Dr J Rgen Moltmann

Hayes conference centre celebrates centenary

It was once the scene of a great escape by German prisoners during World War II. Today, many people know The Hayes Christian Conference Centre as a place they’d happily spend a bit longer in.

The centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, is celebrating its centenary today with a service of thanksgiving joined by former hostage and special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Terry Waite.

It was first built as a private house in the 1860s by Derbyshire entrepreneur, Fitzherbert, the man behind the iconic St Pancras train station in London.

Opened as a Christian conference centre in 1911, it was later requisitioned as a major PoW camp during World War II.

The escape of Franz von Werra and four other German prisoners through a tunnel they dug under the parameter fence is legendary and featured extensively in the 1950s war movie, ‘The One That Got Away.’

All five men were re-captured but von Werra escaped again from a prison camp in Canada and became the only PoW in the War to escape from a camp and make it all the way back to Germany.

Other notable PoWs at The Hayes were Bert Trautmann, the Manchester City goalkeeper who famously broke his neck in three places during the 1956 FA Cup Final at Wembley, and renowned theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, who reportedly returned to the centre after the war to address a clergy conference.

The tunnel dug by the escapees still exists, although none of the 40,000 guests who stay at the centre each year are in any hurry to use it.

“Our PoWs may have been unwilling ‘guests’ but visit any community in the UK and you’ll find people who have enjoyed a time of refreshment here,” said Brian Cupples, general manager of The Hayes. “We have constantly developed to meet the changing needs of our visitors – a key to our success.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, sent his good wishes for the centenary celebration.

He said: “The Hayes has been a valuable resource for quiet reflection and recharging of batteries. I hope it will continue to play its important role in Christian life.

Ending Friendly Fire: Coffee with Jurgen Moltmann: "Who is a ...

Now that I'm done with school, I thought it would be cool to start a new series dialoguing with different works from different theologians. I was talking with Andrew about starting a Karl Barth reading dialogue, but today I thought I would start with one of the most influential theologians in my life, Jurgen Moltmann. So today I'm going to dialogue with a short chapter he wrote in The internal diving lines in academic theology can be discovered in every theological faculty. Many professors expound their theology in just the way they expect their doctoral candidates and assistance one day to go on expounding in. But most of their students want to be pastors or teachers in the congregations of their church. They are not interested in an academic career. The more they adopt theology and make it their own, the greater their difficulty later in bridging the broad gulf between the 'educated' and the 'uneducated' in their congregations. (p. 10) I find it interesting that one of the most influential theologians in the modern era would acknowledge the divide between the academy and the pulpit, but I appreciate his thoughts and theology written in plain sight. His work, Jesus Christ for Today's World, might present unique challenges to our paradigms and theological worldviews, but his presentation is clear and understandable. It's ironic that the academic jargon revolving around theology is supposed to present clear arguments for one's thesis, but is typically incomprehensible to a "common" theologian. As I started to unpack this idea, perhaps the best theology is one that is made clearly understandable and graspable to the laity, this is what made Martin Luther's theology and the translations of  Scripture so powerful, it made the inscrutable doctrines of the Christian church accessible again. In response to the academic inaccessibility, Moltmann explains that what has developed was a "congregational theology" which he calls 'popular theology' or 'the theology of the people.' (p. 11). He goes on to write, If academic theology does not find its way to ordinary people, it loses it's foundation. Without the church, Christian theology cannot exist as a university discipline. It will become diffused and lost itself in the science of religions. On the other hand, popular theology loses its reasonable character if it pays no attention to academic theology, or if it dismisses that theology's competence. (p.

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