Summer newsletter - 2012

Summer 2012
Theology Department
Georgetown University
Theology
at Georgetown
Summer newsletter - 2012.indd 1 5/23/2012 11:27:56 AM

• Stephen Fields’ essay on the retrieval of Thomism
for the contemporary world was recently published in
the book “Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal
in Twentieth Century Catholic Theology,” ed. Gabriel
Flynn and Paul D. Murray (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012). This spring, he has given three lectures:
on interpreting Vatican II in Dublin; on the Catholic
imagination in Fribourg University in Switzerland; and
on the recently beatified John Henry Newman in Rome.
• In April Robert Van der Waag participated in a panel
discussion with the Reverend Richard Cizik, former
Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National
Association of Evangelicals and one of Time Magazine’s
top 100 most influential scientists and thinkers of 2008,
on the ramifications of the use of nuclear weapons as
seen from different faith backgrounds. The Georgetown
University Interfaith Council
and Georgetown University
Global Zero hosted the event.
• Tod Linafelt recently
presented the paper “Why Is
There Poetry in the Book of
Job” at the regional meeting
of the Society of Biblical Literature. His book
Introduction to the Old Testament, co-authored with
Walter Brueggemann, will be published this summer,
and his article “The Differing Literary Styles of Ancient
Hebrew Narrative and Poetry” will be out soon in the
St. John’s Review.
2
View from the Chair by Terrence Reynolds
• Linda Kern was nominated by her students for
the 6th Annual Georgetown College Honors, held in
March, for making a meaningful difference in their lives.
• In January John O’Malley, S.J. received a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the American
Catholic Historical Association. (He had previously
received corresponding awards from the Society
for Italian Historical Studies and the Renaissance
Society of America.) Also in January, he was named
Correspondent to the Vatican’s Pontifical Committee of
Historical Sciences, and in May he received an honorary
doctorate from LaSalle University in Philadelphia, his
sixteenth such degree.
• Two new books by Ori Soltes will be published
this summer: Jews on Trial: From Jesus to Jonathan
Faculty
News & Notes
Pollard and Embracing the World: Fethulleh
Gulen’s Thought and Its Relationship to
Jelalludin Rumi and Others.
• This fall Theresa Sanders will be
teaching at the McGhee Center in Alanya,
Turkey. The Center’s academic programs
explore the wealth of civilization, history,
and culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as
the changing landscape of contemporary Turkey and
the political forces affecting this region today (http://
mcgheecenter.georgetown.edu/). The program will
include 13 students; most from Main Campus, one
from SFS-Q, and two from other universities.
Mark Twain once
wrote, “In religion
a n d p o l i t i c s
people’s beliefs and
convictions are in
almost every case
gotten at second-hand,
and without
examination, from
authorities who
have not themselves
e x a m i n e d t h e
questions at issue
but have taken
them at second-hand
from other
non-examiners, whose opinions about them were
not worth a brass farthing.” While I don’t wish to
endorse Twain’s cynicism, most of us would agree that
his thoughts convey an uncomfortable truth about
the origins of some religious and political claims.
Since discussions of religion and politics so often
generate misunderstandings and even passionate
disagreements, it’s little wonder that attempts to
determine the appropriate form of interaction between
the two should prove particularly contentious.
In the American context, in which few would
endorse the exclusion of religious points of view or the
formation of a theocratic state, the extent to which
religious perspectives can openly contend for a place
in the public forum is a source of rich debate. Even a
cursory look at contemporary news reveals case after
case of religious convictions intersecting with questions
of policy: lawsuits filed against the Affordable Care Act
and its requirement that Catholic hospitals provide
insurance coverage for birth control, sterilization, and
abortion-inducing drugs; the reactions of some to the
possibility of a Mormon serving as president of the
United States; and the on-going debates about the
legalizing of homosexual marriage. These issues, and
countless others, reveal the depth of our disagreements
about the relationship of religious convictions to the
formulation of policy.
Our department’s focus on religious pluralism,
both within and across traditions, enables us to
examine such issues in depth and to begin to delineate
the subtle and not so subtle ways in which our religious
and political beliefs shape the contours of our public life
together. We hope that our analysis of these matters
will enable our students to approach the complexities
of these debates with a well-informed and critical eye.

3
Divided by Freedom
(cont’d, p. 8)
by Paul Heck
Associate Professor, Theology Department
Religion and rule have long been twins. Both speak
with authority. Both offer a moral vision for society.
And both get entangled in worldly matters. Religion can
be political, and politics takes on aspects of religion.
Religious leaders and political rulers alike can inspire
us, but they can also fail us.
In a postmodern world, while there are values all
recognize (e.g., being kind, not taking innocent life),
there is no consensus on the religion-rule nexus. We
have human rights standards, but there is no single
system for society that all agree upon.
Should religious leaders have a say in government?
That would be anathema in the U.S., even if religious
leaders, like other groups, were to lobby policymakers,
hoping to sway the debate. In other countries, includ-ing
U.S. allies, religious leaders have a direct say in
lawmaking, and citizens generally accept this. Also,
nations such as Turkey and Morocco are now governed
by religious parties that have been less corrupt and
more effective in bringing about prosperity than their
secular counterparts.
While there’s no single religion-rule formula, it is
important to understand the reasons for the differences.
Americans—from politicians to generals to missionar-ies
to businessmen to academics—get frustrated when
other societies don’t work like ours and their peoples
don’t want a society like ours. Rather than getting
frustrated, it would be better to ask why.
All politics has a theological history. John Locke
maintained that obedience is due first to God, then to
state laws; each has its place. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
viewed state-church relations more antagonistically. If
citizens put beliefs before state loyalty, the result would
be theocracy; the church must yield to state logic.
Locke’s ideas had impact on the U.S. where people’s
beliefs can significantly limit state authority, whereas
Rousseau’s vision makes sense in France where it is
more accepted for the state to define the nature of
religion in society.
This is not to speak of essential differences from one
nation to the next. Youth in all societies, for example,
look askance at authorities, at least until they become
authorities themselves. Still, we can speak of trends.
In one country, religion is seen not only as a national
authority but also as marker of national identity. Na-tionalism
becomes a religious phenomenon. Elsewhere,
such a concept is alien.
Why? In light of the Arab Spring, it’s clear
that Muslims want democracy as much as others.
But all democracy is
not the same. What’s
the theological differ-ence
between a liberal
democracy like ours,
where no one set of
values prevails, and
the conservative, even
religious, democracies
emerging in Arab na-tions
where citizens
expect honest elections
but also a single set of
values in society?
A lot depends on
the way freedom is defined. Here, people see themselves
as self-governing when it comes to beliefs and morals
no less than politics. This goes back to the eighteenth
century when piety became linked to individual con-science;
and scholars spoke of a moral sense common to
all people allowing them to know right from wrong apart
from institutional oversight. As a result, Americans see
freedom as the foundation of individual authority. “I
decide my beliefs and morals along with my politics.”
In contrast, Islam conceives of freedom more in
terms of individual responsibility than individual au-thority.
People in Muslim society value political freedom
as much as Americans, but they do not necessarily
take their freedom as a right to determine religious
and moral truths for themselves. One is free to be
responsible to the values of the nation. Elections, yes,
but individual citizens do not determine religious and
moral truths. Paradoxically, then, freedom can mean
common values as much as individual liberties.
This is not to exaggerate differences. Freedom is a
slippery slope, and Americans and Arabs share much
in common. But they also misunderstand each other.
The field of political theology helps us understand why
. . . and not get frustrated!
Student’s Response
No Monopoly
by Saakshi Dulani, SFS’13
During my time in İstanbul, I realized that the
battle between secularism and religion reflects
more than a battle for political power or moral
authority—it reflects a notion of modernity.
We wonder why other societies don’t want
our model of secular democracy because we
assume a single, Enlightenment-inspired path
to modernity. And who doesn’t want to be
modern? In fact, Turkish secularists believe

4
Religion & Politics: A Good Marriage?
It is during the Easter season of a presidential elec-tion
year that folks begin to reflect on religion and
government: Is this candidate Christian enough and
is that other one too Christian? Should a president
listen to his father or to a Holy or Heavenly Fa-ther?
The founders of the republic, with their wall
of separation between church and state, made sure
we don’t end up like Iran, Nigeria or even England.
But that never prevented debates on where the wall
should stand and how high it should reach.
This evergreen topic can be all too abstract.
What is it like to actually live in a country where
religion and politics bed together permanently? I
grew up in one such country—Israel—and study an-other,
India. In the former the pair (religion and
state) kvetch together malodorously while in the lat-ter
a noble attempt was made to separate them, with
often ironic or even comical results. For example, in
the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, in the 1980s,
a great man was elected into high state office in or-der
to clean up the corruption by the ruling socialist
(Congress) party. N.T. Rama Rao, a Telugu cinema
star, defeated a powerful political machine, riding
his immense popularity and projecting divine au-thority.
He got the latter from regularly playing God,
incarnated as Rama and Krishna. Who could pos-sibly
vote against Rama?
The first irony was that he ran as a socialist
reformer and a strong supporter of women’s rights
in a conservative state. To students of Hinduism
the irony is muted by the knowledge that both of
these incarnations of Vishnu are emblems of God’s
involvement in human affairs through actors who
are fallible, vulnerable and a touch all-too-human.
It would be as though our own God appointed Bar-ney
Frank to run for president as a Republican. The
second irony is a mirror image of the first: Rama
has now become the symbol of Hindu religious na-tionalism:
a chauvinistic force against the Muslim
minority, the rights of Dalits (untouchables), secular
education, and religious open-mindedness.
In Israel the situation is worse—both more dan-gerous
and comical. The founding fathers of Israel,
or David Ben-Gurion on his own, reached a political
arrangement with the dominant Orthodox religious
party during the 1940s, an arrangement dubbed as
the “Status Quo.” This act of political expedience took
on a near-constitutional authority, sealing the rela-tionship
between Judaism and the State of Israel. The
details shifted over the years, but the underlying prin-ciple
remained: whatever the religious parties could
purchase, and whatever the secular parties were will-ing
to sell via political maneuvering, that became the
law of the land.
The results range from the nasty to the laughable.
You want a civil marriage? Fly to Cyprus and find a
Greek judge because in Israel the rabbis control that
market. Divorce? A woman once remained in mat-rimonial
limbo for over 17 years while her husband,
a career criminal, sat in prison. He refused to give
her “Get” (the Jewish writ of divorce), that is, “release”
her. The law was on his side because it was the law
of God. If you need a bus on Saturday, you are out
of luck, and if you’re visiting a patient at Hadassah
Hospital on a Saturday, don’t forget to bring her some
clean pajamas or other essentials because no one is
working. But the elevator will open on every floor all
by itself.
Of course, most of these are mere irritants com-pared
with the truly frightening: one Israeli govern-ment
after another over a period of decades has treat-ed
political action by members of one faith as a threat
to national security, while overt violence by members
of the dominant state religion is merely too much spir-itual
enthusiasm. Once you have seen this close up,
the question of religion and politics is no longer hy-pothetical,
and this becomes one marriage you would
like to see permanently annulled.
A Dangerous Polygamy
by Kelley Kidd, SFS’12
Not only does the marriage of a God to a
state create the comedy and concerns raised
by Professor Glucklich, but these arise even
when the state’s God is one upon which most
citizens more or less agree. In the context
of America’s enormous diversity, even if we
set aside the central American premise that
religion and state must not mingle, the mar-riage
of state to God would be polygamous—
Americans could never agree on which God,
or even which religious worship of any given
God, to wed to the state. Imagine if we tried
(cont’d., p. 8)
by
Ariel Glucklich
Professor
Theology Department

5
The Paradoxical Separation of Church and State
from another perspective,
it also suggests that the
government is protected
from the dictates of re-ligious
belief, when that
belief crosses over into the
public sphere of actions.
So one is still left asking,
when religious belief con-flicts
with civil law, which
one overrides the other?
If one reflects on tra-ditional
Christian teaching about the relationship be-tween
church and state, one encounters yet another
paradox. For example, in Romans 13:1, Paul states
that “everyone must submit himself to the governing
authorities, for there is no authority except that which
God has established.” As a result, many Christian
thinkers, from Augustine to Aquinas to Luther, have
cautioned against breaking the civil law except under
the most evil of tyrants. How then, under more mod-erate
political circumstances, can a Christian ever jus-tify
breaking the civil law on religious grounds, since
the civil government itself exists at God’s pleasure?
The single exception to this religio-political dilem-ma,
in both Christian teaching as well as in American
political philosophy, occurs when the civil law violates
the God-given natural law. In that case, and in that
case only, a civil law could be considered “unjust.”
And as the Catholic bishops quote Protestant civil
rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., who in turn
quoted St. Augustine, “an unjust law is no law at all.”
Thus, in that singular instance where the civil law vio-lates
natural law, religious belief not only may, but in-deed
must, defy the law of the land. For, in the words
of James Madison, “the duty which we owe to our
Creator . . . is precedent, both in order of time and
in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”
This exception, however rare, is recognized not only
by Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther, but also by
Locke and Jefferson. It is the reason why the authors
of the Declaration of Independence spelled out their
long list of grievances against the king. And it is also
the argument advanced by the U. S. Catholic Bishops
in their call for civil disobedience against the contra-ceptive
care mandate in “Our First, Most Cherished
Liberty.”
(cont’d., p. 8)
by Linda Kern
Professorial Lecturer
Theology Department
In “Political Theology in the Headlines,” I encourage
students to look beyond the sound bites in high-profile
news stories where religion and politics intersect, and
to explore the deeper dimensions underlying the su-perficial—
often inflammatory—claims that they make.
This spring, the media coverage of one heated religio-political
issue in particular presented a unique oppor-tunity
for my students to apply their course readings
and analytical skills: namely, the U.S. Catholic Bish-ops’
response to President Obama’s Affordable Care
Act. The president’s contraceptive mandate, as it is
popularly called, ignited passionate TV, print, and ra-dio
debates about the separation of church and state.
At one end of the spectrum, the bishops denounced
the Health and Human Services legislation as an “in-trinsically
evil” violation of the Catholic Church’s “re-ligious
conscience.” At the other end, however, the
bishops’ appeal to their “fellow Catholics and fellow
Americans” to disobey the HHS mandate raised ques-tions
about the limits to religious liberty. When reli-gious
belief and civil law collide in the United States,
which one trumps? And who will decide?
The first place to turn for an answer to these
kinds of questions is, of course, the United States
Constitution and, in particular, the First Amendment.
However, the seemingly simple and straightforward
language of the religion clauses quickly gives way to
a host of ambiguities when applied to specific cases.
A brief survey of U. S. Supreme Court rulings on the
Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses suggests
that their interpretations of these guideposts have
been inconsistent at best.
What happens when one looks for an answer to
this dilemma in the political philosophy of the found-ing
fathers? The paradox only deepens. For example,
in Thomas Jefferson’s famous letter to the Danbury
Baptists, he affirmed “that the legitimate powers of
government reach actions only, & not opinions.”
However, which sphere of human expression is most
privileged in this formulation? Actions or opinions?
On one reading, this phrase supports the notion that
opinions (including religious opinions) are uncondi-tionally
protected from the powers of government. Yet
The Dilemma Catholics Face
by Jason Fraprie, C’13
Despite Constitutional protections to free exercise of religion, such freedom has rarely been extended
beyond personal belief into the physical expression of faith. This poses a particular challenge to the

6
(cont’d., p.8)
Religion and Politics: A Catholic View
For Roman Catholics born after the Second Vatican
Council (1962-65), church-state relations is a settled
issue. American Catholics now take for granted that
in accord with the First Amendment, the United States
should have no established religion. Not so, fifty years
ago. Before Vatican II, whose fiftieth anniversary is
being celebrated this year, it had been commonly
accepted that the state must promote the true religion,
and, following the principle of “error has no right,”
the official church position was that no religion other
than Christianity, and more precisely, the Roman
Catholic Church, should be accepted as a state religion.
Thanks in no small part to the American constitutional
principle of separation of church and state and the work
of American theologians, especially the Jesuit John
Courtney Murray, the council modified this traditional
teaching and affirmed religious freedom and the distinct
functions of church and state. The 1983 Code of Canon
Law stipulates that church and state are two sovereign
and autonomous entities (societates perfectae), working
independently but collaboratively for the common good.
This does not mean that the Catholic Church
relates to the state in the same way all over the world. In
some countries, for example, the United States, France,
and Ireland, there is a strict separation of church and
state. In other countries, such as Austria, Belgium,
Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, there is a basic
separation between the two entities but it is recognized
that there is a multitude of common tasks that they
can and should perform together according to mutually
agreed concordats. There are a number of small states
that recognize Catholicism as their official religion such
as Malta, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Costa Rica, and of
course the Vatican City State!. In some countries, for
example, China, Vietnam, and North Korea, the state
maintains an unfriendly if not hostile relation with the
Catholic Church.
Though church-state relations can be legally
regulated, the broader issue of religion and politics
is much less amenable to precise arrangements. Of
course, separation of church and state does not mean
that faith is a private matter, or that the state cannot
regulate certain church-related activities, or that
churches should not seek to influence public policies
through legislation and election, especially when certain
laws are perceived to be in conflict with their beliefs
and values. Since the 1970s the American Catholic
Church, especially through the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops, has sought to make its voice heard in
the public square in matters regarding war and peace,
economic justice, ecological protection, contraception,
abortion, and same-sex marriage. It is important to
note that the Catholic Church’s concern has not been
limited to the so-called “pelvic issues” (associated with
the right wing) but has also extended to the social and
political arenas (identified with the left wing).
No doubt, the U.S. presidential elections will
bring the issues of church and state and religion and
politics to the fore. One question will likely arise as
to whether a Mormon should be elected President if
Mitt Romney becomes the Republican nominee (which
seems inevitable). Another is whether Catholics can
vote for candidates who favor abortion and sex-same
marriage, and, if these candidates are Catholics,
whether they should be excommunicated and refused
Eucharist. There is a sense of deja vu in all of this,
but the important point is not to solve these complex
problems with sound bites and pat answers. The
Theology Department at Georgetown University is an
excellent place to conduct a reasoned conversation
about them.
by Peter C. Phan
Ellacuria Chair of
Catholic Social Thought
Theology Department
A Delicate Balance
by Peter Herman, Ph.D. Candidate
Theological & Religious Studies
Professor Phan points out several key issues in
the relationship between established religion
and the political state. Autonomy and authority
exist in tension between the two. Societates
perfectae is not easily maintained. Internecine
church conflicts on social issues—be they “pelvic
issues” or climate change—prevent a univocal
presentation of Catholic moral teaching, let
alone a broader Christian ethic.
Former Senator Rick Santorum’s revulsion
over John F. Kennedy’s “Houston Speech” of
September 12, 1960 demonstrates the difficulty
of balancing politics and religion. Santorum
declared that Kennedy’s view on the separation
of Church and state was tantamount to removing
faith from public life. This, of course, was not
Kennedy’s point. This conflict underscores

7
Student’s Response The Focus on Separation
by Steven Keithley, SFS’14
(cont’d., next page)
Freedom for and from Religion
by Lauve Steenhuisen
Visiting Assistant Professor
Theology Department
In Taking Religious Pluralism Seriously: Rediscovering
America’s Sacred Ground, authors Barbara McGraw
and Jo Formicola cite two public spaces to help us un-derstand
the role of religion in public life. They define
the “civic public forum” as the space where govern-ments
take appropriate actions to protect and serve
the populace, and the “conscientious public forum” as
the space where individuals and groups exercise their
conscience and moral imperatives.
So what does a “forums” construct say about “Ten
Commandments” displays on public land? Can the
Latter Day Saints church mobilize its membership
against the Equal Rights Amendment or for Proposi-tion
8, making same-sex marriage illegal in Califor-nia?
Do governments protect “religious freedom”?
Do religious groups have “civil rights” in the public
square? What is the appropriate relationship between
government and religion?
The arbiter of civil religion disputes in the civic
public forum is most often the Supreme Court, which
has seemingly contradictory rulings at times. Take,
for example, its 2005 rulings on the Ten Command-ments.
The Court allowed a Ten Commandments
monument that had been standing in its Texas lo-cation
for forty years among seventeen other monu-ments
to go unchallenged (Van Orden v. Perry), while
it disallowed a Kentucky display of the framed Com-mandments
that was posted more recently and sur-rounded
by other documents with “expressly religious
content” (McCreary Co. v. ACLU). Ironically, these
rulings were delivered in the very courtroom in which
a frieze of Moses holding the Ten Commandments is
prominently displayed. Context and intention seemed
to sway the justices in each of these rulings.
Context and intention also seemed to influence
the justices in a 1989 ruling on two Christmas dis-plays.
They upheld an outdoor display of a Jewish
menorah beside a forty-foot Christmas tree as consti-tutional
but struck down an indoor creche displayed
beside a staircase. The outdoor display was accept-able
to the majority justices because it acknowledged
the holidays merely as a cultural phenomenon. But
they decided that the indoor creche—accompanied
by a sign announcing that it was contributed by a
Catholic church and
a banner proclaiming
in Latin “Glory to God
in the Highest”—too
closely aligned the
state with a celebra-tion
of Jesus’ birth
as Messiah (Allegh-eny
Co. v. ACLU). It
seems, then, that re-ligious
symbols can
achieve a certain de-gree
of “neutrality”
through placement
and history, circum-stances
which, rather ironically, the justices have
seen as denuding the symbols of their (civically offen-sive)
religious content.
In the conscientious public forum, where such
issues as the LDS church mobilization in support of
Prop 8 played out, the question is how far religious
groups can go with political activity before the gov-ernment
becomes concerned. The Internal Revenue
Service is the government agency most often involved
in policing the activities of religious groups in politi-cal
forums. Almost all religious groups incorporate,
under the 501(c)(3) provision of the U.S. Tax Code,
a provision stating that groups get exemptions from
taxation—and their members receive tax deductions
for donations—if the organization agrees not to com-mit
a “significant portion” of its activities to political
action. Pastors have received strong letters from the
IRS if, in an election, they advocate for a political can-didate
from the pulpit or if their bulletins contain can-didate
positions and offer guidance on voting. In the
LDS Prop 8 case, it is believed that most of the mobi-lization
was volunteer-driven, thus not triggering an
IRS warning, but the IRS always has difficulty proving
what the phrase “significant portion” amounts to in
billion-dollar denominational budgets.
The framers of the constitution valued religion but
recognized the dangers inherent in governments align-ing
themselves with a particular faith and in religious
groups engaging in passionate political activity in the
public square. The First Amendment’s clauses on re-ligion
are something to celebrate in our nation: they
are subtle, firm, and enduring. As Thomas Jefferson
noted, in America we are promised “freedom for reli-gion
and freedom from religion.
For the last fifty years or so, the religion-state relationship has drastically changed. Privileges that
the Protestant majority once enjoyed, such as school prayer, are gone. While steps like that are

Catholic flock whose path to salvation lies in both
faith and action. When civil law conflicts with dogma,
what is the believer’s recourse: civil disobedience or
the abandonment of religious convictions? This ap-pears
to be the dilemma that the Catholic Bishops
are facing with the Healthcare mandate. However, if
Catholics choose to remain faithful to their religious
values, are they not merely fulfilling our founders’
true intention of religious protection?
(from p. 3) (from p. 4)
8
Religion & Politics: As Students See It
Theology at Georgetown
Vol. 10, No. 1, of a semi-annual publication of the
Theology Department, Georgetown University
Box 571135, Washington, DC 20057-1135
(202) 687-6657 / (202) 687-5846
Editor:
Linda Ferneyhough
Faculty Advisors:
John O’Malley, S.J.
Terrence Reynolds
Anthony Tambasco
Administrative/Technical Support:
Michelle Dailey
Emmanuel Guerrier
Kelley Kidd
to associate a leader with holy au-thority,
when the definition of ho-liness
varies as widely as it does.
The results would be occasionally
comedic, as when the Father and
Son were pitted against Vishnu
in political campaigns, but also
detrimental, because the ascent
of one religion could lead America
to be the very state it tried to
escape—one of intolerance and
Saakshi Dulani religious restriction.
(from p. 6) (from p. 7)
admirable, some recent judicial
rulings, particularly in cases
dealing with religious symbols on
public land, focus on “separation”
too much and deny the special
role that religion has played in
American history. To completely
deny that role—to deny the
influence of something like the
Ten Commandments on Western
legal thought, or the Nativity story
on the origin of America’s biggest
holiday—would be impossible
Steven Keithley and miss the big picture.
Jason Fraprie
Alumni News
Peter Herman
(from p. 5)
the difficulty in balancing
faith and politics. What is
the appropriate direction of
influence: church influencing
state, state influencing
church, or mutual influence?
The answer is unclear from
both sides of the divide.
The appropriate response at
present might be to uphold
Thomas Jefferson’s “great wall
of separation” between the
two, lest our politics become
theocratic or our faith become
cynically politicized.
• Tony Braithwaite (C'93), called one of the funniest comics in Phil-adelphia,
is currently playing Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady at Act 2
Playhouse in Ambler, Pennsylvania. In July, he will take on a new chal-lenge
as the Playhouse's newly-appointed Artistic Director.
• Gina (Madden) McDonald (C’84) received her R.N. degree two years
ago, later worked on an oncology floor, and recently achieved her dream
of becoming a hospice nurse.
that public religion prevents
the nation from reaching the
“end of history,” whereas
religious-leaning conservatives
see it contributing to an
alternative and equally modern
end. However, multiple paths
lead to multiple modernities,
over which neither religion
nor secularism can claim a
monopoly.
Congratulations to Andrew Waddell, C’12,
who received this year’s Emily K. Arndt
Award for Outstanding Senior Essay.
This year, consider
designating your
Alumni Fund gift for the
Theology Department

Summer newsletter - 2012

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Summer newsletter - 2012