Muslims view government
The stances Christians and Muslims take toward democratic and theocratic forms of government will be explored in a conference Thursday and Friday, March 23 and 24, co-hosted by the Divinity School and the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.
Titled "Theocracy and Democracy in Islam and Christianity," the conference will explore such questions as: "May Christians and Muslims participate in good faith in civil societies in North America and Europe, without violating non-negotiable convictions internal to each religious tradition?" and "Does a doctrine of two governments -- a religious and spiritual one, and a civic and moral one -- prove more congenial to those with a Christian orientation than to those with a Muslim one?"
The conference will feature lectures by two noted scholars and three panel presentations in response to the lectures. The panels will consist of leading Muslim, Christian and Jewish thinkers.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will include opportunities for audience members to pose questions for discussion. All conference events will take place in the Niebuhr Lecture Hall of the Divinity School, 409 Prospect St.
The conference will open at 5 p.m. on Thursday with a welcome by Harold Attridge, dean of the Divinity School. The first lecture, "The Constitutional State and Limitation of Belief," will be delivered at 5:30 p.m. by Oliver O'Donovan, the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Christ Church, Oxford. A panel discussion on "The Christian Tradition" will follow at 8 p.m., with time afterward for questions.
On Friday at 8:30 a.m., Muhammad Qasim Zaman, associate professor of religious studies at Brown University, will speak on "Islam, Democracy and Religious Authority." A panel on "The Islamic Tradition" will follow at 9:45 a.m., with a question-and-answer session beginning an hour later.
The third panel, at 11:30 a.m., will offer further assessment of the topics and will be followed by responses from the lecturers.
Panelists include Yale faculty members Ronald Rittgers, Serene Jones, Miroslav Volf, Frank Griffel and Abbas Amanat. Other participants are Eric Gregory from Princeton University, Iman Yahya Hendi from Georgetown University, Stephen P. Cohen from the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, and John Reeder from Brown University.
The conference was organized by Gene Outka, the Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics, and Joseph Cumming, director of the Reconciliation Program of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Kosher food will be available for participants at the closing lunch. The conference events are scheduled to accommodate Muslim attendees who wish to attend Friday prayers and Jewish attendees who wish to be home by the start of Sabbath.
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