Meetings of the North American Paul Tillich Society

The 2011 Annual Meeting

The Annual Meeting of the North American Paul Tillich Society will take place in San Francisco, California on Friday, November 18th and Saturday, November 19th, 2011. The American Academy of Religion group "Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion, and Culture" meets Saturday and Sunday, November 19 and November 20.

If you are attending the meeting, please bring the Bulletin with you for the Program and Banquet information. Time and room assignments are subject to change, final time and room assignments are available in the onsite Annual Meeting Program Book. You may also consult this program at the AAR website.

2011 Program

Friday, 9:00 - 11:30 am
M18-191 (Hilton Union Square - Mason)
North American Paul Tillich Society
Tillich and Culture

  • Mary Ann Stenger, University of Louisville
    Tillich's Theology of Culture in Relation to the American Religious-Secular Dialectic
  • Rose Caraway, University of Florida
    A New Human Being: The Religious Dimemsions of Secularism in Cuban and Soviet Moralities
  • Bert Daelemans, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven
    The Breakthrough Of the Spirit in Contemporary Church Architecture

Friday, 1:00 - 3:30 pm
M18-291 (Hilton Union Square - Mason)
North American Paul Tillich Society
Courage and Symbol in Tillich

  • Derek Nelson, Thiel College
    Absolutely Relative: Teaching Dynamics of Faith, on teaching Dynamics of Faith
  • Verna Marina Ehret, Mercyhurst College
    Doubt, Courage and the Transformation of Redemption Within Globalization
  • Ryan O'Leary, University of Iowa
    Gaia as Symbol

Friday, 4:00 - 6:30 pm
M18-300 (Hilton Union Square - Mason)
North American Paul Tillich Society
International and Interreligious Approaches of Tillich

  • Theo Junker, Université de Strasbourg
    Paul Tillich's Mature Politics: Unconfined Realism and Vigilant Hope. Examples from his Enduring Legacy of Political Affirmations and Refutations
  • Anne Marie Reijnen, Faculté Universitaire de Théologie Protestante de Bruxelles
    Das Neue Denken in Franz Rosenzweig and Paul Tillich. The “Star of Redemption” as a Jewish-Christian Theology of Correlation
  • Responding:
    Lon Weaver, Glen Avon Presbyterian Church

Friday 7:00 - 10:00 pm
North American Paul Tillich Society
Annual Banquet
The annual banquet of the NAPTS will take place on Friday, November 18, at Le Central, a well-known French bistro, at 453 Bush Street (between Grant and Kearney Streets), San Francisco, California 94108. (415)391-2233 There will be a choice of three appetizers, three entrees, and three desserts, all printed on a special menu for the occasion. You will have your choice:
First course: Butternut Squash Soup, Caesar's Salad, or Crab Cake
Entrée: Roast Chicken, Sea Bass, or New York Steak
Dessert: Crème Brulee, Tiramisu, or Mixed Berries with Crème Anglaise.
The price of the banquet is 55 USD, a remarkable bargain given the cost of San Francisco restaurants and the range of choices available. Please join us!
For banquet reservations: contact Fred Parella, Secretary Treasurer, NAPTS
• Phone: (408)259-8225
• Text: (408)674-3108
• Email: fparrella@scu.edu
• Fax: 408.554.2387
• US Mail: Frederick J. Parella, Religious Studies, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053
Please remember to bring your checkbook or cash to the banquet if you reserve a place by email, telephone or in person. Thank you.
Important Note: The price of $55 includes only the dinner. Wine and cocktails are separate, but the restaurant requires one bill. Drinks ordered at table must be paid to the secretary-treasurer in cash or check.Drinks ordered at the bar may be paid to the restaurant directly, but please inform management that you are part of our party.In this way, the Society can meet the minimum amount required and still offer an outstanding dinner at a reasonable price.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Owen Thomas.
The title of Dr. Thomas' address wil be “Tillich's Alternate Interpretation of Western Cultural History.” Owen C. Thomas is Professor of Theology emeritus of the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the author of nine books in theology and the philosophy of religion. A former physicist, he has been a visiting professor at the Gregorian Universityand the North American College in Rome, an adjunct professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and president of the American Theological Society. His email address is ot75@aol.com.


Saturday, 7:00 - 8:45 am
Hilton Union Square - Golden Gate, Room 5
Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors of NAPTS


Saturday, 9:00 - 11:30 am
Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion and Culture Group (AAR)
A19-120 (Moscone Convention Center - 3108)
Ultimate Concern after the Post-Secular Age
This session brings together four papers that make constructive use of Paul Tillich's notion of ultimate concern to engage with the opportunities and challenges of the religious and cultural situation after post-secularism. As the question of relations between the religious and the secular has become increasingly contested, the comfortable divide between the religious and the secular can no longer be sustained; neither, however, can the confident claims to “post-secularity.” The papers in this session all draw on Tillich's reflections on ultimate concern as creative resources within this situation of religious-secular complexity. A short business meeting will follow the papers.

Presiding: Sharon Peebles Burch, Interfaith Counseling Center

  • John Robichaux, Harvard University
    The Religiosity of the Secular and the Secularity of the Religious: Tillich, Murray, and Rawls
  • Daniel Miller, Mount Allison University
    Ultimate Concern and Postmodern Theology: Two Competing Legacies
  • Adam Pryor, Graduate Theological Union
    God as a Living: An Analysis of Paul Tillich's Concept of the Divine Life in Light of Mark Taylor's Infinitization of the Finites

AAR Group Business Meeting (immediately following session)
Russell Re Manning, University of Cambridge


Saturday, 11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Hilton Union Square - Imperial Ballroom B
Annual Business Meeting of the NAPTS


Saturday, 1:00 - 3:30 pm
MP19-200 (Hilton Union Square - Golden Gate, Room 1)
Philosophical and Mystical Aspects of Tillich's Thought

  • Rob James and Durwood Foster
    Three Pigs, Red Riding Hood, and the Wolf: Solving the Riddle of Tillich's Unsymbolic Statements about God
  • Jari Ristiniemi
    Differential Thinking and the Possibility of the Faith-Knowledge: Tillich and Kierkegaard between Negative and Positive Philosophy
  • Stephen Butler Murray
    The Beauty of a Union with God through Dangerous Obedience: A Christian Mysticism of Social Activism

Saturday, 4:00 - 6:30 pm
Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion and Culture Group (AAR)
A19-325 (Moscone Convention Center - 3020)
Faith, Betrayal, and Disenchantment: Paul Tillich in Dialogue with Contemporary Philosophy and Theology
This session unites four papers that bring Paul Tillich's philosophical theology into critical dialogue with movements in contemporary philosophy and theology around the themes of faith, betrayal and disenchantment.

Presiding: Russell Re Manning, University of Cambridge

  • Hollis Phelps, Mount Olive College
    Evental Fidelity, Ultimate Concern, and the Subject: Reading Alain Badiou with Paul Tillich
  • Thomas A. James, Union Presbyterian Seminary
    Can There be a Theology of Disenchantment?: Unbinding the Nihil in Tillich
  • Blake Huggins, Boston University
    Tillich and Ontotheology: On the Fidelity of Betrayal
  • Carl-Eric Gentes, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago
    The Courage to Be(tray): An Emerging Conversation between Paul Tillich and Peter Rollins

Sunday, 1:00 - 2:30 pm
Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion and Culture Group (AAR)
A20-230 (Moscone Convention Center - 3000)
Tillich and Niebuhr: Conversations and Legacies
Cosponsored by the Niebuhr Society

Presiding: K. Healan Gaston, Harvard University

  • Panelists:
    Ronald Stone, University of Pittsburgh
    Andrew Finstuen, Boise State University
  • Responding:
    Jonathan Rothchild, Loyola Marymount University
    Kevin Carnahan, Central Methodist University

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