Archive for the ‘Lectures’ Category
What is the Natural Law?
Saturday, November 7th, 2009Dr. Rice explained it in detail last Friday night in our symposium. Here is his explanation from 50 Questions:
(Oh, keep Justice Clarence Thomas in mind through all of these posts, as that we will revisit his Senate confirmation hearings in the final post in this series.)
What is the opposite of The Natural Law?
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
Still unclear on the choices at law?
Saturday, November 7th, 2009Here are some posts on the difference that the choice can make in a social order:
http://www.archangelinstitute.org/natural-law-or-legal-positism-that-is-the-question/
http://www.archangelinstitute.org/executive-directors-post-july-4th-post-6/
http://www.archangelinstitute.org/honoring-alexander-solzhenitsyn-post-7/
How goes the conflict between The Natural Law and Positivism in America?
Saturday, November 7th, 2009Our dear Professor Charlie Rice borrows from another great legal academic mind, Harold Berman (Law and Revolution is a great read!) to give us this snapshot of life in postmodern America:
IN the next installment in this series we will return to the subject of Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing. If you have not read the first post in this series you should so that you can understand the next post and the hard lesson that it teaches. (Page down to “afterglow” to find the first installment in this series.)
Hugely successful
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Thanks to the more than 700 who attended our symposium last night.
Thanks even more to Dr. Clark Butler, Dr. Charles Rice, Jim Howard, Esq. and Fr. Glenn Kohrman.
(Listed in order as they presented)
The event was captured by Access Fort Wayne thanks to Sharon Kuhn, Christine Shrock and others on that fine team.
The event was also recorded by Huntington College thanks to a grant from a local pro-lifer.
More details on all the above to come.
Stay tuned …
The Age of Obama?
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Some are concerned that the title for Professor Rice’s lecture and our symposium is a tad bit too radical … or disrespectful.
The Constitution in the Age of Obama?
Was it wrong for Newsweek’s to entitle a lead article “The Age of Obama” last year?
Gwen Ifell, that paragon of objectivity, would not think so!
How about this event, happening next weekend at a prestigious Virgina University?
First African and African American Studies Conference
“African Identities in the Age of Obama”
To provide a critical forum for the continuedexamination of African identities, the African and African American Studies(AAAS) Program at George Mason University (GMU) proposes a multidisciplinaryconference entitled “African identities in the Age of Obama.” This internationalmeeting of scholars and students will be held on October 8-10, 2009, on themain GMU campus in Fairfax, Virginia….Contributions that engage critically with notions of Africanidentity in the age of Obama are especially welcome.
Or finally, how about this work (available on Amazon) that asks the same questions as we are, albeit in a foriegn policy framework. (Cover at right)
Bottomline: Be Not Afraid!
Go forth BOLDLY and SEIZE THE DAY!
Building a world class symposium
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
October 1, on the 60th anniversary of dialectical materialism’s greatest triumph (see picture of the Empire State building lit red and gold to celebrate Chairman Mao’s victory) Senators Evan Bayh, Richard Lugar and Congressman Mark Souder received the following invitation to appear on the panel of our Rice Lecture symposium. None of our elected federal officials have yet answered our invitation. We post this so that you, the people, might also invite them to join us in this important discussion.
October 1, 2009
[Federal elected official]
We at the ArchAngel Institute, Inc. would be honored to have you on our panel of distinguished commentators at our October 16, 2009 event at Indiana-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, and thus are asking that of you.
Details on the event can be found at www.archangelinstitute.org
We are hosting Dr. Charles Rice, Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law at Notre Dame University, for a lecture entitled “The Constitution in the Age of Obama.” We are hosting this event due to our concern about the rampant growth of our federal government over the past decades, but especially in 2009.
We are concerned that this growth of the federal government threatens ancient doctrines of subsidiary, and thus the rights of all other governments in our social order, from the family, to local governance and to state governance. We are also concerned that this rapid growth of the federal government seems bent on displacing many activities that were traditionally managed by the private, and even familial, sector of our society.
On this day in which the world is marking revolutionary change in Asia we find ourselves concerned about potentially revolutionary changes taking place in America.
We are thus bringing Dr. Rice to Fort Wayne to discuss these themes in the Rinehart Music Center, Auer Hall, on the IPFW campus at 7:00 p.m. Friday, October 16, 2009. The lecture will be followed by a moderated panel. We are pleased that the moderator will be Andrew Downs, Director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics. We look forward to an interesting and diverse discussion after Dr. Rice’s lecture.
To meet that goal we are seeking out distinguished panelists who can speak authoritatively to the most pressing issues confronting our nation. Few in our community can do that better than yourself. Thus we are inviting you to serve on our panel and add your comments to Dr. Rice’s to enrich us all with a better understanding of the challenging times in which we live.
We at the ArchAngel Institute thank you in advance for considering this request.
Sincerely,
Bryan J. Brown
***
You might want to contact these federal officials and request that they to join us on the evening of October 16:
Senator Evan Bayh: http://bayh.senate.gov/
Senator Richard Lugar: http://lugar.senate.gov/
Congressman Mark Souder: http://souder.house.gov/
Prophetic encouragement for Christian patriots from the Vatican
Sunday, September 27th, 2009
Reflections on the Struggle to Advance the Culture of Life
It is clear that we are experiencing today a period of intense and critical struggle in the advancement of the culture of life in our nation. The administration of our federal government openly and aggressively follows a secularist agenda. While it may employ religious language and even invoke the name of God, in fact, it proposes programs and policies for our people without respect for God and His Law. In the words of the Servant of God Pope John Paul II, it proceeds “as if God did not exist” (Pope John Paul II, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici, “On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World,” 30 December 1988, no. 34).
With the red and blue bold shot across the bow the former ArchBishop of St. Louis, Raymond Burke, brought the full focus of his intense gaze upon the battle that the ArchAngel Institute and Donegal Corridor were launched to fight.
The good ArchBishop left St. Louis last year for quite a promotion. He is holds the office of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. That is the highest judicial authority in the Roman Catholic Church besides the Pope himself.
Here is more from this man who sits in the chair next to St. Peter’s, again in red and blue:
The context of my reflections is the truth that the struggle against the total secularization of our nation is, by no means, futile, that is, ultimately destined to failure. Notwithstanding the grave situation, in our nation, of the attack on innocent and defenseless human life and on the integrity of marriage as the union of man and woman in a bond of lifelong, faithful and procreative love, there remains a strong voice in defense of our littlest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters, without boundary or exception, and of the truth about the marital union as it was constituted by God at the Creation. The Christian voice, the voice of Christ, transmitted by the Apostles, remains strong in our nation. The voice of men and women of good will, men and women who recognize and obey the law of God written upon their hearts, remains strong in our nation.
Living outside of the United States of America, living in Europe, I can say, without hesitation, that many who recognize the human bankruptcy of a secularized culture are looking with hope to our nation, with hope that our people will claim anew the God-fearing and Christian foundations of our democracy. God has created us to choose life; God the Son Incarnate has won the victory of life for us, the victory over sin and everlasting death (cf. Dt 30:19; Jn 10:10). We, therefore, must never give up in the struggle to advance a culture founded on the choice of life, which God has written upon our hearts, and the victory of life, which Christ has won in our human nature. In fact, we witness every day the commitment of God-fearing Americans in advancing the cause of life and the family in their homes, in their local communities and in our nation.
With regard to the foundations of our democracy, it is sometimes said that, although the founders of our nation used religious language, their faith was not truly Christian in the sense that it was profoundly influenced by the secularist philosophy of the Enlightenment. In other words, if they believed in God, they understood God to be remote from man and the world, leaving man to his own designs, to his own making of himself and the world. In a particular way, the position that our country is not really founded on faith in God is said to be verified in the language of the Constitution of the United States of America, in which neither the name of God nor reference to His Law ever appear. Such a position is used to assert that the foundation of the union which is our nation does not rest ultimately upon the natural moral law but upon what a majority of the citizens wish at any given time, in accord with a rationalist and secularist philosophy.
Whatever may have been the philosophy of particular founders of our nation, it seems clear that the inspiration for the founding of the nation came from a declared faith in God and in the inalienable rights with which He has endowed man, as expressed in the Action of the Second Continental Congress, that is, The Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence makes it clear that government exists to safeguard the inalienable rights of man, which have their origin in God and are safeguarded by His Law. The representatives of our nation, at its beginning, concluded The Declaration of Independence with an appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the World” and, “with a firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence,” pledged their “Lives”, their “Fortunes,” and their “sacred Honor” to each other in support of everything which they had declared. The citizens of our nation, notwithstanding the persistent and strong influence of secularist philosophy, have consistently manifested belief in God and trust in His Providence, which faith and hope also have disposed them, as they disposed the founders of our nation, to give their lives to safeguard the God-given rights of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” To deny the Christian foundation of the life of our nation is to deny our very history.
Can there be any doubt that NOW is the right time to host Professor Charles Rice in the Fort to discuss these very same themes?
PLEASE HELP US MAKE THE OCTOBER 16 EVENT A SMASHING SUCCESS SO THAT OTHERS LIKE IT CAN FOLLOW. DO THAT BY INVITING EVERY CHRISTIAN PATRIOT THAT YOU KNOW TO THIS FINE EVENT.
USE THE NEXT POST FOR BULLETIN INSERTS, FORWARDED INVITES, PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS, POSTERS, WHATEVER …. YOU ARE HEREBY DEPUTIZED ONTO THE PUBLICITY COMMITTEE FOR THE OCTOBER 16 EVENT.
LET’S ROLL.
Public service announcement regarding our October 16 event
Friday, September 25th, 2009The ArchAngel Institute (an Indiana non-profit corporation and a member of the Hoosier Patriots Coalition) is excited to host Dr. Charles E. Rice at 7:00 pm on Friday, October 16, 2009, in Auer Auditorium on the campus of Indiana-Purdue University, Fort Wayne. (In the Rineheart Music Center.) Dr. Rice’s lecture is entitled “The Constitution in the Age of Obama” and will be of interest to all who are concerned about the present trajectory of the federal government.
Dr. Rice is Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame law School. His areas of specialization are constitutional law and jurisprudence. His lecture will be followed by a round table discussion by a panel of distinguished guests. Questions will be taken from the audience. This unique event will take place in the comfortable Auer Performance Hall of the beautiful Rinehart Music Center on the North IPFW Campus.
The doors will open for general admission seating at 6:45 pm. A free will offering will be taken to offset costs for this event.
A VIP reception with Dr. Rice and the panel of experts will take place in the hour before the lecture. VIP admission passes will allow access to seating at 6:15 pm. All on the ArchAngel Institute’s mailing list will receive an invitation to the VIP reception. To get on that mailing list send an email to archangelinstitute@gmail.org or fcm to The ArchAngel Institute, 827 Webster Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 46802.
More information and a picture of Dr. Rice is available here.
