Joseph Stuart - Engaging with Secular Culture
Podcast: Season 5, Episode 6
I first met Dr. Joseph Stuart over a decade ago now. He was an adjunct professor with a newly minted Phd when Kristina and I were sophomores at Aquinas College. We took a course he taught called, Catholic Political Thought. I remember we talked a lot about the French Revolution and took a field trip to the Russell Kirk Center in Mecosta, MI. Most distinctly, I remember that the final exam was one of the hardest tests I’ve ever taken.
A year ago, Joseph reached out to me out of the blue saying that he had stumbled upon my article about spiritual abuse: The Place Where You Stand is Holy Ground. He asked if he could reference it during an upcoming lecture he was giving at Aquinas about his book, Rethinking the Enlightenment: Faith in the Age of Reason. It was humbling to have my work included in his lecture, and it was a great lecture!
Towards the beginning, Joseph said:
“Viewing the world…as a dialectic of secular and religious ideas at war with one another is bad for our souls. From a Christian point of view, it cramps us into a small space, nervous at what kind of attack the modern world might launch against us next. As if modernity has been the sole actor in the story of the last 300 years and Christians have simply reacted in defensive ways. We quake for fear that maybe God left us somewhere in the 18th century and now we live in a secular age without Him. The modern world is falling apart, we muse, and the spirit of the age, stemming from the enlightenment, has permeated even the Church. So we click to our favorite internet magisteria and give ear to the prophets of doom.”
This resonated a lot with different discussions I’ve been having about evangelization, integralism, the culture wars, and Pope Francis’s teaching. It took a year, but we were finally able to find a time to have him on the podcast.
I’m very happy to share this conversation with you. I think you’ll enjoy it!
The episode is available on Youtube and in your favorite podcast app.
This week, Dr. Joseph Stuart joins us on the podcast to talk about the ways that Christians responded to the Enlightenment in the 18th century. He dispels the myth that the Enlightenment was at war with religion. We then go on to discuss ways that Catholics can engage with the contemporary secular culture that grew from the Enlightenment. Specifically, we talked about the very real consequences of Christians engaging the culture using power and coercion rather than with credibility and faithfulness.
Joseph T. Stuart, Ph.D., is Full Professor of History and Fellow of Catholic Studies at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. His research and publications concern the life and work of cultural historian Christopher Dawson, the cultural history of the Great War, and the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. He is the author of three books: Christopher Dawson: A Cultural Mind in the Age of the Great War; The Church and the Age of Reformations (1350–1650): Martin Luther, the Renaissance, and the Council of Trent; and Rethinking the Enlightenment: Faith in the Age of Reason.
LINKS:
Rethinking the Enlightenment: Faith in the Age of Reason:
https://sophiainstitute.com/product/rethinking-the-enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment and Our Souls: Legacies of Cultural Conflict, Engagement, and Retreat (2023 lecture at Aquinas College):
The Place Where You Stand is Holy Ground: Recognizing and Preventing Spiritual Abuse in the Catholic Church:
https://wherepeteris.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/The-Place-Where-You-Stand-is-Holy-Ground.pdf
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ABOUT DOMINIC DE SOUZA SmartCatholics founder, Dominic de Souza, is a convert from radical traditionalism – inspired by WherePeterIs, Bishop Robert Barron, and Pope Francis. He is passionate about helping ordinary Catholics break the ‘bystander effect’, and be first responders. “We don’t have to be geniuses. We just have to show up with witness and kindness. Christ does the rest.” Today he hosts the SmartCatholics community.
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