GRACE, GOVERNANCE AND GLOBALIZATION: THEOLOGY AND PUBLIC LIFE

• a theological conference in honour of Edward Schillebeeckx’ 100th birthday
• August 27th-30th, 2014 :: Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Keynote speakers include: Lieven Boeve, Erik Borgman, William Cavanaugh, Christoph Hübenthal, Siobhán Garrigan, Emmanuel Katongole, Sebastian Kim, Annemarie Mayer, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Elizabeth Phillips, Anna Rowlands, Graham Ward, and many others.

In current political conflicts around the world, religion plays a major part. Disagreements about law, community, and modern living are often caused by conflicting interpretations of religious texts, religious leadership and religious beliefs in view of the political developments in a globalizing and secularizing society. This has led to numerous, sometimes rather violent public debates on religious pluralism, religion and secularization, or the separation of church and state, but fewer on the reconsideration and transformation of theological ideas about public life. Contemporary views on the public sphere and the directions it should take are related, however, to religious ideas about history, community, and our common future, which indicates a necessity for the renewal of theological views of public life.

This conference attempts to address the role that theology could or should play in the current discussions about our political realities. In the groundbreaking spirit of Edward Schillebeeckx and his theology, this conference will explore the ways that theology can critically unmask our underlying presuppositions about God and metaphysics as starting points for renewing the face of public theology, and for new responses to political challenges from the theological traditions.

CALL FOR PAPERS: COLLOQUIUM FOR JUNIOR SCHOLARS

This four-day conference will also feature a colloquium for junior and emerging scholars on August 27th. Recent PhD’s, post-docs, and doctoral students are warmly encouraged to submit paper proposals for consideration. Research topics may include the work of Edward Schillebeeckx, or address research questions in public and political theology in relation to theological hermeneutics, Christology, eschatology, and / or ecclesiology.

Abstract deadline: 1st February 2014

For more information visit us at: www.ru.nl/theology
Or contact Stephan van Erp: s.vanerp@ftr.ru.nl