is a research community based in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. Our goal is to understand the way theological commitments shape the social patterns and practices of everyday life. The heart of the Project's mission is encouraging younger theologians and scholars of religion to embrace theological life as a form of public responsibility. Among an emerging generation of teachers, writers, and researchers, we are discovering a hunger for the opportunity to reconnect the theological enterprise with lived experience, and it is our privilege to provide a public space in which that task can be pursued.
at a 2003 conference
"We are trained to focus on institutional and structural dynamics and to privilege the overt behavior of social actors, but this approach can be reductive. By visiting specific religiously based community building projects, I was able to see theology in action, to see how local Christians draw from theological resources in their traditions to tackle complex socio-political challenges. We have only begun to scratch the surface."
Wallace Best
Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University
NEWS
The Project on Lived Theology welcomes the new members of the Virginia Seminar
The Project on Lived Theology is delighted to welcome the members of the 2012-2015 Virginia Seminar in Lived Theology. The Virginia Seminar will convene yearly for four years and ultimately produce ten single-authored volumes on theology and lived experience.
Members of the seminar are:
Valerie Cooper
University of Virginia
David Dark
Vanderbilt University
Shannon Gayk
Indiana University
Amy Laura Hall
Duke Divinity School
Russell Jeung
San Francisco State University
John Kiess
Loyola University Maryland
Samuel T. Lloyd III
Trinity Church Boston
Jennifer M. McBride
Wartburg College
Vanessa L. Ochs
University of Virginia
Learn more about the Virginia Seminar and the new members here.
Spring speaker series, Theology in the Third Reich, underway
Learn about the speakers, view the schedule, and listen to lectures here.
Call for Applications: The Summer Internship in Lived Theology
The Project on Lived Theology is now accepting applications from University of Virginia undergraduates for the 2012 Summer Internship in Lived Theology. The Lived Theology internship program complements the numerous existing urban and rural service immersion programs flourishing nationally and globally by offering a unique opportunity to pursue service as a theological activity.
To find out more about the internship and how to apply, click here.
Mark Gornik wins Christianity Today award
Mark Gornik's Virginia Seminar book, Word Made Global: Stories of African Christianity in New York City, won the 2012 Christianity Today Book Award in the Missions/Global Affairs category. Read the article here.
Christianity Today interviews Virginia Seminar member Alan Jacobs
Alan Jacobs reflects on his book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Read the interview here.
Virginia Seminar Member Patricia Hampl talks about her first love: music
Music with Minnesotans on Minnesota public radio featured Patricia Hampl and her musical influences on their December 14 broadcast. Read the article or listen to the program here.
Civil Rights Digital Archive launches for public use
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.
Visit the archive here.
Read an interview with Graduate Research Assistant Kelly West Figueroa-Ray, who both conceptualized and managed this project.
Project DVD with John Perkins and Charles Marsh
If you missed the Lived Theology event Let Justice Roll Down, email us for a complementary DVD of the dialogue between Dr. Perkins and Dr. Marsh.