On February 26-28 at 5:00 PM, Professor Marie Griffith will be speaking as part of the Richard E. Myers Lecture Series at University Baptist Church. Professor Griffith will be giving a series of lectures entitled “Can a Fractured Nation Make Peace? Facing History and Restoring Our Deepest Values.” There are three different lectures included in the series. Read More

In Baptized in Blood, Charles Reagan Wilson has created a significant and well-written study of the South’s civil religion, one of two public faiths in America. Wilson shows how in the wake of the Civil War, southerners adopted the Lost Cause as a way to preserve their cultural identity by blending Christian rhetoric and symbols with the rhetoric and imagery of Confederate tradition. Read More

In Infected Christianity, Alan Davies focuses on five modern “Christs” to examine how the Christian church has succumbed to the infection of racist ideas. Davies shows that the myths of race and nation, innocent in themselves, have evolved into “sacred” myths and histories which not only infected Christianity but have served to legitimize ruling racist elites.   Read More

The Mule Train, about 150 people in twenty mule-drawn wagons from Marks, Mississippi, was determined to make the nation aware of the plight of America’s poor. This was the start of the Poor People’s Campaign, created by Dr. King shortly before he was assassinated. Both The Mule Train and its origin is now mostly forgotten, but The Mule Train commemorates it in this collection of photographs by Roland Freeman and others. Read More

Many people know about Fannie Lou Hamer’s impassioned speech delivered at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, but far fewer people are familiar with the speeches Hamer delivered at the 1968 and 1972 conventions, to say nothing of addresses she gave closer to home, or with Malcolm X in Harlem, or even at the founding of the National Women’s Political Caucus. Read More

The Project on Lived Theology is now accepting applications for the 2019 Summer Internship in Lived Theology, an immersion program designed to complement the numerous existing urban and rural service immersion programs flourishing nationally and globally by offering a unique opportunity to think and write theologically about service. Read More

In The Freedom Schools, Jon N. Hale discusses the Mississippi Freedom Schools, which were formed during 1964 as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer. These schools were started by educators and activists to provide an alternative education for African American students that would facilitate student activism and participatory democracy, and had a crucial role in the civil rights movement as well as the development of progressive education in the United States as a whole. Read More

In The World Made Otherwise, acclaimed author Timothy Gorringe tackles the topic of climate change, which many natural scientists believe will bring civilizational collapse. Gorringe argues that behind this threat is a commitment to false values, embodied in our political, economic, and farming systems. Read More

On Tuesday, October 30, Greg Thompson delivered a guest lecture entitled “Something Is Happening in Memphis: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last Campaign.” Detailing the vision of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., Thompson reflects on King’s work in Memphis with the Sanitation Workers’ Strike. Read More

In this revised second edition of Myths America Lives By, Richard T. Hughes delves anew into the thought of black critics dissatisfied with America’s betrayal of its foundational beliefs. Hughes posits that six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation’s promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Read More