Great Lakes Christian College “A Bargain with the Devil? Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and the U.S. Constitution” with Raul Rodriguez, September 16

A Bargain with the Devil? Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and the U.S. Constitution

Speaker: Raul G. Rodriguez of Michigan State University

Date: Friday, September 16, 2022

Location: Great Lakes Christian College

How should a believer think about the American Constitution, particularly with regard to its seeming accommodation of the historical injustice of slavery? This is the focal question of an event that will spark conversation and civil discourse at the College. Dr. Raul Rodriguez will make a presentation on Frederick Douglass, a former slave and one of America’s most influential abolitionists and public intellectuals. As a Christian, Douglass repeatedly confronted this question throughout his life and career. About the speaker: Dr. Rodriguez is currently the Dean’s Research Associate at Michigan State University. He formerly taught at Arizona State University and at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Rodriguez says of his work: “The primary focus of my research is American liberal democracy, especially as it is examined in the writings of a French political philosopher named Alexis de Tocqueville. One of the central ambitions of my book project is to argue that a tentative return to Tocqueville’s writings is needed to clarify and understand the crisis of liberal democracy. Before we can understand why liberal democracy is in crisis, we must understand what liberal democracy is. Tocqueville, I argue, can teach liberal democracy to know itself.” A delicious lunch from Chipotle will be served at this event free of charge, thanks to a generous grant from the Jack Miller Center.