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Is the History of Religions on the Brink of a New Axial Age?
Presented By: Paul Knitter, PhD Given the present state of the world in which various forms of violence threaten the well-being of people and planet, given the role that the religions of the world are playing in that violence, many religious believers and leaders feel called to fashion a new axial age in the religious history of humankind. Similar to the first axial age (800 to 200 BCE), this will call for a radical transformation in religious awareness – this time,…
Find out more »Where Hope Rises: Wisdom-Sophia in the Writings of Thomas Merton
Presented By: Christopher Pramuk, PhD (Associate Professor of Theology, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH) In a world riven by polarization, war, and planetary crisis, the Wisdom-Sophia tradition interjects a quiet word of unity and hope, of revelatory wonder and beauty, beckoning us to the work of healing, cross-cultural encounter and reconciliation. In a world replete with unspeakable violence against women and children, remembering and celebrating the feminine face of God, the divine presence alive in the world, becomes ever more urgent for Christianity…
Find out more »Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: His Life, His Work, and His Spirituality
Dr. Ursula King will explore significant events in the life of the French paleontologist and religious thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ and his prophetic thought which is based in his cosmic, evolutionary spirituality. Click Here for the Poster For more information on this lecture click here. Below is a video of this lecture, feel free to click here to view the lecture on our YouTube channel.
Find out more »Kanzi, Pan-Homo Culture, and Theological Primatology
Presented By: Nancy R. Howell, PhD Professor of Theology and Philosophy of Religion Saint Paul School of Theology in Greater Kansas City Kanzi, a bonobo with extraordinary capacity for symbolic communication, acquired language not by rote teaching, but by immersion in a complex Pan-Homo language culture. Kanzi and his bonobo-human family point toward a larger concept of the eco-family and our evolutionary/ecological kinship with Great Apes. Theological primatology is Christian reflection on the meaning of being human and primate in our creative…
Find out more »Working at the Subtle Edge: The Intersection of Science & Religion
Presented By: Michelle Francl, PhD Professor of Chemistry, Bryn Mawr College To do theology, William James said, is to work at the subtle edge of things, at the place where words and thoughts expire. Science, too, walks a subtle edge between what we know and what we can describe. It pushes language and mathematics in its attempt to express what we understand about the universe. We create new terminology—as well as entire fields of mathematics—to describe the natural world,…
Find out more »The Free Will Problem: Insights from Physics
PLEASE NOTE: Due to Snow Dr. Tammaro's lecture has been rescheduled to Monday, February 16, 2015 at 7pm. Presented By: Elliot Tammaro, PhD Assistant Professor of Physics, Chestnut Hill College We, as humans, feel that we have complete freedom in our choice of action. So strongly do we believe that we have freedom of choice that we deem ourselves morally responsible for our decisions. However, classical physics, the physics of Newton and Einstein, purports that all physical systems evolve deterministically. That…
Find out more »Transhumanist Dreams and Christian Hopes
Presented By: Ronald Cole-Turner, PhD H. Parker Sharp Professor of Theology & Ethics Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Technology has always played a key role in human evolution. Today, however, we face an entirely new situation. Not only is technology growing in power and sophistication, but we are turning it on ourselves rather than just on our environment. New technologies promise to enhance physical strength or appearance, to improve mental focus, to lengthen the human lifespan, or to bring about spiritual experience.…
Find out more »Emergent Mind: What Brains & Cognition Tell Us About Faith
Presented By: Philip Clayton, PhD Ingaham Professor, Claremont School of Theology The reduction of consciousness to the brain, which has not been achieved by science despite some claims to the contrary, would represent a kind of crowning glory for science but would have devastating implications for the humanities, the arts, and religious belief. Separating consciousness from brain (dualism) protects mind and faith from scientific encroachment, but only at the cost of an arbitrary halt to scientific research. A more…
Find out more »“Following the ‘Road of Fire’: The Emergence of Teilhard de Chardin’s Panchristic Mysticism during the First World War,”
Presented By: Ursula King, PhD Professor Emerita of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol One of the foremost Catholic thinkers to emerge from the First World War was the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955). The war experience was a true crucible of fire for him and formed him deeply for the rest of his life. Drawn to follow the road of fire, he first began to write in 1916 in the trenches. His essays of 1916-19…
Find out more »Healing: The Role of Religion during the Pandemic
Healing: The Role of Religion during the Pandemic Sr. Grace Miriam Usala, MS, MD, RSM Saint Francis Xavier Home of Mercy in Tulsa, Oklahoma Wednesday, February 24, 2021; 7 pm to 9 pm Divorced from religion, the healing process is imperfect. This is Sister Doctor Grace Miriam Usala’s conclusion as she reflects on her experience over the last year, caring for patients in and out of the hospital and observing civil unrest. In this lecture, Sr. Grace Miriam will share her…
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