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Luther Colloquy 2021

Wednesday, October 20, 8:30am

October 20, 2021 – In-person on the Gettysburg Campus of United Lutheran Seminary, held in conjunction with the inauguration celebration of new seminary president Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin.

(Note: Should there be a change in CDC/Pennsylvania guidelines regarding in-person events, that information will be posted here)

Lutheran Spirituality
Join us for Luther Colloquy 2021 as we explore the spirituality of Lutheranism.  What is Lutheran spirituality, what are its roots, and how has it changed over time?  How does the church today meet those who yearn for spirituality but assume it cannot be found in “institutional religion”?  How does spirituality shape the life of the church and inspire a commitment to justice, liberation, and care for the natural world? 

Register here.

Zoom option available: A Zoom link will be emailed the night before each event to all registered participants.

8:30 AM
Registration opens.

9:00 AM
Welcome

9:15 AM –10:15 AM
Carl Rasmussen Lecture I
Dr. Vincent Evener, “The Passion and Spirituality in Sixteenth Century Lutheranism”

10:30 AM –11:30 AM
Carl Rasmussen Lecture II
Dr. Jonathan Strom, “The Complex and Controversial Spirituality of Pietist Conversion Narratives”

11:30 AM –1:00 PM
Lunch (Details to be announced soon)

1:00 PM –2:00 PM
The George and Janet Harkins Lecture I
Rev. Dr. Lisa Dahill,“Rewilding Life Together: Bonhoeffer, Spirituality, and Interspecies Community”

2:15 PM –3:15 PM
George and Janet Harkins Lecture II
Rev. Dr. Carmelo Santos, “Decolonizing Emotions: Musings on a Lutheran Liberation Theology of the Brain”

3:45 PM
Worship - Rev. Dr. R. Guy Erwin, President and Ministerium of Pennsylvania Chair and Professor of Reformation Studies will preach


Speaker Bios:

Dr. Vincent Evener is Associate Professor of Reformation and Luther Studies at United Lutheran Seminary and Director of the seminary’s annual Luther Colloquy.  He is the author of “Enemies of the Cross”: Suffering, Truth, and Mysticism in the Early Reformation (Oxford University Press 2021) and the coeditor of Protestants and Mysticism in Reformation Europe (Brill 2019), and he serves as book review editor for the journal Dialog. He has taught at the seminary since 2015.  His current research examines how Reformation-era clergy (and some others) taught practices of discipline and discernment through sermons and devotional literature on the passion.

Dr. Jonathan Strom has taught the history of Christianity at Emory’s Candler School of Theology since 1997, where he is currently Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs and Professor of Church History.  His research focuses on the history of the clergy, post-Reformation Germany, and the emergence of Pietism.  He is the author or editor of five books, most recently German Pietism and the Problem of Conversion (2018).  His current research project focuses on the cultural history of the common priesthood in Protestantism. 

Rev. Dr. Lisa E. Dahill is Professor of Religion at California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA, and rostered in the ELCA.  From 2005-2015 she was on the faculty of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, OH, where she taught worship and Christian spirituality.  A past president of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, she is also a widely recognized scholar and translator of the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Her publications include Reading from the Underside of Selfhood: Bonhoeffer and Spiritual Formation, as well as many scholarly articles on Bonhoeffer, Lutheran spirituality, sacramental theology, and ecology; she is also co-editor of Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril.  In her spare time she enjoys biking, hiking with friends, yoga, kayaking, playing with her new puppy Tiger, and getting to know the native species in her backyard.

Rev. Dr. Carmelo Santos (he/him/his) has a Ph.D. in Religion &Science from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago/Zygon Center for Religion and Science. Since 2011 he has taught on the intersections of Theology, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science at Georgetown University and as guest instructor and speaker across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, where he is originally from. Until November he served as a parish pastor in the Metro Washington D.C. synod of the ELCA. He has been featured in national and international media for advocacy of migrants' human rights. His theological research focuses on the question of the decolonization of the imaginary and of the emotions via religious narratives and practices. His interests include affective neuroscience, decision making neuroscience, the cognitive science of religion, Neurotheology, Postcolonial Theologies, Liberation Theologies and Lutheran Theologies. Carmelo currently serves as the ELCA Director for Theological Diversity and Ecumenical & Inter-religious Engagement in the Office of the Presiding Bishop.

Rev. Dr. R. Guy Erwin was appointed President of United Lutheran Seminary and Ministerium of Pennsylvania Chair and Professor of Reformation Studies in August 2020. He was Bishop of  Southwest California Synod of the ELCA from 2013 to 2020. Dr. Erwin was the ELCA’s first gay, partnered bishop and the first openly gay male to serve in that office in the churches of the Lutheran World Federation. As an enrolled member of the Osage Nation, on whose reservation he was born in Oklahoma, he is the first Native bishop in the ELCA. In the ELCA Conference of Bishops, he served on the Executive Committee and as Region 2 liaison bishop to the ELCA Church Council, and as chair of the bishops’ Theological and Ethical Concerns Committee.

From 2000 until his election as synod bishop, Dr. Erwin held the Gerhard and Olga J. Belgum Chair in Lutheran Confessional Theology at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Dr. Erwin holds a B.A., M.A. and M. Phil from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He also received a Fulbright grant for two years of study at the University of Tübingen in Germany. He taught church history and historical theology at the Yale Divinity School for six years. 


ULS continues to monitor CDC and state masking and social distancing guidelines in light of the growing number of COVID variant cases. Should a change in policy impact these events, you will be notified prior the event date.
If an event is moved from in-person to a Zoom presentation, refunds will be issued if a refund request form is submitted (emailed to participants with announcement of change).

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