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Yale University professor to discuss Christianity in secular world at St. Olaf Monday

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March 8, 2001

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ? Gene Outka, Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics at Yale University Divinity School, will discuss religious responses to world politics in a lecture at St. Olaf College Monday, March 12.

The free, public lecture is at 7:30 p.m. in the Viking Theater of Buntrock Commons. It is sponsored by St. Olaf College?s O.C. and Patricia Boldt/NEH Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and the Lutheran Heritage Endowment, funded by Nyles and Ruth Ellefson.

The lecture, "Two Governments in a World Gone Wrong," will address Martin Luther?s "two kingdoms" theory. Outka will address what it means to be a Christian in a secular, pluralistic world, and will develop a Lutheran perspective on religion, politics and ethics.

Luther believed that God governs the world through two kingdoms: a kingdom of grace and faith, and a kingdom of laws. This theological division provides a way for humans living in a pluralistic world to address the realms of religion and politics.

Outka lectures regularly at colleges throughout the United States, and is completing a book, Christian Ethics, with Philip Turner. He also does extensive research and writing about ethics and morality. Some of his opinions can be found in Prospects for a Common Morality, published in 1995 by Princeton University Press, and in Religion and Morality, published in 1973 by Doubleday Anchor, as well as in other journals and books.

Outka earned a bachelor of arts degree at University of Redlands, Calif., and a bachelor of divinity degree (cum laude) from Yale University Divinity School. He earned a master?s degree and. a Ph.D. from Yale University.

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In 1965 he began teaching at Princeton University until 1975, when he moved to Yale University, where in 1981 he was named Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics. He chaired Yale?s Department of Religious Studies from 1992 to 1995.

St. Olaf College prepares students to become responsible citizens of the world, fostering development of mind, body and spirit. A four-year, coeducational liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), St. Olaf has a student enrollment of 2,950 and a full-time faculty complement of approximately 300. It is one of Money Guide?s top 100 "elite values in college education today," and it leads the nation?s colleges in percentage of students who study abroad.

Contact Michael Cooper at 507-786-3315 or cooperm@stolaf.edu.