The Project on Lived Theology frequently hosts scholars and practitioners of religion to lecture on various topics in lived theology. In addition to independent presentations, there are lectures from these three series included in the list below:
Upcoming Events:
The Project on Lived Theology will present a series of lectures in Lived Theology as part of Professor Charles Marsh’s Theologies of Reconciliation and Resistance fall seminar.
- Tuesday, October 8: – 3:30 – 4:45 – “Why Reinhold Niebuhr Matters”, Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Emeritus Professor of Social Ethics, Union Seminary, New York
ZOOM LINK
- Tuesday, November 12, 3:30-4:45 – “The World Can Be Different: The Theological Vision of Dorothee Soelle”, Sarah K. Pinnock, Professor of Contemporary Religious Thought, Trinity University
- Tuesday, December 3, 3:30-4:45 – “The End of White Christian America”, Robert P. Jones, New York Times Bestselling Author and Founder and President of the Public Religion Research Institute
All lectures will be virtual and Zoom links will be provided closer to the lecture dates.
The Scoper Lecture in Christian Thought is an annual series building off the Capps Lectures that brings eminent speakers to the university to deliver public lectures exploring the breadth of Christian expression in the arenas of scholarship, science and medicine, the arts, and culture. The series is generously funded by Nancy and Stephen Scoper, M.D., through their gift to the University of Virginia, designated to Theological Horizons.
The Capps Lecture in Christian Theology
The Capps Lecture in Christian Theology was an annual series that brought eminent Christian thinkers to the heart of the university with public lectures that explore the relationship between faith and responsibility. It is carried on now as the Scoper Lectures. These events were hosted by Theological Horizons and co-sponsored by the Project on Lived Theology. To browse the resources available for these lectures, click here. For more information on this lecture series, click here.
Theology and the Third Reich Speaker Series
This series invited scholars to give public lectures that helped identify and analyze the differing theological responses to Hitler, to trace doctrinal commitments and scriptural practices as they shaped perceptions of Jews, other non-Aryans, homosexuals, and persons with physical and mental disabilities, and, more generally, to understand the relation between religion and race. To browse the resources available for these lectures, click here.
Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology
Each gathering invited undergraduates, graduate students, and community members into a conversation about the meeting of faith, academy and community, centered around a particular theme or speaker. These conversations were designed to introduce the discipline of lived theology to those who may be unfamiliar with it and to deepen the engagement of those already acquainted.
You can browse all the resources (papers, audio clips and videos) by clicking on the blue button or see our comprehensive list below.
Browse all available occasional lecture resources
Occasional Lectures Listed by Year
Find links to information about our lectures in reverse chronological order below. Click on the speakers’ names to read their biographies and click the links below each title to access each resource. Unless otherwise noted the lectures took place at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.
2024
April 21 – Know Better: Deepening the Bonds of Communal Life – David Brooks
- Watch the lecture.
2022
October 19 – Martin Luther on the Couch: The Enduring Thrill of Erik Erikson’s Young Man Luther – Carlos Eire
- Listen to the lecture.
September 21 – Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Freedom – Clare Carlisle
September 7 – Theological Reflections on the Practice of Clinical Psychiatry – Warren Kinghorn
- Listen to the lecture.
April 3 – Unfinished: The Wisdom of the Generative Self – Kate Bowler
- Watch the lecture.
2021
March 25 – God with Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia – Ansley L. Quiros
April 27 – The Golden Age of the Religious Left: New York City and the Neglected Part of the American Left – Isaac Barnes May
Sept. 15 – Wisdom to Know the Difference: Why Reinhold Niebuhr Isn’t the Theologian We Need Today – Eugene McCarraher
- Watch the lecture.
Sept. 22 – Evangelical Theology in the 19th Century: Thinking after Karl Barth on the Story of Modern Protestant Thought – Charles Marsh
- Watch the lecture.
Sept. 29 – “A Theological Miracle”: The Awkward Brilliance of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Sanctorum Communio – Charles Marsh
Nov. 3 – Letters and Papers from Montgomery, Alabama: The Formation of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Theological Imagination – Charles Marsh
- Watch the lecture.
Nov. 10 – Kingdom Come: King and the Third Way of Nonviolence – Guy Aiken
Nov. 17 – Writing Blackness: A Conversation with Danté Stewart on Theology and Memoir – Danté Stewart
Dec. 1 – Thinking Theologically after Dorothee Soelle on the Future of Christian Faith and Practice – Charles Marsh
- Listen to the lecture.
2020
Feb. 22 – Capps Lecture: Parting Words on Race and Love – John M. Perkins
- Watch the lecture.
Sept. 16 – Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Witness of the Black Freedom Church – Nathan Walton
Dec. 2 – Asian Americans and the U.S. Civil Rights Movements – Jane Hong
Dec. 11 – Globalizing Non-Violence: Before and After King – Isaac Barnes May
2019
May 1 – Keeping the Mystery in the Digital Age – Charles Marsh
- Listen to the lecture.
2018
Feb. 8 – On Simone Weil – Christopher Yates
- Listen to the lecture.
Oct. 18 – Capps Lecture: Speaking God: The Death and Rebirth of Sacred Speech – Jonathan Merritt
- Watch the lecture.
Oct. 30 – Something Is Happening in Memphis: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last Campaign – Greg Thompson
- Listen to the lecture.
2017
Feb. 28 – The Mountaintop as the Valley of the Shadow: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Prophetic Visions from Below – Larycia Hawkins
- Listen to the lecture.
March 14 – Do Guns Make Us Free? A Christian Critique of the Gun Movement – Firmin DeBrabander
- Listen to the lecture.
May 2 – This Worldwide Struggle: Religion and the International Roots of the Civil Rights Movement – Sarah Azaransky
- Listen to the lecture.
Sept. 20 – Bonhoeffer’s Reception of Luther – Michael P. DeJonge
- Listen to the lecture.
Oct. 11 – Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr: Why They Still Matter – Stanley Hauerwas and Eugene McCarraher
- Listen to the lecture.
Oct. 12 – Capps Lecture: Christianity is Madness: Kierkegaard and the Academy – Stanley Hauerwas
- Watch the lecture.
2016
Nov. 1 – Capps Lecture: Has the Dream Become a Nightmare? Prospects for Reconciliation in the Wake of the New Racism – Dr. John M. Perkins
- Watch the lecture.
2015
Jan. 26, Berry College, Mount Berry, Georgia – A Christian for Our Time: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Courageous Protest Against the Nazis – Charles Marsh
- Listen to the lecture.
Oct. 13 – Reinhold Niebuhr as Christian Critic: Public Theology and the American Century – Eugene McCarraher
Nov. 1 – Capps Lecture: Two Themes that Haunt me: Suffering and Grace – Philip Yancey
- Watch the lecture.
Dec. 3 – Lived Theology on Death Row: The Story of Kelly Gissendaner –Jennifer M. McBride
2014
March 4 – A New Era of Bonhoeffer Interpretation – Victoria Barnett
March 20 – Theology, Modernity, and the German University –Tal Howard
March 25 – The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss – David Bentley Hart
May 8 – Parnassus Books, Nashville, Tennessee – Lecture on Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Charles Marsh
- Watch the lecture.
Sept. 24 – Civil Rights Movement in Charlottesville – Paul M. Gaston
Nov. 5 – Open Friendship in a Closed Society: Racial Reconciliation in Mississippi after the Civil Rights Movement – Peter Slade
2013
Feb. 28 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – The Politics of Church: Examining How Churches Engage and Avoid Politics – Kris Norris and Sam Speers
March 21 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – Demons, Angels, and the Search for Reconciliation in South Africa – Allan Boesak
April 18 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – Civil Rights and the Habit of Autobiographical Theological Reflection – Heather Warren
Sept. 17 – History is Lunch series, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi – History is Lunch: The Life and Work of John Perkins – Peter Slade and Kelly Figueroa-Ray
- Listen to the lecture.
Oct. 24 – A White Southerner in the Civil Rights Movement: The Ed King Story – Ed King
- Watch the lecture.
Nov. 1 – Capps Lecture: Leaving Church? Generation Next and the Future of Faith – Diana Butler Bass
Nov. 19 – Led into Mystery: Faith Seeking Answers to Life and Death – John de Gruchy
- Listen to the lecture.
2012
Jan. 24 – Theology and the Third Reich Speaker Series: Martin Luther, the Bible, and the Jewish People – Brooks Schramm
- Listen to the lecture.
Feb. 14 – Theology and the Third Reich Speaker Series: Karl Barth and the Struggle against Fascism – Paul Dafydd Jones
- Listen to the lecture.
Feb. 28 – Theology and the Third Reich Speaker Series: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Confronts Nazi Eugenics and Euthanasia – LeRoy Walters
- Listen to the lecture.
March 21 – Theology and the Third Reich Speaker Series: The Nazi Conscience – Claudia Koonz
- Listen to the lecture.
April 10 – Capps Lecture: Writing About God – Lauren Winner
- Watch the lecture.
April 13 – Wheaton College – Under the Constraint of Grace: The Story of Bonhoeffer’s Conversion – Charles Marsh
- Watch the lecture.
April 17 – Theology and the Third Reich Speaker Series: Constructive Christian Theology after the Holocaust – J. Kameron Carter
- Listen to the lecture.
April 24 – God First Loved Us: Reflections on the Theological Grounds of Liberation – Roberto Goizueta
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
Oct. – Sustainability, Social Justice, and Christian Ethics – Willis Jenkins
- Listen to the lecture.
Oct. 4 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – Seeking the Divine in Mississippi: A Visual Documentation – Cindy Brown
Nov. 8 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – Community Organizing as Spiritual Discipline – Perry Perkins
- Listen to the lecture.
2011
March 28 – Capps Lecture: Daring to Invent the Future of Africa: On Modernity, Politics and the Madness of Christian Faith – Emmanuel Katongole
- Listen to the lecture.
Oct. 21, Lilly Fellows National Conference, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama – Are We Still of Any Use? The Audacious Hope of the Engaged Scholar – Charles Marsh
- Watch the lecture.
Dec. 2 – Spiritual Ideas and Spiritual Journey – Darcey Steinke
- Listen to the lecture.
2010
Feb. 18 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – Challenging the Culture of Debt: Religious Voices and the Financial Crisis – Rachel Anderson
March 11 – American Academy in Berlin – From the Phraseological to the Real: Bonhoeffer in America – Charles Marsh
- Watch the lecture.
March 18 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – From the Mountains to the Shore: Immigrant Labor and the Search for Justice in Virginia – Tim Freilich
2009
Jan. 19 – Abundant Life Speech – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – Charles Marsh
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
Oct. 29 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – ONE: A Theological Reflection on Sabbath and Action to End Extreme Poverty – Adam Phillips
Nov. 4 – Capps Lecture: Holy Ordinary: Locating the Sacred in Literature and Life – Albert J. Raboteau
Nov. 4 – Albert J. Raboteau on “American Salvation” and Other Writings – Albert J. Raboteau
- Listen to the lecture.
Nov. 19 – Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology – Is Healthcare a Human Right?: Theological Reflection on the Health Reform Debate – Rick Mayes
2008
Jan. 15 – Capps Lecture: Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember its Misdeeds – Donald W. Shriver
Feb. 21 – The Rise and Fall of the Confessing Church – Victoria Barnett
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
April 4 – Redemption, Reconciliation, and Creation of Beloved Community: Dr. Martin Luther King’s Christian Vision – Charles Marsh
- Watch the lecture.
2007
Nov. 6 – Capps Lectures: Christian Humanism against Fundamentalism and Secularism, and Christian Identity Amidst Global Contradictions – John de Gruchy
- Read the transcript of Christian Humanism against Fundamentalism and Secularism.
- Read the transcript of Christian Identity Amidst Global Contradictions.
2005
April 27 – Capps Lecture: Control is Good – Trust is Better: Freedom and Security in a “Free World” – Jürgen Moltmann
2003
March 7 – Remembering Vinegar Hill and Its Troubling Legacy – Renae Nadine Shackelford and James Robert Saunders
March 26, University of Southern Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi – Imagining a World without Guns: Lesson in Nonviolent Peacemaking from the American Civil Rights Story – Charles Marsh
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
2002
Feb. 27, Bonhoeffer House, Charlottesville, Virginia – Religion and the Civil Rights Movement – Ed King
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
Sept. 7, Montgomery, Alabama – Montgomery Bus Boycott – Johnnie Carr and Fred Gray
- Watch the lecture.
Oct. 6 – UVA Bioethics Seminar: Do We Need a New Morality? Christian Faith and Bioethics – Wolfgang Huber
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
Oct. 8 – Capps Lecture: Truth, Guilt, Reconciliation: Christian Faith in a Violent World – Wolfgang Huber
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
2001
Jan. 23, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Richmond, Virginia – Holy Beauty: A Reformed Perspective on Aesthetics within a World of Unjust Ugliness – John de Gruchy
- Read the transcript of the lecture.
Feb. 8 – Capps Lecture: Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Justice: A Christian Contribution to More Peaceful Social Environments – Miroslav Volf
- Read the transcript of the lecture.