Alasdair MacIntyre and the Future of Theology and Religion

The work of Alasdair MacIntyre (1929–2025) has occasioned a paradigm shift in philosophical ethics, politics, social theory, and Christian theology. This round-table panel explores MacIntyre’s legacy through the lens of critical appreciation: highlighting what elements of his thought can be carried forward to enrich theology and religious studies for the future, while sorting through what could be left behind. Can his synthesis of Marx-friendly  critique with virtue ethics and historical consciousness stand as he construed it? Can we separate his communitarian-friendly, tradition-bound critique of late-twentieth-century society from contemporary postliberal politics? Must understanding “tradition” in a broader context than his broadly Greco-Christian background alter his account of tradition’s role in our theoretical and practical knowing? These and similar probing questions will be the subjects of consideration on this panel of scholars who find a definitive future (although not an uncritical one) for MacIntyre’s work.