Event Recap

At a March 1 lunch colloquium at the Boisi Center, theologian Christian Polke of Hamburg University discussed the use of political power in the quest for religious meaning. Drawing upon comparative cultural theories to understand the revolutionary religious developments of the axial age—an era spanning the lives and religious movements inspired by Socrates, Sidhartha Gautama (the Buddha) and Confucius, among many others—Polke argued that early models of social and political thought continue to shape our understanding of political and religious diversity today.