1. MONDAY, 13 MAY 2013:  17:00 – 18:00

‘What Role Can Confessional Christianity play in the 21st Century University?’

Where: Keble College, Pusey Room

A workshop with Mark A. Noll (Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, 2013 Astor Lecturer, University of Oxford)
The event is open to all, but numbers are limited to 60: please book early by email (one for each person attending) to kebletheology@g​mail.com. All are welcome to stay for drinks after the workshop (6.30pm).

2. WEDNESDAY, 15 MAY 2013:  16:00 – 17:00

‘Religion and Race in American Politics:  A History Demanding Theological Evaluation’

THE OXFORD RESEARCH CENTRE FOR THE HUMANITIES (TORCH) – INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR
PROFESSOR MARK NOLL

Where: The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities, Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Rd, Oxford
With opening responses from Dr Joel Rasmussen (Faculty of Theology and Religion, Oxford) and Dr Andrew Preston (Faculty of History, Cambridge).
Followed by a drinks reception. All welcome.

3. THURSDAY, 16 MAY 2013:  17:00

ASTOR LECTURE 2013 – PROFESSOR MARK NOLL

‘Biblical Criticism and the Decline of America’s “Biblical Civilisation”, 1865-1918’

where: – EXAMINATION SCHOOLS AT 5 PM

The Faculty of Theology and Religion will host Professor Mark Noll (University of Notre Dame) as the Astor Lecturer in Trinity Term 2013.  Prof. Noll is one of America’s foremost cultural and religious historians, and a recipient of the prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities medal (awarded at a White House ceremony in 2006). His research concerns mostly the history of Christianity in the United States and Canada, but he also teaches courses in the Civil War era, general Canadian history, and the recent world history of Christianity.]  He is currently working on a book that combines combine two large narratives about the Bible in American history; first the rise and decline of a biblical civilization defined mostly by activistic, British-origin Protestants; and, second, the ever widening diversity of Bibles, biblical uses, and other sacred Scriptures in a liberal America open to Christian believers of all kinds as well as the adherents of many other authoritative religious texts.  His lecture at Oxford extends research published in “America’s God:  From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln” (Oxford University Press, 2002) and “The Civil War as a Theological Crisis” (University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

Prof McGrath also has a book signing at Blackwell’s 2 May at 7PM for his new biography: ‘C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet‘.

Location: Christ Church, University of Oxford

sign up here

For centuries, atheism was suppressed because of its supposed amorality. Recently, New Atheists such as A.C. Grayling and Sam Harris are adamant that decent, liberal morality is perfectly possible without religious belief—indeed, that it is onlypossible without it. Others, such as Jürgen Habermas, acknowledge that Christianity has had a peculiar capacity to articulate humanist values and norms, but that these can be extracted without loss from their theological roots. Now, the McDonald Centre, together with the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter, is gathering ten philosophers and theologians—believers and unbelievers—from the UK, the USA, and New Zealand to address the topic.

• If morality in general does not need religion, might specific moralities nonetheless need it?
• If religion is morally necessary, what kind of necessity is involved—logical, psychological, cultural? And what is it necessaryfor—any intelligibility at all or optimal intelligibility?
• How might morality be better off without religion? And is it better off without any religion or only without certain kinds?
• When notions of human dignity or rights are extracted from theological language, is anything important lost in translation? Are such notions really sustainable apart from a theological world-view?
• Are religious believers more, or less, moral than others? Or are such empirical questions philosophically irrelevant?

Speakers include:

• David Baggett, Liberty University
• Julian Baggini, editor, The Philosophers’ Magazine
• Nigel Biggar, University of Oxford
• John Cottingham, University of Reading
• John Hare, Yale University
• Terrence Irwin, University of Oxford
• Michael Hauskeller, University of Exeter
• Tim Mulgan, University of Auckland
• Keith Ward, University of
• Mark Wynn, University of Leeds

17:00 on Wed 31 October, Friends Meeting House, 43 St Giles’,

Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. He is one of the leading theologians engaging with the role of Christianity in secular society and the author of many books, of which the most influential include: ‘The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics’ (1983); ‘Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular’ (1994); and ‘A Better Hope: Resources for a church confronting capitalism, democracy and postmodernity’ (2000). In recent years he has also developed a trenchant critique of the contemporary research university in books and has published on this topic ‘ That State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God’ (2007)

I will present a selection of observations old and new that address the issue of whether something special goes on in our brains when we engage in religious thinking or have religious experience.  Examples will include ecstatic experience in epilepsy, near death experiences, and imaging of the brains of normal subjects that attempt to capture neural correlates of religious experience or inclination.   I will discuss what one can safely conclude from such data.

Part of the Oxford Christians in Science group lecture series.

This exciting event will include some of today’s top Christian scholars, such as Sarah Coakley, Jean Bethke Elshtain, David Ford, Paul Griffiths, Richard Hays, David Hempton, Mark Noll, Miroslav Volf, John Witte, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. All of these participants are Distinguished McDonald Scholars from eight of the most prominent universities in the UK and USA.

Register online or by post. Registration closes on 10 May, but early registration is encouraged to guarantee a place.

Saturday February 25th from 9.00am to 5.00pm.

The current economic and financial crises may have multiple causes, but fundamental to good economic policy should be a coherent understanding of economics. There is good to reason to think that economic theory is itself in crisis and that arriving at a better understanding of economics is a necessary goal of long-term prosperity.

The Blackfriars symposium, sponored by the Hall’s Las Casas Institute together with the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and CAFOD, asks:
how is economics to be re-envisioned?

The ambition of modern economic theory to resemble the natural sciences has excluded aspects of economic life that have no reliable parallel in nature, and, therefore, cannot be understood with the aid of methodologies designed for the natural sciences. The resulting reclassification of economic phenomena has built a surrogate reality, but the theorems and hypotheses  constructed upon lack adaquate explanatory or predictive power.

The exclusion of the moral quality of economic phenomena in the name of  scientific objectivity has produced a reductionist and determinist dsicipline whose protagonist, the utility maximizing agent,  bears little resemblance to the ontological composition of the human being. It eliminates from consideration the apparently ineradicable human need for transcendence together with the virtues  with the aid of which humans struggle to respond to this need. The symposium addresses the following major issues:

l. What is the proper province of economics, how is it constituted, and how is it represented in economic theory?

ll. What is the role of moral considerations in economic life?

lll. How can the philosophical foundations of economics be rebuilt in a manner that does not exclude the moral issues that inhere in economic phenomena? How can it be made as open as the indeterminate flow that characterizes it?

Speakers at the symposium will include:

Prof. Peter Róna ( Senior Research Fellow of Blackfriars Hall and Honorary Professor of International Law, Eotvos University of Budapest; Member of the Supervisory Board of the Central Bank of Hungary)

Prof. Stefano Zamagni (Vice director of the Bologna Centre, Senior Adjunct Professor of International Economics, John Hopkins University; Professor of Economics, University of Bologna)

Prof. Deirdre McCloskey (Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago)

Prof. Valpy Fitzgerald (Professor of International Development Finance, Oxford University)

Prof. Stuart Kauffman (Distinguished Professor, Biochemistry and Mathematics, University of Vermont – by video link)

Prof. Peter Csermely (Semmelweis University of Budapest)

Prof. Albino Barrera O.P. (Professor of Economics and Theology, Providence College, RI)

Dr Aloys Wijngaards (Radbout University)

The event will be part chaired by Frances Cairncross, Warden of Exeter College, Oxford

In order to make preparations for the day, which will include a light luncheon, we would appreciate having confirmation of your intention to participate in the seminar, either by return email (lascasas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk) or by post by 15th February 2012. Yours sincerely,

Revd Dr Richard Finn Dr Michael Oborne Regent Director of the Las Casas Institute

Participation in the event is by invitation only. Blackfriars is grateful to the Tablet and Pastoral Review, CAFOD and Stone King LLP for their support of this event.