13/05/2026
We are delighted to introduce prof. Jeffrey Bloechl (Boston College, USA), our keynote speaker, who will be giving a lecture "The Precarity of Faith and the Possibility of its Demise. Existential Considerations".
🔴 The meaning of “post-Christian” is dependent on what is meant by the “Christian” that is thought to be left behind. In some prominent arguments, this leads to important theological reservations. Does Christianity itself, as a religion of incarnation, truly emphasize distance between the divine and the human or only difference and relationship? Does it, at heart, rest on the success of a political hierarchy, or is the latter only an effect of its intervention in the domain of worldly power? Must its proclamation be armed with rational assurance against every perceived challenge, as if the promise of salvation is no longer enough?
🟠 To the degree that we may respond in the negative to such questions, it is tempting to conclude that the “post-Christian” somehow rests on a series of mistakes, or is the result of steps that were not necessary. I will forego these arguments, which moreover have been pursued in great detail by any number of scholars. Instead, I will investigate the conditions by which the steps that have been taken had their original appeal.
🟡 I propose, further, to seek these conditions at the level of our being, and not at the level of the arguments for and against them. This will require some concentration on the evident precarity of Christian life, whereby one’s commitment to divine mystery may also be an exposure to the appeal of worldly solutions. My aim will be to define an existential ground for both the Christian and at least forms of the post-Christian.
🟢 Jeffrey Bloechl is Albert J. Fitzgibbons Professor, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Boston College (USA).
📚 His recent publications include
- "Levinas on the Primacy of the Ethical" (2022),
- "Fragility and Transcendence. Essays on the Thought of Jean-Louis Chrétien" (editor, 2024),
- "Ordinary and Extraordinary and Other Essays in Phenomenology and Christianity" (2025),
- "Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. A Reader’s Guide" (forthcoming).
📚 He is currently at work on a hermeneutical-phenomenology of Christian life.
