Faith in a Secular Age:

Disjunctions/Conjunctions between Church and People

December 1-2, 2012                                   Washington, DC

Report

It continued the project designed by Charles Taylor, José Casanova and George F. McLean to explore challenges of religion in a secular age, the proceedings of which were published by the RVP in its series "Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change" Series VIII under the title Church and People: Disjunctions in a Secular Age (see full text on the web at www.crvp.org under "Publications").

This two day meeting focused on coordinating the teams on the four disjunctions  proposed by Charles Taylor. The research proposals of seven teams were presented on: disjunction I (Philip Rossi and James South, Marquette University, Milwaukee and Tomáš Halík, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) on seekers and dwellers, discussed issues of grace, secularity, plurality and the historical environment; disjunction II (Anthony Carroll andJames Sweeney from Heythrop College, University of London, England) on religious teaching, suggested exploring new models of social and communal reality which focus on difference, kenotic powerlessness, sacramentality of life, and multiple competencies, etc.; disjunction III (José Casanova, Drew Christiansen, Julie Clague and John Langan from Georgetown University, William Barbieri from the Catholic University of America) on morality and historicity, concerning such issues as signs of the times, historical experiences, dynamics and historicity, responsibility, etc.; disjunction IV (Vincent Shen, University of Toronto, Toronto and Robert Schreiter, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago) on plural spiritualities, provided Asian kenotic sources with Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism; the relationship between adaptation of theory with praxis; understanding multiple spiritualities; hospitality; reconciliation; rituals, secular spiritualities, etc. More task forces on this project are under development, especially in Europe and further interacting conference was projected for early summer 2013 in Vienna.       

Other participants were Jeffrey Bloechl, Dominic Doyle and Jonathan Trejo-Mathys from Boston College, Boston;Sophie Cloutier and Louis Perron from St. Paul University, Ottawa; João Vila-Chã from Gregorian University, Rome;David Power from the CUA School of Theology and Religious Studies;  Séamus Finn from Justice and Peace Institute, Washington, D.C.; John Hogan and Hu Yeping from the RVP, etc.  The two day meeting was held at the RVP Seminar Room at Gibbons Hall in Washington, D.C.