HESBURGH LECTURE SERIES 2012 Program - Alumni Association ...

Gary A. Anderson, Ph.D.
Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology
Biography
Gary Anderson began his career as an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church
before being received into the Catholic Church in the early 1990s. His interests concern the
religion and literature of the Old Testament and the reception of this set of books in early
Judaism and Christianity. He always has taken a strong interest in Jewish-Christian dialogue,
and has spoken in churches and synagogues across the country. Anderson also has been a
frequent guest in Israel. He has authored three books, co-edited three others, and written
some 40 articles. Anderson has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for
the Humanities, the Fulbright Program, the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem, the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton University, and the
American Philosophical Society. Anderson also is a Henry Luce Fellow in Theology. His most
recent book is Sin: A History (Yale, 2009).
Lectures
Faith and Finance
The terrible credit crisis that has consumed much of the western world for the last five years or so has important ramifications
for understanding the religious life. As many commentators have noted, the credit crisis is a crisis of belief. As such there are
important parallels with the nature of religious life. This is in part grounded in our conventional vocabulary: the words “credit”
and “creditor” come from the Latin, credere, which means “to believe.” Credere also is the root for words such as creed and
credible. This lecture explores what the recent banking crisis can reveal about the nature of religious faith.
Why I Became Catholic
Anderson was born and raised United Methodist, and after getting his undergraduate degree at a fine Methodist college (Albion
College in Albion, Mich.), he went to Duke Divinity School to prepare for the ministry. Along the way, he decided to change his
academic path. Anderson eventually went on to get his doctorate in biblical studies. But he also decided to change his ecclesial
affiliation, going from Methodist to Episcopalian (ever so briefly) to Roman Catholic. His desire to become Catholic began during
his very first weeks in the seminary, yet it took nearly 15 years for him to actually make the change. In this lecture, Anderson
addresses why he found the Roman Catholic Church so irresistible and also—somewhat paradoxically—why it took so long for
him to join. He will comment on just what is so “cool” about becoming Catholic.
8 The Hesburgh Lecture Series, 2012 Program
Categories
Business, Church, Social
Concerns, Spirituality