Posted on February 4, 2021 by PLT Staff

Lecture given by award-winning religion, politics, and culture writer Jonathan Merritt at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA (October 18, 2018). The lecture begins at 5:45. Many of us struggle to talk about faith, discovering that old religious words like “sin,” “gospel,” and “grace” fail to connect in today’s swiftly changing culture. Merritt explores how throughout the Bible, belief and speech go hand-in-hand; how by speaking and therefore creating, we are acting in God’s image; and how the words spoken by us, to us, and about us can alter our life’s path. Merritt’s lecture was sponsored by the Project on Lived Theology, the Department of Religious Studies, and Theological Horizons. To browse all the lectures given as part of the Capps Lecture series, click here. For a listing of all our Occasional Lectures, click here.

Excerpt: “Consider the major transformative moments in Biblical history for a moment: the creation, the Tower of Babel, the calling of Abraham and of Moses, the giving of the Mosaic law, every prophetic revelation and proclamation, the arrival and the ministry of Jesus, the Great Commission, the Day of Pentecost. God could have chosen to usher into any of these moments an infinite number of ways, but God chooses always a linguistic miracle. Why is that?…Throughout the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, belief and articulation are inextricably linked. We believe; therefore, we speak.”

• Video Information
• Date Recorded:October 18, 2018
• Location Recorded:Charlottesville, VA