Against Christian Civilization
Presented by Paul Kingsnorth
Monday, October 28 | 6:00 p.m.
Union League Club
38 East 37th Street
Western culture appears more and more insecure by the year. Social and political schism, economic malaise and spiritual emptiness are more and more apparent. In response, voices can be increasingly heard calling for a return to something called ‘Christian civilization.’ Religion, we increasingly hear, is a ’social glue’ than can bind us together, regardless of its actual truth. Paul Kingsnorth argues that this idea, far from being a solution to our malaise, is a deadly trap that Christians should avoid.
Paul Kingsnorth is an English writer and thinker living in the west of Ireland. He is the author of nine books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including the novel The Wake, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The story of his unexpected conversion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in 2021 was published in First Things as “The Cross and the Machine.” He returned to the pages of First Things in 2023 with the publication of “A Wild Christianity.”His forthcoming book Against the Machine explores the cultural and spiritual impacts of the rising religion of technology.
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Reserve your ticket for the 2024 Erasmus Lecture below! Tickets will be sent out via email in September.
If you would like to attend the annual Erasmus poetry reading with Adam Kirsch on Sunday, October 27 at 5 p.m., please register here.
This lecture is made possible in part through the generosity of our Erasmus sponsors:
Premier Sponsors:
Brandon Brown and Arielle VanSyckel
Rein Staal
Sponsors:
Brian Broderick
Michael Caponiti
Lucinda Falk
Robert Hatfield
Solveig Lucia Gold and Joshua T. Katz
Melanie Kazlas
Edward Kerson
Liz and John Soriano
Forbes and Miriam Tuttle
Michael Wilkerson
Institutional Sponsors:
1792 Exchange
Center for Autism, Assertiveness, and Social Skills
Crossway
To sponsor this year's Erasmus Lecture, please fill out the form below. If you would like to be a Presenting Sponsor for the Lecture, please contact Carter Skeel, Director of Institutional Advancement, at cskeel@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
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