"Christian Realism and Public Life: Catholic and Protestant Perspectives”

November 20-21, 2009 University of St. Thomas School of Law

8:30-5:00 (both days)

1000 LaSalle Avenue

Minneapolis, MN  55403 

Register at:  http://www.stthomas.edu/law/rsvp/

 

The Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy at the University of St. Thomas will sponsor a conference titled “Christian Realism and Public Life: Catholic and Protestant Perspectives,” on November 20-21, 2009, in Minneapolis. 

 

An examination of “realism” in religious and political thought is timely indeed.  The term has been at the forefront of recent American foreign-policy debates over the role of moral values and the use of force.  Pope Benedict XVI has spoken in several contexts of a “Christian realism” that offers a more sober and solid hope for social life than do alternative views.  And President Obama has identified the Christian Realism of Reinhold Niebuhr as among his chief philosophical influences.  Niebuhr’s approach was in several ways distinctively Protestant.  But it is evident that the impulse for Christian public theology to be realistic—to be based in a clear-headed assessment of facts about God, human beings, and the world—cuts across Catholic and Protestant thinkers, although the themes and the definitions of realism vary.

 

The conference will explore the role and meaning of “realism” in a Christian ethic of public life, with attention to topics of interest to both Catholics and Protestants. 

 

 Plenary Speakers

 Gerard V. Bradley, Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School:  There and Back Again:  Moral Truth and Catholic Realism

 

 John Carlson, Schools of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Arizona State University, Reinhold Niebuhr and the Moral Order of War

 

 William T. Cavanaugh, Associate Professor of Theology, University of St. Thomas (MN):  A Nation with the Church's Soul:  Realism and Ecclesiology

 

Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics, University of Chicago:  Niebuhr, Human Nature, and Ethical-Political Thought

 

James T. Johnson, Professor of Religion, Rutgers University, Realism vs. Idealism vs. Just War:  Thinking About the Use of Force in American Debate 

 

Robin W. Lovin, Cary M. Maguire University Professor of Ethics, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Christian Realism and Institutional Pluralism

 

Professor Jeanne Heffernan Schindler, Department of Humanities, Villanova University, Niebuhr's Christian Realist Challenge to Thomists

 

 David A. Skeel, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School:  Law, Irony and the Church in Reinhold Niebuhr

 

 

 Concurrent Session Speakers and Topics:  

 

 

Thomas J. Bushlack, Ph.D. Candidate in Moral Theology, University of Notre Dame:  Rediscovering Civic Virtue:  The Philosophical and Political Realism of Thomas Aquinas

 

Kevin Carnahan, Assistant Professor of Religion, Central Methodist University:   What Should a Christian Realist Presume About War?

 

Charlton Copeland, Associate Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law:    Non-Exclusion:  Theology’s Contribution to a Federalism Norm

 

Marc DeGirolami, Professor of Law, St. John’s University School of law:  Prolegomenon to a Tragic Theory of Religious Liberty

 

Richard Esenberg, Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School:  Christian Realism, Subsidiarity and the Economic Crisis

 

George E. Garvey, Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law:   Solidarism and Catholic Realism

 

Laurie Johnston, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Emmanuel College:  Peacemaking and ‘Realism’ – in the Same Breath?

 

Bryan McGraw, Assistant Professor, Politics and International Relations, Wheaton College:  Christian Realism and Public Life

 

Vicente Medina, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seton Hall University: The Ambiguity of the ‘Innocent’ in Traditional Just War Thinking (TJWT):  An Inescapable Tension Between the Pauline Principle and Extreme Necessity

 

Stephen Okey, Doctoral Student, Boston College:  Responsibility and Humility in contemporary War:  A Niebuhrian Response to Humanitarian Intervention and Counter-Proliferation

 

David Opderbeck, Associate Professor of Law, Seton Hall University Law School:  Christian Realism and Neurobiology

 

Jesse Perillo, Graduate Student, Loyola University of Chicago:  Realism, Embodiment, and Health Care

 

Victor Romero, Maureen B. Cavanaugh Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law, Pennsylvania Ste University, The Dickinson School of Law:  Of Hope and Humility:  Christian Realism, Immigration Reform, and Executive Leadership

 

Deborah Savage, Clinical Faculty, St. Paul Seminary, University of St. Thomas:  Christian Realism as the Foundation of Both a Sound Economy and Environmental Stewardship

 

Michael Scaperlanda, Associate Dean for Scholarship and Research, The University of Oklahoma College of Law:   Discerning a Secular Purpose in the Ten Commandments:  Remembering that We are Creatures, Not the Creator

 

Gary Simpson, Professor of Systematic Theology, Luther Seminary:  Christian Realism, International Law, and Earthly Sovereignty’s Relation to God’s Publicity

 

Susan Stabile, Robert and Marion Short Distinguished Chair in Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law:  An Effort to Articulate a Catholic Realist Approach to Abortion

 

Robert Vischer, Associate Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law:  Love and Justice:  Christian Realism and the Lawyer’s Role