Join the Theology Workshop for the second session of our “Embodiment, Sexuality, and Religion” theme, as Lauren Osborne, PhD candidate in Islamic Studies, presents the syllabus for a course she is designing on “Religion and the Senses.” This is a unique opportunity to workshop a syllabus, helping our colleague think through course objectives, readings, and assignments related to this fascinating and wide-ranging material — and along the way, considering together the role of sensuality in the analysis and teaching of religion. Lauren describes her vision for this mid-level undergraduate course: “Taking a broad perspective across a range of religious traditions, this course examines the various modes of the human senses and sensory information in relation to religious experience. It is divided into six units: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and an additional unit on questions of disability and difference.”

A copy of the syllabus, which participants would be recommended (but not required) to review in advance, will be sent out through the Theology Workshop listserv. Larisa Reznik, PhD candidate in Theology, will respond. A toothsome and aromatic lunch (pizza) will be served.

Please join the Theology Workshop for the first session on our Winter Quarter theme: “Embodiment, Sexuality, and Religion.” We will have a presentation by Bryce Rich, PhD student in Theology, and will discuss material from his essay, “Reinterpreting Baptism: An Ongoing Dialogue,” to be published in June as part of a collection entitled, Queering Christianity: Making a Place at the Table for LGBTQI Christians. This session is co-hosted with The Sacred Flame. Kyle Rader, PhD candidate in Theology, will respond.

DETAILS:

ABSTRACT:
For nearly 45 years the Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) have brought together people of various faith traditions, socio-economic backgrounds, orientations, and gender expressions in a denomination with a primary ministry to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and those who love them.  Along the way MCC churches have worked to bridge various divides between Jews and Christians, Sacramentalists and Memorialists, straights and gays, men and women.  But in the resulting wealth of theological diversity and practice, questions continue to (re)appear around Baptism.  Join us for a look at some of the ongoing theological issues – both theoretical and pastoral – that churches concerned with both sexual and sacramental identity must wrestle with even today.  Certainly not isolated issues of the “gay church,” many of these questions are in play wherever traditional distinctions are wearing away in the face of declining denominational identities, the mobility of Christian worshipers, and the call to interact with new realities of human embodiment in society.

Some of the current issues include:

* Open Table practice and its relation to Baptism
* The role of ecumenical dialogue and its importance in articulating denominational theologies and practices
* The relationship between Baptism, the Church as Body of Christ, and local church membership in a denomination that promotes radical inclusivity
* Rebaptism for various reasons including the desires of those who have undergone gender reassignment
* Inclusive language and the Trinitarian baptismal formula
* The continuing tension between pedobaptism and credobaptism

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Winter Quarter Theme: “Embodiment, Sexuality, and Religion”

In her poem “Cages,” Jane Kenyon writes of our “long struggle to be at home in the body, this difficult friendship.”  Indeed, human beings have long wrestled with the meaning of their own embodiment—its pain and pleasure, vulnerability and vitality, creativity and corruptibility.  At times the body is a battlefield, the place where violence is enacted, power displayed, suffering endured, enemies confronted.  At other times, we sing with Walt Whitman of “the body electric,” a wondrous composition of limbs and lips and great delight.  Theologians, too, have long struggled to understand the meaning and cultivation of human embodiment in terms of their respective faiths, interpretations of sacred texts, and doctrinal commitments.

This quarter, the Theology Workshop invites reflection and conversation on questions of embodiment: What does it mean to have a body? How do we, as theologians, scriptural scholars, anthropologists and sociologists, ministerial and medical practitioners—embodied people all!—wrestle with this “difficult friendship” from the perspectives of our own orientations towards or within religion?

As a bonus to top off our quarter-long exploration of “Theology in Public,” the Theology Club (social hinge between the Workshop and the Department) invites you to join us at the Pub for drinks on us and casual conversation with three of our own colleagues — Neil Ellingson, Tim Kim, and Andrew Packman — who are in the process of planting a church in the Chicago area.

We’ll chat about what it means to be “church” today and find out what the process of church planting looks like from the inside.   Most of all, we’ll relax and take a deep breath as the end of the quarter draws near.

All are welcome!

Wednesday, Dec. 5th
8:00 pm
The Pub (basement of Ida Noyes)

Looking forward to seeing you there! And watch this space and the email listserve for winter quarter Workshop updates, including the call for papers…

-Mary Emily and Aaron

The Theology Workshop, in collaboration with the Dean’s Office and the Late Antiquity & Byzantium Workshop, is delighted to invite you to the capstone event of our autumn quarter sequence on “Theology in Public”: a lecture and discussion with Derek Krueger, Joe Rosenthal Excellence Professor of Religious Studies (and Program Faculty, Women’s and Gender Studies), University of North Carolina Greensboro; and President, Byzantine Studies Association of North America.

Professor Krueger’s presentation falls at the membrane between public and private: the forms of subjectivity represented and cultivated in the liturgical practices of late antique Christianity. Byzantine Orthodox liturgy presented portraits of the self in the first person singular.  Through hymns and prayers, Byzantine Christians received models for how they might have access to themselves.  In the sixth century, the greatest Byzantine liturgical poet, Romanos the Melodist, wrote extended verse sermons expanding scenes from the biblical lectionary cycle and giving voice to minor characters from the Gospels.  And yet, when he explored his characters’ interior lives, Romanos was less interested in their distinctiveness and more focused on their conformity to generic patters of self-expression.  In a series of hymns where he explored “the mind” of his biblical subjects, he showed them engaging in typological exegesis to construct the self as sinner in need of salvation.

Liturgy, then, is the crucial site of ‘public’ religiosity with which we end our formal workshop program for the quarter. This event is free and open to the public, with no preparation expected.

Note: Prior to the lecture, there will be an informal conversation with Professor Krueger for any students active or interested in the challenges and opportunities of academic work on late antiquity, Byzantium, and the Christian East. Participants from the Theology, LAByz, Early Christianity Workshops, and any others whose interests overlap, are most welcome to meet and speak with an eminent figure in the field. 3:00-4:00 pm, Swift 200.

Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance, please contact Aaron in advance at athollander@uchicago.edu.

Please join the Theology Workshop and the Religions in American Culture Workshop for a jointly hosted presentation on the Occupy movement in contemporary America, with Therese Nelson, PhD student in Anthropology & Sociology of Religion. Mary Emily Duba and Greg Chatterley will add texture to the discussion from the vantage points of the two hosting workshops.

Abstract:

In the 16th century, Thomas More coined the word utopia to describe a mythical, superior society. In this presentation, Nelson will argue that Occupy is a utopian community in the tradition of other American utopias, communities whose values inspire their participants to act in concert for what they perceive to be a better world. The movement is not idyllic, but is committed to shared ideals. Occupiers’ enthusiasm for their utopia takes on the sacred character of religion in both structure and substance. This presentation trains a microscope on the interior workings of the Occupy Chicago movement in order to learn how a group committed to high ideals creates and defends its ethos as it seeks to operate in a world of unforgiving realities, hard choices, and imperfect human nature.

Lunch will be provided. No preparation is expected of workshop participants, but the paper will be available through the Workshop listserves for those who wish to read the paper in advance. Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance, please contact Aaron in advance at athollander@uchicago.edu.

Monday, Oct 29th
12:00-1:20 pm
Swift 201

The Theology Workshop continues exploring our fall theme–Theology in Public–by reflecting on the practice of theology in the particularly vulnerable and marginalized “publics” where Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) takes place.
CPE is a nationwide educational initiative that places ministry students of diverse religious backgrounds in hospital and hospice settings, as well as social service organizations, prisons, and street ministries, to serve as chaplains: ministers of healing, listening, solidarity, advocacy, and companionship.  Practicing pastoral theology at the bedside, in the prison, and on the streets can present special challenges and insights for the academic study of theology.

Our panelists will reflect on how accompanying sick, lonely, and displaced people required them to re-imagine such theological categories as healing, redemption, and incarnation, and how the space of the settling itself — sanitized or dingy, bustling or abandoned, locked down or out of doors — shaped their theological practices.

Join us on Monday, October 29th, for a panel discussion with Ruthie Coffman, Topher Elderkin, Hannah Gustafson, and Thandiwe Gobledale, moderated by Kevin Boyd, Director of Field Education at the Divinity School and Supervisory Candidate with the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education.  All are welcome, and no advance preparation is required.

This workshop is free and open to the public.  Lunch will be served.

Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance, please contact Aaron in advance at athollander@uchicago.edu.

Monday, October 15, 12:00-1:20 pm. Swift 201.

“Two Traditions in Virtue Ethics: Christian Virtue and the Depoliticization of Aristotle”

The Theology Workshop will welcome Jacob Swenson, PhD Student in Philosophy, for a presentation and discussion on the de-politicization of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. He will contend that modern Aristotelians have fundamentally misunderstood Aristotle’s concept of human excellence, reducing his concept of the political to the level of the social. By sketching the rise of a distinctly Christian form of virtue ethics in the early middle ages, Swenson will frame two distinct, and often conflicting, traditions of thought about the virtues, giving a genealogy of the features particularly pertinent to the subsequent rediscovery of Aristotle in the 13th century: (1) the Latin re-conceptualization of certain Greek virtues in a Christian mold, (2) the re-envisioning of the end of virtue such that it entails a comprehensive Christian worldview, and (3) the emphasis on virtue as a feature of personal piety that is best exemplified in close-knit social relationships. We will consider and discuss Swenson’s argument that the project of the Latin fathers, while substantial in its own right, has perpetuated a mistaken interpretation of Aristotle’s practical philosophy — which has continued into the rise of contemporary neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics and its relation to the political order.

Brian Herlocker, PhD Student in Philosophy of Religions, will respond. No advance preparation is expected of workshop participants, but the paper will be made available through the Workshop listserve for those who would like to prepare.

This workshop is free and open to the public. A light lunch will be served.

Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance, please contact Aaron in advance at athollander@uchicago.edu.

Welcome back to all participants and friends of the Theology Workshop! You are cordially invited to our first event of the year, a panel discussion co-sponsored with the Religion & Ethics Workshop:

The Influence of Augustine in Political Discourse and Public Theology 

Augustine of Hippo has had a veritable renaissance in modern scholarship, yet in a variety of different ways and disciplines. Together, the Religion & Ethics Workshop and the Theology Workshop are launching their programming this year by bringing together three scholars whose own work has been deeply touched by this figure. Eric Gregory (Princeton), Charles Mathewes (UVA) and Willemien Otten (University of Chicago) have recently produced influential but very different books on Augustine in the last few years. Prof. Gregory has written “Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship” and Prof. Mathewes has written “A Theology of Public Life” and “The Republic of Grace: Augustinian Thoughts for Dark Times.” Each will speak to the influence of Augustine on his political vision. Prof. Otten, who has recently edited The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (OGHRA), will provide context for this Augustinian renaissance, speaking to the problems of Augustine and reception.

This event precedes the third installment of the Engaged Mind Conference series: Theological Reflection and the Limits of Politics (Oct 4-5th), in which Profs. Mathewes and Gregory are participating.

This event is free and open to the public. Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance, please contact Michael Le Chevallier in advance at LeChevallier@UChicago.edu

—

This event is the opening session of the Theology Workshop’s Autumn 2012 theme, “Theology in Public.” 

Continuing on from last year’s explorations of the textures and limits of “theology” in discourse and practice, we now turn to questions of the reciprocal influences between theologies and the forms of public space and community within which they are constituted. This is by no means a new conversation—entire journals and research centers are dedicated to public theology, and our own Divinity School history is thick with considerations of religious self-understanding and its public entanglements. It is a conversation that cuts across many degree programs and areas of study in the university.

The problems of theologies being produced and exercised in public are only becoming more prominent, however, as global, digital civil society renders ever more vivid the demands placed by societies on their religious institutions, and vice versa. It is in this context that we are soliciting presentations on topics related to the relationships between forms of religious meaning-making and the social world they inhabit. These might include but by no means are limited to questions of: (a) political theology or the convergence and divergence of political and theological commitments; (b) theology and democracy, or the intersections of religious imagination and civic rituals (e.g., this autumn, presidential candidate selection and election) (c) processes of (de)institutionalization in religious understanding and practice; (d) the position of theology in the contemporary academy; (e) secularism and the situation of religion(s) within a secular state; (f) shifting demographic trends (whether local or global) occurring within religions or eliciting religious responses; (g) theological issues around homiletics, liturgy, and prophecy (or analogues from a variety of religious traditions).

There is still room in our schedule for student presentations, and we encourage you to consider what work you have or are in the process of preparing that would contribute to this quarter’s conversation. 

We welcome papers concerned with any theological perspective or religious tradition on the above or related questions. We are particularly interested in dissertation chapters or articles being prepared for publication, but we are happy to consider other work from graduate students and faculty of the University or other institutions. Our usual procedure is to make the paper or chapter to be presented available to our participants in advance for those who would like to prepare. We will hear a 20-30 minute presentation from the author, followed by a prepared response from a fellow workshop participant and group discussion. If you would be interested in presenting, please email Aaron Hollander (athollander@uchicago.edu) or Mary Emily Duba (maryemilyduba@uchicago.edu) with a brief description of the paper.

Friends and colleagues of the Theology Workshop, please join us for our final event of the year and the capstone presentation of our spring quarter “Theopraxis” series: a conversation with Dwight N. Hopkins, Professor of Theology & Director of MA Studies in the Divinity School, on civil disobedience and civil rights as theological production. This event is co-hosted with the Race & Religion Workshop.

Tuesday, May 29th

12:00 – 1:30 pm

Swift 106

What do we gain by describing ways of life that are in opposition to category-based social inequities as extra-verbal forms of theological activity? What is the relationship between the discursive motivations and tactics involved in civil rights struggles and the deployment of the body as a physical, kinesthetic confrontation of “the powers”? How do such practices both destabilize existing theological expectations/forms and simultaneously create new forms and pathways for religious reflection and inquiry? What salient parallels and distinctions between American civil rights struggles / black theology and the theological movements from the underside of history in many other parts of the world are brought to light in such a discussion of theopraxis?

Such questions and more will be on the table at Tuesday’s workshop. Responding to Prof. Hopkins will be Barnabas Pusnur, PhD Student in Theology. No preparation is expected from workshop attendees. A celebratory, year-end lunch will be provided, along with much delicious coffee.

Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance, please contact Julius in advance at jrcrump@uchicago.edu.

Talking Queer—Sexual Theology for the Whole Church
Wednesday, May 23, 2012

6:00 – 8:00 PM
Brent House

This week we will be joining forces with the LGBTQ Divinity Studies Reading Group and Brent House for a special presentation by visiting scholar Gianluigi Gugliermetto, exploring the disconnect between the Church and the Academy in the debate on human sexuality. Dinner and drinks will be served!

Conflicts about the meaning of human sexuality, its relevance, and its regulation within the scope of a faithful religious life have been common in Western Christian churches for the last few decades.

Academic theology has also taken up the subject in earnest, both reflecting and fueling the conflicts present and alive ‘on the ground.’ It could be argued indeed that this is one of the areas in which academic theology shows its desire to provoke “real change” and to be challenged by it. Yet the debate within churches is polarized by the conservative vs. liberal frame, is dominated by issues of sexual identity, and is stuck on specific questions of biblical interpretation, all of which are quite far from the concerns of those professional theologians who deal with sexuality and gender as theological topics today. Is it possible today to build a bridge between the academy and the Church on this particular subject?

Feel free to RSVP for the event on facebook if you’d like to help us plan the quantities of food and drink:  https://www.facebook.com/events/252869478144830/

Persons with a disability who would like assistance, please contact Kyle in advance at kgr@uchicago.edu.