Theology Live

Tied to Memphis forever is the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the 39 year old black Baptist minister and civil rights activist on April 4, 1968. Less present in many of our memories, though, is the Dr. King of April 4, 1967, the MLK who preached against the triplet realities of racism, militarism, and impoverishment at New York City’s Riverside Church. Terri Lee Freeman, president of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, joins us to help unpack the "1967 King".

Called the "Queen of All Feasts" by theologians and liturgists alike, the Great Vigil of Easter gathers the whole sweep of the Church Year into one liturgy, highlighting the long record of God's saving deeds throughout history.

Good Friday is singular in its ability to gather humanity's desperations and hopes into one day. Listen in as we explore both on history's darkest day.

On this special edition of Theology Live, Father Broderick invites listeners to enter the mystery and glory of the Triduum, beginning with Maundy Thursday. In that liturgy, worshipers wash each others' feet and recall Jesus' final meal with his friends. In it, he models for the world how God's countercultural reign draws us toward self-donation, not domination. Join us tomorrow for a reflection on Good Friday and Saturday for a meditation on the Great Vigil of Easter.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was martyred in Memphis on April 4, 1968, while in town to support the contentious sanitation workers' strike. Throughout the strike, Clayborn Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church served as a nerve center for demonstrators and other activists. On February 8, 2017, Theology Live was held at Clayborn Temple. That evening, Mrs. Ephie Johnson graced the gathering with her rendition of "May the Work I've Done", a standard song of the Black Church. The TL saw fit to share Ephie's rendition with our listening audience as a tribute to Dr. King's legacy on the 49th anniversary of his martyrdom and as a reminder that our work toward inhabiting God's just future begins now.

This month's guest is the Rev. Faye London, Interfaith Outreach Coordinator for SisterReach, a Memphis-based grassroots Reproductive Justice Organization. As an advocate for Black women, Faye seeks to foster an understanding of Black women’s bodies as fully participating in God’s sacred, beloved and good creation and of women’s God-granted competence and wisdom to exercise full authority over them.

Open your Bible to Exodus 1 where she begins her illuminating reproductive justice Bible study.

In this episode, the Rev. Eboni Marshall Turman, Ph. D., discusses the black body as a "theological problem", the future of the Black Church, and her current womanist theological scholarship. The only womanist theological ethicist on the Yale University Divinity School faculty, Dr. Turman authored Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church and the Council of Chalcedon, the first book-length womanist treatment of the conciliar tradition.

“This world is pregnant with God,” said Blessed Angela of Foligno. This quote comes to us in rich and new ways as we journey through Advent, the days leading up to the Feast of the Nativity - Christmas. Days in which we hear prophets warn, coax, and encourage. Days in which - at least in the northern hemisphere - hours of darkness outweigh hours of light. And yet, we gather on nights like this one because somewhere deep in our bones we’ve been convinced that new possibilities lurk just beneath the surface. Join Dr. Emily Holmes, theologian and professor at Christian Brothers University, as she walks us through what these possibilities meant for medieval Christian women.

Every four years, the United States of America holds a presidential election, putting a number of ideas, ideals, personalities, and historical trajectories on a given ballot. On November 8, 2016, that tradition continued with the election of Donald John Trump, Sr. of New York. Listen in as ethnographer and professor Dr. Zandria Robinson describes what she heard - culturally, racially, socially - in the election season and results.

After pondering about the relative silence of White Christians in the latest spate of high-profile police killings of black Americans, the Rev. Dr. André Johnson took to Twitter and began #whitechurchquiet. In the weeks and months to follow, a conversation about racism and white theology was sparked. Listen in as Dr. Johnson offers a detailed account of this powerful hashtag.