Prophecy without Contempt
BOSTON – Religious language has increasingly become identified with the kind of harsh rhetoric that is damaging our politics and our society. But that’s not what genuinely prophetic rhetoric aims to do, either in the Bible or in more recent times, as shown by the witness of figures like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today, as much as any time in our history, the United States and the world needs religiously-inspired voices that can speak truth to power, and to populism – but in a way that challenges us to overcome our divisions, not deepen them.
To showcase that goal, a landmark event sponsored by the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College will bring together four leading thinkers and religious leaders to discuss prophetic rhetoric in the Age of Trump and Brexit, and amid the rise of religious violence, political extremism, alienation and fear.
Cathleen Kaveny, Boston College law professor and theologian and author of an important new study, “Prophecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square,” will focus the April 7, 2017 conversation.
She will be joined by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, a leading writer on theological, historical and political themes; Charles Taylor, author of the milestone study, “A Secular Age,” and widely influential Canadian philosopher; and Jonathan Lear, a distinguished public intellectual at the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.
Click here for further information about the seminar, “Prophecy without Contempt: A Conversation about Religion, Identity, and Exclusion in Our New Political Era.”
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