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Swinton, Professor and Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, will discuss the nature and purpose of time, and the ways in which certain forms of disability draw attention to forgotten aspects of time and timefulness.<\/p>\n
The lectures will focus particularly on people with profound intellectual disabilities and people with cognitive disabilities such as advanced dementia. People with such life experiences perceive and live out time in ways that are quite different from the expectations of our speed driven culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can conceptualize time differently, we begin to look at the gospel quite differently,\u201d Swinton says.<\/p>\n
People with profound disabilities draw attention to the significance of time and point towards the fact that true knowledge of God and faithful discipleship is slow and gentle; not bound by the assumptions of speed, worldly success, and the quickness of one\u2019s intellect.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the primary things that we learn is that by living in God\u2019s time as opposed to the time created by our own clocks, we begin to encounter our daily practices quite differently,\u201d Swinton says.<\/p>\n
He adds that Christians today are \u201calways walking ahead of Jesus.\u201d The average Westerner walks at a pace of six miles per hour, whereas Jesus would have walked at half that speed\u2014partly because of the heat, but partly because he understood the meaning of time. He had all the time in the world to do what God wanted him to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy taking time to slow down and think about the experiences of people with dementia, we begin to discover things about God and being human that simply aren\u2019t available (to us) when we\u2019re walking ahead of Jesus,\u201d Swinton says.<\/p>\n
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Swinton is Professor in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care in the School of Divinity, Religious Studies and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. He has a background in nursing and healthcare chaplaincy, and has researched and published extensively within the areas of practical theology, mental health, spirituality and human well-being, and the theology of disability.<\/p>\n
Swinton says his lectures at CMU are for everyone. Through the lectures, he aims to call Christians together to engage in a more faithful discipleship.<\/p>\n
He hopes that people who attend will walk away with an understanding that people with profound intellectual disabilities and people with advanced dementia are disciples with a God-given vocation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lectures appear to be about disability, but they\u2019re really about humanness and faithfulness,\u201d Swinton says. \u201cThey\u2019re actually about all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
About CMU
\n<\/strong>A Christian university in the Anabaptist tradition, CMU\u2019s Shaftesbury campus offers undergraduate degrees in arts, business, humanities, music, sciences and social sciences, and graduate degrees in Theology and Ministry. CMU has over 1,600 students, including those enrolled in degree programs at the Shaftesbury Campus and in its Menno Simons College and Outtatown programs.<\/em><\/p>\n