Abingdon Group Meeting – Examining the Legacy of Albert Schweitzer
Tuesday 4 June 2024
One of our members will lead a discussion on the philosophy of Reverence for Life developed by Albert Schweitzer and we will reflect on the relevance of these ideas for progressive faith in the 21st Century.
- Start Date:
- Tuesday 4th June 2024
- Start Time:
- 7:30PM
- Location:
- This will be a Zoom Meeting, please contact the convenor by email if you wish to come
- Phone:
- 01235530480
- Email:
- cliff.marshall@pcnbritain.org.uk
- Speakers:
- Marianne Mead
Marianne has offered the following notes to stimulate our thoughts in readiness for the meeting on 4th June:
Albert Schweitzer may not now be as well known as he was in the last century. A polymath par excellence - a theologian, philosopher, organist and expert in organ building, expert in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and finally a medical doctor who was awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of Reverence for Life and humanitarian work. HIs philosophy of Reverence for Life came to him in 1915, during WWI when he was already in Lambaréné (then part of French Equatorial Africa, now Gabon) but as German citizen was held under house arrest by the French authorities.
Schweitzer's later protest against the rush for nuclear armament continued this struggle for a life affirmative actions.
His response to the question "why?" was "My life is my argument" summarises a philosophy that it would be useful to re-examine today, nearly 150 years after his birth.