WEBINAR: Is Hell Real? Is it Crowded? Accounts of the Afterlife in the Christian Tradition

May 14, 2020

Austin WalkerLumen Christi Institute

Madison ChastainLumen Christi Institute

Presented by the Lumen Christi Institute’s Newman Forum. Open to current high school students. This event was made possible by a grant from the Our Sunday Visitor Institute.

You have two sections to choose from:

1:00pm-2:00pm

3:30pm-4:30pm

Is Hitler in Hell? Is Judas? Is everyone saved? Why would a merciful God allow humans to suffer eternal damnation?

In this Thursday session, we're going to lean on the wisdom of one of our favorites: Bishop Robert Barron. Relying on his piece, "Is Hell Crowded or Empty?" we'll come together for an hour to discuss the three accounts of Hell that he traces through history, as well as other common representations of Hell in literature. From Augustine and Aquinas, to Barth and Balthasar, the reality of Hell is rooted in Scripture and the words of Christ Himself, and yet is still hotly debated (pun intended). By the end of our time together, students will be able to respond to the most common dialogues around what Hell is like, and have a working familiarity with the most salient representations of Hell in the media we consume.

Students should come to the session having watched Bishop Barron's 9 minute video on Hell, which you can find here: https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/video/is-hell-crowded-or-empty/183/

There is no charge for the seminar, but a good-will donation of $10 is encouraged.

(Teachers and Youth Ministers may sit in, if interested. Please register as "Other," and log in to the provided Zoom link 15 minutes prior to your session's start time to ensure you are properly muted.)

Austin Walker is Assistant Director of the Lumen Christi Institute where he directs LCI's Newman Forum and West Suburban Series on Catholic Culture, in addition to serving as the instructor for LCI's Executive Great Books series. He is also an instructor at the University of Chicago's Graham School Basic Program of Liberal Education. He is completing a Ph.D. on John Henry Newman's political philosophy at the University of Chicago's prestigious Committee on Social Thought, and holds M.A.'s from the University of Chicago and the University of Mississippi. He received a B.A. with highest honors in Classical Languages from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 2007 to 2011, he taught in the Mississippi Delta for the Mississippi Teacher Corps, where he received the Andrew P. Mullins Jr. Award in 2009.

Madison Chastain is Program Coordinator of the Newman Forum, the Lumen Christi Institute's programming for high school students. Madison received a BA from Saint Mary's College of California, where she studied English as well as Theology and Religious Studies. After spending a year teaching religion to middle schoolers in Tulsa, Oklahoma as a Lasallian Volunteer, Madison came to the University of Chicago where she received her MA from the Divinity School. Her research and writing focuses on Catholic disability theology and medical ethics.