The 2019 Albacete Lecture on Faith and Culture

Obeying Our Own Creations: God and Disenchantment in Amazon’s World
A lecture by William T. Cavanaugh on idolatry and secularization

A century ago, Max Weber declared that the modern Western world was disenchanted: gods and spirits were pushed aside by rationalizing forces, especially science and capitalism.  But Weber also worried about a new type of enchantment, that people had become subjected to forces of our own making that were increasingly out of our control.  This lecture explores disenchantment and enchantment in a world dominated by Amazon.com, the epitome of rationalization, and the purveyor of magical commodities.

Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, soul, mind and mentor of Crossroads, chaired its advisory board from its establishment in 2007 until he passed away on October 24, 2014. In order to honor his memory, to deepen his profound intuitions about the interaction of culture with religiosity and reason, and to follow his shining example of dialogue with people in various walks of life by meeting them at the level of human experience, Crossroads has established the “Albacete Lecture on Faith and Culture.” Its goal is to become an annual occasion and a meeting place, a crossroads, where we can develop an understanding of why culture matters and where it finds its origin.

William Cavanaugh is Professor of Catholic Studies and Director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University.  His degrees are from the universities of Notre Dame, Cambridge, and Duke. He is the author of seven books and editor of four more.  He has lectured on six continents, and his writings have been published in 12 languages.