Students, Faculty Attend Conference at Belmont Abbey College
Seventeen students and faculty from Lee University recently traveled with the Center for Responsible Citizenship (CRC) to Belmont, North Carolina, to attend the Lilly Conference at Belmont Abbey College.
The conference was organized by Dr. Joseph Wysocki, dean of the Honors College at Belmont, and modeled on programming offered by the CRC. It is part of an annual series dedicated to examining the intellectual and cultural “Crises in the Modern World,” which seeks to take principles discussed in the classroom and expand and apply them to the modern world. Students and faculty from several institutions were brought together to participate in lectures and discussion seminars.
This year’s conference theme was “The Drama of Atheist Humanism.” Readings included selections from Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Friedrich Nietzsche. These texts, in addition to lectures from three scholars on the subject matter, provided an avenue for students to come together and consider faith, modern western society, and the interactions between the two, promoting a charitable Christian response to a dominant vision of atheistic humanism.
“The enlightening exchange of ideas was only the beginning of the way in which this conference expanded my educational horizons,” said Christopher Coffey, a political science and theology major at Lee. “From making acquaintances in a broad network of Christian higher education institutions to traveling and forging relationships with our own Lee family, I am extremely grateful to those who made this event possible and for this opportunity to develop Christian responses to the challenges of the modern world.”
This conference was one of several symposium-style events Lee’s CRC has either hosted or participated in directly.
The CRC highlights the need for moral and civic virtue as the foundation for political life, promoting interdisciplinary conversation on the core elements of a flourishing community. Its activities are guided and informed by a deep commitment to the Christian faith, which understands the human good as connected to a robust vision of persons made in the image of God.
For information about upcoming events hosted by the CRC, email [email protected].
