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 Heather Warren, researching John Ryan, and Susan Glisson, whose figure is Lucy Randolph Mason.
Heather warren Ι Figure: john ryan (1869-1945)
“A man’s dignity is outraged when he is deprived of the opportunity to live a reasonable life, in order that some other man or men may enjoy the superfluities of life.” –Ryan
John Ryan was the foremost social justice advocate and theologian in the Catholic Church during the first half of the 20th century. An economist with a clear vision for social reform, Ryan was revered for his influential Ph.D. dissertation on minimum wage legislation and the critically important Bishop’s Program of Social Reconstruction, issued by the National Catholic War Council in the name of American Bishops in 1919 and influential to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Some of his accomplishments include presiding as the Director of the National Catholic Welfare Council’s Social Action Department and being the first Catholic priest to provide the invocation at a presidential inauguration. Made a domestic prelate (Monsignor) by the Catholic Church in 1933, Ryan died in 1945 as the most well known and influential social action advocate in the Catholic Church.

Heather Warren is an associate professor at the University of Virginia in the Department of Religious Studies where she specializes in the history of American religious life and thought from the late-nineteenth century to the present. Her research has also carried her into the field of American religious autobiography. Her publications include Theologians of a New World Order: Rheinhold Niebuhr and the Christian Realists, 1920-1948 (1997).
susan glisson Ι FIGURE: lucy randolph mason (1882-1959)
Born the daughter of an Episcopal clergyman in 1882, Lucy Randolph Mason held strong social convictions early on and dedicated her life to the labor and civil rights movements. Following her time with the Richmond Young Women’s Christian Association from 1914-1923, she was appointed the General Secretary of the National Consumers League, the leading national advocate of fair labor standards, and worked closely with the New Deal relief and welfare agencies. Five years later Mason became the Southeast public relations representative for the Congress of Industrial Organizations, negotiating on behalf of organized labor in unwelcoming communities. For the rest of her life, she worked to build bridges between organized labor and fought against segregation to end white supremacy in the South. In 1952 Mason was honored with the Social Justice Award from the National Religion and Labor Foundation; she retired soon after and died in 1959.

Susan M. Glisson has served as the Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation’s executive director since 2002. Glisson specializes in the history of race and religion in the United States, especially in the black struggle for freedom. She has numerous publications, has been quoted widely in the media and has supported community projects throughout the state for the Institute since its inception. Susan’s first publication, “Peanut Butter Crisscrosses” appeared in the Warren Baptist Church cookbook when she was 20 years old.
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 Therese Lysaught, who will be presenting on Sr. Mary Stella Simpson. To view all news posts in this author series, please click here.
On the Vital Connection between Religion and Global Health
Rediscovering the Bible in Community
“I was talking about all the conditions that were confronting southern workers, particularly women… and they listened gladly because they had never heard it from the pulpit, and they felt that was what the church ought to be saying.”–Kester
“Remember that consciousness is power. Tomorrow’s world is yours to build.” –Kochiyama
Students Look Forward to Bright Futures
Alex was recently admitted into the University of Michigan’s Summer Research Opportunity Program. The summer program aims to provide intensive research experience to students who intend to obtain a Ph.D. in a field where they are underrepresented. Alex aims to obtain a Ph.D. in sociology, which he hopes to use examine and document social issues. For this summer, Alex will be working under the guidance of Dr. Sarah Burgard, an associate professor of sociology and epidemiology, on the Michigan Recession and Recovery Study. Dr. Burgard’s project aims to examine the impact of the recession on families, the effectiveness of social welfare programs, and health and socioeconomic disparities between Black and White families. According to Alex, this project is precisely the line of work that he hopes to do in the future. He is extremely excited about the opportunity to work on a project that may potentially have a positive impact on struggling families.
A second year studying pre-medicine, Mareike has been accepted into the interdisciplinary Distinguished Majors Program in Human Biology. The Human Biology major allows students the opportunity to investigate the interplay between biology and society with the help of faculty from almost every school at the University, including the College of Arts and Sciences, the Institute for Practical Ethics, the Center for Global Health, the Law School, and the Medical School. Intended to prepare a small, select group of undergraduates to address the ethical, legal and policy issues raised by developments in the life sciences, requirements of the program include a fourth-year capstone seminar and the submission and formal presentation of a major’s thesis following independent research. Mareike is thrilled to join a program whose interdisciplinary curriculum she feels will tremendously support her aspirations of becoming a physician-scientist heavily involved in international medical mission work.
“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
“Put your mind on the gospel. And remember – there’s one God for all.”
To Benefit Virginia Organizing
Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2016/2017 Author Series
“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
Nichole Flores
“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
Daniel Rhodes
Exploring the Dynamics of Religious Developments
Theological Reflections on Teaching in Prison