The Larkin-Stuart Lecture 2018 | Michael Ignatieff

Religion and the Problem of Consolation

One of the paradoxes of what is supposed to be a secular age is the enduring power of religious monuments and devotional texts. People without faith can find themselves moved-and even transformed—by their encounter with the beauty of ancient mosques, synagogues, churches, religious paintings and the sacred texts of the world’s many religious traditions. People who think of themselves as secular can find consolation in religious works of art while disbelieving in the theological premises upon which these works depend. So the problem is: how can the faithless derive comfort and inspiration from works of faith?

In this lecture, Michael Ignatieff, Trinity graduate and President of Central European University in Budapest, explores this problem through a reading of the many uses that have been made of the Psalms, a text foundational to Christian and Jewish faith alike.

The Larkin-Stuart Lectures, endowed in 1969, are co-sponsored by Trinity College and St. Thomas’s Anglican Church. The lectures vary in topic, but all are based broadly on the subject of theology. The list of lecturers is long and distinguished and includes Robertson Davies, Northrop Frye, P.D. James, Michael Ignatieff, Father Owen Lee, Burton Mack, Rabbi Dow Marmur, Atom Egoyan, Charles Taylor, Mark Kingwell, David Halton, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and The Honourable Frank Iacobucci.