faith at work, civil rights on tap at christian scholars' conference paper sessions
janel shoun |
media & the civil rights movement
the future of higher education
june 5: over the rhine discusses "the power of music"excerpts from “the power of music”
linford detweiler and karin bergquist of over the rhine
christian scholars conference
saturday, june 5
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the pop duo named after a neighborhood in cincinnati, was named by paste magazine as one of the top 100 best living songwriters. they have released 20 albums since the band started in 1989.
married couple linford detweiler and karin bergquist performed several songs, including two songs from their forthcoming album and “if a song could be president,” from their last album “trumpet child.”
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below are comments made by linford detweiler, during the keynote session on june 5:
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“being a songwriter is a good way to process the fact that we are all mortal, and we are all working the graveyard shift. so that imagery (of angels) tends to show up.”
referring to prayer request times from his youth:
“i’m fascinated with the idea that we live in the form of an unspoken request.”
“we learned that our marriage is a garden that needs to be tended outside of work.” (the couple has been together in romance and music almost since the band formed in 1989.)
“in songwriter workshops we talk about musicians taking a risk. (when you think) did you really say that to me? then it opens up the possibility that maybe you can share a truth as well… if the music is all safe, then it gets a little boring.”
“(in concert) sometimes our job is just put it out here, and sometimes we are more participants in the healing nature of it all.”
“songs are containers of things you want to remember and things you know you want to continue to learn about.”
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june 4: faith & work, civil rights on tap at 85 paper and panel sessions
the 30th annual christian scholars’ conference featured 265 presenters representing 80 universities and colleges, presenting papers, and discussing topics ranging from thomas kinkade to baptism in the early church, from michael jackson to contemporary opera, from the civil rights movement to the future of christian education.
here’s just a sampling of some of the topics explored in the 85 paper and panel sessions at this year’s conference, themed “beauty in the academy: faith, scholarship & the arts.”
media contributed to civil rights fight
| (l to r) dickerson, locke, mitchell and seigenthaler on civil rights panel. |
a group of esteemed experts and history-makers gathered in the session titled “casting a dream: the media’s role in shaping the civil rights movement,” to discuss how the media contributed to a sea change in america. among the panelists were:
- jerry mitchell, a mcarthur genius grant winner for investigative reporting into civil rights era crimes;
- john seigenthaler, a first-hand eye witness to the legendary freedom rides and kennedy staffer in the 1960s;
- hubert locke, an internationally acclaimed authority on police and urban affairs; and
- dennis dickerson, a historian from vanderbilt university.
the panelists discussed watershed moments in history such as when the disfigured body of emmet till, murdered at 14 in mississippi, was photographed in an open casket and the photo was published in various media across the nation. dickerson said he remembered the affect the photo had on him as a child, and mitchell noted that rosa parks mentioned the death of emmet till as one her inspirations to make her famous protest on the montgomery, ala., buses.
mitchell, whose investigations since 1989 have unearthed documents and pursued evidence in the nation’s notorious killings from the civil rights era, said that he is disturbed by the media’s tendency to not provide coverage on some people that they consider “a quack.” this can backfire as it did in the case david duke, a white nationalist and louisiana representative who mitchell noted “was almost elected governor of louisiana.”
“our job is to expose the truth,” he said, “even though it’s frustrating when you make a report and no one rises up to do anything.”
in mitchell’s case, his reports have helped put four klansmen behind bars:
- byron de la beckwith for the 1963 assassination of naacp leader medgar evers;
- imperial wizard sam bowers, for ordering the fatal firebombing of naacp leader vernon dahmer in 1966;
- bobby cherry, for the 1963 bombing of a birmingham church that killed four girls; and
- edgar ray killen, for helping organize the june 21, 1964, killings of james chaney, andrew goodman and schwerner (popularized by the movie, mississippi burning, about that case).
seigenthaler, former editor of the the tennessean, noted how the coverage of those left in the new orleans superdome after hurricane katrina reminded him “how often the media forgets and moves on to the next story.” the media’s coverage during the civil right era made a major impact, but the coverage in 2005 of the katrina flooding “was like ripping a scab off a sore,” he said.
“where… was the media in the intervening years,” he asked.
locke, an african american who grew up in detroit during the 1960s, said that civil rights issues are still prevalent today with examples of racism against hispanics and muslims still common in america. the expansion of media outlets, including the internet and blogs, has created a much larger context for discussion of civil rights issues and has made the issues more complex and subtle, calling for more discerning discussion.
future of christian higher education
| participants listen to high-level university administrators discuss the future of christian higher education. |
the presidents of pepperdine, lipscomb and harding universities gathered in the session titled, “the future of christian higher education for institutions affiliated with the churches of christ: insight from our current leaders.”
among the questions proposed by the presenters were:
- do church of christ universities need to learn more about our intellectual foundations?
- should the universities engage in research of a higher order?
- where will our future leaders come from? how should we balance cultivating new leaders both inside the institution and outside the institution?
l. randolph lowry, president of 世界杯2022预选赛录像回放 , noted that the population of parents with college-age kids often do not see today’s christian universities as much different from secular universities. perhaps changing recruitment to appeal to a different type of student is not a threat, but an opportunity, he noted. “maybe we should be focusing on teaching kid’s that meet god’s profile, not the profile we have created,” he said.
andrew benton, president of pepperdine university, said he believes that while demographics may change, there is still a huge number of students and their parents searching for a high-quality education based on values, a good description of christian institutions today. “we need leaders of all kinds to match the mountains we face,” he said.
david burks, president of harding university, urged leaders not to worry too much about the reputation of their universities among those who don’t share the christian faith.
faith & work
presented by the lipscomb college of business
presented by the lipscomb college of business
| david miller speaks with lipscomb business dean turney stevens during a luncheon on faith & work issues. |
david miller, director of the princeton university faith and work initiative, spoke to participants at a luncheon on the challenges of living out christian faith in the workplace.
whereas expression of one’s faith in the marketplace has long been seen as taboo, in the past few years, the desire of many employees to bring their faith to work has become a national social movement, he said.
across the nation there are groups of executives meeting privately and quietly to discuss living out their faith at work and how to give back, miller said. business leaders today are struggling to find “significance in their success,” he said. “maybe god wired you to be great wealth generator. in that case, perhaps you don’t have to go to rwanda to help people. perhaps you can do that here,” he said.
miller, author of god at work: the history and promise of the faith at work movement, said he wants to encourage the academic theological community to pay more attention to faith in the workplace, which an issue largely ignored now. “it’s hard to find a theology of work,” he said.
as for business colleges, they have often compartmentalized the study of ethics so much, that a student doesn’t get a holistic model for applying faith and ethics in their daily work, miller noted.
he also criticized the church for not addressing people’s need for guidance in living out their faith at work. “when is the last time you heard your preacher speak about work, without condemning some aspect of it,” he asked.
at his paper session titled, “david w. miller’s integration box,” miller presented his work so far to develop a valid measurement companies can use to measure the spirituality of their workplace.
june 3: spirituality in the arts would benefit church, culture, say gioia, elkins
the fine arts could benefit from a dose of christian spirituality, was the message sent by three national leaders in american art who spoke thursday at the 30th annual christian scholars’ conference, an interdisciplinary academic conference that draws more than 400 theologians from the top universities across the nation to participate in 85 paper and panel sessions.
“beauty in the academy: faith, scholarship & the arts” is the theme for this year’s conference, which was highlighted by keynote speakers from the various artistic disciplines.
james elkins, america’s leading art critic; dana gioia, a poet and former chairman of the national endowment for the arts; and john patrick shanley, an esteemed playwright who authored doubt; spoke to the conference participants on thursday, june 3.
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john patrick shanley
to see excerpts
from his speech
and more
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elkins kicked off the conference thursday morning with the discoveries he made while researching one of his many books, “on the strange place of religion in contemporary art.” his conclusion: religion doesn’t have much place in the art establishment at all.
religious art is absent in art magazines and journals, except when the artwork is critical of religion, he noted. textbooks are devoid of comment on contemporary religious or spiritual art and exhibition juries generally exclude any artworks made by artists who include spirituality in their artists’ statements, he said.
gioia made similar statements in his keynote address, pointing out that “modern american culture has little use for the catholic writer or even the christian writer.”
| dana gioia commented on the lack of catholic and christian writers shaping american culture. |
| elkins, back right, kicked off the conference on thursday with an analysis of spirituality in the visual arts. |
gioia read off a laundry list of famous catholic writers of the 1950s and ‘60s who played a significant role in shaping american culture: tennessee williams, flannery o’connor, walker percy, graham greene and j.r.r. tolkien to name just a few.
but today, few important writers have identified themselves as catholic, and the cultural establishment views faithful catholic writers with suspicion, disdain or condescension, he said.
“american christians have increasingly disengaged themselves from contemporary culture. they have ceded the arts to secular forces,” said gioia, who is a devout catholic himself, and recently was awarded the university of notre dame’s 2010 laetare medal, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to american catholics.
both the church and the fine arts and american culture would benefit from more critical study of spiritual art and literature, said the speakers.
the most interesting spiritual art is that that “burns away liturgy to find a viable belief,” elkins said. the art world “is after something inside the structures of faith,” he said.
he suggested that contemporary religious art could be incorporated more strongly in academia by considering religious scholarship as part of art history, and he would encourage secular conferences to invite more artists they consider “religionists” to show at their exhibitions.
“secular institutions have to lose some of their phobia about religion,” elkins said.
separating spirituality and the arts produces a “loss of spiritual vision,” for the art world, said gioia. “once you remove the religious as one of the possible modes of the arts, you still don’t remove the spiritual hunger of the artist or the audience, and the efforts to satisfy that hunger become vague.”
in addition, the church would benefit from a closer alliance with literature and the arts because it would replace one of the abilities the church has to make its call heard in the world, he said. the separation “has limited the way the church speaks to the world.”
gioia noted that despite the grim reality of few christian writers taken seriously in american culture, it only takes “a few people to transform an age,” he said. “new artistic movements are usually the creation of a few passionate people.”
he encouraged the christian writer today to have a healthy dose of faith, hope and ingenuity: faith in the power or art and the holy spirit; hope in the possibilities of art and the church; and ingenuity to produce good works of literature.
csc 2010: pictorial review
| scholar hubert locke spoke in a pre-event sponsored by a collection of churches of christ and christian churches. | a showing of burma vj was followed by a panel discussion of local buddhists at a pre-event. |
| john patrick shanley wowed the crowd with his entertaining keynote speech on the first day of the csc. click here to see excerpts |
man of letters dana gioia at one of several book-signing held throughout the conference. |
| over the rhine duo linford detweiler and karin bergquist added some whimsy with a performance of "if a song could be president." | two panel sessions explored the links between literature and music using the words of dana gioia. |