Laidlaw College - Laidlaw College

Sep

Public Lecture with Dr Dominic Erdozain

The Enlightenment is often seen as an anti-Christian movement, rich in cynicism, skepticism, and a scientific consciousness intolerant of supernatural faith. Although some of this narrative holds up to historical enquiry, the notion of a ‘warfare’ between reason and faith is misleading for the simple reason that much of the period’s hostility to theology was motivated by Christian ethics and spirituality. The Enlightenment was, in many ways, a protest of faith against faith – an extension of the subversive energies of the European Reformation.

This lecture argues that some of the most dynamic impulses of the Enlightenment era were products of a biblical imagination, including religious tolerance, the sanctity of conscience, and human equality. Important as this is in itself, the lecture will also argue that such an understanding can help to open fresh avenues of dialogue between Christian and secular thought.

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Where	Henderson Campus
When	7:30pm - 9:00pm
Cost	Free (includes light supper)
RSVP	Click on the link to register by Friday 13 September

Dominic Erdozain earned his PhD in history at Cambridge University. He taught for six years at King’s College London before moving to Atlanta, where he is a scholar in residence at Emory University. He is the author of The Soul of Doubt: the Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx (Oxford, 2015) and the editor of The Dangerous God: Christianity and the Soviet Experiment (Northern Illinois, 2017). He is currently writing a book on the American gun culture, entitled God, Guns and Democracy in America, which will be published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Dominic retains a passionate interest in sport (the subject of his first book) and his career highlight was being quoted by ex-England cricketer Ed Smith on the BBC’s Test Match Special in 2017.

He has spoken in churches, schools and non-academic conferences on a wide range of issues, from the abolition of slavery to the history of the Olympic Games. He has acted as a historical consultant for BBC documentaries such as Ian Hislop's "Age of the Do Gooders" and been interviewed on Radio 4 and BBC news for stories relating to secularisation and religious resurgence. He is a member of the Institute of Historical Research, where he co-convenes the Modern Religious History seminar.

In September, Dominic will be a visiting scholar in the Laidlaw Graduate School teaching the postgraduate course, R201.830 Knowledge, Reality and God: Theology and Western Thought.

Click here to register for this event.