Father Francis X. Clooney, SJ, who is the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard University, will present the address “On the Edge: Reflections on Being a Christian Intellectual Amid Many Religions” as the 2022-23 Danforth Lecture at Hope College on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. in the Maas Center auditorium.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Francis X. Clooney, SJ, has been teaching theology and comparative studies at the university level for nearly 40 years. He is a Catholic priest and a Jesuit, and currently also the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. And yet, for almost 50 years, since in 1973 as a college graduate he went to Nepal to teach high school there for two years, he has been a student of Hinduism, learning several South Asian languages, and studying a number of Hindu traditions, even while visiting many parts of India and innumerable temples.
Most of his many books have risen out of his personal Catholic-Hindu encounter. In this year’s Danforth Lecture, Clooney offers himself as an example — living on edge, belonging to one tradition, deeply engaged in another — in order to shed light on larger issues related to how anyone can be a committed person of faith even while learning deeply and taking to heart other religious traditions.
The Danforth Lecture is sponsored by the Hope College Department of Religion with support from an endowment established by the Danforth Foundation of St. Louis, Missouri. The program was established by the foundation “to deepen and enlarge the religious dimension of the campus family through speakers who can reflect on the broad, interdenominational and yet positive sense of the Judeo-Christian perspectives of life and existence.”
Some of the many distinguished scholars who have visited the campus through the program in the past include Dr. Lewis B. Smedes of Fuller Theological Seminary; Dr. Martin E. Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School; Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff of Yale Divinity School; Dr. Diana Eck of Harvard University; Dr. Oliver O’Donovan of the University of Edinburgh; Dr. John Stratton Hawley of Barnard College; Dr. Timothy George of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School; Dr. Ellen F. Davis of the Divinity School at Duke University; Dr. Dale C. Allison Jr. of Princeton Theological Seminary; and Dr. Sarah Coakley of St. Andrews University and Australian Catholic University.
Audience members who need assistance to fully enjoy any event at Hope are encouraged to contact the college’s Events and Conferences Office by emailing events@hope.edu or calling 616-395-7222 on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Updates related to events are posted when available in the individual listings at hope.edu/calendar
The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets.