Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Seek Justice for Goodness’ Sake

Professor of Bibliography and Research; Director of Library and Information Technology Services

October 6, 2010

Our quest for justice is truest when we pursue justice, not exclusively or for its own sake, but in full relation to other equally important goods, especially kindness, humility, and peace. The quest is truest, that is, when we “seek justice for goodness’ sake.” Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon in PDF.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Vocation: A Matter of Life and Death

President and Professor of Theology

October 1, 2010


There is something like surrender involved in the discernment of our vocations, but there is also the gladness of meeting the needs of the world. Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon in PDF.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

New Ways of Seeing, New Things Seen


Professor of New Testament

September 24, 2010
Isaiah 55:7-9
Mark 7:26-30

What would happen if we took our lead from the story of Jesus and the Gentile woman, and found new ways of looking at Christians outside the circles that we ourselves privilege? What would happen if we decided that there is more than one way of being a good Christian? What would happen if we chose to believe that there is enough grace to go around? Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon in PDF.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Turning the World Upside Down ‐ Our Christian Calling


Visiting Professor of Ecumenical Studies and Global Ministries

September 24, 2010
Acts 17: 1‐15
I Corinthians 12: 4‐14

Have we become “Decaffeinated Christians” lacking in the full power and punch of the gospel? Do we lose congregants because we bore them to death? How do we regain the strength of the early church when being Christian was anything but boring? Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon outline in PDF.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Texts in Tension and the D2D


Dean of the Seminary, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Harrison Ray Anderson Professor of Ministry

September 10, 2010

As the Seminary embraces a wider vision of a ministry that attends particularly to the religious pluralism that hallmarks our national landscape and neighborhoods where the churches we serve live out their calling in Christ, difficult and troubling texts emerge from the New Testament’s expression of Gospel. When the neighbors Jesus commands us to love, as a tangible expression of God’s love, are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and people of many faiths different than ours, what are we to do and say about Scripture like Matthew 28: 16-20, which we’ve come to call “the Great Commission”? Is it possible to read this text honestly and faithfully and hear in it something other than a divine directive to convert those who are not Christian, requiring them to abandon their own rich traditions and ways of practicing faith and insisting that “there is no salvation outside the church,” the long standing claim of the historical church? Is it possible to hear this text and others like it as genuine good news that embraces all people? Is it possible to follow Jesus’ commission with a generosity that recognizes God’s love and life giving intentions for all people and celebrates, as God does, the tapestry of faith that is expressed in the religious pluralism amidst which we live? This sermon tries to answer questions like these by considering carefully both the context in which we and Matthew’s text now live and the context of Matthew’s church in late first century and the needs the Great Commission addressed to that first community of faith. Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon in PDF.

Friday, September 17, 2010

The Life of the Mind in the Service of God: Why a Thinking Faith Still Matters

President and Professor of Theology

September 9, 2010
Convocation

Today, perhaps more than at any time since the Protestant Reformation, we need to recover a commitment to an intellectually rigorous faith, a courageous and imaginative faith, a thinking faith so memorably expressed in John Calvin’s phrase, ‘the life of the mind in the service of God. One of the great challenges of theological education and of the life of faith in our time is to make a case for that quality of thinking faith which does not shrink either from scholarship or from acts of compassion, from the adventure of critical thought or from the call to justice. Listen to the address. Read the address in PDF.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Rethinking God


Debra J. Mumford
Frank H. Caldwell Assistant Professor of Homiletics

April 14, 2010
Acts 11:15-18

In “Rethinking God” Dr. Mumford challenges listeners to rethink some of the assumptions they make about God using Peter’s experiences with Gentiles in Acts 11:15-18.  Listen to the sermon.

Tearing Down the Walls


Associate Professor of Theology

March 12, 2010

Listen to the sermon.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

They All Come Home at Last

F. Morgan Roberts

April 28, 2010

Luke 15:11-32

How did we get from worshipping a God who prayed for forgiveness for his executioners to thinking that God, and we, should kill rather than love our enemies? Listen to the sermon.

Monday, May 24, 2010

The Promise - Unfulfilled, Alive, Undying


Allan Boesak

April 27, 2010
Hebrews 11: 8-13

The heroes of our faith are not exceptional, superhuman beings; they are simply faithful believers who trust in God’s promise and expect to see it on earth. The key to faith is to believe in God's promise and work toward seeing it fulfilled on Earth. Listen to the sermon.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Confessing Our Sins: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the Global Church


Kathryn L. Johnson
Professor of Historical Theology and Paul Tudor Jones Professor of Church History

April 26, 2010
Festival of Theology Lecture

Confession of faith sometimes involves recognition of sinfulness, and one particular legacy that touches many is the willingness to use violence in order to conform belief and practice. Mainline churches in North America can learn from the global Church, particularly in the global south, as those churches aggressively learning how to thrive with unity and diversity. Listen to the lecture.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

A Different World is Possible-The Accra Confession: A Call for Economic and Ecological Justice in the Heart of the Empire


Clifton Kirkpatrick
Visiting Professor of Ecumenical Studies and Global Ministries

April 26, 2010
Festival of Theology Lecture

The Accra Confession states that working to create a more just economy is essential to the integrity of Christian faith, and calls upon Reformed Christians to engage injustices in the world as an integral part of their churches’ witness and mission. Listen to the lecture. Read the lecture in PDF.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

To Stand Where God Stands- The Confession of Belhar: A Call for Unity, Justice, in the Heart of the Empire


Allan Boesak

4/26/10
Festival of Theology Lecture

Boesak believes the challenges of unity, reconciliation, inclusivity, and justice are global challenges, and that churches in the United States are confronted with them “in ways that are both universal and unique.” Listen to the lecture.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Good News for a Troubled Church: The Legacy and Hope of the Black Church



Director of Black Church Studies Program

February 26, 2010
Revelation 2:8-11
Black Church Studies Consultation

The message to the church at Smyrna speaks to the traditions of the Black Church in a unique and challenging way. John tells a church that is already troubled and poor that more trouble is on the way. John also instructs the church not to be afraid of what they will face. This message intersects with the legacy and hope of the Black Church in ways that challenge us to face the “tribulation” with hope and realism. Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon in PDF

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

What to Do with Your Calendar


Susan R. Garrett
Professor of New Testament

February 12, 2010
Psalm 90:1-12
James 4:13-17

James is worried about those people who claim to follow the way and wisdom of God but in actuality are attracted to that illusory power and control that the world regards as success. Such people he calls “double-minded,” because they try to please God and live worldly lives at the same time. They say that they are friends of God but they live like friends of the world. Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon in PDF.

Monday, March 1, 2010

The Vision Thing


Johanna W. H. Bos
Dora Pierce Professor of Bible and Professor of Old Testament

Feb 19, 2010
Habakkuk 1:2-2:4

Parallels are drawn between the burden of violence the prophet saw, and the burden of violence and lack of justice experienced by modern women around the world. Listen to the sermon. (The text of this sermon is not available.)

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Reconciled Diversity: An Ecumenical Vision for the 21st Century


Clifton Kirkpatrick
Visiting Professor of Ecumenical Studies and Global Ministries

Feb 11, 2010
Convocation
II Corinthians 5:19, NRSV

Ecumenism, while it has had a tremendous impact on the churches and the faithfulness of their witness, has made its most profound impact by offering Christians a fresh insight into the heart of the gospel. Listen to the sermon. Read the sermon in PDF.