Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robinson completes Christian Scholars' Conference

Janel Shoun | 06/24/2009

Related Stories   Day Two: Eyewitness account of Kennedy's 1960 election featured on panel   Day One: Five university presidents discuss future of Christian higher ed   Preview: Internationally acclaimed writers headline conference

The final plenary session of the Christian Scholars’ Conference highlighted the narrative of fiction with one of America’s greatest contemporary writers.

 

Marilynne Robinson has written three works of fiction. The first, Housekeeping, was named one of the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time and has been designated a modern classic. The second, Gilead, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. And her latest work, Home, won the Orange Prize from Britain earlier this month.

 

She has taught at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop for 20 years.

 

Robinson’s speech was preceded by Lipscomb University’s artist-in-residence Jerome Reed performing “There is a Balm in Gilead,” an ode not only to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, but also a reflection of her speech, which used old Southern hymns as an entrée to her discussion of the faith narrative in America today.

 

“There’s something about being human that makes us crave grand narratives,” she said. One way history and culture is preserved over time is through narratives, she said.

 

Robinson described how at Christmas and Easter Christians across the nation feel so close to the stories that have “stirred billions of people for thousands of years.”

 

Robinson noted that recently a “narrative of decline” has arisen in America. This narrative describes a “loss of our religious and cultural essence.”

 

She outlined many of the criticisms she has seen leveled at American society in attempts to prove that the nation is losing its Christian core. Then she called on her audience to trust in the power of God’s narrative to overcome human society, as it has so many times in the past.

 

“God’s grace exceeds any imagination man might have of it,” she said. That grace, “calls us to bring credit to the faith.”

 

“If Christ will be with us until the end of the age, why such fear?” she asked. “Why not trust and enjoy the country God has created?”

 

Reverence of God’s great narrative, “should prevent its being subordinated by tribalism, resentment or fear,” she concluded.

 

 

 

 

Does the free market corrupt moral character?

 

The Lipscomb University College of Business and the Christian Scholars’ Conference aligned on Saturday, the final day of the conference when business ethics scholars Linda and O.C. Ferrell came to campus as visiting professors in the Professional MBA program, holding on-site classes this weekend.

 

The Ferrells were also two of five professors who gathered at the Christian Scholars’ Conference to discuss the question “Does the free market corrupt moral character?” The session was conducted by Lipscomb's College of Business Dean Turney Stevens.

 

The Ferrells, based at the University of New Mexico, wrote the go-to textbook for business ethics courses, Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, and have spent three years traveling to 30 colleges of business around the nation.

 

Linda and O.C. Ferrell

Professor Reid and Dean Stevens

Linda Ferrell blamed the rise in corruption in the free market to changing societal demographics and enhanced technology. She noted statistics announced by Junior Achievement that 70 percent of high school students say they cheat and they do so to get ahead in the world. Ten percent of any group will engage in wrong-doing if they have the opportunity and feel they will not get caught, she said.

 

Given these attitudes and America’s more urban and technological society where people are not as bound together in communities or if so they are bound to people at a distance, through technology, it is no wonder that those bent toward wrongdoing are able to justify it more easily because they don’t know their victims, she said.

 

O.C. Ferrell pointed out the concept of the free market system is based on the writing of Adam Smith, who had a religious background and was considered a moral philosopher. He said that a free market system would not work unless it was based on virtues, such as prudence, temperance and justice.

 

Stacy L. Patty, a professor of philosophy, ethics and world religions at Lubbock Christian University, responded that Smith’s emphasis on those virtues came from his certain set of values that had been framed by his Western culture. In today’s culture, “we don’t have any context on which to build on those values,” he said. “So there’s no way to create a sense of who we are.”

 

A student from the Professional MBA class asked the panelists if it is even possible for managers to manage in an ethical way, given the strong forces pushing for maximum profit and efficiency at any cost.

 

O.C. Ferrell said yes, stating that in actuality, the majority of companies have an ethical policy. He also referenced Fortune magazine’s annual list of the best companies for social responsibility.

 

Brad Reid, a professor of management from Abilene Christian University, also noted that corporate boards need to take more responsibility for encouraging ethical operation by rewarding their top management not just for profits, but for ethical behaviors.

 

So what did the answers come down to? Does the free market corrupt moral character?

• Linda and O.C. Ferrell gave a definite no. Other factors such as technology and demographics are stronger forces driving corruption.
• John Harris, retired associate dean of the business college at Samford University, said, “No more than any other economic system in this world.”
• Patty said yes. It limits the way we perceive character and ethics.
• Reid said no. “I can be a sinner under any system.”

 

Day Two: Eyewitness account of Kennedy's 1960 election highlights day two of conference

 

The earliest seeds of the religious right, the language of presidential campaigns, and the power of poetry were among the topics explored by the 425 scholars and theologians attending the second day of the Christian Scholars’ Conference, June 25-27.

 

The theme “The Power of Narrative” was strongly present in the day’s many presentations. Among the most interesting was a group of scholars and practitioners who responded to The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960, a recent book by Shaun Casey.

John Seigenthaler, who served as administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy during John Kennedy’s 1960 campaign, sat on the panel, as well as Linda Peek-Schacht, the communications director for President Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign; Richard Hughes, author of several books including Christian America and the Kingdom of God; and Guy Brown, a scholar from Lubbock Christian University.

 

Seigenthaler and Casey (l to r)

Hughes

Schacht and Brown (l to r)

Casey, professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C., worked as a faith advisor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. Casey is a frequent guest on Public Broadcasting System’s “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly” television show, where he was interviewed about Mitt Romney’s speech on Mormonism.

 

After reading Casey’s book about the anti-Catholic movement to oppose Kennedy’s election, Hughes couldn’t help but point out the irony that runs through the entire book.

 

The grassroots machine that sprung up in Southern protestant America to oppose Kennedy in 1960 is the ancestor of today’s religious right, he noted. But while in 1960 this group arose to prevent the co-mingling of church and state by Kennedy’s election to the presidency, today the descendent of this group works very hard to bring church and state together every day.

 

What the 1960 advocates were really interested in (whether they knew it or not), was the preservation of protestant America, and that desire eventually coalesced into the Religious right, Hughes said.

 

In his response, Casey agreed, saying that he believes Southern evangelicals liked their threat being taken seriously, as the Kennedy campaign did, which spurred evangelicals to become more involved in politics in the future. 

 

Seigenthaler added an eye-witness perspective to the panel, describing how Kennedy’s campaign czars were very worried about the anti-Catholic movement, which was responsible for distributing malicious tracts across the nation. Some tracts claimed that Catholics had been part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Others claimed that Joe Kennedy and the Pope were “Nazi lovers,” he said.

 

He described how the campaign heads didn’t want Kennedy to take questions after his historic speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Alliance, but Kennedy “loved press conferences,” he said. “To him they were an intellectual sparring match.” And “his responses were not glib,” but were “poignant, penetrating and persuasive,” and that’s what won the American people over, Seigenthaler said.

Keynote Session

 

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins brought his sense of humor along with him to the stage at Collins Alumni Auditorium. The acclaimed poet, who is regarded as one of the most popular poets ever, served as the Friday night keynote speaker on the second night of the conference.

 

His accessible, witty poetry provided examples of how narrative gets turned on its head by the poet, who is really trying to create “an imaginative space,” Collins said. “Poetry tries to lead you into that space. Poetry is one of the best ways to take you to that elsewhere.”

 

The Lehman College Distinguished Professor of English, who has written eight collections of poems, read many of his works – “The Trouble with Poetry,” “Aristotle,” “On Turning 10” – as he explored his works to discover how they relate to narrative.

 

In Homer’s day, poetry was historical and more narrative, he said, but today’s lyric poetry is not about history, it’s about time. “It’s about mortality. If you majored in English, you know that you majored in death,” he quipped. “It’s what gets us up in the morning.”

 

It’s also what inspired “The Order of the Day,” a poem where the author ruminates on when he, his partner and his cat will die, and in what order.

 

He also discovered that many of his poems’ narrators are quite unreliable, starting a poem with a narrative bent, but switching suddenly. For example, he read, “Fishing on the Susquehanna in July,” which begins with the unexpected line, “I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna in July.”

 

“A poem is all about how to find an ending,” Collins said. “And the ending is only accessible through the poem.”

 

 

 

Day One: Five university presidents headline historic session on first day of conference

Presidents Benton and Lowry (l to r)

Presidents Lowry and Money (l to r)

Presidents Benton, O'Neal and CCCU President Corts (l to r)

President Shelly

CCCU President Corts

• Andrew Benton, president, Pepperdine University
• L. Randolph Lowry, president, Lipscomb University
• Royce Money, president, Abilene Christian University
• Michael O'Neal, president, Oklahoma Christian University
• Rubel Shelly, president, Rochester College

• Keeping Christ as the focus
• Long-term economic concerns
• Skyrocketing college costs
• Culture wars
• Environmental and sustainability concerns
• Globalization
• Public accountability
• Technology and infrastructure
• Irrelevance
• Baby boomer leaving higher education

• Any story I take to make my story will have to honor people not like me.
• Any story I take to make my story is going to have to let me argue with it.
• Any story I take to make my story is going to have to level with me about the cost of love.

Preview: Christian Scholars' Conference lures 425 scholars, acclaimed writers

• Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gilead Marilynne Robinson
• Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins
• Internationally acclaimed social justice scholar Hubert Locke
• Author of An Altar in the World Barbara Brown Taylor

Turney Stevens, former CEO of two Nashville finance companies and dean of the Lipscomb University College of Business, will conduct a panel discussion on the question, “Does the free market corrupt moral character?” The panel of respondents will include O.C. and Linda Ferrell, authors of Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, a highly regarded textbook used in many universities nationwide.

Stevens created the Dean Institute for Corporate Governance and Integrity at Lipscomb University last year and has conducted business ethics training for local corporations such as Bridgestone Firestone.

About a year ago the Templeton Foundation, as part of its “Big Questions” series (http://www.templeton.org/market/), asked a collection of scholars, writers, businesspeople and thinkers to answer this question. Since then, universities and organizations like the Brookings Institute have held their own discussions on the topic.
 

Review and Response to Shaun Casey’s The Making of a Catholic President

John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Foundation and former Kennedy administration staffer, will review Church of Christ theologian Shaun Casey’s latest book The Making of a Catholic President. Former Carter administration communications official and Lipscomb University professor Linda Peek-Schacht and Richard Hughes, author of Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America, will also be among the panel reviewing the book by Casey, formerly contracted as faith advisor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

 Paul Prill, Lipscomb University professor of communication, will conduct a seminar providing narrative analyses of Barack Obama’s 2009 Inaugural Address, Obama’s Campaign Rhetoric, and Obama’s "A More Perfect Union" address.

The Function of Poetry at the Present Time