Last month, as part of the second annual Lesslie Newbigin Summer Institute programme, the Newbigin Centre for Gospel and Western Culture was officially launched at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. More than 60 people attended the launch event, including academics, leaders in culture, business and church life, and mission partners.

The centre's director, Paul Weston, outlined his vision for the Newbigin Centre at the launch event, explaining how the centre aims to attract research students for MPhil and PhD degrees on themes relating the Gospel and western culture, and to develop resources for the wider Church. The Revd John Proctor, general secretary of the United Reformed Church, also spoke at the event.

The Revd Lesslie Newbigin was sent by the Church of Scotland to the Madras Mission, where he became one of the first bishops of the newly-formed Church of South India. On his return to Britain in 1974, Newbigin joined the URC and began a prolific writing and teaching career addressing the need for the Church to address western society as a post-Christian culture.

Speaking at the launch of the Newbigin Centre, Mr Proctor said: “In a sense, no denomination owned Lesslie Newbigin, but he understood the need to belong somewhere and so made his home in the URC. In his retirement, Newbigin contributed at every level of the life of the Church. The contributions that he made – in such areas as the understanding of the Gospel as public truth, the Christian story as narrative to address the whole of human experience, and the Cross as standing tall and broad enough to beckon the nations – are still being worked out now.”

The photo shows Lesslie Newbigin during his time as Bishop of Madras.

©The United Reformed Church