Hibbert Lectures

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title: "Hibbert Lectures" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["british-lecture-series", "religious-education-in-the-united-kingdom", "unitarianism-in-the-united-kingdom", "recurring-events-established-in-1878", "1878-establishments-in-the-united-kingdom"] topic_path: "geography/united-kingdom" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibbert_Lectures" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

The Hibbert Lectures are an annual series of non-sectarian lectures on theological issues. They are sponsored by the Hibbert Trust, which was founded in 1847 by the Unitarian Robert Hibbert with a goal to uphold "the unfettered exercise of private judgement in matters of religion.". In recent years the lectures have been broadcast by the BBC.

Lecturers (incomplete list)

1878-1894 (First Series)

• 1878 Max Müller On the Religions of India (inaugural)
• 1879 Peter le Page Renouf The Religion of the Egyptians
• 1880 Ernest Renan Lectures on the Influence of the Institutions, Thought And Culture of Rome on Christianity And the Development of the Catholic Church
• 1881 T. W. Rhys Davids Indian Buddhism
• 1882 Abraham Kuenen National Religions and Universal Religion
• 1883 Charles Beard The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in its Relation to Modern Thought and Knowledge
• 1884 Albert Reville The Native Religions of Mexico and Peru
• 1885 Otto Pfleiderer The Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity
• 1886 John Rhys Lectures on the origin and growth of religion as illustrated by Celtic heathendom
• 1887 Archibald Sayce Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians
• 1888 Edwin Hatch Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church
• 1891 Eugene, Count Goblet D'Alviella Lectures on the Origin and Growth of the Concept of God, as Illustrated by Anthropology and History
• 1892 Claude Montefiore The Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews
• 1893 Charles Barnes Upton Lectures on the bases of religious belief
• 1894 James Drummond Via, Veritas, Vita; Christianity in its most simple and intelligible form

1900-1949

• 1906 Franz Cumont (on Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism)
• 1908 William James A Pluralistic Universe
• 1911 Lewis Richard Farnell The Higher Aspects of Greek Religion
• 1912 James Hope Moulton Early Zoroastrianism
• 1913 Josiah Royce The Problem of Christianity, online edition (volume one)
• 1913 David Samuel Margoliouth The Early Development of Mohammedanism
• 1914 Herbert A. Giles Confucianism and Its Rivals
• 1916 Louis de La Vallée-Poussin The Way to Nirvána: Ancient Buddhism as a Discipline of Salvation
• 1916 Philip H. Wicksteed The reactions between dogma & philosophy illustrated from the works of S. Thomas Aquinas
• 1919 Joseph Estlin Carpenter Theism in Medieval India
• 1920 William Ralph Inge "The State, Visible and Invisible"
• 1921 James Moffatt The Approach to the New Testament
• 1922 Lawrence Pearsall Jacks Religious Perplexities
• 1923 Felix Adler The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal
• 1924 Lawrence Pearsall Jacks Human consciousness towards God
• 1925 Francis Greenwood Peabody
• 1929 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan An Idealist View of Life
• 1930 Rabindranath Tagore The Religion of Man
• 1931 George Dawes Hicks The Philosophical Bases of Theism
• 1932 Robert Seymour Conway Ancient Italy and Modern Religion
• 1933 Lawrence Pearsall Jacks The Revolt Against Mechanism
• 1934 Albert Schweitzer Religion in Modern Civilization
• 1936 William Ernest Hocking Living Religions and a World Faith
• 1937 Gilbert Murray Liberality and Civilisation

1950-1999

• 1959 Basil Willey Darwin And Butler: Two Versions of Evolution
• 1963 James Luther Adams
• 1964 Geoffrey Nuttall, Roger Thomas, Roy Drummond Whitehorn, Harry Lismer Short, The Beginnings of Nonconformity
• 1965 Frederick Hadaway Hilliard Christianity in education
• 1977 Jonathon Porritt, Bringing Religion Down to Earth
• 1979 Rustum Roy Experimenting with Truth
• 1989 Bede Griffiths, Christianity in the Light of the East

2000-

• 2003 James L. Cox Religion without God: Methodological Agnosticism and the Future of Religious Studies
• 2005 Karen Armstrong and Khalid Hameed Spirituality and global citizenship

Notes

References

1. "Hibbert Lectures".
2. ''...so well known as a freethinker that when he was invited the Hibbert Lectures at Oxford, the authorities of Balliol College refused the use of a room for the purpose''[http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/dictionary.html]

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