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Join us for a discussion on religion and religious expression in the academy and public life featuring Ross Douthat, a panel of scholars, and moderated by Willemien Otten (Professor of Theology and of the History of Christianity and Director of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School). Presented by the Lumen Christi Institute,The Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the Divinity School,The Institute of Politics, and the International House Global Voices Program. Free and open to the public. Persons with disabilities who may need assistance should contact the Office of...

$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...