Lectures

Azza Karam, of the UN Population Fund, comes to the Wheatley Institute's annual Student Conference of Religion in the Public Sphere. She describes the fine line between supporting and patronizing religious actors across the world.

Dr. Shaun Casey, director of the Berkley Center and former U.S. special representative for religion and global affairs/director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs, details why religion should be a part of statecraft. He dives into his work establishing the Religion and Global Affairs office in the State Department and the work his office did in establishing religious harmony in the Israel-Palestine conflict, the refugee crisis, and the normalization of US-Cuba relations.

David Campbell from the University of Notre Dame presents the Keynote Address for the 2017 Wheatley Religion in the Public Square Conference. His talk discusses the surprising role that religion has played in partisan politics.

Roger Scruton, eminent scholar of aesthetics, raises important questions about the individual's relationship with morality and the arts.

Dr. David I. Smith, a Calvin College Professor and Director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning, has spent his life developing ways to incorporate the Christian values he holds dear into the secular language subjects he loves to teach. In this speech given on March 1 at Brigham Young University, he gives his advice on how to bridge the gap between the two, thus creating an improved learning experience for both teachers and students. He challenges academic norms that have crept into every subject and that cause students to see subjects in a selfish and 2 dimensional way. His discussion is a battle cry to teachers of faith everywhere to teach better, more engaging, and unusual lessons; and not be afraid to use their values to enrich every facet of their teaching.

John D. Caputo discusses the complexities of post-modern religious sentiments.

Robert P. George, McCormick Chair of Jurisprudence, Princeton University, sat down with Richard N. Williams, Director of the Wheatley Institute. Robert P. George discusses the roles of public intellectuals, the virtue of dispassion, and dedicating our lives to the pursuit of truth. George talks about how he came to be involved in the academic field. They delve into the question of why do we argue, and understanding marriage and the importance of conjugal marriage. Religious liberty as a foundational liberty.

Lisa Miller, Professor & Director of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, discusses spiritual development as it pertains to children and adolescents.

Robert P. George is the McCormick Chair in Jurisprudence at Princeton University. In this lecture he discusses just and unjust laws, and political morality. George talks of humanity's ability to flourish or fail to flourish, what religion is, and faith's incapability to be coerced. He goes through and analyzes a quotation from Nostra Aetate, the Declaration of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.

James Smith, professor at Calvin College, makes a case against rising secularism, emphasizing the continued presence of spirituality, and he asserts that a secularist explanation of humanity cannot account for spiritually motivated behaviors.

George discussed what institutions—beginning with the family—instill the habits of mind that make for good citizenship.

Wheatley gets a visit from the authors of "The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again"

Conversation with Father-Daughter Duo of Political Scholars

The BYU campus community was invited to sit down with Utah Governor Spencer Cox.

Author, religion and ethics scholar, historian, and Harvard law professor, Noah Feldman, addressed the BYU community as part of Constitution Week. Feldman's lecture focused on ideas from his book, "The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery & The Refounding of America." All are welcome to attend the lecture.

On November 11, Timothy Shriver gave a lecture on “Moving From a Culture that Divides Us to a Culture that Unites Us.” The event was sponsored jointly by the Office of Civic Engagement and the Wheatley Institute. Tim and his growing team at UNITE, are building around a bold vision to promote national unity and mutual respect across differences. They are working to find solutions that transcend tired debates and old divides.

U.S. Senator Mitt Romney in Conversation with Governor Cox

Conversation with Yuval Levin

How resilient are America’s core institutions in the wake of a tumultuous election?