Can I Get a Witness: Dorothy Day and Mahalia Jackson

Posted on March 31, 2016 by PLT Staff

Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2016/2017 Author Series

The SILT 16/17: Can I Get a Witness? author series introduces the SILT participant authors and the historical figures they will be illuminating in their narratives. This week’s featured writers are Carlene Bauer, researching Dorothy Day, and Ralph Eubanks, whose figure is Mahalia Jackson.

Carlene Bauer Ι Figure: Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” -Day

Born at the turn of the century in 1897, Day was a radical during her time, translating her deeply-held spiritual beliefs into prophetic witness to champion social issues. In 1933, she co-founded The Catholic Worker which spawned the Catholic Worker Movement, an organization of houses of hospitality and farming communes that has been replicated throughout the United States and other countries. Day’s legacy continues, and many people have proposed that she be named a saint for her social activism and commitment to her faith.

Carlene Bauer is a writer whose publications include Not That Kind of Girl (2009) and Frances and Bernard (2014). Her work has been published in The Village Voice, Salon, Elle, and The New York Times Magazine. Bauer currently works in and around New York publishing.

Ralph eubanks Ι FIGURE: mahalia jackson (1911-1972)

“Put your mind on the gospel. And remember – there’s one God for all.”
-Jackson

Mahalia Jackson is one of the most revered gospel figures in U.S. history. Her powerful voice helped lead the civil rights movement. Born in 1911 in New Orleans, she achieved international recognition after her music career took off in the late 1940s and she became involved in the efforts of civil rights. Jackson sang at the 1963 March on Washington at the request of Martin Luther King Jr. and remained committed to activism until her death in 1972. Jackson is remembered and loved for her impassioned voice, her deep commitment to spirituality, and her lasting inspiration to listeners of all faiths.

Ralph Eubanks is the Eudora Welty Professor of Southern Studies at Millsaps College. Eubanks has contributed articles to the Washington Post Outlook and Style sections, the Chicago Tribune, Preservation, and National Public Radio. His publications include The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South (2009) and Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi’s Dark Past (2003), which Washington Postbook critic Jonathan Yardley named as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003. Eubanks is a recipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship and has been a fellow at the New America Foundation.

SILT 16/17: Can I Get a Witness? is a two-part SILT that will celebrate scholars, activists, laypeople, and religious leaders whose lived theologies produced and inspired social justice in the United States and will produce a single volume entitled Can I Get a Witness? Stories of Radical Christians in the U.S., 1900-2014. The first meeting will be held at the University of Virginia in June 2016; the second meeting will follow at Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower Campus in June 2017.

Next week’s Can I Get A Witness? author series post will feature Peter Slade and Grace Yia-Hei Kao, who will be presenting on Howard Kester and Yuri Kochiyama, respectively. To view all news posts in this author series, please click here.

For more details about the Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2016/2017: Can I Get A Witness? initiative, click here. We also post updates online using #SILT. To get these and other news updates, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

An Earth Day Conversation with Barbara Kingsolver

Posted on March 28, 2016 by PLT Staff

To Benefit Virginia Organizing

On April 22, 2016, author Barbara Kingsolver will host an Earth Day conversation to discuss the inspirations that have shaped her writing. All proceeds will support Virginia Organizing, a state-wide grassroots organization working to bring long-term, sustainable change to Virginia through a commitment to social justice. The event will begin at 7:00 pm at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville.

From the Paramount Theater’s website, describing a few of Kingston’s honors:

Kingsolver was named one of the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, and received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. The Poisonwood Bible was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize, won the national book award of South Africa, and was an Oprah Book Club selection. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle won numerous prizes including the James Beard award. The Lacuna won Britain’s prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work.

For more information on the event and to buy tickets, click here. To find a recommended publication on the history and work of Virginia Organizing, click here.

Virginia Organizing is a non-partisan statewide grassroots organization dedicated to challenging injustice by empowering people in local communities to address issues that affect the quality of their lives. Virginia Organizing especially encourages the participation of those who have traditionally had little or no voice in our society. By building relationships with individuals and groups throughout the state, Virginia Organizing strives to get them to work together, democratically and non-violently, for change.

Read our monthly newsletter to find out about other happenings in Lived Theology in the news and on the web. Sign up for the newsletter here. To find out more and engage our online conversations please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology.

Can I Get a Witness: Ella Baker and Cesar Chavez

Posted on March 24, 2016 by PLT Staff

Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2016/2017 Author Series

This spring, we will be rolling out our line-up for SILT 16/17: Can I Get a Witness? to introduce our authors and the historical figures they will be illuminating in their narratives. This week’s featured authors are Nichole Flores, writing on Ella Baker, and Daniel Rhodes, writing on Cesar Chavez.

Nichole Flores Ι Figure: Ella Baker (1903-1986)

“One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.” -Baker

Born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Ella Baker stood at the forefront of political and civil rights activism from the 1930s to the 1960s. She played a key role in some of the most influential organizations of the time, including the NAACP, Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Baker continued to fight for social justice and equality until her death in 1986.

Nichole Flores is an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. She was the 2015 recipient of the Catherine Mowry LaCugna Award for best academic essay in theology from the Catholic Theological Society of America for her essay, “Beyond Consumptive Solidarity: An Aesthetic Response to Modern Day Slavery,” and the 2015 recipient of the Circles of Change award for positive contributions to social change from Building Bridges (Denver, Colorado).

Daniel Rhodes Ι Figure: Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)

“History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.” -Chavez

Cesar Chavez was born to migrant field hands near Yuma, Arizona in 1927 and grew up to be a passionate Union leader and labor organizer. Dedicating his life to improving the treatment, pay and working conditions for farm workers, he formed the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which later became United Farm Workers. Chavez employed nonviolent means to bring attention to the plight of farmworkers; hunger strikes are believed to have contributed to his passing in 1993.

Daniel Rhodes is the faculty coordinator of contextual education at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. His work centers on “The History of the Future: Apocalyptic, Community Organizing, and the Theo-politics of Time in an Age of Global Capital.” Rhodes is interested in political theology, broad-based community organizing, capitalism and christianity, globalization, sovereignty and governance, and war and peace studies. His publications include Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible in Community (2009).

SILT 16/17: Can I Get a Witness? is a two-part SILT that will celebrate scholars, activists, laypeople, and religious leaders whose lived theologies produced and inspired social justice in the United States, and will produce a single volume entitled Can I Get a Witness? Stories of Radical Christians in the U.S., 1900-2014. The first meeting will be held at the University of Virginia in June 2016; the second meeting will follow at Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower Campus in June 2017.

Next week’s Can I Get A Witness? author series post will feature Carlene Bauer and Ralph Eubanks, who will be presenting on Dorothy Day and Mahalia Jackson, respectively. To view all news posts in this author series, please click here.

For more details about the Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2016/2017: Can I Get A Witness? initiative, click here. We also post updates online using #SILT. To get these and other news updates, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Featured Fellow Traveler: USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture

Posted on March 21, 2016 by PLT Staff

Exploring the Dynamics of Religious Developments

The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture is a Los Angeles-based initiative dedicated to the local and international networking of religious, civic, and academic communities.

Facilitating new modes of engagement between faith groups and the broader social landscapes that they inhabit, the Center focuses on the four areas of research, training, evaluation, and strategic consulting. The diverse range of topics researched, from moral, social, and political issues and civic engagement to faith communities and religious practices, reflects the Center’s commitment to exploring how religions change and make change in Southern California and across the globe.

From the website:

Some of our recent and ongoing work includes building capacity in Muslim and African American and Latino Christian communities, scholarly research on Pentecostalism in the global South, bridging governmental and congregational disaster preparedness and response programs, and a large study of religious (and irreligious) creativity in Southern California and Seoul…

CRCC’s deep roots in Southern California mean that we remain committed to research in Los Angeles, even as we continue to promote scholarship across disciplinary boundaries, create resources for researchers, policy-makers, communities and thought-leaders, and explore religion’s global reach.

To find this recommended resource on our website, click here. For a more in-depth view of the center, visit their website here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

For more resources from our Fellow Travelers, click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Contributor David Dark Featured in Comment Magazine

Posted on March 15, 2016 by PLT Staff

Theological Reflections on Teaching in Prison

On March 3, 2016, PLT contributor David Dark published a featured essay entitled “The Context of Love is the World: Liturgies of Incarceration” in Comment Magazine. Writing on his experience as a professor whose students include the incarcerated of Nashville, Dark draws on the witness of former pupils and civil rights champion Will Campbell to reflect theologically on his work. He weaves lived theology into honest prose, calling us into a more understanding reception of the flawed human condition and a recognition for the beauty of grace. Dark, a member of a “community of mentors,” comes to a rich conclusion:

As I see it, to pay deep attention to someone else’s story, meditating on experience, circumstance, and the little betrayals that lead to big catastrophes, isn’t to absolve anyone of their responsibilities, but it is a way of taking care, owning up to and mourning that which is common to us, and paying due reverence to the human tragedy.

To read the article in Comment Magazine’s Spring 2016 Issue, click here.

David Dark is an assistant professor at Belmont University in the College of Theology and Christian Ministry and also teaches at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. His publications include Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious (2016), The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (2009) and The Gospel according to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea (2005).

For more of featured writings of our PLT Contributors, click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyWrites. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Friendship Baptist Church Welcomes Contributor Richard Wills

Posted on March 14, 2016 by PLT Staff

Announcing the Pastoral Installation of the Congregation’s Seventh Pastor

On Sunday, February 28, 2016, Reverend Dr. Richard Wills, Sr. was installed as the new pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Hosted by Morehouse College, the installation events featured guest speakers Reverend Dr. Robert M. Franklin, Jr., President Emeritus of Morehouse College and the James T. and Berta R. Laney Professor of Moral Leadership at Emory University, and Reverend Dr. Lawrence E. Carter, Professor of Religion and Dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College. Wills is the seventh pastor to lead the Friendship Baptist Church congregation in the church’s 153-year history.

To read Friendship Baptist Church’s profile of Wills, click here.

Richard Wayne Wills, Sr., pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, has been professionally active as an architect, educator and minister. His publications include Reflections on Our Pastor: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 1954-1960 (1999) co-authored with Wally Vaughn, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Image of God (2009). His forthcoming book, The Pastor King, is to be published with Abingdon Press.

Read our monthly newsletter to find out about other happenings in Lived Theology in the news and on the web. Sign up for the newsletter here. To find out more and engage our online conversations please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology.

Charles Marsh at Boston College: View the Prophetic Voices Lecture

Posted on March 7, 2016 by PLT Staff

Bonhoeffer’s Search for Theology Grounded in Action

On Thursday, October 8, 2015, Charles Marsh delivered the 14th Annual Prophetic Voices Lecture entitled “Bonhoeffer’s Transformative Encounters with the American Prophetic Tradition.” The event was hosted by the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. The Boisi Center website has available an exclusive interview with Marsh, the video and photos of the presentation, a summary of the lecture, and suggested reading related to Bonhoeffer’s experience with America’s faith landscape.

In the interview, Marsh details:

Bonhoeffer is, in a profound sense, a theologian for our time. He speaks to us as a theologian with extraordinary training in not only modern intellectual thought but in biblical studies and in church history. He’s erudite and knowledgeable of the tradition in all of its richness.

At the same time, he’s asking and has the courage to ask probing and disarming questions about what it means to live in a world where we don’t need the idea of God as a hypothesis to resolve most issues related to science and everyday life. What does it mean to think about God at a time when the Western Christian project has become myopic and impoverished?

Bonhoeffer spoke of a world come of age, of a religionless Christianity. He wanted to know how to re-experience the mystery and power of the Gospel in a time when the language of the faith has been so profaned and so misused and eviscerated of mystery and power.

To view the resources related to the lecture, including the lecture and interview, visit the Boisi Center’s website here.

Charles Marsh is the Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies and the director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia. His research interests include modern Christian thought, religion and civil rights, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and lived theology. His publications include Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2014) and God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (1997), which won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

For more event details and up-to-date event listings please click here to visit the PLT Events page. We also post updates online using #PLTevents. To get these and other news updates, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.