11th Annual

Eighth Day Symposium & Seminar

Hope in the Age of Anxiety

A Digital Library in the Time of COVID-19

Donate $50 or become an Eighth Day Member at any level.

You'll receive the digital library with the following presenters.

Fr. Calinic Berger

Bradley Birzer

Fr. Geoff Boyle

Erin Doom

Peter Leithart

Shailesh Mark

Louis Markos

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle

Richard Rohlin

Joshua Sturgill

Matthew Umbarger

Jessica Hooten Wilson

Ralph Wood


Click Here to See the List of Video Presentations & Written Reflections

Or Download a PDF List Here


We're aiming for 100 new members so please consider standing with the 91 others who have recently joined the community!

The Symposium

Hope in the Age of Anxiety

St Augustine of Hippo lived in an age not all that different from our own. With barbarian invasions and a collapsing Roman empire, it was an age of anxiety. But was there hope? Is there hope? St Augustine answers adamantly in the affirmative. And as EDI president Fr. Geoff Boyle recently put it, "For him, the answer was found in the City of God. There we find peace and security, an end to our strife and joy beyond comprehension. Both the path and the goal are found in Christ. 'As God, He is the goal,' St. Augustine says; 'as man, He is the way' (Bk XI.2)."


There couldn't be a better time to meditate on this great virtue of hope. As a way to think about renewing our souls and cities, we invite you to join us as we reflect on "Hope in the Age of Anxiety." 



The Pre-Symposium Seminar

Hope in the Bible, the Fathers, the Liturgy & Literature

If you really want to dig into the Symposium theme, we'll read some great texts and think through them together using the shared inquiry format.


Seating is limited to first 10 registrants. A notebook of readings will be sent to all registrants.


SOLD OUT

"The New Jerusalem" by Jean Bondo and Nichlas Bataille

Commissioned in 1370s by Louis I, Duke of Anjou



"In order that the mind might walk more confidently towards the truth, the Truth itself, God, God's son, assuming humanity without putting aside His Godhood, established and founded this faith, that man might find a way to man's God through God made man. For this is 'the Mediator between God and man: the man Christ Jesus' (1 Tim. 2:5). For it is as a. man that He is the Mediator and the Way (Jn. 14:6). If there is a way between one who strives and that towards which he strives, there is hope of his reaching his goal; but if there is no way, or if he is ignorant of it, how does it help him to know what the goal is? The only way that is wholly defended against all error is when one and the same person is at once God and man: God our goal, man our way." ~St Augustine, The City of God, Bk XI.2



"Hope is a principle of moral action. It inspires endurance and self-control, stability and firmness. It colors man's intellectual life. It fortifies the will. It forms a great part of heroic virtue. The heroes of the faith are our patterns of hope."  ~J. H. Oldham

DIGITAL SYMPOSIUM LIBRARY

Video Presentations

Redeeming Our Anxiety: Reflections from Fr. Dumitru Staniloae

Fr. Calinic Berger


Augustinian Reflections on Time & Eternity: Why Augustine Matters

Bradley Birzer


Hope with Faith: Always Pressing Forward

Fr. Dr. Geoff Boyle


Sowing within Ourselves Goodly Hopes: A Desert Manual for Defeating the Demon of Acedia

Erin Doom


A Theology of Hope

Peter Leithart


The Double Man: Auden & Us in the Age of Anxiety

Shailesh Mark


Temptation in a Time of Quarantine: How Screwtape Is Using the Pandemic

Louis Markos


The Psychology of Sin: C. S. Lewis Wrestles with Hell

Louis Markos


Cultural Renewal in St. Augustine: Despoiling the Egyptians

Louis Markos


"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers & the Anchor of the Soul

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle


Until the Dragon Comes: Christian Hope & Heroic Resolve in the Beowulf Poem

Richard Rohlin


Is There Hope for Chrisendom?

Fr. John Strickland


Water from a Barren Stone: St. Sophrony of Essex & the Art of Transfiguring Emotion into Prayer

Joshua Sturgill


Christus Vincit: The Slow Burn of Christian Hope

Matthew Umbarger


Hope: The Virtue of Pilgrims, Poets, and Prophets

Jessica Hooten Wilson


Personal & Communal Hope in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

Ralph Wood


Written Reflections

"Longing to Be Clothed...," But How Long?:

Anxiety, the Last Things, and the Faith of Jesus

Christian D. Kettler


Acedia in Evagrius of Pontus: A Patristic Florilegium

Erin Doom


The Lord’s Prayer & Hope

St. Thomas Aquinas


Hope

Fr. Dumitru Staniloae


Optimism as Ideology vs Hope as Gift

Pope Benedict XVI


Patience

St. Augustine of Hippo


The Obscurity of Hope and Despair

Josef Pieper


Hope: Canto XXV of Paradiso

Dante


Friendship as a Source of Hope


His Rod, His Staff: Every Reason for Hope

Anthony Esolen


Hope Surprises God

Charles Peguy


The Birth of the New Adam, Our Renewal

Fr. Calinic Berger


Remembering to Hope: Three Christmas Stories

Gaelan Gilbert


Foreword to Pagan & Christian in an Age of Anxiety

Henry Chadwick


St Herman, Conception & Hope in the Age of Anxiety


The City of Cain and the City of Jesus

Fr Matthew Baker


Sales Resistance and Hope in the City of God

FOR ACCESS TO ALL THAT GREAT CONTENT

Donate $50

OR

Become an Eighth Day Member

Symposium Speaker Testimonials

"The splendid Eighth Day community constitutes a vital alternative to the stale denominationalism that characterizes much of contemporary church life, as well as the flaccid secularism of the culture at large."
Ralph Wood
Baylor University
"Your annual symposiums have become the stuff of legend."
James K. A. Smith
Calvin College

What Attendees Are Saying

"What a tremendous conference! It set my life on a new course. I can't say that about any other conference I've ever attended."
Catholic
"I've put together lots of conferences and know what it takes. You get an A+ in my book! Everything about it was superb - the speakers, the topics, the venue, the books, the Feast! - everything exceeded my expectations."
Protestant
"Eighth Day has much wisdom to offer a world drowning in a sea of information. The Symposium and its associated journal Synaxis help stir up a think tank in the empty gutter of modern society."
Orthodox

Have a question or comment?

Contact Us

Past Eighth Day Symposia

2020


For I Am Holy: The Command to Be Like God by David Fagerberg, Fr. Stephen Freeman, Jessica Hooten Wilson, et al



2017


Where Are the Watchmen: Theology in the Public Square by Martin Cothran, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Brian Zahnd, et al



2014


Constantine, Christendom & Cultural Renewal by Vigen Guorian, Alan Kreider, Peter Leithart, Benjamin Wiker, et al



2011


Imagination & Soul: Harry Potter, Twilight & Spiritual Formation by John Granger, Fr. Josiah Trenham, et al


2019


Eros & the Mystery of God: On the Body, Sex & Asceticism by Hans Boersma, Adam Cooper, David Ford, Ephraim Radner, et al



2016


Soil & Sacrament: The World as Gift by Mike Aquilina, Hans Boersma, Rod Dreher, Vigen Guroian, et al




2013


Dostoevsky: The Divine & the Demonic by Scott Cairns, Martin Cothran, John Hodges, Ralph Wood, et al





2018


Strangers & Society: Cultivating Friendship in a Fractured Age  by Peter Kanelos, Ken Myers, Joseph Pearce, et al



2015


Whatever Happened to Wonder: The Recovery of Mystery in a Secular Age by Bishop James Conley, Rod Dreher, James Kushiner, James K. A. Smith, et al

2012


What's Wrong with the World: An Inkling of a Response by Warren Farha, Ralph Wood et al