Research Fellow Dr. Jamin Andreas Hübner from LCC International University will present his work titled "But Does it Work?: Critical and Pragmatic Reconstructions of Religious Identity" at an open lecture in Kaminskienė Hall, at LCC International University.

Abstract: Religious conceptual and symbolic frameworks provide meaning, purpose, and ethical orientation to individuals and communities. There is often a glaring dis-junction between what is supposed to happen, and what does happen. Why does this happen, and what can be done about it? Furthermore, what unique opportunities are there in addressing this problem in post-totalitarian and post-modern communities that have to rebuild their religious identity from the rubble anyway? This lecture is a pragmatic and critical exploration of religious identity reconstruction. It is pragmatic in that it is "result-oriented" and focuses on concrete embodiment, and it is "critical" in that it emphasizes human choice and responsibility, and recognizes the inevitable situatedness and historical context of any embodiment. As several signposts and case studies will demonstrate, there is a reason for hope in this often confusing and contradictory construction-zone of the twenty-first century.

About the speaker:

Dr. Jamin Andreas Hübner is a scholar, musician, and entrepreneur from South Dakota. As an academic, Dr. Hübner has a BA (Theology), MA (Religion), MS (Economics), ThD (Systematics). He has taught in both the humanities and social sciences as an Associate Professor and served as Department Chair, Academic Dean, and Director of Institutional Effectiveness in higher education. His areas of interest include religion, Christianity, New Testament studies, libertarian theory and decentralized/stateless societies, economics, and systematic theology (especially intersections with bibliology, postmodernism, science, and gender). In addition to being an active member of numerous academic societies (CTA, CATA, ASA, CBE, ACE, AES, SBL, AAR, ETS, etc.) he has been published in over a dozen academic journals. His popular works have been published by Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Foundation for Economic Education, In All Things, the Libertarian Christian Institute, and other venues. Dr. Hübner is also the founding General Editor of the Christian Libertarian Review, a peer-reviewer for The Canadian-American Theological Review and Priscilla Papers, an Executive Board member of Canadian-American Theological Association, and serves on the regional Program Committee for SBL/AAR.

As an entrepreneur, Jamin and his wife Jessica run several small businesses including vacation rentals. Jamin is also the Lead Architect of the Creative Common Law Project (creativecommonlaw.com), “a legal system for stateless societies.”