Dunne, John S(cribner) 1929-

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DUNNE, John S(cribner) 1929-

PERSONAL: Born December 3, 1929, in Waco, TX; son of John Scribner (an architect) and Dorothy (Vauhan) Dunne. Education: University of Notre Dame, A.B., 1951; Gregorian University, Rome, Italy, S.T.L., 1955, S.T.D. 1958.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame, 238 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer, educator, and priest. Ordained Roman Catholic priest, 1954. University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, instructor, 1957–61, assistant professor, 1961–65, associate professor, 1965–69, professor of theology, 1969–, John A. O'Brien chair, 1988–. Yale University, New Haven, CT, Riggs Professor of Theology and visiting lecturer, 1972–73; Oxford University, Oxford, England, sacrum lecturer, 1976–77.

MEMBER: Society for Religion in Higher Education, American Academy of Religion.

AWARDS, HONORS: Rockefeller Foundation grant for theological research, 1960–61; Harbison Award for distinguished teaching, 1969.

WRITINGS:

RELIGIOUS NONFICTION

The City of the Gods: A Study in Myth and Mortality, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1965.

A Search for God in Time and Memory, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1969.

The Way of All the Earth; Experiments in Truth and Religion, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1972.

Time and Myth, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1973.

The Reasons of the Heart: A Journey into Solitude and Back again into the Human Circle, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1978.

The Church of the Poor Devil, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1982.

The House of Wisdom: A Pilgrimage, Harper & Row (San Francisco, CA), 1985.

The Homing Spirit: A Pilgrimage of the Mind, of the Heart, of the Soul, Crossroad (New York, NY), 1987.

The Peace of the Present: An Unviolent Way of Life, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1991.

Love's Mind: An Essay on Contemplative Life, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1993.

The Music of Time: Words and Music and Spiritual Friendship, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1996.

The Mystic Road of Love, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1999.

Reading the Gospel, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2000.

The Road of the Heart's Desire: An Essay on the Cycles of Story and Song, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2002.

A Journey with God in Time: A Spiritual Quest, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2003.

A Vision Quest, 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Review of Politics, Theological Studies, and Commonweal. Advisory editor, Review of Politics.

SIDELIGHTS: John S. Dunne is a theologian and professor who has spent nearly all his career teaching at the University of Notre Dame. He has published a number of books on various theological issues, primarily from a Roman Catholic perspective. Some of his publications are personal, touching on his own interest in music and writing songs, and several include Dunne's own song lyrics.

One subject Dunne explores in several books is humankind's relationship with God. In Love's Mind: An Essay on Contemplative Life he looks at how and why people look for God, the process of knowing God, and the affect this search has on people's lives. Dunne uses ideas from a variety of writers, musicians, and artists to make his points, and also offers his own method for achieving a state of reflection. Critic David J. Casey found the book inspiring. Writing in Theological Studies, he commented, "Walking the path from death to life in the company of D[unne] and his merry band of poets and musicians is a spring awakening for pilgrim spirits."

Dunne takes a similar tactic in The Road of the Heart's Desire: An Essay on the Cycles of Story and Song. He uses music, poetry, and myth through the ages to describe the concept of divine love, the beginning of humankind, and how people are drawn to be spiritually close to God. Library Journal reviewer Graham Christian described Dunne's book as "a profound and profoundly personal essay."

Other books by Dunne explore related spiritual themes. In Reading the Gospel, for example, he offers a guide to how to read the Gospel to develop a relationship with and insight into God. The author advocates a reading of the Gospels as a way to grow more trustful of God. Dunne brings in other Christian and non-Christian thinkers as a means of providing depth to his argument and further explore the Gospel. In America, Denise Lardner Carmody found the book intriguing and deep. "It is a density that attracts," she wrote, "that rewards the reader with an increasing penetration of truth."

Dunne once told CA: "In my first book I study cultures in terms of their answers to death; in my second I study lives and the life story; in my third I study religions in their relation to the life story. In all of them I am looking for some kind of deeper life in man that can endure death and survive it.

"My book A Vision Quest addresses the question of evolution. I do believe the theory of evolution is compatible with belief in creation, although I wrote this book before the current controversy about evolution and intelligent design broke out. Maybe my book will speak to the controversy nevertheless in favor of evolution."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, June 11, 1983, Timothy A. Curtin, review of The Church of the Poor Devil, p. 463; October 26, 1985, Joseph A. Tetlow, review of The House of the Wisdom: A Pilgrimage of the Heart, p. 261; July 18, 1992, Jon Nilson, review of The Peace of the Present: An Unviolent Way of Life, p. 43; April 8, 2000, Denise Lardner Carmody, "Triple Redemption," review of Reading the Gospel, p. 29.

Booklist, October 1, 1993, Gary Young, review of Love's Mind: An Essay on Contemplative Life, pp. 220-221; October 1, 2002, Bryce Christensen, review of The Road of the Heart's Desire: An Essay on the Cycles of Story and Song, p. 284.

Catholic World, May-June, 1989, Robert E. Lauder, review of The Homing Spirit: A Pilgrimage of the Mind, of the Heart, of the Soul, p. 133.

Christian Century, March 23, 1983, Lawrence S. Cunningham, review of The Church of the Poor Devil, p. 282; August 21, 1991, Thomas D. Kennedy, review of Peace of the Present, p. 785.

Commonweal, January 14, 1983, Pheme Perkins, review of The Church of the Poor Devil, p. 28.

Library Journal, November 15, 1982, review of The Church of the Poor Devil, p. 2181; June 15, 1985, review of The House of Wisdom, p. 66; November 1, 1990, Carolyn Craft, review of The Peace of the Present, 94; October 1, 1993, Carolyn Craft, review of Love's Mind, p. 100; October 1, 2002, Graham Christian, review of The Road of the Heart's Desire, p. 104.

National Catholic Reporter, February 3, 1989, William Graham, review of The House of Wisdom, p. 32; May 17, 1991, William C. Graham, review of Peace of the Present, p. 20.

Publishers Weekly, September 20, 1985, William Griffin, review of The House of Wisdom, p. 32.

Theological Studies, March, 1992, Thomas D. Kennedy, review of Peace of the Present, p. 188; September, 1994, David J. Casey, review of Love's Mind, p. 601; December, 2004, Thomas Hart, review of The Road of the Heart's Desire, p. 906.