Interpreting and Embodying Sacred Texts in the Public Sphere
A Photo Essay
The 2012-13 Bannan Institute of the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education featured a yearlong series of lectures and events around the topic: Sacred Texts in the Public Sphere. Leading into the 2012 presidential election in the United States, the fall quarter lectures explored the relationship between Christian Scriptures, national identity, and public conscience. In the winter quarter, conversation partners within the Institute expanded to consider the authority and content of sacred texts from diverse faith traditions and contexts, including the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’an, the Bhagavata Purana, various Buddhist sutras, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Institute concluded in the spring with events focused on how critical engagement with sacred texts and traditions is relevant to the work of a Jesuit, Catholic University. Many of the 2012-13 Bannan Institute lectures are available for viewing online at scu.edu/ic.
 |
1. The theme for the 2012-13 Bannan Institute was inspired by the Saint John’s Bible, a hand written, handillumined Bible that models how ancient texts can engage the resources and questions of modern culture, science, technology and the creative arts. A Heritage Edition of the Saint John’s Bible was gifted to Santa Clara University by Tita Crilly Diepenbrock. |
 |
2. Professor Michael Fishbane, University of Chicago Divinity School, offered a lecture on “Creating a Culture of Care: Hebrew Scripture and Jewish Tradition on Charity and Hospitality,” as part of the Winter 2013 lecture series. |
 |
3. Professor Kristin Heyer from Santa Clara’s Religious Studies Department offered a lecture on the “Scriptural Politics of Immigration: Subversive Hospitality and Kinship,” as part of the Fall 2012 lecture series. Here, Professor Heyer (second from right) is engaging with faculty following her lecture. |
 |
4. The Bannan Institute featured a three-part series on “Sacred Pixels: Exploring Sacred Texts in Digitally Integrated Culture,” curated by Elizabeth Drescher (center) and Paul Soukup, S.J. (right) of Santa Clara University. Here, Lisa Webster (left), senior editor, Religion Dispatches, reflects with them on contemporary religious practice in online media. |
 |
5. More than 2,500 students, faculty, and staff and community members, from a range of religious traditions and contexts, took part in the lectures and offerings on campus over the course of the year. |
 |
6. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, Past President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, delivered the 2013 Santa Clara Lecture, “Christian- Muslim Relations Since Vatican II: ‘To Recognize and Develop the Spiritual Bonds that Unite Us’ (John Paul II),” as part of the Spring 2013 offerings. “The Church has learnt to relate to Muslims and other people of different religions...through neighborliness, through joint action, through the sharing of spiritual values...” —2013 Santa Clara Lecture, |
 |
7. Several visiting lecturers participated in a composite undergraduate and graduate seminar course, Scriptural Politics: Christian Texts in the Public Sphere, linked with the Fall 2012 lecture series. Here, Professor Jeffrey Siker, Department of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University, engages students following his lecture, “Scriptural Politics of Family and Homosexuality: Textual Orientations.” |
 |
8. With Archives and Special Collections, the Bannan Institute sponsored a curated exhibit, Dialoguing with Sacred Texts: An Exhibit of Sacred Texts Past, Present, and Future, from February to June 2013. This exhibit featured ancient and contemporary sacred books from diverse traditions and contexts, as well as the work of 15 contemporary artists working in a variety of media to engage the unfolding dynamic of sacred texts. |
 |
9. This photograph, by artist Terri Garland, is part of a series within the exhibit depicting Bibles pulled from mud-caked pews and condemned church floors in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, relics of communities of faith and fellowship in the face of natural and human disaster. |
 |
10. Visitors take in the Dialoguing with Sacred Texts exhibit at the opening reception in February 2013. |
 |
11. One of the exhibiting artists, Professor Renée Billingslea, Art and Art History Department, Santa Clara University, created original work for the exhibit. This piece, Con-shoe-tution, encyclopedia pages, cotton, and wood, 2013, uses rolled encyclopedia pages to make the suggestion that the freedoms promised by the Constitution depend on the knowledge of its citizens. |