Lived Theology Road Trip: Singing in Oxford

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This is the fourth (and final) in a series of blog posts with reports and reflections by Peter Slade on his two-week lived theology road trip from New Orleans to Memphis in September 2013.

Paris Yates Chapel

From Jackson I drive north to Oxford, home of the University of Mississippi and a number of my old friends. That Wednesday evening, I slide in to a pew at the back of the campus chapel for the weekly gathering of the Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). The new chapel building is rapidly filling with conservative white Presbyterian youth. Women in shorts, makeup and silk-screened T-shirts reading, “Tri Delta Crush Party” and “Alpha Gamma Delta Swap” pass me as they find their seats. The men are wearing a uniform of baseball caps and check cotton shirts. Read More

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Transformation at Oak Park Apartments

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Twenty years ago, Virginia Seminar member Russell Jeung moved into Oak Park apartments in Oakland, California, hoping to make a difference. Looking back, he realizes that he is the one who has been changed. Read his story in this Christianity Today article, and stay tuned for more on Russell’s life and work at Oak Park in his Virginia Seminar book. Read More

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Lived Theology Road Trip: The Speed of Change in Jackson, Mississippi

This is the third in a series of blog posts with reports and reflections by Peter Slade on his two-week lived theology road trip from New Orleans to Memphis in September 2013.

I arrived at Redeemer Presbyterian Church at 9:30 in time for Sunday school. Redeemer is a young, vibrant, interracial church in Jackson, Mississippi. As I waited in a corridor for the first service to let out, I saw an older African American gentleman in a light brown suit sitting patiently. I realized that I was waiting for Sunday school with James Meredith, the man who integrated the University of Mississippi back in 1962. I told him how much I had enjoyed reading his recent book A Mission from God: A Memoir and Challenge for America. Read More

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Lived Theology Road Trip: New Orleans and CCDA

This is the first of a series of blog posts with reports and reflections by Peter Slade on his two-week lived theology road trip from New Orleans to Memphis in September 2013.Sign reading: Laisez Le Bon Temps Roulez

I flew to new Orleans to attend the annual conference of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA). The CCDA is a network of churches and ministries working in the impoverished, mostly urban, neighborhoods– the so-called “forgotten places of empire.” Its guiding principles are crystallized in John Perkins’s three Rs of Relocation, Redistribution and Reconciliation. I was one of around nearly 3,000 who arrived in the city for what Charles Marsh has described as “a mix of mass meeting, Billy Graham crusade, and SNCC planning session circa 1963” (The Beloved Community, 2005, 185). Read More

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Project on Lived Theology launches new book on John M. Perkins

As mentioned in our last news post, the Project on Lived Theology is celebrating John Perkins through the launch of a new published work Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins, edited by Peter Slade, Charles Marsh, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel.

On July 11 of this year, the essays written for the 2009 Spring Institute for Lived Theology were published in Mobilizing for the Common Good. Peter Slade describes the work as an exploration of “the life and legacy” of John M. Perkins, influential community organizer, minister, speaker, writer, and Civil Rights activist. Read More

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What is the Project on Lived Theology?

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A new school year is upon us! Allow us to (re)introduce ourselves.

The Project on Lived Theology is a research community housed in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. Our mission is to understand the social consequences of theological commitments, to foster collaborative research between religion scholars and practitioners, and to discern the wisdom of faith lived in service to others. Read More

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