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International Conference David G. Hunter Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA Family and Household as a Context of Christianization in the Early Church The past generation of scholars of early Christianity and late antiquity has done much to rediscover and develop an appreciation of the ascetical and anti-familial aspects of the ancient church. Magnificent studies, such as Peter Brown’s The Body and Society, have focused on the vocal minority of early Christians who embraced celibacy and other forms of social and cultural renunciation. But too often lost in this approach are the views of the “silent majority” of Christians who continued to marry, bear children, and remain committed to life in “the world”. Is it possible to recover something of the importance of the family and household as an environment for the transmission of genuine Christian values? This presentation will examine the evidence of Christian writers from the first four centuries, such as Clement of Alexandria and John Chrysostom, who devoted sustained attention to the family and household as the context of formation in the Christian life. David G. Hunter is the first occupant of the Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Kentucky. He received his Ph.D. in 1986 from the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and has taught at Iowa State University and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hunter’s academic interests lie in the early history of Christianity and the history of Christian thought. He has published several books and numerous articles on Greek and Latin writers of the early church, among them Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom. His most recent book, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford University Press, 2007), examines early Christian debates about marriage and celibacy. Co-editor of the recently published Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (2008), David is past president of the North American Patristics Society. Personal website Conference Main Page | Theme | Travel Programme | Call for Papers | Information | |
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