A gift to Gustavus Adolphus College from Phil ’58 and Nancy Lindau, given prior to Phil’s death in April 2006, has made a new symposium possible. Phil Lindau, a commodities trader and executive who served Gustavus as a board member, campaign chair, and longtime volunteer leader, was passionate about the faith-life intersection and the church relatedness of his alma mater. Thus, the Lindau Symposium was established to provide a forum in which diverse intellectual voices and mainstream beliefs and values can be brought together in a liberal arts environment.
The inaugural symposium, which took place on May 8, 2007, featured The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus and his talk “Religion in American Public Life.” Neuhaus argues that religious ideas and voices—particularly Christian ones—have a place in American public life. For 30 years as an activist pastor at St. John the Evangelist Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., Neuhaus grew disillusioned with cultural revolution and liberation theology and became a leading advocate of “democratic capitalism” and a critic of liberalism. In 1984 he published The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America, in which he asserted that secular voices and big government had crowded religion out of the “public square.” Now an ordained Catholic priest, Fr. Neuhaus is founder and director of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York City and editor of First Things, an ecumenical journal.
“Richard John Neuhaus is one of America’s true public intellectuals. His writings have attained broad influence, both in academic circles and within government and the political arena,” says Gustavus political science professor and symposium coordinator Chris Gilbert. “We are very pleased to have Father Neuhaus as the inaugural speaker for the Lindau Symposium. Few people are better positioned to discuss religion’s influence on public life in the United States today.”
The Lindau Symposium was open to the College community and the public without charge. It was also webcast online at http://www.gustavus.edu/events/lindau. An archived video will also be made available at that same address.
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