D. Stephen Long is Cary M. Maguire University Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University. He works in the intersection between theology and ethics and has published over fifty essays and twenty books.
He joins Boston University School of Theology to deliver a Lowell Lecture titled "The Crises of Liberal Democracy and the Response of Theopolitical Visions." His lecture will first examine if liberalism is the cause or the remedy to the democratic crises we face. In other words, Is liberal democracy the problem or the solution to our crises? Has liberalism contributed to it, or have the crises arisen because we failed to uphold liberalism?
Second, if liberalism is the cause then being postliberal, possibly by drawing upon a theopolitical vision, might be a remedy. Some theologians, philosophers, and politicians answer that because liberalism is the problem, its collapse with the rise of Brexit, MAGA, and Trumpism augurs an “interregnum” that will lead to a different form of political society, a postliberal one. Should that be a source of hope for people of faith or is such a vision too dangerous and even more reason to do all we can to uphold liberalism?
