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Sacred State? Explorations of Civil Theology in Eric Voegelin and Joseph Ratzinger

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This lecture I delivered on August 17th, 2024 as part of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Symposium on Religion in Public Life hosted at LSU, sponsored by the Eric Voegelin Institute.  Other lecturers were Ascension Parish  District Attorney  Jean Paul Robert and  Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute in the Department of Political Science at LSU,  Dr James Stoner. Introduction Man, in his spiritual nature, is capable of symbolic meaning; that is to say, he expresses his relationship with a transcendent reality. This is evidenced by the many cave drawings and rituals in human societies since the dawn of time. The word “meaningful” is inherently symbolic because in calling some event “meaningful” we are saying it’s more than just a sign, like a traffic signal, but rather that it points to a higher order, and presupposes a person who “means.” Telling a friend his or her gift “meant a lot” is saying it’s more than just a convenient artifact, but that it somehow also affirms my pl
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The Malibu Conference: Inspiration vs. Transformation Encountering the Arts

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(The following lecture was given January 6, 2024 in the Serra Center, Malibu, CA as part of the Media Apostles Retreat for entertainment industry leaders) Abstract Do we make meaning, or discover it? While the past 250 years of intellectual history leans toward the former, the possibility of affirming the latter gives us pause since we are also haunted by the thought of missing out on the meaning of the world. At the same time, we have no doubt that artists bring meaningful stuff into being. Understanding symbolism is central to the human intellect's discovery of meaning. We will explore how symbols are different from signs, whether they are in some way necessarily religious, and what role they play in the formation of culture. The sacramental quality of creation that is native to the Judeo-Christian worldview is a heritage that's easily lost: it takes a robust combination of honesty and virtue to behold things as windows to God, which brings us to consider if an
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