Today’s guest is speaker, writer and activist, Lisa Sharon Harper. Lisa is the Chief Church Engagement Officer at Sojourners and has written extensively on shalom and governance, immigration reform, health care reform, poverty, racial and gender justice, climate change, and transformational civic engagement. CJ Kingdom-Grier sat down with her to discuss her views on patriarchy, reparations, and orthodoxy.
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Today’s guest is speaker, writer and activist, Lisa Sharon Harper. Lisa is the Chief Church Engagement Officer at Sojourners and has written extensively on shalom and governance, immigration reform, health care reform, poverty, racial and gender justice, climate change, and transformational civic engagement. CJ Kingdom-Grier sat down with her to discuss her views on patriarchy, reparations, and orthodoxy.
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Monday September 30 at 1:30 P.M. in Mulder Chapel
Faith Following Ferguson: Five Years Later
Five years have passed since the killing of 18 year old Michael Brown by a Ferguson, MO police officer. Brown’s killing sparked a protest movement for racial justice that has not been seen since the Civil Rights movement. In her book, Ferguson and Faith, Dr. Leah Gunning Francis explored the role of local clergy in this movement and the various ways their faith commitments compelled them to join in. She has since reconnected with many of these clergy to learn about what’s been happening these past five years. What have been some of the effects of this movement on the St. Louis region? How have clergy continued to live out their public faith now that the cameras have gone? In this lecture, Dr. Gunning Francis will reflect on these learnings and their implications for our nation for such a time as this.
Bio:
Dr. Leah Gunning Francis is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Dr. Gunning Francis is also the author of the book Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community (Chalice Press, 2015). She interviewed more than two dozen clergy and young activists who were actively involved in the movement for racial justice in Ferguson and beyond. Dr. Gunning Francis researched and wrote Ferguson and Faith while serving as the Associate Dean for Contextual Education and Assistant Professor of Christian Education at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
Ferguson and Faith is a collection of stories of courage and hope. Dr. Gunning Francis gleaned from these stories seeds of possibilities that, if nurtured, could serve us well into the future. These are the stories that were rarely imaged on television, yet they are integral to the fight for justice in Ferguson and resonate with the struggle for human dignity around the country.
In 2012, Dr. Gunning Francis was awarded the prestigious Engaged Scholars Fellowship to study issues of risk among middle-class African American young men. She argues that the meta-narrative about young black men puts all of them “at risk,” regardless of socioeconomic class, and utilizes the narrated experiences of black mothers to construct a new narrative about young black men that honors their humanity and is concerned for their well-being.
Dr. Gunning Francis’ additional research interests focus on transformative education as reflected in her doctoral dissertation, Beyond “Band-Aids” and Bootstraps: Toward a Womanist Vision of Christian Education as Social Transformation. Her writing reflects her commitment to the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of women, men and children; and highlights her particular interest in underserved and minority communities.
Dr. Gunning Francis has provided pastoral leadership for congregations in Georgia, Illinois and Ohio. She has received numerous awards to include the Candler School of Theology’s G. Ray Jordan award for excellence in integrating academic study with constructive leadership and service, and the Fund for Theological Education’s Doctoral Fellow Award. In 2015, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Fontbonne University.
Dr. Gunning Francis earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Hampton University; a Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University; and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.
A native of Willingboro, New Jersey, Dr. Gunning Francis is married to Rev. Rodney Francis. They live in Indianapolis with their tween-aged children. To learn more about Dr. Gunning Francis visit www.leahgunningfrancis.com.
At 2:00 P.M. on Thursday November 2, the public is invited to join Lennard J. Davis, author and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago for a lecture in Mulder Chapel. Davis will be presenting an all-day training to the staff and faculty of Western Theological Seminary on “Disability as an Aspect of Diversity.”
“I grew up in a Deaf family where I spoke sign language and participated in Deaf culture,” writes Davis, “Yet I did not know much about Deafness or disability until 1990 when I became involved with CODA, the organization of children of Deaf adults. Then my interests shifted from the study of the novel to disability studies. I became intrigued by the idea of normalcy and how it had evolved in our culture.”
In addition to his role as professor, Dr. Davis is also director of Project Biocultures, a think-tank devoted to issues around the intersection of culture, medicine, disability, biotechnology, and the biosphere. His works on disability include Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body (Verso, 1995), which won the 1996 Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights’ annual award for the best scholarship on the subject of intolerance in North America, and The Disability Studies Reader (4th Ed., Routledge, 2013).
Davis’s memoir My Sense of Silence (University of Illinois Press, 2000), was chosen Editor’s Choice Book for the Chicago Tribune, selected for the National Book Award for 2000, and nominated for the Book Critics Circle Award for 2000. He has appeared on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air to discuss the memoir, which describes his childhood in a Deaf family. Davis has also edited his parents’ correspondence Shall I Say a Kiss: The Courtship Letters of a Deaf Couple, 1936-38 (Gallaudet University Press, 1999).
Davis is a co-founder of the Modern Language Association’s Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession, and he is on the board of several academic journals. Having written widely for newspapers and magazines, Davis is also the author of a novel entitled The Sonnets (State University of New York Press, March 2001). A collection of his essays entitled Bending Over Backwards: Disability, Dismodernism, and Other Difficult Positions was published by New York University Press in August 2002.
His most recent book on the Americans With Disabilities Act was published in 2015, the 25th anniversary of the Act by Beacon Press. Davis has written numerous articles in The Nation, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Chronicle of Higher Education and other print media. He has also been a commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and appeared on Morning Edition, This American Life, Odyssey, The Leonard Lopate Show and other NPR affiliates. His current interests include disability-related issues; literary and cultural theory; genetics, race, identity; and biocultural issues.
“I have come to see that disability studies is imperative,” he says. “It is crucial that students in elementary and secondary school, as well as students in the university, grow up in close contact with people with all kinds of disabilities. It is crucial that disability studies be included in the curricula of schools so that when Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement are studied, when films on Stonewall are screened, Chicano authors are read — that disability history and culture be included as well from the accomplishments of Vietnam Vets and Ron Kovic to the Berkeley movement led by disability activist Ed Roberts to the Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet University. The drafting of the ADA should be studied the way that the drafting of the Declaration of Independence is studied. Students should be able to read the work of Nancy Mairs or Andre Dubus, to know about the disabilities of artists and writers like James Joyce, Harriet Martineau, and William DeKooning, as well as the more obvious Beethoven or Ray Charles.”
“Disability studies matters because it points out the obvious, the common, the things no one notices because most of those ‘no ones’ see themselves as living in the mirage of being normal.”
Please join us on November 2 for this important lecture.
In this episode Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah discusses his own faith journey and how it influences his work in justice and racial reconciliation in the church.
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In this episode Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah discusses his own faith journey and how it influences his work in justice and racial reconciliation in the church.
The 7th Annual Leonard F. Stoutemire Lecture in Multicultural Ministry
“Evangelicalism and the Failure of Racial Reconciliation”
with Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
The Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism
North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL
September 19, 2017 at 1:30pm in Mulder Chapel
Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah draws from his book, Return to Justice, authored with Gary Vanderpol, as he discusses the lessons learned from early attempts at racial reconciliation among U.S. evangelicals in the 1960s and 70s.
A greater awareness of the need for racial reconciliation has been noticeable in US evangelicalism over the last decade. More churches are seeking to become ethnically diverse as society moves towards greater diversity. While many streams engage this topic, we are oftentimes unaware of historical examples of attempts at racial reconciliation among US evangelicals. In this lecture, Dr. Rah examines the rise of African-American Evangelicalism in the 1960s and 1970s. Through key figures and stories, we will seek lessons to be learned from early attempts at racial reconciliation among US evangelicals.
Dr. Rah founded the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic church focused on urban ministry and committed to living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context of Cambridge, MA.
He previously served as an InterVarsity staff worker at MIT.
Suggested readings to prepare for lecture:
- Chapter 5: “African American Evangelicals” in Return to Justice (Brazos, 2016).
- “Epilogue” to Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament (IVP Books, 2015).
In addition to co-writing Return to Justice (Brazos, 2016), Dr. Rah has written Prophetic Lament (A Commentary on the book of Lamentations from IVP Books, 2015); The Next Evangelicalism (IVP Books, 2009); Many Colors (Moody, 2010); and Forgive Us (Zondervan, 2014).
Videos:
