Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2006
Spaces for Reconciliation and Redemption:
Theology and the Built Environment
Visiting the Sunrise Trailer Park
SILT 2006 Participants
SILT 2006 Participants
Tim Gorringe is St. Luke's Professor of Theology at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and has written, among other important works, A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment, Redemption (2002). Tim Gorringe worked in parishes for six years before going to South India to teach theology at the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary, where he worked for seven years. His links with India remain close. On return to Britain he was for nine years Chaplain, Fellow and Tutor in Theology at St John's College, Oxford. 
In 1995 he became Reader in Contextual Theology at St Andrew's and in 1998 took up his present post as St. Luke's Professor of Theological Studies. His academic interests focus on the interrelation between theology, social science, art and politics. His most recent major book is a theology of culture. Aside from theology he is a bee keeper, poultry keeper, theatre goer, home wine maker, political activist, poetry lover and a member of the Iona Community.
The Rev. Heidi B. Neumark currently serves as the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan. For nineteen years prior she was pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the South Bronx. She was a founding member of South Bronx Churches, and also the founder of Transfiguration Community Life Center, Inc. 
Rev. Neumark’s experiences in congregational and community ministry in the South Bronx led to a highly acclaimed book, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx (Beacon Press), winner of the 2004 Wilbur Award given by the Religion Communicators Council. Neumark received her Masters of Divinity degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia which granted her their Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998. During her seminary training, she also spent a year studying at an ecumenical seminary in Argentina and working with Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel and his human rights organization. Her pastoral internship was done in Jersey City, followed by an urban residency at a church in Hoboken, leading up to her move to work in the South Bronx. All of the congregations Neumark has served have been multicultural and bilingual (English/Spanish).
A theology of the built environment, according to Timothy Gorringe, is - to put it as simply as possible - a theology of place, be it urban, suburban or rural. Such a theology will raise questions about the goals of our building and planning, about housing and infrastructure, about land ownership and our responsibility to creation.
Spring Institute Proceedings 2006
- Session I - Town Planning: A Theological Imperative? - Timothy Gorringe
- Session II - Thinking about Houses - Timothy Gorringe
Listen to the session (MP3 file).
Download and view the powerpoint presentation used during the session. - Session III - Breathing Space - Heidi Neumark
- Session IV - Panel: “Building Beloved Communities”, with LaVerne Stokes and Allan Tibbels, Sandtown Habitat for Humanity, Baltimore, MD; and Russell Jeung, Oakpark Community, Oakland, CA; moderated by Mark Gornik, City Seminary, New York
- Session V - Sidewalks in the Kingdom presentation - Eric Jacobsen, Fuller Theological Seminary
- Session VI - “Revisiting Town and Country” - Timothy Gorringe
- Debrief of Site Visit to Sunrise Park, a housing initative of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville; Presentation by Kelly Eplee, Development Director of Charlottesville Habitat for Humanity and Overton McGehee, Executive Director
- Session VII - “Concrete Implications for Public Policy and Church Activism” - Timothy Gorringe and Heidi Neumark, with discussion among Institute participants
- View the sermon given by Rev. Heidi Neumark at the closing Eucharist service.
Download and view the powerpoint presentation used during the session.
Download and view the powerpoint presentation used during Russell Jeung's portion of the panel.
Download and view the powerpoint presentation used during the session.
Download and view the powerpoint images used during the session.
Download and view the powerpoint presentation used during the session.
Participants' Reflections: Spring Institute participants were asked, in preparation for the Institute, to reflect on the following question: How do you understand the construction of space—“the built environment”—as participation in God's work of reconciliation and redemption? Click here to read participants’ reflections on this question.