I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Cornel West, one of America's most distinguished public intellectuals and philosophers, to discuss his historic Gifford Lectures, which marked a watershed moment in the series - bringing a jazz-soaked philosophical methodology to this centuries-old tradition of natural theology. West has spent decades at the intersection of rigorous academic scholarship & prophetic public witness. In our conversation, we explore how his lectures challenged the conventional philosophical approach of reducing catastrophe to manageable problems, instead starting with the lived reality of suffering and historical consciousness. Drawing from his deep engagement with thinkers from Plato to Kierkegaard, from his Baptist roots to his years in academia, West demonstrates how the African American musical tradition offers profound philosophical resources for understanding truth, beauty, & moral courage. We discuss his three cruciform convictions - kenosis, kinesis, and kairos - & how they inform Christian intellectual engagement with everything from ecological crisis to the ongoing violence in Gaza. This is public scholarship at its finest: academically rigorous, spiritually grounded, & courageously engaged with the catastrophic realities of our time.
You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube
Dr. Cornel West is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. He has written 20 books and has edited 13. He is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. His most recent book, Black Prophetic Fire, offers an unflinching look at nineteenth and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies.
You can WATCH all 5 of Dr. West’s Gifford lectures here on YouTube
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