Friendship conference at Baylor

We are abundantly blessed in the conference department this Spring, it appears.  Check out this one, at Baylor:

Inaugural Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture

Friendship: Quests for Character, Community, and Truth

Thursday, October 25-Saturday, October 27, 2007

Baylor University, Waco, Texas

Featured Speakers:

C. Stephen Evans (Baylor University)
Paul Griffiths (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Thomas Hibbs (Baylor University)
Alan Jacobs (Wheaton College)
Dominic Manganiello (University of Ottawa)
Mary Nichols (Baylor University)
Charles Pinches (University of Scranton)
Robert Putnam (Harvard University)
Robert C. Roberts (Baylor University)
Nancy Sherman (Georgetown University)
Paul Wadell (St. Norbert College)
Carolinne White (University of Oxford)

Because we so naturally esteem friendship, Augustine wrote, our conscience condemns us if we do not meet friendship with friendship. When we do, we open ourselves to transforming possibilities-personal, civic, and even spiritual.

Though the highest form of friendship might be a school of virtue, a source of solidarity in bearing life's burdens, and (following Aquinas) an avenue to Christian charity and friendship with God, friendship is increasingly difficult to realize within our culture, especially given the challenges posed by radical individualism, mobility, and political, racial, and religious division. Technologies like the Internet change how we view friendship: we are drawn more to 'Facebook' encounters than face-to-face relationships. Yet the quests for character, community, and truth that are made possible through friendship invite perceptive critiques of contemporary society as well as creative proposals for renewed forms of personal and civic life.