Education, Giving and the Quest for Faith

Conversations on Philanthropy contributing editor Richard M. Gunderman, M.D., Ph.D. will deliver the 2011 Thomas H. Lake Lecture in Indianapolis on March 24. Gunderman's lecture is titled:  "The Undiminished Flame: Education, Giving and the Quest for Faith":

A celebrated teacher once said that the truth will set us free. One such liberating insight concerns the relationship between giving, education, and faith. Many of our goods, such as money and the things money can buy, tend to be diminished when shared. Others, such as knowledge, can remain undiminished and in fact grow through giving. An example is liberal education, an encounter with a human being or a text from which both teacher and student emerge enriched....

This is nowhere more apparent than with the greatest human beings and texts, which draw us into conversation about the kinds of lives we are called to lead. Such texts address matters of faith -- faith not as the choice between belief or disbelief, but as the view of ourselves and the world on which we are staking our lives. It is in liberal education's shared quest for faith that we enjoy one of our greatest opportunities to give and to achieve our fullest liberation as human beings.