don furnaloni

Lisa Miller, author of the upcoming book Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife, wrote an article in Newsweek last week called, Harvard’s Crisis of Faith. In this article Miller tries to make sense of why Harvard stopped making religion a requirement for their students. Here are some excerpts:

“My colleagues fear that taking religion seriously would undermine everything a great university stands for,” the Rev. Peter Gomes, Harvard’s chaplain and a professor of Christian history, told me. “I think that’s ungrounded, but there it is.”

“Steven Pinker says his main objection to the 2006 proposal that students be required to take a course in a Reason and Faith category was that it seemed to make reason and faith equal paths to truth. “I very, very, very much do not want to go on the record as suggesting that people should not know about religion,” he told me. “But reason and faith are not yin and yang. Faith is a phenomenon. Reason is what the university should be in the business of fostering.” … “Faith,” he said, “is believing in something without good reasons to do so. It has no place in anything but a religious institution, and our society has no shortage of these.”

“This year’s freshmen, the class of 2013, are the first to benefit from the new General Education requirements that passed, finally, in 2007. During their tenure at Harvard, undergraduates now have to take one course in each of eight categories, including two in science and one in math. They have to take one course in a loose category called Culture and Belief, which includes religion courses but also classes in photography, mythology, and the literature of the quest. A student, in other words, can graduate from Harvard without having to grapple directly with questions about a world in which people define themselves and their histories according to their views of God.”

In the January issue of New Blackfriars from this year, Alasdair MacIntyre has a good article on “The Very Idea of a University.” MacIntyre critiques contemporary universities for the very kind of thing that Harvard is undergoing. My friend Marika has a good summary of this article on her post entitled: How to stop clever people being stupid.

My wife, April is helping Stephen Sykes with typing up his autobiography. In the section she was working on last night, Bishop Sykes talks about his experience at Harvard during the Cuban missile crisis. The two things that struck me from April’s reading it to me was that 1) it wasn’t until he went to Harvard that he realised not everyone reads the same theology books and 2) he and his wife Joy decided to go to a park if the atomic bomb sirens alerted them to take shelter.

I think Bishop Sykes’ observations were fitting to include in light of Lisa Miller’s article. Also, keep an eye out for her book because, if I’m not mistaken, N.T. Wright makes an appearance or two.

Anne Lamott has an op-ed in the LA Times about her trip to India and what it taught her about America. Here’s a clip from the article:

“But after a few days on the subcontinent, I came to the unshakable belief that we will have decent enough healthcare reform, and soon. What’s going to help America rebound from Bush/Cheney is what saved and saves India — love, nonviolence, a lot of help, radical playfulness and perspective. I saw Indians living in spaces the size of my bathtub, giddily colorful amid the squalor and deprivation, making themselves beautiful and focusing on what they do have.”

On an unrelated note, The Guardian just published some stats on religious studies and theology degrees from the UK. What is interesting to me is the category within which I find myself: percentage of students from outside the UK. In my experience, it seems that this category is reserved mostly for the Americans and very few Australians. I thought that surely Durham would come at the top of the list because we have so many in the department. I was way wrong. St. Andrews comes to the top of the list with 53% followed closely by Edinburgh with 52%. This may sound like a ’so what’ kind of fact, but if you glance over to the difference in cost for tuition for those unfortunate non-UK passport holders, you may see how a school can benefit economically from this phenomenon.

food for thought…

Great Sabbath

Unwatched, the seventh dawn spreads,
Light smoothing out the sky, firm hands
Smearing a damp clay horizon-wide.
They wake, then lie unsurely side by side,
Knowing the ache and pull of novel bands,
The night’s new memories grinding in their heads,

Not understood, their bodies newly strange.
Outside, the new light soaks the ground;
They chill, turn in towards each other’s heat,
Then roll apart to test uncertain feet
On unknown earth. The dripping dawn around
Confirms the unformed fear. The world can change.

Outside an absence. While they learned and slept,
It had drawn off behind the sky’s stone face.
The world between their bodies and their palms
Is left to turn. The silence calms.
The morning’s news is plain; the centre space
Is empty. Under the trees where he once stepped

It is for you to go. Under the gaping sky
You wake, he sleeps, you make, he lies at rest.
He will not come again; last night you made
A future he will not invade.
Today the sun is buried, unexpressed;
You shall shape how to live and how to die.

You shall make change. He leaves no room
For his own hand; you shall be history,
You shall build heaven, you shall quarry hell.
No one shall say you have (or not) made well.
And, bored and pious, talk of mystery,
When weeds are choking up his tomb.

We make, he sleeps. Only his bloody dreams
Tell him the works of freedom on earth
Your liberty his flight, your future and his death.
He dreams your hell for you to draw your breath,
Out of his emptiness he lets your birth,
It is his silence echoes back the screams.

For they have not forgotten everything;
They wake and lie unsurely side by side
And listen to a laboured, steady breath,
Insistent, unconsoled, remembered death.
A small-hours passing on the turning tide,
Alone and never taught what key to sing.

He will not come again, not in the form
He walked on your first earth. But will you know
Him when he slips, a dosser, through your door?
Oh yes. Who else will touch the raw
Salt, unhealed memory of worlds ago,
Whispering, once you knew, once you were warm.

Listen for promises, fantasize for care,
And you will fill the neutral sky with lead,
Make chains to stop the quiet flow of chance,
Sell all your working for a stripper’s dance.
He chose his death; why can he not be dead,
And leave the bloody dreams at home elsewhere?

Drink up your tears; you can no longer need
The luxury of an old, cheap compassion.
To bury him may be a heavy cost,
But buys our future when today is lost,
Buys the clean stone from which we can refashion
Our image soiled by his remembered greed.

He asks his present back; the clay-daubed hands
Are picking at the dyke. Weep and you will unmix
The mortar, and the salt black sea will run
And catch and trip and drown us, one by one.
For walls are weaker than their strongest bricks.
Behind our stone, the moon-fed tide expands

To flood our fens. We walk with desperate care,
The locks are fragile and the wind is swelling,
Windows will rattle us awake, eyes wide,
To stare, lying unsurely side by side,
Quiet and fearful; there is no telling
What dreams will flesh out of the noisy air.

The stones had fallen down. We woke too late.
He has unlatched the house, smashed through the pains,
While we slept out our sixth and darkest night,
And taken back his gross seigneurial right.
Today he swills the cultivated plains,
Salting our clay; reclaiming our estate.
Rowan Williams, The Poems of Rowan Williams

Yesterday, CNN ran an article entitled: How Obama’s favorite theologian shaped his first year in office.

Read more about Niebuhr here.

So, it’s one thing if theology has influenced a particular politician. But one has to also ask, what is theology for? Ben Myers has some great thoughts for us about that:

“the whole purpose of theological education: not simply to make students cleverer, but to help them learn better ways to speak to God in prayer, and to one another in witness.

Who is this God who comes to us and meets us in Jesus Christ? That is the basic theological question. Answering this question requires broad knowledge, sharp thinking, scholarly discipline, and a good dose of intellectual creativity. But it also demands much more than that: if we’re really to grapple with the significance of God’s self-witness in Christ, we’ll also need to respond to that witness.”

CALL FOR PAPERS:
FROM WORLD MISSION TO INTERRELIGIOUS WITNESS
VISIONING ECUMENICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
JUNE 16-18, 2010
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN (DUBLIN, IRELAND)

CONFERENCE THEME
The Irish School of Ecumenics and the theological journal Concilium are pleased to announce a call to papers for the international conference: ‘From World Mission to Interreligious Witness: Visioning Ecumenics in the 21st Century’ (cf. Programme Description).
The conference seeks to explore and examine the following three-fold trajectory:
1) From World Mission to World Christianity and Beyond
2) Cultures of Faith and Public Theology: Ecumenical Witness
3) Religious Pluralism and Interreligious Witness

ABSTRACTS FORMAT
Titled abstracts of 200-300 words should address the following—and related— conference themes: interreligious witness and religious pluralism; ecumenical witness in the 21st century; the hopes and limits of public theology; theological dissent, freedom and creativity; mission and the ‘other’; intercultural theology and religious identity(ies); ‘mission’ in a secular context; local and global contexts of World Christianity and other faiths; and the next 100 years of ecumenism.
The format of the parallel paper sessions will be 20 minute presentations followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Parallel sessions will take place on Thursday, June 17th from 16:30-18:00. Co-authored papers are welcome.
Send your abstracts by February 1, 2010 to:
Dr. Peter Admirand at Dublinecumenics2010@tcd.ie (Irish School of Ecumenics, Dublin) or to
Pramila Rajan at: concilium.madras@gmail.com (Concilium, Madras).

LOCATION, CONFERENCE FEES, AND OTHER PRACTICALITIES
The conference will take place in the Arts building of Trinity College Dublin, ideally located in the city centre of Dublin, Ireland. In addition to accommodation and meal possibilities at Trinity College, the many cultural attractions, restaurants, pubs, and hotels of Dublin are all in walking distance.
Conference Fee: 100 Euro [50 Euro for students / unwaged] by April 1, 2010. 120/60 Euro after.
Questions can be directed to Dr. Peter Admirand (ISE) at Dublinecumenics2010@tcd.ie.

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
For further information on the Conference Organizers, please visit:
Academic Staff, ISE Ecumenics Programme http://www.tcd.ie/ise/
Steering Committee Concilium Board http://www.concilium.in/

For more info: website

This past week, I’ve been thinking more about health care reform in the U.S. I’ve been thinking about it for several reasons: 1) The ongoing debate in the U.S. 2) The State of the Union Address 3) April has been sick with a cold and went to the doctor today and my fourth reason comes from my friend Byron’s blog:

Byron makes some interesting points:

“Notice that the much maligned NHS in the UK spends about 40% of what the US does per person and yet the UK has a higher average life-expectancy by more than a year. Portugal spends less than 30% of the US level and also has a higher life-expectancy. The country with the greatest longevity, Japan, spends about 35% per person of what the US spends. And this massive US spending is not just absolute, but also relative to GDP. The other salient feature of this graph is noting that the only industrialised nation without universal health care is the US.”

It would be nice if we could get on the ball. But before you’re tempted to get overly optimistic about tides of change, watch the Republicans in action as they try and sink the ’socialist’ flagship that is the Obama administration:

Lewis Ayres has just posted his take on The Centre for Catholic Studies’ colloquium about the future of Trinitarian theology. It was a great day and also a great opportunity to hear both David Burrell and David Tracy.

Have a look at the blog and see if you can recognize any familiar faces.

Hopefully they will be posting the audio for this session soon.

A few days ago, Archbishop Rowan Williams accepted the literary Campion award. You can read about it here. Make sure to listen to his acceptance speech here.

Also, there is an unfavourable article in The Times about his recent call to repentance for Wall Street.

Great Mystics Address the Contemporary World

Saturday, 6 March 2010

Symposium Venue:
Lecture Theatre 2, School of Humanities, 11 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB

10.00 -10.30 Coffee & Registration

10.30 – 11.30

Keynote Speaker:
Prof. Emeritus Bernard McGinn (University of Chicago):
Great Mystics address the contemporary world

11.30 – 12.15 Prof. Oliver Davies (King’s College, London): ‘Negative Theology’ and the Excess of History

LUNCH (12.15-13.55)

14.00 -1 4.45 Dr Joseph Milne (University of Kent, Canterbury): Mystical Aspects of Christian Cosmology

14.45 – 15.30 Dr. Edward Howells (Heythrop College, London): ‘“O Guiding Night!”: Darkness as the Way to God in John of the Cross’ Mysticism’

TEA/COFFEE (15.30 – 16.00)

16.00 – 16.45 Prof. Tina Beattie (Roehampton): BLOODY WOMEN – Luce and Catherine answer back, but who has the last word?

16.45 – 17.30 Dom Aidan Bellenger (Abbot of Downside): ‘Benedictine Opening up and the Mystical Tradition.’

17.40 – 18.15 Roundtable discussion , including ‘question and answer’ session

The event is followed by dinner – please see registration form for details.

Cost (including lunch and coffee): £25 (when registering before 1 February 2010).
Reduced student rates are available.

To download the registration form, please visit www.bris.ac.uk/arts/birtha/greatmystics

Email: bppa.2010@durham.ac.uk
Web: www.dur.ac.uk/bppa.2010
Date: 16-18 July 2010
Venue: St. John’s College, University of Durham.

About the conference
The British Postgraduate Philosophy Conference, now in its twelfth successful year, is the largest and most prestigious postgraduate philosophy conference in the United Kingdom and regularly attracts delegates from across the world.

We invite papers from postgraduate researchers across all philosophical disciplines and traditions, including but not limited to ethics and moral philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of science and medicine, metaphysics, epistemology, environmental philosophy, philosophical logic, philosophy of language and linguistics, ancient philosophy, philosophy of mind and psychiatry, and the history of philosophy.

Pursuant to the BPPAs remit, we welcome all submissions in either the Western or Continental traditions which reflect the philosophical standards of rigour and clarity. We can provide bursarial support for speakers whose papers pertain to aesthetics, ethical theory, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of science, thanks to the kind support of the British Societies for Aesthetics, Ethical Theory, History of Philosophy, and Philosophy of Science.

Submissions and deadlines
Papers of no more than 3000 words should be emailed to bppa.2010@durham.ac.uk by 15 May 2010. All submissions will be peer-reviewed and should be suitable for blind review.

Proceedings will be published. We expect to have sixteen postgraduate speakers, and two keynote addresses, by Professor Wayne Martin (University of Essex) and Professor Jonathan Lowe (Durham University), as well as two professional development workshops, hosted by the Philosophy and Religious Studies Subject Centre of the University of Leeds.

Sponsors
We are grateful for the generous support of the following organisations and departments: the Department of Philosophy (Durham University), British Society for Aesthetics (BSA), British Society for Ethical Theory (BSET), British Society for the History of Philosophy (BSHP), British Society for Philosophy of Science (BSPS), Cambridge University Press, the Analysis Trust, the Mind Association, and the Philosophy and Religious Studies Subject Centre (University of Leeds).

Organising committee
Ian James Kidd (conference chair)
Alex Carruth
Arlette Frederik
Claire Graham
Duncan Proctor

Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Prolonged discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html. Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal.