St. Gregory’s professor presents at Fifth Annual Symposium on Advancing the New Evangelization

Dr. Jason Fugikawa, Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology at St. Gregory’s University, presented his paper “Where to Go from Me: Human Nature and the Theology of the Imago Dei” at the Fifth Annual Symposium on Advancing the New Evangelization hosted by Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. on April 8 and 9.

“The new Evangelization can be understood as a continued evangelization of those people and cultures who have never heard Christ, but nearer to our own experience it is also the re-evangelization, the re-sharing, of the Gospel, the Good News, to those peoples and cultures which were once Christian but are no longer. Symposia such as these help the Church to understand the New Evangelization as more than a buzzword, as a realization and mobilization of the Great Commission in our time,” said Fugikawa.

The theme for the symposium, Mercy and the Sexual Revolution, was inspired by the recent Synods of Bishops on the Family in 2014 and 2015, the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy which commenced last December and the Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down last summer.

Keynote speakers for the symposium included His Excellency, Most Rev. Mark J. Seitz, Bishop of El Paso; Dr. Pia de Solenni, Associate Dean at the Augustine Institute; and Dr. Ryan T. Anderson, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. In addition to the distinguished speakers and presenters, the symposium also included a public screening of “40” a film documenting the forty years of legalized abortion in the United States following Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The producer of the film, John Morales, presented on the project’s inspiration and reception.