she presents a practical vision of Love, Authority, and Freedom for families. This lecture is also available on all major podcasting platforms! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episode...

In this lecture, Merran Paul (L’Abri Worker) engages cultural approaches to parenting. Sharing her first-hand experience as a “Christian Mum”, she presents a practical vision of Love, Authority, and Freedom for families. This lecture is also available on all major podcasting platforms! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episode...

In this lecture, Mary McCampbell (Author, Associate Professor of humanities at Lee University) will look at how the arts expand our imaginations and, in so doing, embolden our ability to love our neighbors as ourselves.   Additionally, from now on this email will exist to deliver the podcast every week for those who prefer listening through email. If you prefer to subscribe and listen through anot...

In this lecture, Mark Meynell (Author, Langham Partnership) will explore how to understand the impact of living in a secular context for Christian witnesses and show how the Arts are crucial for breaking through the intellectual barriers that secularism uses to prevent people from grasping the gospel. Additionally, from now on this email will exist to deliver the podcast every week for those who p...

In this lecture, we will be thinking about the (still) deeply Christian nature of what we could call the soul of western culture and the importance of having a robust sense of this in light of the challenges of our time. Listen to and download recent lectures at englishlabri.org/podcast . For more resources, visit the L'Abri Ideas Library at  labriideaslibrary.org.  The library contains over one t...

This lecture explores the way both church and Western culture have interpreted the Biblical word soul ( nephesh ) through a Greek philosophical paradigm, leading to a strong body-soul dualism which reduces the real person to a state of inner consciousness. This has led Christians to be disengaged from the worlds around us of nature and culture, and is the great-great-great-grandfather of transgend...

The Bible describes reality in a unique way. All other worldviews are fundamentally different from the Biblical one, although many details can be the same. This lecture looks at the similarities and differences between Monism, Dualism and Trinitarianism and works to bring clarity concerning many questions and confusions.  Purchase a copy of Ellis’ book on the same topic here . Listen to and downlo...

Andrew shows readers how secularism has reshaped church culture, changing the way many Christians and churches live and worship without being noticed. Both provocative and practical, he challenges Christians to live with radical Christ-like distinctiveness that requires both reformation by the church and revival by the Holy Spirit. Purchase a copy of Andrew’s book here . Listen to and download rec...

Christians rightly argue for the legal protection of plural political visions and excessive regulatory bureaucratic constraints on both personal and institutional religious freedom. They do this pursuant to a theologically well-grounded commitment to religious toleration and a limited state. But how does this championing of pluralism relate to our equally compelling duty of solidarity with our fel...

This lecture will explore the way that the purpose of education has changed through time and what this tells us about how societies have viewed reality and what it means to be human. The purpose of education has always been connected to the idea of human flourishing. This lecture will explore the theme of telos or purpose in education and what this tells us about the values and goals that various...

In a culture that encourages us to explore and keep our options open, we've forgotten the joys to be found in radical acts of commitment to particular things–whether that be people, places, vocations, or even to a particular idea of the good life. Joel helps us understand what commitments are and how they function in our lives. He unpacks why it’s so difficult for us to commit in this cultural mom...

Trust is the glue of a healthy social life. This lecture will reflect on how trust grows and how questions of identity disrupt the process.  Listen to and download recent lectures at englishlabri.org/podcast . For more resources, visit the L'Abri Ideas Library at  labriideaslibrary.org.  The library contains over one thousand lectures and discussions that explore questions about the reality and re...

How does the renewal of our imaginations shape our Christian life and witness? How do we cultivate the renewal of our imaginations by the Spirit through the Word, for life in the world? This lecture explores the nature of the imagination and how it connects to the biblical theme of the heart, the importance of imaginative renewal for our discipleship, and suggests some steps we can take to help pa...

The German sociologist Max Weber used the term ‘iron cage’ to describe the modern project, founded on control and rationality. Modernity brought us a series of ideas that conceptualize reality as if we live in a closed universe (as Francis Schaeffer put it), where there is no real meaning and significance. This lecture will present some of modernity’s main concepts, challenging them from a Christi...

Sally Rooney is the 31 year old Irish Marxist author of 3 best selling novels— Conversation with Friends, Normal People and Beautiful World , Where Are You . Normal People was adapted into a hugely successful 12 part BBC series and a TV adaptation of Conversation with Friends is about to air this year. This lecture explores the worlds the novels create and reflect and why they resonate so deeply a...

Everyone wants to live in harmony. But what does it mean? Harmony is a musical term, and in music it’s about relationships, unity and diversity, and dealing with (or accepting) dissonance. We explore what music has to teach us about community life. Listen carefully! Listen to and download recent lectures at englishlabri.org/podcast . For more resources, visit the L'Abri Ideas Library at  labriidea...

The fact that Jesus Christ has been represented over 150 times in cinema shows us how much this question still moves us: "Who do people say I am?” This lecture shows how the representations of Jesus in cinema speak more about cinema than about Christ himself, as well as how our own views about Jesus can speak more about us than about Christ himself. Listen to and download recent lectures at englis...

The creation has been groaning since the events of Genesis chapter 3, yet for much of the church's history, scant regard seems to have been paid to the duty that God's people might have to alleviate non-human dysfunction. What notable exceptions can we celebrate, and what is our calling today?  In a culture declaring a "climate emergency", how now should we live? This lecture shares a personal per...

The central aim of this lecture is to reflect on the impact of major culture shifts in the last century—namely, the emergence of gender studies, the affective revolution and the advent of computer technology—on the way dating and relationships are perceived and experienced. Listen to and download recent lectures at englishlabri.org/podcast . For more resources, visit the L'Abri Ideas Library at  l...

Health and well-being have been popular topics of books, research and dinner table conversations in the recent decades. Although it is true that humans have exercised and practiced sports since ancient times, our contemporary society seems to have a very high interest in how to best treat our bodies to improve our lives. In this lecture, we will look at this topic from a Christian perspective, aim...

The return to the biblical text in England from the late sixteenth century challenged the then current expectations of masculine behaviour. The lecture discusses this, and argues that it continues to be an important (and neglected) source for a more rounded masculinity in contemporary culture. Listen to and download recent lectures at englishlabri.org/podcast . For more resources, visit the L'Abri...

Francis Schaeffer was a church man. He pastored three churches in the States before going to Europe and founded a church in Switzerland before he started L'Abri. Several of his books focused on the church, including his last, The Great Evangelical Disaster. What were his concerns for the church, both the local congregation and the wider evangelical movement, and how have those played out nearly fo...