MEDIA RELEASES:

• September 2008
• August 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005
• April 2005
• March 2005
• February 2005
• January 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004
• October 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• March 2004
• February 2004
• January 2004
• December 2003
• November 2003
• October 2003
• September 2003
• August 2003
• July 2003
• June 2003

DU Home > News & Events > Media Releases > November 2006

MEDIA RELEASES

Contact
Jessica Mackinnon
jmack@dom.edu
(708) 524-6289

Siena Center Presents Advent Lecture

Dominican University’s Siena Center will present a lecture titled “Come Again? Jesus, Advent and Final Judgment” by Rev. Richard Woods, professor of theology at Dominican University, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 7 in the auditorium of the Priory Campus, 7200 W. Division Street, River Forest.

From almost the beginning, speculations about “the end” have been hot topics of conversation amongst followers of a variety of organized religions and secular institutions. Apocalyptic predictions of the Tribulation, the Rapture, the Second Coming of Christ, Doomsday and the appearance of the Antichrist have animated popular fiction, film and television. In recent years, especially with the dawning of the new millennium, feverish interpretations of the Book of Revelations and Christian scriptures have fueled the best-selling “Left Behind” series as well as films such as The Omen and its sequels, and television specials such as last year’s Revelations. Secular variations are no less gripping—movies such as Armageddon, Deep Impact and The Day After Tomorrow flirt with the possibility of disaster on a global, possibly permanent scale.

But this fascination with “the end” can take a dark side. Homicidal and suicidal finales have often followed excessive concern with Judgment Day—disasters at Jonestown, Guyana in 1978, the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993, the Arun Shinrikyo murders in Japan and the rampages of the evangelical Army of God in Uganda are only some of the more recent examples of eschatology gone awry.

Woods’ lecture will explore the profound influence that speculation about “the end” and the Second Coming of Christ have had on the religious as well as the secular imagination.

Woods earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Aquinas Institute of Philosophy and his doctoral degree from Loyola University of Chicago. He is the president of the International Meister Eckhart Society, a scholarly society that promotes understanding and research of the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart.

Admission to the lecture is $10. For more information on Dominican University’s Siena Center, please call (708) 714-9105 or visit the website at www.siena.dom.edu.