They were a series of annual lectures; since the turn of the 20th century they have typically been biennial. They continue to concentrate on Christian theological topics. The lectures have traditionally been published in book form. On a number of occasions, notably at points during the 19th century, they attracted great interest and controversy.
Lecturers (incomplete list)
1780–1799
1780 – James BandinelEight Sermons preached before the University of Oxford
1781 – Timothy NeveEight Sermons preached before the University of Oxford
1782 – Robert Holmes[2]The Prophecies and Testimony of John the Baptist, and the parallel Prophecies of Jesus Christ
1783 – John Cobb Eight sermons preached before the University of Oxford
1813 – John Collinson A Key to the Writings of the Principal Fathers of the Christian Church who flourished during the first three centuries[9]
1814 – William Van MildertThe General Principles of Scripture-Interpretation
1815 – Reginald HeberThe Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter
1816 – John Hume Spry Christian Union Doctrinally and Historically Considered
1817 – John Miller The Divine Authority of Holy Scripture
1818 – Charles Abel Moysey The Doctrines of Unitarians Examined
1819 – Hector Davies Morgan A Compressed View of the Religious Principles and Practices of the Age[10]
1820 – Godfrey FaussettThe Claims of the Established Church to exclusive attachment and support, and the Dangers which menace her from Schism and Indifference, considered
1821 – John JonesThe Moral Tendency of Divine Revelation
1822 – Richard WhatelyThe Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Matters of Religion
1823 – Charles Goddard[11]The Mental Condition Necessary to a due Inquiry into Religious Evidence
1824 – John Josias ConybeareAn Attempt to Trace the History and to Ascertain the Limits of the Secondary and Spiritual Interpretation of Scripture[12]
1825–1849
1825 – George ChandlerThe Scheme of Divine Revelation Considered
1826 – William Vaux The Benefits Annexed to a Participation in the Two Christian Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
1827 – Henry Hart MilmanCharacter and Conduct of the Apostles Considered as an Evidence of Christianity
1828 – Thomas Horne The Religious Necessity of the Reformation
1829 – Edward BurtonInquiry into the Heresies of the Apostolic Age
1830 – Henry SoamesAn inquiry into the doctrines of the Anglo-Saxon church
1841 – Samuel Wilberforce was invited to lecture butwithdrew[14] following the death of his wife Emily
1842 – James GarbettChrist, as Prophet, Priest, and King
1843 – Anthony Grant The Past and Prospective Extension of the Gospel By Missions to the Heathen
1844 – Richard Wiliam JelfAn inquiry into the means of grace, their mutual connection, and combined use, with especial reference to the Church of England
2005 – Paul S. FiddesSeeing the world and knowing God: ancient wisdom and modern doctrine
2007 – Raymond PlantReligion, Citizenship and Liberal Pluralism
2009 – Richard ParishCatholic Particularity in Seventeenth-Century French Writing: Christianity is Strange[25]
2011 – Frances YoungGod's Presence: A Contemporary Recapitulation Of Early Christianity[26]
2013 – Michael BannerImagining life: Christ and the human condition[27]
2015 – David F. Ford, Daring Spirit: John's Gospel Now
2017 – George PattisonA Phenomenology of the Devout Life[28]
2019 – Peter HarrisonRethinking Relations Between Science and Religion[29] YouTube Published as Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age''
2021 – Jessica Martin Four-Dimensional Eucharist[30]
2022 - Alec RyrieThe age of Hitler, and how we can escape it
2023 - Willie James Jennings Jesus and the Displaced: Christology and the Redemption of Habitation
2024 - Rowan Williams Recognizing Strangers: Solidarity and Christian Ethics
^"Bampton Lectures (Nuttall Encyclopædia)". WOBO. Retrieved 20 February 2024. Bampton bequeathed funds for the annual preaching of eight divinity lecture sermons on the leading articles of the Christian faith, of which 30 copies are to be printed for distribution among the heads of houses.
^Dictionary of National Biography, article Holmes, Robert (1748–1805).
^A comparison of Islam and Christianity in their history, their evidence and their effects. 1784.
^"Archived copy". rylibweb.man.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 11 February 2001. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^Biography: Anonymous on Rev. Henry Kett Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine.
^Nares used de Luc to support a conservative stance in his 1805 Bamptons, which was still sympathetic to geology unlike his later works. Archive.org, 2006.
^Sermons preached before the University of Oxford.
^Strongly attacked by John Henry Newman's pamphlet Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological StatementsAnglican History.
^Dictionary of National Biography.
^Justification.
^Bishop Shirley died, having given only two of the lectures Archived May 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
^The Bampton Lectures for 1848 were given by another Evangelical, Edward G. Marsh, a former Fellow of Oriel, and now incumbent of Aylesford, Kent."EvanTheo2". Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
^After one of the most comprehensive and learned reviews of the history of the doctrine, he came out infavor of a qualified millennialist view. Papal Rome is certainly the mystical Babylon, and although its fall has not yet truly taken place, it is shortly to be expected. ((PDF) Archived 2006-09-05 at the Wayback Machine
^The book is the last statement, by a great English Protestant theologian, of a world of divinity which henceforth vanished except in the scholastic manuals. (PDF Archived 2007-02-07 at the Wayback Machine)
^Wright, George Frederick
^In his Bampton Lectures of 1884 he defended the proposition that the physical operation of the universe was determined, implying that God does not interfere with it. Temple asserted that God's superintendence of the world, including the evolution of life, was guaranteed through God's original creative decree. In his view the theory of evolution left the argument for an intelligent creator stronger than before."Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 February 2007. Retrieved 20 December 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^For many years the Bampton Lectures at Oxford had been considered as adding steadily and strongly to the bulwarks of the old orthodoxy. [...] But now there was an evident change. The departures from the old paths were many and striking, until at last, in 1893, came the lectures on Inspiration by the Rev. Dr. Sanday, Ireland Professor of Exegesis in the University of Oxford. In these, concessions were made to the newer criticism, which at an earlier time would have driven the lecturer not only out of the Church but out of any decent position in society ...[1] Archived February 15, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
^Now available as Howard E. Root, Theological Radicalism and Tradition: 'The Limits of Radicalism' with Appendices, ed. Christopher R. Brewer. London and New York: Routledge, 2017.
