The 2015 Cardinal Newman Lecture: Dr. Colby Dickinson

Life in Dialogue with Faith: The Subtle Complexities of an Ongoing Conversion
Colby Dickinson, Ph.D.
Department of Theology, Loyola University Chicago

The Cardinal Newman Lecture Series is named after the great 19th century English prelate who wrote very movingly about his intellectual journey toward Roman Catholicism in his spiritual autobiography, Apologia pro vita sua (1864). Newman's work helped later generations of Catholics and Catholic converts map out ways to understand the datum of religious faith in light of the contemporary issues facing modern life.

Honoring this engagement with the Catholic tradition, CCIH invites a scholar each spring to recount her or his own discovery (or rediscovery) of the Catholic intellectual heritage in light of their ongoing scholarship.

The 2015 Cardinal Newman Lecture was given by Dr. Colby Dickinson, Assistant Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology at Loyola University Chicago. His lecture investigated deep and challenging questions: How is life capable of being lived in continuous conversation with faith if not as a constant conversion experience? Indeed, how are we even capable of recognizing a complex and subtly developed faith in the modern world without it undermining our established sense of self? As a convert to Catholicism, Dr. Dickinson has often reflected on these questions himself, insofar as they also illuminate new ways to think and do theological practice. Turning back directly to Cardinal Newman's Apologia, Dr. Dickinson's talk engaged Newman's conversion to Catholicism alongside his own experience of conversion and how the life lived in faith is itself a never-ending process of conversion.

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