IRT Colloquies

The Institute for Reformed Theology is forming three new colloquies and is in the planning process for several others. Each colloquy will gather 20-25 theological scholars and pastors from across the nation, who will meet together in probing discussions five or six times over the course of a year or more. The first to convene, in January 2006, will be entitled “Race and the Reformed Tradition.” Led by Union-PSCE professors Katie Geneva Cannon, Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Ethics, and Samuel K. Roberts, Anne Borden and E. Hervey Evans Professor of Theology and Ethics, this colloquy will proceed on the belief that despite the deep divisions in our society occasioned by the notion of race, focused reflection on theological, historical, and cultural aspects of this issue by people of faith might well portend a clearer vision of a truly just society. Members of the colloquy will assess the foundational role of European expansionist ideology and theological worldviews in the development of chattel slavery in the American South. The role of biblical authority and popular religious culture as sources for the justification of slavery will also be studied. Attempts to ensure racial justice within the Presbyterian Church and in the wider society during the era of Reconstruction after the Civil War and into the 20^th century will be explored. To the extent that Reformed theology has the potential for continuing to engage American culture at critical junctures, the colloquy will project an agenda for the future that charts how the realities of race might be joined with a vision for justice. 

The following topics, with the required readings, will be discussed in five sessions over the course of a year:

• Racial Justice and the Reformed Tradition: Visions and Challenges
  Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West
  William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait
• Biblical Hermeneutics and Racial Justice
  Stephen R. Haynes, Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery
• Historical and Current Institutional Challenges for Racial Justice in the Presbyterian Church (USA)
  Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black and Presbyterian: The Heritage and the Hope
• Cultural Dispositions toward Race in America
  Cornel West, Race Matters
• Collective Just Acts
  Anthony B. Pinn and Dwight N. Hopkins, editors, Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic or
  Charles Marsh, The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement to Today.

For an expanded reading list, go to the Race and Reformed Theology Syllabus.

Starting in February 2006, Louis B. Weeks, Union-PSCE President and Professor of Historical Theology, and Elizabeth M. Ayscue, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Albemarle, NC, will convene a colloquy to explore Presbyterian practices. Entitled “Presbyterian and Reformed Practices,” pastors and scholars will explore much that has been learned recently about the nature of Reformed religious practices including prayer, Bible study, and stewardship. Participants will study some of the works currently focused on more frequently explored practices such as friendship, hospitality, and testimony, as well as selections from the Bible, classic Christian theologians, and contemporary writers, to determine some distinctively Reformed practices and Reformed and Presbyterian “takes” on common Christian practices.

The IRT will be joining with the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, MD, in conjunction with First Presbyterian Church and The Temple/Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, both in Atlanta, GA, for a colloquy entitled “The Scandal of Particularity: A Jewish-Christian Conversation,” which is expected to begin in June 2006. Led by Christopher M. Leighton, Executive Director of the ICJS, Rosann Catalano, Associate Director of the ICJS, S. Dean McBride, Cyrus M. McCormick Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Interpretation at Union-PSCE, and Andreas Kurt Schuele, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Union-PSCE, the goal of this colloquy is to provide a forum for Jews and Christians to assist one another in the re-examination of central religious concepts which, when neglected, contribute to the loss of the center.  Because claims of God’s unique presence are often enlisted to fortify extremist positions, this project will focus on claims regarding the uniqueness of the divine presence in both Judaism and Christianity.  It will examine the “scandal of particularity” as it is manifested in five central forms in each tradition: revelation, text, people, place, and space.  One overarching question will govern this inquiry: “To what extent do the claims of divine particularity present in each of these areas result in polarizing tendencies within the Jewish and Christian traditions as well as with respect to their relationship to one another and the wider public arena?” The colloquy will bring together Jewish and Christian clergy, scholars, and community members in rigorous study and discussion of central texts of Judaism and Christianity and contemporary theological commentary to explore possible readings for our own time.