Mark Wingfield and Maina Mwaura wrote on PLT Director Charles Marsh’s newest book, Evangelical Anxiety, for the Baptist News Global.

“And as someone who has walked the difficult road of unraveling the unhealthy messages of a narrow-minded faith, Marsh sees one other reason for evangelical anxiety: ‘It’s time for us to really roll up our sleeves and try to make sense of what emotional and psychological purposes are being fulfilled in the way these men and women think about God and how they use their faith as a weapon.'”

The full article is available here.

Jonathan Malesic recently published two short essays, an essay for Notre Dame Magazine and an op-ed in the New York Times. The first essay is about a time when he volunteered to lead a Dungeons & Dragons campaign and the similarities to teaching college classes, connecting the narrative arc to the intellectual arc. The second essay is an op-ed about op-eds, and the perception that all U.S. college students are woke and out of control liberals.

Excerpt from “It’s Not How You Play the Game” in Notre Dame Magazine: “I wonder now if my subconscious mind got me to obsess over D&D so it could show me how self-destructive my obsession was with a job that rarely gave back what I put into it. The fantasy game wasn’t an escape from my real-life problems with work. It was the dress rehearsal for leaving them behind for good.”

Excerpt from “College Students Have Something to Say. It’s Just Not What You’d Expect” in New York Times: “Reading these essays is a deeply reassuring exercise. I see hope for the future of civic life in these students who are brave (or perhaps naïve) enough to examine an issue in their community and make their best case about it in writing. They know what matters to their readers and draw on shared vocabulary and experience. At their best, these essays exhibit all that opinion writing ought to be.”

Read more about the two essays here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – Theological Horizons, in partnership with Central Virginia Community Justice, Project on Lived Theology at UVA, and UVA Arts, is mobilizing local churches, justice organizations, student groups and community activists to welcome Equal Justice Institute Founder and New York Times bestselling author Bryan Stevenson for the 2nd annual Scoper Lecture in Christian Thought at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, March 28, 2023 in the John Paul Jones Arena.

The address, titled “Act Justly, Love Mercy: Exploring the Heart of Equal Justice,” will explore the spiritual foundations of Mr. Stevenson’s work as a pioneer in the criminal justice field addressing systemic racial injustice and working on behalf of those who have been wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. To date, nearly 2500 of the arena’s 3800 available seats have been sold for this unprecedented event, which has also mobilized almost 50 Community Partners and Event Sponsors that represent a diverse range of local schools, faith groups, justice and community organizations.

“Bryan Stevenson is an inspiration for so many of our students, and his message of hope is so timely for our wider university community which is still grieving from the tragic shooting last fall,” said Karen Wright Marsh, Executive Director for Theological Horizons. “Seeing the way groups and individuals from across the ideological spectrum are rallying to support this event is such an encouragement that despite our painful history, differences, and divisions we can still connect around a shared desire for justice and mercy to prevail.”

Mr. Stevenson’s bestselling book, Just Mercy, recounts the story of one of his first cases in which he secured an acquittal for Walter McMillan, an African-American man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. In 2019 the story was adapted into the box-office hit Just Mercy and the HBO documentary True Justice.

“To see this community coming together around the message of racial justice is really hopeful,” said Eddie Howard, Executive Director of Abundant Life Ministries and a member of the event’s Host Committee. “We’ve tolerated a lopsided justice system for too long, harming our most vulnerable communities. It’s time we follow Mr. Stevenson’s example and listen to what our faith has to say about caring for ‘the least of these’.”

The March 28 event is the second annual Scoper Lecture Series in Christian Thought, which brings eminent scholars to the University of Virginia to explore the breadth of Christian expression in science, medicine, culture, and the arts. The series is generously funded by UVA parent and past UVA assistant professor of ophthalmology Stephen Scoper, M.D. and his wife Nancy. Last year’s speaker was New York Times bestselling author and Duke associate professor, Kate Bowler, PhD.

“Too often, faith perspectives can be unhelpfully narrow,” Dr. Scoper said. “It’s so important we hear from people like Bryan whose inspiring work can challenge and stretch our understanding of what really matters.”

This event is open to the public. Tickets may be purchased for $8 (plus fees) via Ticketmaster at www.theologicalhorizons.org/Stevenson. For groups of 20 or more tickets are discounted to $6/person (plus fees) or guests may purchase a livestream ticket for $4. This event will not be recorded.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

“Are We Still of Any Use?” Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Christian Witness in a Perilous Age

Christmas 1942 would find Dietrich Bonhoeffer with his family and with his best friend Eberhard Bethge. It would be their last one together. Shortly before New Year’s Day, Bonhoeffer wrote a letter to his closest comrades in the Berlin conspiracy to overthrow the Hitler regime. The letter would come to be known by a name suggesting casual self-reflection: “After Ten Years: A Reckoning Made at New Years 1943”, though there is nothing casual in its intent to survey the ruins of the German nation and its apostate churches.

Reading “After Ten Years”, we meet Bonhoeffer in his last days of freedom and at the height of his intellectual powers. Promising that the future will be uncertain and that personal goals will remain unfulfilled, everything in the essay – and let’s call it that, since there is no salutation, complimentary close or other elements of a letter – rushes toward the one inescapable question: “Are we still of any use?”

Read Charles Marsh’s new essay on this essential late work.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

People Get Ready tells the stories of twelve twentieth-century activists whose faith led them to speak prophetically and work peacefully toward justice for the marginalized.

Join us LIVE on Youtube at 6:30 EST on January 6 for a conversation with the book editors and some of the contributors to see what this book is all about and learn how some distinct people of faith have contributed to the pursuit of justice.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice
 
We are excited to announce the release or our newest book, People Get Ready. The book is available on January 10 and can be pre-ordered now.

From the Publisher: “Narrated by some of the most galvanizing voices of the current moment, this collection of succinct and evocative biographies tells the stories of twelve modern apostles who lived the gospel mission and unsettles what we think we know about Christianity’s role in American politics.”
 
“As the spiritual successor to Can I Get a Witness?, People Get Ready presents a diverse cast of twentieth-century ‘saints’ who bore witness to their faith with unapologetic advocacy for the marginalized. From novelists to musicians to scientists, these courageous men and women rose to the challenges of their times. Just so, readers will reflect on their legacies in light of the challenges of today.”

“The 12 people profiled in this fascinating collection of were indeed, as the title suggests, ready to pursue justice often against great odds. All are well served by the authors, who do not hesitate to point out flaws while celebrating their subjects’ contributions.” –Booklist

“The sharp biographical sketches affirm that faith can fuel progressive action and illuminate complexities. The stories will inspire and discomfit.” –Publishers Weekly

“I hope to take up later the subject of ‘example’ and its place in the New Testament,” Bonhoeffer wrote in one of his last letters to Eberhard. It is our hope that People Get Ready contributes towards this unfinished project.

Contributors: Jacqueline A. Bussie, Carolyn Renée Dupont, Mark R. Gornik, Jane Hong, Ann Hostetler, M. Therese Lysaught, Charles Marsh, Mallory McDuff, Ansley L. Quiros, Daniel P. Rhodes, Peter Slade, Jemar Tisby, Shea Tuttle, and Lauren F. Winner.

The book is a product of The Project on Lived Theology’s 2019/20 SILT.

Pre-order your copy here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

PLT Director Charles Marsh unpacks different ways of understanding anxiety and depression from the lens of religion for his latest article in Religion & Politics.

“In those hours against unspeakable tragedy, I understood, once again, that the strongest antidote to fear is the knowledge that we are not alone.”

Read the article here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

This Trinity Forum Reading features Bonhoeffer’s essay “After Ten Years,” in which he takes an unflinching look at the tension between public responsibility and private virtue. Bonhoeffer wrote “After Ten Years” just months before his arrest by the Gestapo. Intended in part to encourage his friends with an account of their time together, “After Ten Years” also answers questions about his own reasoning in deciding to participate in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

Writing to his close friends after years of discouraging and seemingly fruitless resistance to the Nazi regime, growing chaos and danger, and the demoralizing complicity and cowardice of the German church, Bonhoeffer wrestles with the question: in the midst of the deep exhaustion, distorting fear, and disorienting moral confusion that attends resistance to evil, who stands fast? With a provocative and insightful introduction by scholar Charles Marsh, and a new (previously unpublished) translation of Bonhoeffer’s poem “Who Am I?” this Reading delves into the call of moral responsibility, the necessity of community, and the meaning of peace.

Readings are shipping now.

The essay is introduced with a Foreword by Charles Marsh, who is a Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies and director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous books, including God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights, which won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion, and Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a PEN award finalist.

You can order your copy today here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.