Diana Butler Bass audio and video now available

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Diana Butler BassLast November, Diana Butler Bass gave the 2013 Capps Lecture in Christian Theology and led an informal afternoon workshop at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Bass is a scholar of American religion and culture, and her lecture considered the rapidly changing religious and political landscape of the United States and its implications for the future of the church. You can watch her video or listen to her lecture.

Dr. Bass holds a PhD in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of eight books, including Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. She blogs for The Huffington Post and is a commentator for USA Today, Time, Newsweek and The Washington Post. Diana Butler Bass has taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College and the Virginia Theological Seminary.

The Capps Lectures are endowed by Dr. and Mrs. W. Jerry Capps and co-sponsored by the Project on Lived Theology and Theological Horizons.

Applications for the “Finding Mississippi in the National Narrative” institute for teachers due March 4th

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During the weeks of June 8-28 in Jackson, Mississippi, the 2014 Institute for College and University Teachers will explore the struggle for freedom in Mississippi while comparing it to significant events in other parts of the American South. This year’s institute, “Finding Mississippi in the National Narrative: Struggle, Institution Building, and Power at the Local Level,” will challenge participants to place the local narrative within the national one and will culminate with the weeklong celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Freedom Summer.

To find more information on the 2014 Institute, click here.

Applications are due March 4th. To apply, click here.

This year’s institute is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Hamer Institute. Each summer since 1998, the Hamer Institute has sponsored an institute, seminar, or workshop for educators and students interested in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. The sessions allow participants to engage in discussions with scholars and activists, while demonstrating ways of integrating primary sources about the Civil Rights Movement into lesson plans and curricula.

To learn about past programs, click here.

To read more about Fannie Lou Hamer on our digital archive, The Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama, click here.

The New Era of Bonhoeffer Interpretation: Dr. Victoria Barnett to speak at U.Va.

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The New Era of Bonhoeffer Interpretation

On Tuesday, March 4, Victoria Barnett with speak on “The New Era of Bonhoeffer Interpretation.” The lecture will take place at 3:30 p.m. in Gibson Hall 242 as part of Charles Marsh’s seminar, Bonhoeffer and Modernity. All are invited.

Victoria BarnettDr. Barnett is Director of the Programs on Ethics, Religion and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and one of the general editors of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Language Edition. She is the author, editor, and translator of numerous books, articles, and book chapters, including For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler.

Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless invites local participation

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Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless is part of the Service Provider Council (SPC), a group of representatives from area social service agencies that provide critical prevention and intervention services to the homeless and very poor of Central Virginia. SPC meets monthly to identify ways to improve the system of care for the homeless of our community by avoiding duplication of services, filling in gaps in the safety net and sharing information.

To find a list of member organizations, click here.

The SPC meets on the first Tuesday of the month between 1-2:30 pm at Albemarle County Office Building on McIntire, Charlottesville, VA. All are welcome to attend.

Thank you to Joshua Kaufman-Horner for keeping the Project up-to-date about the work of the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless. Joshua is one of the founders of Mission Year, a ministry which strives to advance the Kingdom of God by loving their neighbors. He now serves as the Center of Hope Director at The Salvation Army here in Charlottesville.

Click here to listen to Joshua’s contributions to the panel on “The Practices of Peace” at the Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2008.

Ted Smith’s “Political Theology Start-Up Kit”

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Ted Smith

Edward J. Blum of the Religion in American History blog recently asked Ted Smith to put together a “so you want to begin thinking about political theology” reading list.

In response, Ted compiled a list of twelve political theology titles from the last 100 years that he believes “try to work at a more basic level, asking questions about how a social order comes to make sense, how structures of legitimation are produced and internalized, and how people gain a feel for what it means to be connected to one another.”

To read Ted’s full blog post, click here.

Ted Smith is an assistant professor of ethics and preaching at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. He is the author of The New Measures:  A Theological History of Democratic Practice (2007).  He works at the intersections of practical and political theology, with special attention to the forms preaching and worship take in modern societies.  Ted’s current research explores the notion of “divine violence” through a study of sermons, speeches, and essays about the abolitionist John Brown.

Watch the video Ted’s lecture “Eschatological Memories of Everyday Life” from the Spring Institute on Lived Theology 2013.

Peter Heltzel and Alexia Salvatierra’s book on faith-rooted organizing now available

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Peter Heltzel and Faith-RootedAlexia Salvatierra’s Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service to the World (Intervarsity, 2013) deals with a difficult question: With so many injustices, small and great, across the world and right at our doorstep, what are people of faith to do? In response, Heltzel and Salvatierra pose (and answer) a different question: What if Christians were to shape their organizing around the implications of the truth that God is real and Jesus is risen?

Their work provides a model of Christian social action focused on helping local communities of faith tackle issues of systemic injustice. To watch a book trailer for Faith-Rooted Organizing, click here.

Peter Heltzel is an associate professor at New York Theological Seminar and co-editor of the SILT book project called Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins. Alexia Salvatierra is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and has been the Executive Director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) for over eleven years.

VCSR to hold book launch for Willis Jenkins

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Willis JenkinsThe Department of Religious Studies and the Virginia Center for the Study of Religion are pleased to invite you to a Book Launch and Discussion with Professor Willis Jenkins, on Wednesday, February 19 at 4-6 pm in the West Oval Room of the Rotunda.

Willis’s book is titled The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity. He will be joined by Professors Mark White of the MacIntyre School and Hank Shugart from Environmental Sciences, and will be introduced by Richard Brown, Director of the Georgetown University Press. The event will be followed by a reception.

Willis is the Associate Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Environment at U.Va and author of Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology, which won a 2009 Templeton Award for Theological Promise. He is co-editor, with Jennifer McBride, of Bonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social Thought, and editor of The Spirit of Sustainability.

Listen to Willis’s talk “Social Problems as Scenes of Theological Creativity,” which he gave at the Spring Institute for Lived Theology in 2011.

Southern Living touts Susan Glisson as a new hero of civil rights

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Susan GlissonSouthern Living has honored Susan Glisson, assistant professor in Southern studies and executive director of the Institute on Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi, as one of “The New Heroes of Civil Rights.”

Dubbed by Cynthia Tucker as “The Moderator,” the essay briefly outlines Glisson’s work with the Mississippi Truth Project and her work for social justice. To read the full article, click here.

To listen to her talk on “The American Organizing Tradition” from the 2008 Spring Institute for Lived Theology: Lived Theology and the Language of Peace, click here.