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$60 General / $600 Host Committee Member Since publishing Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics in 2012, Ross Douthat’s commentary on American religious culture has established him as a prominent and thoughtful critic. This lecture will describe the three "world pictures" that dominate American religiosity: the biblical, spiritual, and secular. As these world pictures jockey for cultural dominance, interesting questions arise. Can the biblical world picture gain ground? Will the secular world picture carry the day? Will the spiritual world picture be forced to give way to one of its more inflexible alternatives? These and other questions will...

Free and open to the public. Cosponsored by the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, the Seminary Coop Bookstore, and the Divinity School Theology Club. ABOUT THE BOOK Has liberalism failed because it has succeeded? Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering...

Open to current university students and faculty. Copies of Democracy in America will be available for participants who do not already have it. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What does Tocqueville mean by democracy? Is democracy inevitable ("providential")? Is its corruption inevitable? What, if anything, follows democracy? Democratic despotism? Do Tocqueville's recommendations for the role played by religion as a corrective to democracy apply any longer? Can they? REQUIRED READINGS: Democracy in America (U of C Press, Mansfield translation): Author’s Introduction: pp. 3-15 I.i. 2: pp. 27-45 I.i.5: (partial): pp. 57-65 I.ii.9:  (partial): pp. 274-302 II.i.1-3: pp. 403-415 II.i. 5-8: pp. 417-428 II.i.10-11: pp. 433-443...

REGISTER HERE Transportation will be provided from Hyde Park. Open to current university students and faculty. Cosponsored by the Hildegard of Bingen Society. Join us for an evening of prayer with Benedictine Monks at the Monastery of the Holy Cross. Students will participate in the prayer of the Divine Office (including Vespers and Compline), and have dinner and discussion of St. Benedict's Teaching on Humility by Michael Casey with Fr. Peter Funk, OSB, prior of the monastery and alumnus of the University of Chicago. More information about the monastery can be found HERE. SCHEDULE 4:15pm   Meet at Gavin House (1220...

REGISTER HERE 6:00 Dinner | 6:30 Lecture Intended for current students and faculty. Others interested in attending: please contact info@lumenchristi.org. Registrants are free to attend as many sessions as they choose. Sessions do not presuppose previous attendance or prior knowledge of the subject. The Renaissance era is regarded as the period during which European civilization transitioned from the medieval to the modern. It was an era of reform and renewal in the Catholic Church as well, a time in which traditions and practices were revisited, rethought, and matured. This course will introduce students to the reforms and renewal of Catholic beliefs and...

Cosponsored by the Theology Club of the University of Chicago's Divinity School. Free and open to the public. In this lecture, Cardinal Arborelius explores the role that contemplative women have occupied in the Church throughout the ages and reflects on the witness they can offer to today's secular society. By discussing women ranging from Mary the Mother of God through to Teresa of Ávila and the Little Flower, Arborelius contends that the characteristically feminine charism for contemplative prayer can beautifully illuminate mystical union with God. Arborelius also contends that the feminine gift for loving presence to the marginalized, modeled by Mother Theresa or St. Bridget of Sweden, uniquely builds...