McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life Annual Conference 2026 | Reimagining Humanism

From Diogenes the Cynic onwards, talk of shared humanity and articulations of humanism challenge the boundaries of citizenship and unsettle established patterns of meaning and identity. But from the early modern period, humanism as a term became associated with secular and anti-religious philosophies. And recent critical treatments of modern western humanism identify how it was aligned with and contributed to colonial and racist projects of domination. However, there are moves to recover and repair humanism as a moral and political framework, moves that also point to its varied religious forms and how humanism was never just western, but is articulated in different ways in multiple traditions around the world.  Historians also identify how different humanisms developed as part of and overlapped within varied projects of liberation and social healing ranging from the abolition movement, the origins of humanitarianism, and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.   

This conference contributes to these debates by examining religious traditions of humanism and how they form a point of connection between divergent and often conflicting religious and philosophical frameworks. In particular, it focuses on how Christian humanism intersects with other religious humanisms, most notably those within Judaism and Islam, tracing their entangled histories, overlapping conceptions of the human, and interwoven expression in contemporary democratic movements and humanitarian initiatives. At its core, the conference explores whether theologically grounded humanisms can serve as analytical, critical, and constructive frameworks for addressing pressing ethical and political questions, especially those concerning the ordering of our common life nationally and internationally and the peaceable negotiation of pluralism. A background and implicit question is whether historical and contemporary articulations of religious humanism can ground an ethic and politics of responsibility and solidarity that offer alternative pathways to forms of anthropocentric humanism, secular and other anti-humanisms, ethnoreligious nationalism, and civilizational chauvinism that are emerging around the world. Alongside academic papers, the program will feature a panel of practitioners whose work speaks to the concerns of the conference through initiatives to build bridges between different faith communities as part of democratic organizing, civic trust-building, community development, or conflict transformation.  

Contributions from the 2026 conference will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Religious Ethics dedicated to religious humanisms as moral and political frameworks. This event builds on last year’s conference, Christian Humanism and the Black Atlantic, which examined theological articulations of what Paul Gilroy has termed “reparative humanism.” 

Speakers include:

1. Slavica Jakelić: Richard P. Baepler Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Valparaiso University  

2. Randi Rashkover: Nathan and Sofia Gumenick Chair of Judaic Studies, William & Mary  

3. Eric Gregory: Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Religion, Princeton University 

4. Ufuk Topkara, Professor of Comparative Theology from an Islamic Perspective at the Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology, Humboldt University of Berlin. 

5. Joshua Hordern: Professor of Christian Ethics in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford  

6. Aaron Stalnaker: Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University 

7. Chammah Kuanda: Academic Dean at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS).

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