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Institute for Advanced Theology
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Institute of Advanced Theology

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About the Institute

The Institute of Advanced Theology is designed to create the kind of genuine, critical understanding that will make real pluralism possible. We are not interested in general assertions of the necessity of religious tolerance. Well-meaning and useful though such imperatives are, they do not address the heart of the challenge of religious diversity. What is needed is not mere civility, but mutual understanding.

Our Mission

Religion has emerged as a force which cannot be ignored in understanding the world and humanity’s place within it. Whether one’s perspective is that of a social observer, considering what shapes the behavior of people around us, or that of a participant, committed to a particular faith, the growing influence of systems of religious belief has become increasingly apparent since the end of the Cold War.

With this growth of religions there has come an historic challenge. Practitioners need to understand one another; observers need to be able to assess beliefs and practices they personally do not share. Those are the imperatives of living in a pluralistic environment. Religious systems (and many atheist surrogates for religious systems) claim to account for the world, to shape human emotions, and to guide our actions. What happens when many such systems occupy the same land, the same society?  The United States has been on the forefront of creating pluralism; how it should be practiced is another matter.

The Institute of Advanced Theology is designed to create the kind of genuine, critical understanding that will make real pluralism possible. We are not interested in general assertions of the necessity of religious tolerance. Well-meaning and useful though such imperatives are, they do not address the heart of the challenge of religious diversity. What is needed is not mere civility, but mutual understanding.

The Institute’s mission is to illuminate crucial points of intersection among the world’s religious traditions in order to promote a deeper understanding of both their commonality and diversity. The Institute’s special interest is the first hundred years of the Common Era, in which the seeds of mistrust and intolerance that have plagued Jewish-Christian relations through the centuries were planted. The Institute’s aims are to bring factual evidence and critical analysis to the fore, resulting in a better understanding of New Testament and biblical history; to foster a new spirit of tolerance and cooperation; to improve the quality of religious scholarship and practice through a historically based interdisciplinary program of research, education, and public outreach; to achieve a deeper understanding of the origins of Christianity, from its roots in Judaism; and to develop the potential for collaborative scholarship, bringing together religious leaders, believers, and those who are simply curious, in a shared enterprise of enlightened learning.

The program of the Institute proceeds along three distinct yet related lines of engagement: public offerings, dedicated conferences, and graduate study.

  • Public Offerings
    This lecture series with Bruce Chilton is in conjunction with the book launch of Eden Revisited: A Novel by László Z. Bitó ’60. Eden is both a place in the mythic past and the prospect for a balanced, ecological, and human civilization in the future. Gnostic writers in particular have portrayed how the idyllic garden could have been lost, and why regaining its richness has proven elusive. Laszlo Bito, a Bard alumnus from the class of 1960 investigated these issues in his book Eden Revisited. The series is designed to join in that quest, in order to press the issue of Eden’s deep promise.  

     

    Public Offerings

    This lecture series with Bruce Chilton is in conjunction with the book launch of Eden Revisited: A Novel by László Z. Bitó ’60. Eden is both a place in the mythic past and the prospect for a balanced, ecological, and human civilization in the future. Gnostic writers in particular have portrayed how the idyllic garden could have been lost, and why regaining its richness has proven elusive. Laszlo Bito, a Bard alumnus from the class of 1960 investigated these issues in his book Eden Revisited. The series is designed to join in that quest, in order to press the issue of Eden’s deep promise.  

     

    The myth of Eden is woven from the interactions among named characters, each character with its own temperament, role, and story. The series will follow their trajectories.

    Fall lecture dates
    Thursday, December 1st at 5:30 pm Adam, The Squandering of Power
    The primal human being, Adam, stands at the fulcrum of the myth of Eden. He is endowed with language and the capacity to exert authority inside the endlessly fertile and sustaining garden in which he lives. How Adam faltered, provoking YHWH to expel human beings from the garden and from the delight of life without work, drives the plot of the narrative. Even outside Eden, however, Adam’s nature strives against banishment, in a struggle that has been depicted as tragic, heroic, and sometimes hopeful over the course of millennia. 

    Thursday, December 8th at 5:30 pm (Eve)
    Thursday, December 15th at 5:30 pm in the Bard Chapel of the Holy Innocents (Abel)

    Spring lecture dates
    Thursday, February 23rd at 5:30 pm (Cain)
    Thursday, March 2nd at 5:30 pm (the Serpent)
    Thursday, March 9th at 5:30 pm (YHWH)
    Thursday, March 16th at 5:30 pm (Eden, the garden that exists over our horizon)
     
  • Dedicated Conferences
    The Institute’s conferences are designed to bring the expertise of international specialists to bear on crucial issues, and to make their discussions available to a wider audience than scholars usually address. These conferences are dovetailed with courses at Bard College, supported by foundations and the Members of the Institute, and open to a broad intellectual community. Each of them has resulted in a major volume published by a respected press.

    Dedicated Conferences

    The Institute’s conferences are designed to bring the expertise of international specialists to bear on crucial issues, and to make their discussions available to a wider audience than scholars usually address. These conferences are dovetailed with courses at Bard College, supported by foundations and the Members of the Institute, and open to a broad intellectual community. Each of them has resulted in a major volume published by a respected press.

    The Institute’s conferences are designed to bring the expertise of international specialists to bear on crucial issues, and to make their discussions available to a wider audience than scholars usually address. These conferences are dovetailed with courses at Bard College, supported by foundations and the Members of the Institute, and open to a broad intellectual community. Each of them has resulted in a major volume published by a respected press.
    In recent years, conference work has proceeded in a collaborative relationship with the United States Military Academy at West Point. The 2017 conference, which convened in April, bore the title “Equality – more or less.” Its contributions are to be published by Hamilton Press, in a series dedicated to the collaboration, “Dialogues on Social Issues: Bard College and West Point.”
  • Graduate Study
    The Institute has developed a comprehensive proposal for a curriculum leading to a doctoral degree designed for experienced clergy who already have a solid background in theology and religion as teachers, scholars and ministers.  Each degree will be tailored to meet the pastoral situation of the individual student. In a rigorous, inter-disciplinary program of study the emphasis is placed on developing clear communicative and expository skills, and honing an analytic and comparative method of study.

    Graduate Study

    The Institute has developed a comprehensive proposal for a curriculum leading to a doctoral degree designed for experienced clergy who already have a solid background in theology and religion as teachers, scholars and ministers.  Each degree will be tailored to meet the pastoral situation of the individual student. In a rigorous, inter-disciplinary program of study the emphasis is placed on developing clear communicative and expository skills, and honing an analytic and comparative method of study.

    The Institute has developed a comprehensive proposal for a curriculum leading to a doctoral degree designed for experienced clergy who already have a solid background in theology and religion as teachers, scholars and ministers.  Each degree will be tailored to meet the pastoral situation of the individual student. In a rigorous, inter-disciplinary program of study the emphasis is placed on developing clear communicative and expository skills, and honing an analytic and comparative method of study.
    Members of the Institute who wish to pursue graduate work may do so by special arrangement with the Graduate Theological Foundation.
     
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