PRRUCS Publications & Media

Publications on Faith, Reason, and Civil Society

NEW SERIES: What’s Religion Got to Do with Democratic Renewal

In 2024, the Penn Perry-Collegium Initiative is sponsoring a collection of some two dozen essays on religion, civil discourse, and democratic renewal in America. The collection will offer multiple and competing perspectives on how, if at all, different religious identities and institutions figure in relation to political polarization in America today, whether as a cure, or as a cause, or both. Continue reading about the PRRUCS Religion & Democratic Renewal project, entitled Spirited Debate.

The first collection of three Spirited Debate essays, “White Evangelical Christians and Politics,” was released in October 2024. After the preface, it leads with the essay of Peter Wehner (a prior version of which was published this spring in The Atlantic), followed by two commentaries on the same subject by Ralph Reed and Samuel Atchison. These essays can be accessed in the table of contents at the bottom of the preface.

The second collection of Spirited Debate essays, “American Jewish Identity and Israel”, was just released in late October and also can be found below the preface here. The third on Federal Faith-Based Initiatives will be issued shortly hereafter.

Released Summer 2024

PRRUCS Journal 4.1, “What is (Human) Life?”, features the proceedings of the second international Magi Project Conference hosted by PRRUCS and the Collegium Institute at the University of Pennsylvania in Summer 2023. Following the prior year’s conference, “What is Life?”, this question particularized the question for human beings specifically while focusing on four distinctive aspects of human life: mind, body, soul, and self. The keynote address, “Just Responsibility: Natural Intelligence in a World of A.I.”, was delivered by Jennifer Herdt (Yale). Her lecture was followed by the presentations of scientists, theologians, and humanities scholars including Alan Jasanoff (MIT), Janice Chik (Ave Maria), Tom Csordas (UCSD), Todd Whitmore (Notre Dame), Angela Carpenter (Hope), Marc Kissel (Appalachian State), Stacey Ake (Drexel), and Jesse Couenhoven (Villanova). The conference also included a graduate student panel on Disability and Human Life. This special edition of the PRRUCS Journal features not only the keynote lecture and presentations, but also each scholar’s post-conference reflections. The full volume can be read here.

What is (Human) Life? PRRUCS Journal Vol. IV No. 1

Released Summer 2023

PRRUCS Journal 3.1, “What is Life?”, features the proceedings of the first international Magi Project Conference hosted by PRRUCS and the Collegium Institute at the University of Pennsylvania in Summer 2022. This multi-day interdisciplinary conference drew together scientists, theologians, and philosophers to evaluate what life is considering questions of health, language, evolutionary biology, human flourishing, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial existence. The keynote address was delivered by Celia Deane-Drummond (Oxford) followed by paired scholarly presentations featuring Dylan Belton (Villanova), Anne Foerst (St. Bonaventure), Marie George (St. John’s), Noreen Herzfeld (St. John’s University), Jonathan Lunine (Cornell), Stephen Meredith (University of Chicago), Brendan Sammon (St. Joe’s), Jonathan Tran (Baylor), Eric Turkheimer (University of Virginia) and Charles Yang (UPenn). A concluding assessment was offered by Michelle Francl (Bryn Mawr College). This special edition of the PRRUCS Journal features not only the keynote lecture and presentations, but also each scholar’s post-conference reflections. The full volume can be read here.

What is Life? PRRUCS Journal Vol. III No. 1

Faith-Based at 25: A C2G2 Conversation

PRRUCS is pleased to announce its second annual collection of essays: Faith-Based Initiative at 25 Years: A Common Ground for Common Good Conversation. With the new administration’s re-establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Dr. Stanley Carlson-Thies, a co-chair of the PRRUCS Common Ground for Common Good (C2G2) Project, reflected this spring on the 25 year arc of the faith-based initiative in his HistPhil essay, “The Biden Partnerships Plan is Faith-Based Initiative 5.0.” Republished with permission below as Chapter 1, this seminal article elicited ten comments from other C2G2 colleagues, who respond from a diversity of experience and conviction, offering new insight into the past and future of government-funded faith-based social service. The collection concludes with an Afterword by PRRUCS Faculty Director, John J. DiIulio, Jr., the inaugural director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

PRRUCS Vol. II C2G2

PRRUCS Annual Issue: Vol. I (Summer 2020)

In Summer 2020, PRRUCS released its inaugural annual volume entitled Should Groups Matter? Religion, Freedom, and Contemporary Civil Society, co-edited by Dr. Luke Sheahan and Dr. Daniel Cheely. This timely collection of essays features leading scholars of diverse outlook who deftly address current issues in a manner that is broadly accessible.

1. Co-editors’ Introduction

2. “Reflections on Citizenship while Staying at Home”, by Catherine E. Wilson

3. “Can we Save our Toxic Political Atmosphere?”, by Lia Howard

4. “Ordering Parental Rights, Children’s Autonomy, and Civic Education: A Philosophical Foundation for Public Policy” by Melissa Moschella

5. “Dual Allegiances? American Citizenship and Religious Obligation” by Rogers Smith

6. “Faithful Americans: Catholic Reconciliations of Identity in Early America” by Michael D. Breidenbach

7. “Freedoms Like a Fox: The Constitutional Community and First Amendment” by Luke C. Sheahan

8. “Pluralism in the Chinese Political Community: A Nisbetian Perspective on the State of Chinese Non-Governmental Organizations and Civil Society” by Luke C. Sheahan

Jewish Counter Culture Oral History Project

In 2018 PRRUCS cosponsored the development of a major oral American religious history project across multiple universities co-led by Dr. Beth Wenger, who is Associate Dean for Graduate Studies of Penn SAS, Berg Professor and former Chair of the History Department, as well as Resident Senior Fellow of PRRUCS. Commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the founding of Havurat Shalom in 1968, this recently concluded project builds a documentary record of the historic effort to reinvent Jewish communal worship and social life outside the framework of traditional synagogue denominations and structures, featuring interviews with dozens of the movements key members, which can be surveyed here and here.

“Halo Effects”

In 2016, PRRUCS released a report prepared by Joseph P. Tierney, executive director of the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program at Penn, entitled “How Catholic Places Serve Civic Purposes: The Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Economic Halo Effects” — also known as the Hager Report, since the research was cosponsored by a generous gift from Mr. Francis Hager. The release of the report was marked by a public event featuring keynote remarks from the Archbishop of Philadelphia and covered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local newspapers.

PRRUCS Occasional Papers

PRRUCS publishes occasional papers on a wide range of topics that engage with faith, reason and civil society, including:

Prof. Peter Dodson, On Fossils and Faith
Rev. Samuel K. Atchison, On Ministry and Urban Social Service
Matthew Stengel, An Alternative Future for U.S. Economic Public Policy: Catholic Social Teaching, Applied Economics, and New Approach to the Modern Labor Question
Dr. Marisa March, Put out into the Deep: Perspectives on the Relationship Between Christian Faith & Contemporary Physics

PRRUCS also supports empirical studies and surveys on religion through its PESS.

PRRUCS Student Voices

PRRUCS Senior Staff and Affiliates also collaborate with Collegium to cultivate student voices, editors, and writers through Collegium’s affiliated journals, Dappled Things and Genealogies of Modernity as well as through the CI podcast, The Wheel and the blog, The Commonplace Book, both of which can be found here.