Nagasaki Prays, Hiroshima Rages: God's Providence and Narratives of Suffering – Prof. James Nolan

Prof. James Nolan argues that Nagasaki’s prayerful response to the atomic bomb can only be understood through the city’s long Christian history, especially the witness of the hidden Christians and Takashi Nagai.This lecture was given on January 29th, 2026, at Florida State University.To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod.About the Speaker:Professor James L. Nolan, Jr. is the Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Sociology at Williams College, where he has been teaching since 1996. Professor Nolan’s teaching and research interests fall within the general areas of law and society, culture, technology and social change, and historical comparative sociology. His most recent book, Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, was published with Harvard University Press in 2020. His previous books include What They Saw in America: Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, G.K. Chesterton, and Sayyid Qutb (2016); Legal Accents, Legal Borrowing: The International Problem-Solving Court Movement (2009); Reinventing Justice: The American Drug Court Movement (2001); and The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century’s End (1998). He is the recipient of several grants and awards including National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and a Fulbright scholarship. He has held visiting fellowships at Oxford University, Loughborough University, the University of Notre Dame, Catholic University of America, and Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University.Keywords: Atomic Bomb, Christian History, Forgiveness, Hidden Christians, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Providence, Suffering, Takashi Nagai, Urakami Cathedral