2023 Annual Karl Barth Conference

The task of theology, as Barth maintained throughout his life, is to talk about God, but who this God is will invariably conjure up conflict with political power aspirations. Barth’s positioning of theology has always been contested—as too political by some, as un-political or anti-political by others–and his concrete theological commitments as well as his concrete political stances have been problematized in a variety of ways.

The aim of the conference is simple and momentous: to engage the contested and the disruptive in both the theological and the political. Major scholars working in different areas of political theology will test and contest Barth as a resource for political theology, broadly construed, and enter into critical and constructive conversation with Barth. The conference will foster new conversations on Barth and political theology, generate creative space for critical engagement, and explore the potential for an explicitly theological stance in complex and difficult social and political contexts.

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Barth Studies

2023 Barth Graduate Student Colloquium

The Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary is pleased to announce the fifth Karl Barth Graduate Student Colloquium to be held on June 14–17, 2023. This year’s theme is Barth and politics—broadly conceived as a constructive and critical engagement with Barth’s own politics, political theory, and political theology in conversation with contemporary conversations on the same. Over the course of three days, participants will have the opportunity to engage in an intensive student-led seminar and to get to know other up-and-coming Barth scholars. During the day, participants will take turns presenting papers and leading group discussion on an assigned portion of the text. Two senior scholars will supplement the student-led day sessions by providing evening lectures and opportunities to further the conversation.

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Barth Studies

Multiple Belongings in Transpacific Christianities: Christian Faith and Asian Migration to the U.S. | 2023 Asian American Theology Conference

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Asian American Christianity

African Americans, Asian Americans, and the Histories of Slavery and Racism within the Presbyterian Church and Princeton Theological Seminary

Featuring Dr. William Yoo

As an historian who also studies Asian American Christianity, William Yoo makes connections between the histories of anti-Black racism and anti-Asian hate within and beyond the Presbyterian Church. He engages the fraught relationships between some African American and Asian American communities and offers a pathway toward racial justice that accounts for historic sins and addresses ongoing challenges in theological education and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Asian American Christianity

Reimagining Church: The Next Chapter

Featuring Bishop Joseph W. Walker

Princeton Theological Seminary welcomes Bishop Joseph W. Walker III, Presiding Bishop and the Northeast Central Regional leadership of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International for a pastoral symposium. Discussions, led by Bishop Walker and Dr. David Latimore (Director, Betsey Stockton Center for Black Church Studies), will focus on the challenges confronting the Black Church, and the invitation this moment offers church leaders to think creatively about the next stage of church development and leadership. The goal of our time is to encourage and equip leaders to re-envision how the church might meet its goals of ministering to its communities’ spiritual and material needs in radically shifting communal landscapes. If you are a Pastor, this is a conversation you do not want to miss!

ORGANIZED BY

Betsey Stockton Center for Black Church Studies

African Colonization vs. Abolition: Two Perspectives on Ending Chattel Slavery in the United States Prior to the United States Civil War

Featuring Lawrence Anglin and Dr. Andrew Gardner

Join Center Church for the first of its Spring 2023 Fred & Elizabeth Boyajian Lectures “Lest We Forget”: The Colonization vs Abolition Debate: Two Considerations in the Struggle to End Chattel Slavery Prior to the US Civil War. Lecturers – Dr. Andrew Gardner, Baylor University and Lawrence Anglin, Ph.D. Student, Princeton Theological Seminary.

The Colonization and Abolitionist Movements: Center Church was at the crossroads of these two perspectives and theologically informed movements in the middle of the 19th century. The Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, a decades-long member of Center Church, was the Secretary of the Connecticut Colonization Society and a fierce champion of African Colonization. The Rev. Joel Hawes, Center Church’s pastor between 1818 – 1864, was an abolitionist and a member of the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society. One can assume their respective opinions and commitments to these causes may have come into conflict while both were associated with the church.

ORGANIZED BY

Betsey Stockton Center for Black Church Studies with Center Church, First Church of Christ UCC of Hartford, CT

The Promise of the Multicultural Church

Featuring Rev. Dr. David Childs

Many traditionally African American congregations are facing the growing presence and success of multicultural congregations in their communities. At the same time, they are faced with rapidly changing communities resulting from gentrification and an increasing number of their congregants residing outside of the communities in which the church is situated. This webinar, led by Dr. David Childs, will explore how African American churches can navigate these realities while remaining true to the historical theological drivers that have distinguished the African American church.

ORGANIZED BY

Betsey Stockton Center for Black Church Studies

Queering Church: Stories of Queer Affirmation in the Church

Hybrid Panel Event

Making church more queer and more inclusive of queer folks is a project that includes everyone and benefits everyone! Because the work of making churches more inclusive is a group project, this is an event for “church people”—whether you sit in the pews, stand at the front, or maybe a little of both. Whether you’re familiar with the latest lingo and research on religion and gender, or whether you feel a little overwhelmed by it, we want you to come!

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Theology, Women, and Gender

Dialogues in Asian American Theology and Ministry

Being Asian American Theologically

Featuring Dr. Daniel D. Lee

In this presentation, Dr. Lee proposes a critical vocation for Asian American churches beyond cultural and social expressions—namely, being Asian American theologically. Without receiving and owning this core calling, Asian American churches too easily fall into the temptation to be merely a community center, squandering our unique and crucial place in American Christianity. Being Asian American theologically involves an interdisciplinary task that is dynamic and fluid, always attending to the movement and work of God in our communities.

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Asian American Christianity

Follow the New Way: How American Refugee Resettlement Policies Changed Hmong Religious Life

Public Lecture by Dr. Melissa Borja

In the United States, the government has long depended on Christian organizations to aid and resettle refugees. Over the past half century, however, incoming refugees have been increasingly non-Christian and more religiously and racially diverse. How has the American refugee resettlement system adapted to these new religious circumstances, and how have non-Christian refugees experienced a resettlement system dominated by Christian organizations? Focusing on the case of Hmong refugees, this talk will show how American refugee resettlement policies transformed the religious lives of refugees, despite sincere efforts by both government and resettlement agencies to respect religious differences and put ideals of religious pluralism into practice.

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Asian American Christianity

Dialogues in Asian American Theology and Ministry

Challenges, Transitions, and Opportunities in the 2nd-Generation Asian-American Church

Featuring Rev. Charles Choe (Tapestry LA)

In this presentation, Pastor Charles Choe of Tapestry LA Church will discuss how second generation Asian American churches can navigate their unique challenges, transitions, and opportunities. Join us as we learn about finding our identity as Asian American and Christian in the midst of many competing voices, as well as how one church has taken its missional calling in the city seriously.

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Asian American Christianity

The Pursuit of Asian American Happiness: Mental Health and Ministry in the Asian American Church

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Asian American Christianity

2022 Annual Karl Barth Conference

The 2022 Annual Karl Barth Conference will be hosted by the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary from June 19–22, 2022. The Conference takes as its theme on this occasion “Karl Barth and Reformed Theology: Tradition, Dialogue, and Construction”. The primary aim of the Conference is to explore some of the ways in which Karl Barth as a Reformed theologian interacted with the Reformed and other traditions, along paths both expository and critical, and to reflect upon the possibility that his creative engagement might encourage and resource generative work in theology in the contemporary era. A wide range of speakers of diverse perspectives has been assembled for the event, all of whom share an interest in the work of Karl Barth and a commitment to constructive theological dialogue around substantive issues affecting church and world. The Conference will also serve as an appropriate occasion to mark the retirement of Professor Bruce L. McCormack from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2022.

ORGANIZED BY

Center for Barth Studies

Hope from Ashes: Legacies and Lessons from the Los Angeles Riots

Thirty years after the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, African American and Asian American communities struggle to find lasting responses to the persistence of social, racial, and economic injustice in their communities.

ORGANIZED BY

The Betsey Stockton Center for Black Church Studies

The Center for Asian American Christianity

White Supremacy and Christianity: Reckoning with the Past and Reimagining the Future

This conference seeks to assert the continuing hope in the power of theological interrogation to assist both theological discourse and the praxes of the church but also desires to engage in a reexamination of the tools of theological or praxiological inquiry into white supremacy. It may be that the persistence of white supremacy is partly a response to Christian theology’s use of intellectual or practical tools that have themselves become infected with white supremacy. Instead of resistance, theological discourse has become complicit with white supremacy. The goal of this event is to foster dialogue and constructive conversation around alternative modes of existence and theological inquiry. At the same time, we also seek to identify the ways religious leaders, faith scholars, and their respective institutions might continue to assert the enduring hope of the Christian faith to reimagine a future free of the lingering effects of white supremacy.

ORGANIZED BY

The Betsey Stockton Center for Black Church Studies

The Center for Barth Studies