The Kingdom of Whatever

Several readers may find this book discussion interesting. It’s about Jefferson’s complicated relationship to the Bible. And the author, Brad Gregory, is a USU alumnus!

Excerpt:

Jefferson’s sharp-edged Bible study hardly makes him unique in the annals of skeptical investigations of Christianity or any other religion, for critically engaged belief has always left a deep imprint on the content of religious texts. But was Jefferson’s scissor work a profound act of faith or an assault on the very notion of divinity? This question lies at the heart of Brad Gregory’s passionate and polemical book, The Unintended Reformation. Gregory, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame and a well-known scholar of the European Reformation, seeks to upend longstanding assumptions about the process by which Western secularism, capitalism and individualism have emerged since the Reformation. In his formulation, Jefferson is one of the key architects of what Gregory labels the great “Kingdom of Whatever,” a society indelibly shaped by religious pluralism and scientific naturalism, and ruled more by the demands of the marketplace and individual rights than by communitarian ethics and the search for the common good. The apotheosis of the unintended Reformation is the diverse, indeed hyper-pluralist and anything-goes society of the United States.

Philosophy reading group – Lonergan

An announcement from Dr. Sherlock:

“This fall I am going to do a reading group where we will read together and discuss one of the greatest works of philosophy in the 20th century: Bernard Lonergan s.j.’s Insight. It’s theme is how you can get from a study of the phenomenology of human knowing to the metaphysics of true understanding. When he was a visiting professor at Harvard I studied with him. On Amazon and Barnes and Nobel the book costs about $30. We will begin meeting the second week of the term. If you are interested email me with the times you are available and I’ll pick a time that works for most people.”

Contact Dr. Sherlock if interested here: Richard.sherlock@usu.edu

I [Dr. Kleiner now speaking] had some encounters with Lonergan’s legacy while at Boston College.  Lonergan was a professor there late in his career and Boston College now houses a large Lonergan Center and hosts annual Lonergan Workshops and is generally the hub of Lonergan work in this country.  Though I am no expert on Lonergan, I think Lonergan is one of the most under-read and under-rated philosophers of the last 100-200 years.  In addition, Lonergan is not neatly camped with either “analytic” or “continental” philosophy and philosophers are both sides of this “divide” work with Lonergan.  So I think there is a lot of potential with him in being a bridge builder as well (appealing to the clarity of the analytics but the profundity of the continentals).  So this reading group will be well worth your time.