Episcopal Divinity School

EDS at Union has selected No Fire in the Ashes: Coming of Age Black and Free in America by Darnell Moore as our community read. For this week's episode, Dean Douglas discusses Moore's book with The Rev. Mike Kinman and Juliana Serrano from All Saints Church in Passedina, California.

Similar to EDS at Union, All Saints has selected No Ashes in the Fire as their congregation's community read and will be hosting events at their church later this month.

Learn more about All Saints Church here - http://bit.ly/2QnZPlJ

Purchase No Fire in the Ashes here - https://www.darnelllmoore.com/book

Dean Kelly Brown Douglas speaks with Karenna Gore, Director of Union's Center for Earth Ethics. They discuss the moral dimensions of our ecological crisis, how environmental issues are playing out in the presidential primary, and Karenna's recent New York Times op-ed.

The Center for Earth Ethics is an institute at Union Theological Seminary that envisions a world where value is measured according to the sustained well-being of all people and our planet. Learn more at their website www.centerforearthethics.org/

Earlier this summer, Episcopal Divinity School at Union and The Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest made a pilgrimage to Montgomery, Alabama to visit the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Established by the Equal Justice Initiative, these sites are our nation’s first memorials dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, those terrorized by lynching and Jim Crow segregation, and the ongoing threat of police violence and mass incarceration to African American men and women.

During the Pilgrimage, Kelly sat down with Rev. Anne Marie Witchge from the Church of Heavenly Rest, as well as Union students Carl Adair, Grace Aheron, and Galvin Mathis to discuss their experience on the pilgrimage.

On this the fifth anniversary of the murder of Eric Garner, Dean Kelly Brown Douglas speaks with the Rev. Fred Davie, Executive VP of Union and the chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) for the New York City Police Department. They discuss the Department of Justice’s decision to not pursue charges against the NYPD officer who placed Eric Garner in a chokehold, the next steps for the CCRB in pursuing justice, and the role of faith communities today.

In today’s episode, we will continue our series “Margins Speak” in which the Rev. Dr. Joshua Samuel speaks with theologians and activists from the Global South about how they are experiencing and responding to climate change and environmental destruction.

In this conversation, Rev. Samuel interviews the Rev. Dr. Jione Havea, who is a native Methodist Pastor from Tonga who serves as the research fellow at Trinity Theological College, Auckland, and with the Public and Contextual Theology research center at the Charles Sturt University, Australia.

Dr. Havea has recently edited two important works, Religion and Power and Scripture and Resistance, both available through Lexington/Fortress Press.

We reference two articles in the podcast:

In a new interview series, Courageous and Just, The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of EDS at Union and Trinity Wall Street’s Theologian in Residence, interviews bold voices of our time to explore the question, “What does a just society look like?” and to compel us to act on our moral imagination. 

The videos are available on the Trinity Wall Street website and the interviews will be posted in your EDS at Union Now podcast feed.

In our third episode, Dean Kelly Brown Douglas interviews The Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort is a Presbyterian minister and author of the recent book Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith.

Dean Douglas and Rev. Kim-Kort discuss the word and concept of queerness, which has not been traditionally used in the church. Kim-Kort believes Christians should be gesturing toward queer horizons, beyond the lines and structures society has drawn, not only to work toward a more just and equitable world, but also to become our most complete, restored selves. 

In a new interview series, Courageous and Just, The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of EDS at Union and Trinity Wall Street’s Theologian in Residence, interviews bold voices of our time to explore the question, “What does a just society look like?” and to compel us to act on our moral imagination. 

The videos are available on the Trinity Wall Street website and the interviews will be posted in your EDS at Union Now podcast feed.

n our second episode, Dean Kelly Brown Douglas interviews The Rev. Canon Broderick Greer, from the St. John's Cathedral in Denver, Colorado.

Dean Douglas and Rev. Greer tackle tough faith questions around of what it means for the church to stand in solidarity with victims of police violence in the streets of Ferguson, with those mourning the victims of a mass shooting targeting Jews inside the Tree of Life Synagogue, as well as with all “crucified classes.”

In a new interview series, Courageous and Just, The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of EDS at Union and Trinity Wall Street’s Theologian in Residence, interviews bold voices of our time to explore the question, “What does a just society look like?” and to compel us to act on our moral imagination. 

The videos are available on the Trinity Wall Street website and the interviews will be posted in your EDS at Union Now podcast feed.

Kelly's first interview is with Austin Channing Brown, author of “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.”

Austin Channing Brown shares insights from her book, and her life, about what it means to embrace blackness, reimagine self-identity outside of the framework of white supremacy, and how she is preparing her one-year-old son to both “love and resist.”

We are launching a podcast series titled, Margins Speak.

Over the next few months, The Rev. Dr. Joshua Samuel, Visiting Lecturer for Theology, Global Christianity, and Mission will explore various ecological issues faced by people in the Global South.

Covering topics such as colonialism, capitalism, and oppressive structures such as racism, patriarchy, homophobia, we will hear how theologians and thought leaders from around the globe are responding theologically to these environmental crises and working with communities to resist the forces that cause environmental destruction.

In this first episode of Margins Speaks, Joshua Samuel interviews Rev. Dr. Kuzipa Nalwamba, who is an ordained minister of the United Church of Zambia, and currently serves as a Project Consultant in Strategic Planning at the Council for World Mission in Pretoria, South Africa.

Last month, Dr. Sandra T. Montes joined EDS at Union as an Artist in Residence, sharing her talents for leading worship, song, and bi-lingual liturgy with our community. In today's episode, Dean Douglas interviews Dr. Montes to learn more about her experience using music to bring congregations and communities together. 

About Sandra Montes: Sandra is the Spanish Language Resource Consultant at ECF. She was born in Perú, grew up in Guatemala and settled in Texas as soon as she could.

Her passions are God, family (especially her son), music, education, and writing and she has been hoping and praying for this position for years.