Theological Genealogies of Modernity Conference
Nearly every constructive Christian theology either explicitly assesses modern Western culture or embeds implicit judgments about modernity within its claims. Sometimes these judgments are positive, as in theologies that operate according to a progress narrative (e.g., works influenced by Immanuel Kant or G. W. F. Hegel). In other cases, these judgments are more negative, as in theologies that lament that a wrong turn was taken at some point in the past (e.g., the writings of John Milbank, one of our conference speakers). At any rate, it is difficult to do theology without making at least a de facto commitment to some story about how we came to live in the modern world.
These narratives are, however, tremendously challenging to assess because of how broad in scope they are. Since these are accounts of modern life as such, they involve a wide range of fields—philosophy, history, and the natural sciences, to name only a few that feature most prominently. What level of competence can theologians gain regarding these subjects, which are not their primary areas of expertise? Theologians thus face a dilemma: they cannot avoid committing themselves to some genealogy of modernity, but it is not easy to justify their commitment, at least with the level of specialist knowledge that serves as the gold standard within today’s universities.
Back in 2019, I was discussing these matters with Pui Ip in Oxford, where we were both teaching at the time. Both of us were perplexed by these issues and wanted to explore them more. We knew immediately that if we were going to make progress, we would need to narrow our query to the point that it became more manageable. The whole difficulty with genealogies of modernity is that they possess seemingly limitless breadth. We decided to concentrate on genealogical accounts that are known as “decline,” “declension,” or “fall” narratives. I say advisedly that they are known as decline/declension/fall narratives, for in my own conference paper I argue that in the case of one prominent twentieth-century theologian (Thomas F. Torrance), what critics take to be a decline narrative turns out to be something else entirely—and I suspect that something similar is true for others. Here are some of the questions about these accounts we wanted to delve into: How are “decline” narratives constructed? If these stories do something more than just describing historical processes, how do normative elements enter into them? How do genealogical narratives look from the perspective of marginalized constituencies? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these accounts?
We decided to put a grant proposal in to Oxford’s Fell Fund to gather scholars who could help us explore those questions. We are grateful to Oxford University for allowing us to pursue our vision, and we acknowledge the support of our additional sponsors: Australian Catholic University, the Genealogies of Modernity Project, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
These bodies enabled us to bring together many of those who have written their own recent English-language “decline” genealogies, others who have written analytical treatments of genealogies, and still others who incline toward a progress story, and can therefore provide criticism and counter perspectives. The conference that we have planned centers in theology. That is the disciplinary home for most of our speakers. But, because genealogies of modernity are such all-encompassing narratives, we knew that we would get the best results if we brought theology into dialogue with other fields. We are glad that we will have representatives from several of the most relevant subjects at our event: Brad Gregory (Notre Dame) works in history, Thomas Pfau (Duke) in English and German, Peter Harrison (Queensland) in science and religion, and Christine Helmer (Northwestern) in German and religious studies. We certainly expect the presentations to illumine the questions that Pui Ip and I started off discussing. Several papers cluster around the meaning of “decline” and how genealogies actually operate, so we expect advances to be made there.
We know, though, that our conference is just a beginning. We do not expect to exhaust all the perplexing issues that surround genealogies of modernity, or even “decline” narratives more specifically. The conference features presentations on major figures such as Adolf von Harnack, Martin Heidegger, T. F. Torrance, and others. Yet there are other figures who are important too. The conference also includes presentations on pressing topical issues, such as gender equity and threats to the environment. In order to achieve comprehensive coverage, we would ideally have papers asking how “decline” accounts look from the point of view of people of color, non-western religious communities, and a broader range of religious perspectives. Some discussion of these topics will take place at the conference, but we do not have full papers dedicated to them.
Our four-day event is best thought of as an exercise in priming the pump, starting to explore theological genealogies of modernity by probing a selected set of pertinent issues. The conference will consist of presentations and responses by fifteen scholars. Our presenters will then continue to develop and refine their arguments for published versions of their essays, which will appear in the leading professional journal Modern Theology. We expect the conference talks and the subsequently published essays to make a major contribution to our understanding of theological genealogies of modernity. The discussions at the conference will also help to clarify where it would be profitable to direct further research energy to gain an even greater understanding of these complex accounts of the rise of modern culture.
As originally proposed, the conference was to be an in-person event taking place in Oxford, England. But because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to change our original plans. Taking the conference online means that we can accommodate a far broader and more diverse audience than would have been able to join us in Oxford for a face-to-face conference. Registering for the conference is entirely free of charge, and we welcome anyone with an interest in the topic to join us for what promises to be a thought-provoking discussion. We hope that you will attend 8-11 of July! To sign up, please visit our registration page.