Click here .for a recording of the Christ Seminar’s Inaugural Public Meeting
The Christ Seminar is a collaborative of theologians, biblical scholars, activists, artists, and ministers engaging Christologies of the People.
We reckon with the possible futures of “Christ” in the face of climate change, structures of white supremacy, distortions presented by Christian nationalism, legacies of colonialism, violence against women and children, and economic oppression.
At this inaugural session, members of the seminar explored some central questions:
What is Christ up against? What are we up against? And in what ways can the ministry of Jesus be understood today as “activism,” and what becomes possible when we claim it in that way?
SPEAKERS
Rita Nakashima Brock, Rel. M., M.A., Ph.D., has been Senior Vice President and Director of the Shay Moral Injury Center at Volunteers of America since 2017. An award-winning author, her first book was Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power1988). She is co-author of Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us2001), and Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (2008).
Sigríður Guðmarsdóttir is Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Chair of Institute of Theology at the University of Iceland. She is also Full Professor at the Centre of Mission and Global Studies at VID Specialized University, Norway. Sigríður is the author of Tillich and the Abyss: Foundations, Feminism and Theology of Praxis (2016) and several articles in books and journals. She coedited Trading Justice for Peace: Reframing Reconciliation in TRC processes in South Africa, Canada and Nordic Countries (2021).
Pamela Lightsey is the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Meadville Lombard Theological School and Associate Professor of Constructive Theology. Her several publications include Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology (2015), Transforming Service: Reflections of Student Services Professionals in Theological Education (edited with Shonda R. Jones, 2020), and “Blinking Red: The Escalation of a Militarized Police Force and Its Challenges to Black Communities” in Feminist Praxis Against U.S. Militarism (2019).
Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology, Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies, and the Founding Director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt University. His most recent books include Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity (2022), Jesus vs. Caesar: For People Tired of Serving the Wrong God (2018), and No Religion but Social Religion: Liberating Wesleyan Theology (2018).