2025 J.J. Thiessen Lecture Series featuring Dr. Kevin Hector (videos)
A Sacred Way of Life: Theology as a Guide to Spirituality
These lectures explore spirituality under the rubric of sacredness: what would it look like to notice more of the sacredness around us and respond appropriately to it? They try to shed a bit of light on this question by considering three broad forms of sacredness—transcendent value, transcendent beauty, and transcendent power—and suggesting that religion can play a crucial role in helping us hold these together. The first lecture makes a general case for this approach. The second and third lectures then give an example of what this looks like. In particular, they argue that Christianity's higher-order beliefs teach us to see all things in light of God and, just so, to see the sacredness in all things; they likewise argue that Christian virtue attunes us to this sacredness. Lectures two and three, accordingly, sketch an odd sort of systematic theology—spanning revelation and faith, creation and love, consummation and hope—that can serve as a guide to spirituality.
About Dr. Hector
Kevin Hector is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor of Theology and of the Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago. He is the author of three books: Theology without Metaphysics (2011), The Theological Project of Modernism (2015), and Christianity as a Way of Life (2023). He is currently working on a book entitled A Sacred Way of Life: Theology as a Guide to Spirituality.
Tuesday, October 21 | Sacredness
11:00 AM, CMU Chapel
Tuesday, October 21 | God
7:00 PM, CMU Chapel
Wednesday, October 22 | All Things
11:00 AM, CMU Chapel