Singing Church: Project alum Peter Slade explores congregational singing

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Peter SladeProject on Lived Theology alum Peter Slade has been awarded a writing grant by the Project on Lived Theology for his book project, Singing Church: A Lived Ecclesiology of Congregational Singing. The grant will support research and writing over the next year.

Dr. Slade’s research will ask, how does our understanding of church shape our congregational singing and how does our understanding of congregational singing shape our churches in the United States? He will pay particular attention to the lived theologies of churches that have developed distinctive practices of congregational singing in their work of uniting the body of Christ across racial, ethnic and generational lines in the praise of God. Continuing the work he started in his book Open Friendship in a Closed Society, he will develop the ecclesiology of open friendship to explore congregational singing as a vital  constitutive practice of the Church: the community of reconciled enemies.

Peter Slade received a doctorate degree in religious studies at the University of Virginia in the spring of 2006. His dissertation, Open Friendship in a Closed Society: Mission Mississippi and a Theology of Friendship, brings the lived experience of an ecumenical racial reconciliation initiative in Jackson, Mississippi into conversation with academic theologies of reconciliation and friendship. His research and teaching marry his interest in practical theology and history with a particular focus on race, social justice and the American south. Prior to studying at U.Va., Slade earned an M.A. in southern studies from the University of Mississippi and a B.D. with honours in Christian ethics and practical theology from St. Andrews University, Scotland. He also worked for five years as a community development worker for the Church of England during which time he studied at Ruskin College, Oxford. Slade held a dissertation fellowship from the Louisville Institute for The Study of Protestantism and American Culture and was a fellow at U.Va.’s Center on Religion and Democracy. In 2004, he was an honoree in the Seven Society Graduate Fellowship for Superb Teaching. Slade is currently an associate professor in the religion department at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. Read Slade’s author interview.

Fellow Traveler Sam Lloyd: “We, too, are victims of this 
despicable act.”

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Sam LloydThe Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III is interviewed about the effects of not being able to enter Trinity Church since the bombing in Boston this past week. In this Boston Globe article he states: “At a time like this, people want to come together. The need to have a spiritual conversation together as a community is powerful. And right now, we at Trinity haven’t been able to do that.” Rev. Lloyd is former dean of the National Cathedral and current member of the Virginia Seminar in Lived Theology. He currently serves as priest-in-charge at Trinity Church Boston.

The Project on Lived Theology Announces Summer Interns

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Summer Internship in Lived TheologyThe Project on Lived Theology has selected three U.Va. students for the Summer Internship in Lived Theology 2013. Kate Farrell, Camille Loomis, and Reilly O’Hara will spend the summer exploring how service informs and shapes religious belief, and how religious belief informs and shapes service. The Summer Internship in Lived Theology offers the unique opportunity to pursue service as an explicitly theological activity. Interns’ reading, writing, and conversation with their mentors enable them to reflect on their work theologically.

Meet our interns and learn about their plans below. Then visit our internship page to learn about past interns and their work, and to read our intern blog.

Kate FarrellKate Farrell grew up in Roanoke, and in 2009 she began to develop an interest in Catholic social teaching through encounters with the refugee population in her hometown. Relationships formed with this marginalized community through an internship in 2011 with Commonwealth Catholic Charities shaped and solidified her conviction that engaging in social justice is a necessary component of living the Catholic faith. Throughout her years at U.Va., Kate has engaged in practices of social justice in the Charlottesville community, but seeks to bring her interest in social justice into conversation with her academic studies in religion and studio art through an internship with the Catholic Worker community outside of London.

Throughout the summer, Kate plans to study ways in which theology is practiced through social activism by studying the Catholic Worker movement, other Catholic groups or notable activists, and other religious groups.  She will make comparisons between these different persons and groups and the original intent and workings of the Catholic Worker house as started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. In addition to this academic study, Kate plans to create a body of artwork based on her experience at the Catholic Worker Farm.


Camille LoomisCamille Loomis is a third year student majoring in religious studies and art history. In her academic study, Camille has explored the relationship between faith and art, particularly sacred art of the medieval period. Camille is especially fond of theological questions concerning the aesthetic and mystic mind. A lifelong musician, Camille has also served as music director for her student theatre group and a cappella vocal group.

Camille will spend the summer volunteering with The Haven, a day shelter in Charlottesville for homeless and very poor folks. Day to day operations of The Haven include greeting and socializing with the visitors, serving meals in the kitchen, providing access to showers, laundry, storage, and computers, and directing visitors to service providers in the building. Camille will explore how faith informs the running of The Haven.

As an extension of her interest in the relationship between spiritual expression and art, Camille hopes to instate an art project for the volunteers and guests of The Haven. Her vision is to create and support some sort of ongoing arts and crafts station for guests, perhaps where they can paint, make jewelry, or learn simple songs on the keyboard or harmonica. The purpose of this arts endeavor is to develop a sense of community encouraged by common artistic undertaking, and to foster a safe space to express personal identity.

Reilly O'HaraReilly O’Hara is a third year religious studies and foreign affairs double major from Falls Church, Virginia. He transferred last year from University of South Carolina and has loved U.Va. since he first stepped on grounds.

Reilly hopes to work with two organizations this summer–School for Conversion and Urban Hope–both in Durham, NC. School For Conversion (SFC) is a non-profit headed by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. It follows closely with the ideals of New Monasticism as it seeks to realize strong community in the “margins of society.” The programs and initiatives of SFC are aimed at social reconciliation and development and are realized through this deep sense of community. Reilly is planning an administrative internship with SFC to explore the inner workings of a non-profit including event planning, writing, research, and accounting.

Urban Hope is a camp in an economically under-resourced part of Durham called Walltown. The camp serves 30-40 Walltown youth from grades 5-10 and has five primary focuses: career and entrepreneurial development, spiritual development, leadership development, recreation, and financial literacy. Through both formal and informal means, the program seeks to develop the kids both practically and spiritually, equipping them for success in both areas. The Walltown area is an urban setting of great need and this program concentrates on the youth, the future of this community, in an effort to increase overall quality of life.

Mobilized for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins

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Mobilized for the Common GoodWe are pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of Mobilized for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins, edited by Peter Slade, Charles Marsh, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel and published by University Press of Mississippi.

Mobilized for the Common Good is based on papers and exchanges of the 2009 Spring Institute for Lived Theology, “American Evangelicalism and the Practices of Peace: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins.” With contributions from theologians, historians, and activists, this book seeks to understand John M. Perkins’s life and work in its theological and historical context. It contends that Perkins ushered in a paradigm shift in twentieth-century evangelical theology that continues to influence a growing movement of Christian community development projects and social justice activists today.

The impetus for this project came from the desire to explore further the contributions of John Perkins, who has received surprisingly little attention from historians of modern American religious history and from theologians concerned with questions of race, justice, and reconciliation. The book project grew from the rich interdisciplinary conversations that took place at SILT 2009 as participants considered the significance of Perkins’s life and work. We are delighted to work with the scholars, theologians, and ministers who have made contributions toward this important undertaking, including those listed here:

  • Mae Cannon, Executive Pastor of Hillside Covenant Church, Walnut Creek, California
  • Noel Castellanos, Executive Director, Christian Community Development Association
  • Lisa Sharon Harper, Executive Director, New York Faith and Justice
  • Paul Louis Metzger, Director of the Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins and Professor of Christian Theology and Theology of Culture, Multnomah School of the Bible
  • A. G. Miller, Professor of Religion, Oberlin College
  • Lowell Noble, Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Spring Arbor University
  • Ted Ownby, Director of the Center for Southern Culture and Professor of History and Southern Studies, University of Mississippi
  • Soong-Chan Rah, Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism, North Park Theological Seminary
  • Chris Rice, Co-Director, Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation
  • Cheryl J. Sanders, Senior Pastor of the Third Street Church of God in Washington, D.C., and Professor of Christian Ethics at the Howard University School of Divinity
  • Ron Sider, President, Evangelicals for Social Action, Director of the Sider Center on Ministry & Public Policy and Professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry, and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary
  • Christian T. Collins Winn, Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Bethel University

Project alum Willis Jenkins to join U.Va. faculty this fall

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Willis JenkinsWillis Jenkins, currently an associate professor at Yale Divinity School, will join the U.Va. faculty this fall as associate professor of religious studies and a fellow in the Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures. Dr. Jenkins will teach in “Religion, Ethics, and the Environment,” an area that connects many programs: Religious Studies, Environmental Sciences, Politics, the Bioethics Program in Philosophy, the Environmental Law Program in the Law School, and the Department of Public Health Sciences in the School of Medicine. His position is part of the Mellon Foundation funding for a university-wide initiative in environmental humanities. Dr. Jenkins received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and has been involved with the Project on Lived Theology since he was a graduate student.

Remembering George Telford

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George TelfordA year ago, February 28, 2012, the Reverend George B. Telford Jr. passed away surrounded by loved ones in Charlottesville. Many know George from his decades of leadership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and in ecumenical circles, as well as his work with the Lilly initiative on Reformed Theology at Union Theological Seminary. He also became a kind of senior statesmen at the Project, gently and clearly reminding us in story and argument that the robust Protestantism of an earlier era in the North American Church has much to teach the post-liberal theological academy. I am deeply grateful for George’s courageous life, his indefatigable commitment to human flourishing and his Christian witness. He told us at a PLT conference that his greatest concern as a theologian-pastor “was how to build and sustain a blessed community of the people of God that may live with courage, and wisdom, and passion.” We miss George very much.

Please click this link for a transcript of his 2003 theological autobiography, presented at the PLT Congregation and City Group.

Here are sections from his obituary which appeared in the “Daily Progress” last year.

“George [Telford] was a pastor-theologian shaped by the lives, faithfulness and passion of four fine congregations. His primary conviction was that it was possible to build theologically strong, liturgically vibrant, socially sensitive congregations of God’s people, marked by a sense of community with one another in faithfulness and fidelity.

“He believed that the formation of mature and faithful congregations required lay theologians who were able to articulate Christian faith competently, persuasively and with a measure of passion in the varied context of contemporary life. He was convinced that the training of the laity to enable the churches to be communities of theological discourse, courage and compassion rested on the presence among them of pastors committed to be, as pastors, theologians-in-residence, disciplined in mind and heart for that task. All of his work in national church leadership has been shaped by these commitments.

“George was born in Charleston, West Virginia on November 30, 1933, the son of George B. and Cecelia Rupel Telford. He attended Presbyterian College, received his Masters of Divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary, and continued his studies at the Harvard University School of Arts and Sciences as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He did further graduate studies at the University of Geneva in association with the World Council of Churches. George began his ministry as Assistant Minister and Minister to Students at First Presbyterian Church of Auburn, Alabama.

“He served as pastor of four strong congregations alongside public universities: Westminster Presbyterian Church of Charlottesville, First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee, Florida, First Presbyterian Church of Auburn, Alabama, and Blacksburg Presbyterian Church of Blacksburg, Virginia. In 1973, George became Director of the Division of Corporate and Social Mission of the Presbyterian Church U.S.

“He returned to national church leadership in 1987 as Director of the Theology and Worship Ministry Unit of the reunited Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). During this time George was a member of the Council on Theology and Culture, the General Assembly Task Force on a Theological Understanding of the Relationship Between Christians and Jews, Special General Assembly Council Task Force on the Spiritual Welfare of the Church, General Assembly Special Committee on the Consultation on Church Union. . . . He served on the Committee of Visitors for Vanderbilt Divinity School. He was the Presbyterian Church’s delegate to the Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order and to the Consultation on Church Union. . . . He was a member of the Presbyterian delegation in dialogue with the Episcopal Church on the matter of Reconciliation of Ministries and one of the regional leaders of the Presbyterian seminaries Advocate for Ministry program sponsored by the Lilly FoundationEndowment.

“He served as past chair and member of the Committee on Ecumenical Relations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) and served most recently as a member of the Project on Lived Theology, University of Virginia. Prior to retirement, George served as Director of Advanced Studies and Associate Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary.

“After retiring in Charlottesville, he served as Director of the Institute for Reformed Theology at Union Theological Seminary and PSCE, Richmond, Virginia, and was instrumental in organizing, in Charlottesville, Clergy and Laity for Justice and Peace. He continued to serve on the Committee on Ecumenical Relations and the Presbyterian Episcopal Dialogue of the Presbyterian Church (USA) until his death. George served as Vice-President for Church and Society of the National Council of Churches when that body formed a panel to consult with religious and political leaders across the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Occupied Territories making a major contribution to the final policy statement of the National Council of Churches on the Middle East. He traveled extensively consulting with Arab, Jew and Christian leadership in the region.

“His life continues to be celebrated by his wife of 57 years, Sally, two sons and their families, John and Marguerite Telford and their daughters Katherine and Elizabeth of Leesburg, Virginia and George Telford III and Christine Marx and their daughters Rebecca and Emily Telford-Marx of Durham, North Carolina. “

Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology resume

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The Project on Lived Theology is hosting Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology once a month this spring semester. Our first conversation was held Thursday, February 28 at 7:00 p.m. in the St. Paul’s Memorial Church lounge. Kris Norris and Sam Speers discussed their research with us in a talk entitled, “The Politics of Church: Examining the Ways Churches Engage and Avoid Politics.” Watch this space for further information about Kris and Sam’s work.

The remainder of the spring series includes a talk by liberation theologian Allan Boesak, cosponsored with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, on March 21 at 5:00 p.m. in Minor Hall, room 125.

Finally, U.Va. religious studies professor Heather Warren will speak on her experience of school desegregation in a talk entitled, “Civil Rights and the Habit of Autobiographical Theological Reflection” on April 18 at 7:00 p.m. in the St. Paul’s Memorial Church lounge.

For more information, and to see the full spring schedule, visit the Thursday Nights webpage here.

Civil Rights Digital Archive launches for public use

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The Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama, an initiative of the Project on Lived Theology, is a highly interactive digital archive that brings the theological drama of the American Civil Rights Movement to life. Through personal interviews and primary documentary evidence, much of which is previously unpublished, the archive tells the stories of the time period in light of the hypothesis that God was–in some perplexingly and hitherto undelineated way–present there.

Read the full press release here.

Visit the archive here.

Read an interview with Graduate Research Assistant Kelly West Figueroa-Ray, who both conceptualized and managed this project.