On the Lived Theology Reading List: The Justice Calling

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The Justice Calling, Bethany Hanke Hoang and Kristen Deede JohnsonWhere Passion Meets Perseverance

In a world full of problems and despair, we are called to be the light that delivers hope and healing through a willingness to serve and fight for justice. The Justice Calling draws us into the whole story of Scripture, inviting us to know more intimately the God who loves justice and calls us to give our lives to seek the flourishing of others. Weaving together a comprehensive biblical theology of justice, fellow travelers Bethany Hanke Hoang and Kristen Deede Johnson build on the whole of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation as they explore stories of injustice around the globe today.

In an excerpt from the book provided by Theological Horizons, Hoang and Johnson write:

As we are sent by Jesus to love God and love others, our mission must involve both evangelism and justice. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, whatever responsibilities have been entrusted to us, we are called to live as God’s holy people, seeking God’s justice, righteousness, and shalom.  God’s vision for justice and righteousness is meant to shape each of our callings and commitments and all of our practices within those callings and commitments. In this way, we can better understand every one of our callings as a kingdom calling, as Amy Sherman so helpfully puts it.

Christen Borgman Yates, associate director of Theological Horizons, recently published an article on the book. In the review, originally published in the Spring issue (The Rule of Law, The Way of Love. March, 2016) of Comment Magazine, Yates reflects:

Hoang and Johnson have given us a gift in The Justice Calling. In a world with so many distracting voices, they’ve helped clarify the biblical account of God’s desire for this world to be set to rights, and have invited us to practice renewal in a thousand small, daily ways. Perhaps our biggest failure is not our lack of effort to engage this practice, but our lack of imagination…

The beautiful call to justice is waiting for us to answer. And within that response we wait: actively with hope and imaginatively with patient anticipation for the new heavens and the new earth.

Hoang and Johnson will discuss The Justice Calling at the book launch as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book on Thursday, March 17. A panel of local community activists will also respond to the book and its relevance to local issues. The presentation will be from 7pm – 8:30pm at University Baptist Church.

For more information on the book, click here. For details on the book launch that is co-sponsored by the Project on Lived Theology, click here. To connect with the Facebook event, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Project on Lived Theology names interns for summer 2016

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Internship
University of Virginia students will serve in Charlottesville, the Shenandoah Valley, and Jacksonville, Florida

The Project on Lived Theology has selected three students for the Summer Internship in Lived Theology 2016:

Tessa Crews (Col ’16) is majoring in global studies with a concentration on environments and sustainability. As a summer intern, Tessa will be working with the Green Comfort School of Herbal Medicine in the Shenandoah Valley, where she will learn the art of holistic healing as a form of spiritual nourishment.

Britton Dunnavant (Col ’17) is a religious studies major. He will be working this summer at the Haven in Charlottesville, Virginia, exploring theologies of hospitality. Brit will work in the day shelter and intake programs, attend housing meetings with case managers, and volunteer with the Haven’s permanent housing program.

Elizabeth Surratt (Col ’17) is a double major in political and social thought and religious studies, focusing on the intersection of liberation theology, racism and poverty, and youth. For her PLT summer internship, Elizabeth will work with Rebirth, a growing ministry in inner-city Jacksonville, Florida, helping to plan and execute summer programming and lead a series of week-long retreats for the youth involved in the ministry.

Stay tuned to learn more about our interns and their partner organizations over the next few months, and check back here this summer to read their blogs from the field.

The Summer Internship in Lived Theology is an immersion program designed to complement the numerous existing urban and rural service immersion programs flourishing nationally and globally by offering a unique opportunity to think and write theologically about service. For more information on this initiative, please click here.

For updates about the PLT Summer Internship, click here. We also post updates online using #PLTinterns. To get these updates please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: Just Mercy

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Just Mercy, Bryan StevensonA Story of Justice and Redemption

Fellow traveler Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. Just Mercy details the powerful true story of one of his first cases: Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a murder he didn’t commit.

Stevenson will speak on his work at the Virginia Festival of the Book on March 19, 2016. The event will be held at 8pm – 9:30pm at the Paramount Theater.

From the festival’s website:

Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption) will speak about his experiences as a social justice lawyer and how these continue to influence his life-long work to support criminal justice system reform as well as anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts. An outspoken advocate and thoughtful leader, Stevenson challenges the legacy of racial inequality in the United States, asking Americans to reconsider issues of justice and compassion. John Grisham will join Stevenson on stage for discussion of these issues.

To read more on this publication, click here. For more information on the book event and to purchase tickets, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our Fellow Travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: Still Convicted

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Still Convicted, Eddie HowardA Story of Redemption, Reconciliation, and Restoration

In his recently published memoir, PLT contributor Eddie Howard reflects on his journey of brokenness through the eyes of the redemptive power of God – eyes that look upon us with hope of a future that he refused to see at the time of his silent bondage. Still Convicted is not just his journey but the journey of the many who have dared to step into the dark world of drugs and street life, a life that leads down the road of incarceration and bondage for many people and in many different ways.

PLT contributor John Kiess writes:

For the past two decades, Eddie Howard has worked as a tireless advocate for the marginalized and excluded, touching the lives of countless individuals through his remarkable story of transformation. Still Convicted tells that story.

The Lived Theology Reading List forms a collection of publications–many unaffiliated with the Project–that work to plumb the theological depth and detail of lived experience. Their authors, like Howard, are our fellow travelers in lived theology whose practices illustrate the importance of theological ideas in public conversation and whose work we support.

We invite you to continue contributing to the Lived Theology Reading List with book suggestions that similarly offer rich and generative material for theological inquiry. Post your thoughts to Twitter with the hashtag #LivedTheologyReads, and the Project will select a few to feature as recommended resources.

For more information on Howard’s book, click here.

Eddie Howard is a former staff member of Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries, where he served as the men’s ministry coordinator. Howard participated in the Spring Institute for Lived Theology in 2005 and 2006.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads.

The 1963 Danville Civil Rights Movement

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Danville Civil Rights exhibitThe Protests, the People, the Stories

From January 26 through April 9, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center is hosting an exhibit on the 1963 Danville, Virginia civil rights movement—one of the most important but least known civil rights struggles in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The 1963 Danville Civil Rights Movement: The Protests, the People, the Stories gives personal accounts of the protests, violence, and protracted legal struggles that gripped Danville during the summer and fall of 1963. The exhibit explores the impact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had in that city.

“The history of the Danville civil rights movement is a statewide story, a national story, not simply a local story,” says Andrea Douglas, executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

The documentary exhibit features portraits of participants in the events of 1963 by Charlottesville photographer Tom Cogill and text panels by Emma Edmunds, a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellow and principal researcher for the project. The display also includes text-and-photo panels on teachers in the movement, Dr. King and the SCLC in Virginia, and the white allies who stood with and supported the protesters.

The following programs will be held in conjunction with the exhibit:

Thursday March 24

7:00 pm: “Tales of Two Cities: The Civil Rights Movements in Danville and in Charlottesville.” Civil Rights participants from each city describe what characterized protests in their respective locales, comparing and contrasting strategies, tactics, and results.

Saturday April 2
1:00 pm: “Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Virginia.” Emma Edmunds, project researcher and director for the exhibit, will explore the campaign of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the SCLC in Danville and the rich history of Dr. King and the SCLC in Virginia.

The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (233 4th Street NW, Charlottesville, VA 22903) is open Tuesday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm, and Saturday, 10 am to 3 pm. For more information, visit their website or call 434-260-8720.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

For more resources from our Fellow Travelers, click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #PLTfellowtravelers.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: Building Power, Changing Lives

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Building Power, Changing Lives: The Story of Virginia OrganizingThe Story of Virginia Organizing

Virginia Organizing has been working for twenty years to bring long-term, sustainable change to Virginia through a commitment to social justice. Fellow travelers Ruth Berta and Amanda Leonard Pohl chronicle the organization’s journey.

The Virginia Organizing website describes the organization as:

…a non-partisan statewide grassroots organization dedicated to challenging injustice by empowering people in local communities to address issues that affect the quality of their lives. Virginia Organizing especially encourages the participation of those who have traditionally had little or no voice in our society. By building relationships with individuals and groups throughout the state, Virginia Organizing strives to get them to work together, democratically and non-violently, for change.

To read more on this publication, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our Fellow Travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers.

What should we be reading in lived theology?

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Project publicationsSubmit your book recommendations to us on Twitter

Theology matters, now more than ever. The Project examines religion’s role in shaping human behavior. Moreover, we work to retrieve valuable resources from the Christian faith and other traditions that assist students, scholars and practitioners in the work of building just and compassionate communities.

The Lived Theology Reading List is a collection of publications–many unaffiliated with the Project–that work to plumb the theological depth and detail of lived experience. Their authors are our fellow travelers in lived theology whose practices illustrate the importance of theological ideas in public conversation and whose work we support.

We invite you to contribute to the Lived Theology Reading List with book suggestions that similarly offer rich and generative material for theological inquiry. Post your thoughts to Twitter with the hashtag #LivedTheologyReads, and the Project will select a few to feature on our website as recommended resources.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads.

Charles Marsh to Deliver 25th Annual Harry Vaughan Smith Lectures

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Charles MarshA three-part Dietrich Bonhoeffer lecture series at Mercer University

On February 16 and 17, 2016, Charles Marsh will deliver Mercer University’s 25th annual Harry Vaughan Smith Distinguished Visiting Professor of Christianity Lectures in Macon, Georgia.

The lecture series is titled “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: New Perspectives of His Life, Thought and Promise” and will be presented by the Roberts Department of Christianity in Mercer’s College of Liberal Arts.

All three lectures  will be held in Newton Chapel. All are free and open to the public. Visit Mercer University’s website for more information regarding event details and location.

The scheduled lectures are as follows:

Tuesday Feb 16 

10:50 am: “‘I heard the Gospel preached in the Negro churches of America’: Bonhoeffer’s Spiritual Awakening”

7:30 pm: “Theological Storm Troopers on the March: Bonhoeffer’s Protest against the Nazi’s Twisted Cross”

Wednesday Feb 17

10:00 am: “‘Are we still of any use?’: Bonhoeffer’s Final Questions and Christian Witness in the 21st Century”

The Harry Vaughan Smith Distinguished Visiting Professorship was established in 1990 to commemorate Dr. and Mrs. Harry Vaughan Smith’s lifelong commitment to Mercer University.

Charles Marsh is the Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies and the director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia. His research interests include modern Christian thought, religion and civil rights, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and lived theology. His publications include Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2014) and God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (1997), which won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

For more event details and up-to-date event listings please click here to visit the PLT Events page. We also post updates online using #PLTevents. To get these and other news updates, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology.

Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious by David Dark, now available

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David Dark - Life's Too Short to Pretend You're Not ReligiousReclaiming the idea of being “religious” as a life-affirming necessity for conscious life

InterVarsity Press has published PLT contributor David Dark’s newest book, Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious (2016). Through both memoir and analysis, Dark persuasively argues that religion is a fact, like relationship is a fact. Religion is the shape love takes and the witness of lived experience. Dark sets out to prove that embracing our religious background cultivates the fullness lived experiences has to offer, proving once and for all that we were created to rejoice in flourishing religious life.

For more information, click here. To purchase the book, click here.

David Dark is an assistant professor at Belmont University in the College of TheolDavid Dark life's too short to pretend you're not religiousogy and Christian Ministry and also teaches at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. His publications also include The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (2009) and The Gospel according to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea (2005). Dark participated in the  Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2011 and the second class of the Virginia Seminar in Lived Theology. To find his Virginia Seminar author’s page, click here.

For more of featured writings of our PLT Contributors, click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyWrites.

What’s happening in Lived Theology?

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Spring 2016 Project-sponsored events

This spring the Project is co-sponsoring several events, and will be hosting the first of two Spring Institute on Lived Theology (SILT) conferences in June on the theme “Can I Get a Witness?” Check out the spring line up and find out more about our upcoming SILT gatherings below.

March

VaBookFestival2016-Horiz1-dates

Book Talk: The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance
Thursday March 17The Justice Calling book cover
7:00pm-8:00pm, University Baptist Church
Click here for book event page.

Authors Bethany Hanke Hoang and Kristen Deede Johnson will discuss their new book, The Justice Calling. A panel of local community activists including: Moderator: Barb Armacost (UVa law professor) and Panelists: Stephen Hitchcock (The Haven), Seth Wispelwey (The Arbor), Joshua Scott (Impact), Laura Brown (Casa Alma), and Rydell Payne (Abundant Life Ministries), will respond to the book and its relevance to local issues.

Book sales and signing will follow the discussion, and refreshments will be served.

Location: University Baptist Church, 1223 West Main Street, Charlottesville, VA 22903
Hosted by: The Project on Lived Theology, New City Commons, and Theological Horizons

An Evening with Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and RedemptionJust Mercy book cover
Saturday March 19
8:00pm-9:00pm, Paramount Theater
Click here for book event page.

Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption) will speak about his experiences as a social justice lawyer and how these continue to influence his life-long work to support criminal justice system reform as well as anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts. An outspoken advocate and thoughtful leader, Stevenson challenges the legacy of racial inequality in the United States, asking Americans to reconsider issues of justice and compassion. John Grisham will join Stevenson on stage for discussion of these issues.

Location: Paramount Theater, 215 E Main Street, Charlottesville, VA 22902
Sponsored by: LexisNexis, The Project on Lived Theology, Paul and Susan Yesawich, Virginia Center for the Study of Religion, U.Va. Department of Politics, and an anonymous donor

May

Virginia Graduate Colloquium on Theology, Ethics, & Culture:Virginia Colloquium poster Religion & Media
Keynote Speaker: Talal Asad
May 6-8, University of Virginia
Click here for the conference website.

The 2016 Virginia Graduate Colloquium’s conference theme is “Religion and Media.” The keynote speaker is renowned anthropologist Professor Talal Asad, whose transformative work on the genealogical mediations of religious and “secular” traditions has deeply influenced the study and practice of religion today.

Religion is often described as a “mediated” phenomenon, whether ritually, doctrinally, aesthetically, communally, politically, narratively, and/or violently. The conference will initiate a dialogue about “media,” construed not only as a “mode of transmission” but also as a process of (re-)/mediation and repair, to open new lines of investigation for theological and religious studies.

This conference is co-sponsored by the Project on Lived Theology.

June

SILT 16/17: Can I Get a Witness?
2016 – University of Virginia
2017 – Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower Campus
Click here for the Can I Get A Witness? webpage.

The two-part SILT beginning in June 2016 and concluding in June 2017 will celebrate scholars, activists, laypeople, and religious leaders whose lived theologies produced and inspired social justice in the United States. SILT 16/17 will produce a single volume entitled Can I Get a Witness? Stories of Radical Christians in the U.S., 1900-2014.

The first meeting, in June 2016, will gather the biographers at the University of Virginia. The writers will attend seminars on theology and biography, discuss writing style and process, and meet in workshop groups that will support each other throughout the writing process.

The 2017 meeting will be held at Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower Campus May 31-June 2. During this meeting, which will include additional invited guests, Can I Get a Witness? authors will present their historical figures by sharing the completed theological biographies in keynotes and panel discussions open to the public.

For more event details and up-to-date event listings please click here to visit the PLT Events page. We also post updates online using #PLTevents. To get these and other news updates, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology.