Gilbert Meilaender

Gilbert Meilaender will discuss the meaning and role of work in relation to God’s creation and purpose for us, drawing from a recent collection of selections about work edited by him. In this volume—Working: Its Meaning and Its Limits (The Ethics of Everyday Life)—Meilaender considers the place and significance of everyday work from the perspective of authors and thinkers spanning the centuries—from Aristotle to Abraham Joshua Heschel; from Genesis to George Will; from Karl Marx to Mark Twain. He will discuss the perspectives of many of these authors during this lecture, while reminding us of the compelling and continuing force of Biblical understandings of work for our lives today.

Gilbert Meilaender is the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair of Theological Ethics at Valparaiso University. The author of many books and numerous essays about religious ethics, Meilaender is a Fellow of the Hastings Center and serves on the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is also the associate editor of the Journal of Religious Ethics and is a member of the editorial board of First Things. Leon R. Kass of the University of Chicago calls Meilaender “a pillar of common sense and uncommon wisdom.” Author Vigen Guroian writes that he is “one of the truly gifted essayists writing on religious and moral subjects today.” Rev. Richard John Neuhaus says simply: “There is nobody writing on ethics today whose work is more consistently rewarding.” Meilaender holds degrees from Princeton University, Concordia Seminary, and Concordia Senior College.