Single Christians often encounter the church as a place where marriage and family are lifted up as the main ways to follow Christ faithfully. But there are Bible passages and historical moments that suggest otherwise. In this talk, we'll think through several different ways that Christians in the past have lived out singleness, including being "never married," "dating but not committed," and what happens when a person becomes "suddenly single" because of a spouse's death.

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Jana Bennett serves as the chair of Department of Religious Studies Department at the University of Dayton. She is a moral theologian with a wide range of research interests and well-regarded publications, including a book on marriage and singleness (Water is Thicker than Blood: An Augustinian Theology of Marriage and Singleness, Oxford University Press 2008) and a book on technology use and theology (Aquinas on the Web? Doing Theology in an Internet Age, Bloomsbury, 2012). She also gives public lectures on marriage and sexuality, Christian asceticism, technology use, war and peace, and environmental care.

Do you ever feel like you're alone in your struggles to live out the Christian faith? Do you ever read the Bible yet still wonder what it looks like to follow Jesus in the complexity and difficulty of our time? The stories of great men and women throughout the history of the church can help us form a bridge between the teaching of Scripture and our embodied lives. Come and learn about how the saints, from every continent and century of church history, demonstrate the historic church's relevance for Christians today and reveal God's faithfulness in all times and circumstances.

Rev. D.J. Marotta is the founding priest of Redeemer Anglican Church in Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of “Liturgy in the Wilderness: How the Lord's Prayer Shapes the Imagination of the Church in a Secular Age,” “Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints From Every Era & Place,” and co-host of the Our Church Speaks Podcast. His wife is gracious and his children are clever.

Have you ever wondered what Jesus would drink? Was his family perhaps involved in growing vines and making wine? What would their family celebrations have been like? And what might this tell us about God and how he wants us to live today? Food and wine have become such hot topics in our culture, and yet there is so much confusion and ambivalence around it as well. We are so far removed from the world of the Bible and the agrarian life that it represents. It is hard to envision the farms and fruit orchards, the village wells and sheep herds, the olive groves and vineyards that Jesus would have walked by every day.

Drawing on her upbringing in a long-standing family tradition of winemakers and her degrees in biblical studies and spiritual theology, Gisela Kreglinger introduces readers in a light-hearted way to the theme of wine in the Bible, throughout the history of the church, and in the church's feasting and fellowship today. She also addresses how many Christians are fearful or concerned about wine because of the challenges of alcohol abuse, how to nurture a culture of healing from such disorders, and how we are called to celebrate God's gift of wine to grow into a fuller understanding of the gospel as we await the return of the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. In this book, Gisela shows Christians that wine is a gift from God that we are to receive with gratitude and enjoy in wholesome, communal, and redemptive ways.

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Dr. Gisela Kreglinger grew up on a family-owned winery in Franconia, Germany where her family has been crafting wine for many generations. This unique experience has inspired her to write two books about the spirituality of wine with a third one on the way.

She holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of St. Andrews and in this book Gisela has woven together her passions for Christian spirituality and the wonderful and mysterious world of wine.

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Special thank you to Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church and Imbibe for their partnership on this event.

"Mystic Faith in Mary Oliver's Poetics & Personal Practices"

Mary Oliver once wrote, "Maybe the desire to make something beautiful / is the piece of God that is inside each of us." Though never espousing a Christian faith, Mary Oliver presents nature, the spirit, the body, and the divine in her simple but elegant poetry in terms that evoke the Christian mystic tradition. In our personal experiences with beauty and creativity, can we, along with Oliver, enter into a fuller appreciation of what the mystics called union with God?

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Dr. Daniel Gleason grew up in the Philippines living in an environment that fostered his imagination, creativity, and his love for writing. Currently an English professor at Bryan College, Dr. Gleason has previously worked as a cemetery laborer, as a public educator, and as a soccer coach. Dr. Gleason’s scholarly interests include 20th-century American Literature, contemporary poetry, and trauma theory. In the field of creative writing, he writes primarily poetry and has been published in more than a dozen literary journals and magazines across the country. Daniel and his wife, Kathleen, have two young sons, and they live in Dayton, Tennessee.

Our journeys of faith often involve the navigation of doubt. In this lecture, Dr. Luke Irwin explores this dynamic through the Gospel of John. There, Jesus famously says to “Doubting Thomas:” “Have you believed because you have seen? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). This statement from Jesus may make us question whether the “eyes of faith” should rely on visible evidence. After all, doesn't the Apostle Paul himself say that “faith comes through hearing” (Romans 10:17)? Nevertheless, study of the Jewish scriptural tradition can inform our exploration, suggesting that God makes himself visible in the human flesh of Jesus Christ for a reason. Join us as Dr. Luke Irwin argues that seeing God in Jesus Christ represents the culmination of Johannine belief as well as the eschatological hope of all believers.

Dr. Luke Irwin is the Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Covenant College. He has received his MDiv from Covenant Seminary and his PhD from Durham University. 

The evening will feature poetry from Nikki Lake, a lecture from Rev. Dr. Zac Settle, and then a conversation between the two moderated by CALEB Faith Caucus leader Christopher Heintz.

00:01 - Opening Intro & Announcements

 07:26 - Poetry by Nikki Lake

08:53 - Lecture from  Rev. Dr. Zac Settle

46:19 - Poetry by Nikki Lake

47:21 - Conversation between Christopher Heintz, Nikki Lake, & Zac Settle

Lecture abstract: In this short lecture, Fr. Zac will sketch a theology of economy by drawing on the work for a fifth-century, North-African Bishop: St. Augustine of Hippo. He will talk a little about who Augustine was and then sketch a kind of rubric with which we can think about economics on a theological level. The goal is make use of Augustine's idea of "use" and "enjoyment" in order to facilitate our understanding of faithful economic action. Doing so will help us talk about how we ought to engage with the economic issues of our own time and place as Christians. If we want to follow Augustine's example, faithful action requires that we use our wealth, resources, and selves for the sake of facilitating people's enjoyment of God.

Rev. Dr. Zac Settle serves as curate at Grace Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, TN. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2023. Prior to joining Grace he earned an Anglican Studies diploma at Sewanee’s School of Theology and completed an internship at Erlanger Hospital, where he was a chaplain for the cancer and diabetes units. Before that he earned a PhD in theology from Vanderbilt’s Graduate Department of Religion. His first book, "On the Nature, Limits, Meaning, and End of Work", was published in Bloomsbury Academic’s “Reading Augustine” series in 2023.

Through Berry’s fiction, poetry, and essays, we see a vision of how the transcendent beauty of creation is known in particularity. For this venerable Kentucky writer, human flourishing is a loving stewardship of people and place, appreciating the spiritual fruit of our embodied existence.

Dr. Thomas Pope joined Lee University's political science faculty in 2010, where he teaches courses in political theory and constitutional law.

"God and Architecture: How the Built Environment Influences Our Formation"

Similar to how a fish is unaware of the influence of water, architecture shapes our lives. Through the grandeur of cathedrals and the brutality of concentration camps remind us of the profound power of the built world, most of our lives unfold in less dramatic settings, where built environments subtly but meaningfully influence us. In this lecture, Jon Jon will explore the role of how the influence of physical spaces can be used to make us more like Christ in character and conduct.

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Jon Jon Wesolowski is an armchair urbanist, TEDx speaker, and content creator. He is a devoted advocate for pedestrian rights, passionately connecting diverse groups to drive positive change.

All the socials - follow Jon Jon on Instagram and TikTok.

Sign up for his new Substack.

Our annual partnership with Richmont Graduate University & the Spiritual First Responders Project on the intersection of theology & psychology. The event was titled "An Evening on Trauma, Faith, & Reconstruction" and featured lectures by Dr. Hillary McBride & Dr. Preston Hill.

"The Psychology of Faith Reconstruction After Spiritual Trauma" by Dr. Preston Hill 

Many people experiencing faith deconstruction feel spiritually homeless but also continue to search for spiritual meaning in life, though it is unclear how they can flourish as desired. This talk will review a current large scale research project that facilitates mentally-healthy spiritual meaning-making for this population. This talk will discuss the challenges and possibilities for "remixed" spiritual experience among this population by setting faith deconstruction and reconstruction in psychological and theological context and drawing implications for mental health care among this group.

Preston Hill (PhD, MLitt, University of St Andrews) is Assistant Professor of Integrative Theology at Richmont Graduate University, where he serves as the Chair of Integration and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program. His doctoral research offers the first book-length study of Christ’s descent into hell in the theology of John Calvin. His current research focuses on reformation theology, science, mental health, and trauma theology. His latest publications include Dawn of Sunday: The Trinity and Trauma-Safe Church (Cascade, 2021), and a forthcoming volume entitled Christ and Trauma: Theology East of Eden (Cascade). Preston is a clinical pastoral therapist under supervision and ordinand in the Anglican tradition.

Our annual partnership with Richmont Graduate University & the Spiritual First Responders Project on the intersection of theology & psychology. The event was titled "An Evening on Trauma, Faith, & Reconstruction" and featured lectures by Dr. Hillary McBride & Dr. Preston Hill.

"Growing Ourselves Up: Understanding the Long Term Impact of Spirituality Traumatic Contexts on the Development of Self" by Dr. Hillary McBride 

Foundational psychological theories of development and attachment have identified what people need in order to become more of themselves, including the steps necessary for a person to arrive at adulthood with the skills, capacity, and ego strength to face the demands and pleasures of living in a psychically rooted and interconnected way. Models of family systems can be used to understand how the interpersonal context around us supports us to, or inhibits us from, meeting these developmental steps in light of our desire for connectedness and relational safety. Informed by these theories, this talk will explore how extended time in a spiritually abusive and traumatic context (often called a family) can challenge and complicate typical psychosocial development and contribute to distress in adulthood. Ways to support the healthy development of self and organize the disorganized development will be discussed.

Dr. Hillary McBride is a registered psychologist, a researcher, author and podcaster, with expertise that includes working with trauma and trauma therapies, embodiment, and the intersection of spirituality and mental health. Her first book, Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are, was published in 2017; she was the senior editor of the textbook Embodiment and Eating Disorders: Theory, Research, Prevention, and Treatment, which was published in 2018. Her most recent bestselling book The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding wholeness, healing and connection through embodied living came out in the fall of 2021. She has been recognized by the American Psychological Association, and the Canadian Psychological Association for her research and clinical work. In addition to being a teaching faculty at the University of British Columbia, she is an ambassador for Sanctuary Mental Health, and the host of CBC's award winning podcast Other People's Problems. Hillary makes her home in the pacific northwest in British Columbia, Canada.