The Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Annual Memorial Lecture 2025
11 March 2025
“The choice humankind faces in every age is between the idea of power and the power of ideas. Judaism has always believed in the power of ideas, and it remains the only non-violent way to change the world.”
Tuesday 11 March 2025 at 7:00 pm
at King’s College London
DELIVERED BY
THE RT REVD AND RT HON
Lord Rowan Williams
104TH ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
“Covenant, Solidarity, and Building Together:
From Cohesion to Community”
The Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Annual Memorial Lecture explores the pressing challenges facing society, sparks meaningful discussions on ethics and public policy, and engages audiences with the ideas Rabbi Sacks championed as a global moral leader - ideas that continue to resonate in today’s world.
Rabbi Sacks’ groundbreaking meditations on how we mend our social brokenness, drawing deeply on the basic reality of covenant with God and one another, converge with some important strands in modern European thinking about solidarity. A durable community needs more than general fellow-feeling. It requires the sense of a common project.
Lord Williams said: “This lecture, in tribute to Jonathan Sacks, will reflect on how we make the transition from what can be a sentimental feeling of common identity to an active sharing of labour in the construction of new possibilities for our living together.”
About the 2025 Keynote Speaker
The Rt Revd and Rt Hon
Lord Rowan Williams
Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, PC, FBA, FRSL, FLSW, is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.
When he stepped down as Archbishop, Rabbi Sacks said: “The personal bond we have built and sustained over many years has been a source of strength and a symbol of how people of different faiths can come together as strangers and part as friends.”
The 2024 Annual Memorial Lecture
Hope, Faith, and Charity
On Wednesday 27 March 2024, The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown was the honoured keynote speaker at The Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Annual Memorial Lecture. This inaugural lecture was held at King's College London. During his powerful address, Gordon Brown called for a new partnership to tackle poverty, recalling this key message in Rabbi Sacks’ writings.