Summer Lecture Series

At All Souls Church

Jun 22, 2023

Friends, we are incredibly excited to host our first lecture series this summer. We have an astounding group of authors and scholars who will challenge your mind as well as your heart. We will say more about each author in the days to come (we'll have frequent posts on our Instagram and Facebook pages), but below is a brief overview of what to expect.

The first lecture will be from our very own Dr. Justin Phillips! Here we'll be hearing about America's persistent problem with racism with a particular focus on "three community loyalties (white, souther, and evangelical)" which each play a role in creating "blind spots that overlap with each other." If you've not yet picked up his book Know Your Place: Helping White, Souther Evangelicals Cope with the End of The(ir) World, it is a stunning, timely and wise book.

Regarding the "three community loyalties," Justin writes:

What I've realized is that white, souther evangelicalism has left me ill-equipped to deal with my impending social predicament in the mid-century (2045), when I am projected to become a minority during the twilight of my life. By not really knowing ourselves–the stories that have shaped us–we have turned to figuring out everyone else in relationship to ourselves.1

Justin is a master guide in helping us learn our own stories in order that we may enter wisely into the conversation (and the life!) we so desperately need.

Dr. Chris Green will be lecturing on a Biblical Christology from his forthcoming book (2024) The Fire & the Cloud: A Biblical Christology. This work focuses on a non-supersessionist reading of the Old Testament. Chris has written numerous books including, Sanctifying Interpretation, Surprised by God, and All Things Beautiful. He is a brilliant theologian who is beautifully engaging topics that are deeply necessary in our time. My introduction to Chris was a sermon he gave (which later became a chapter in his book Surprised by God) called "God Is Not in Control." I was at first intrigued, and was later hooked on his work and have bought everything he's written since.

Dr. Cheryl Bridges Johns has just released a fascinating and important book titled Re-Enchanting the Text: Discovering the Bible as Sacred, Dangerous, and Mysterious. Dr. Johns invites us to recover a more wild and mysterious encounter with Scripture, yet one that doesn't lapse into pre-critical thinking or root us further into a disenchanted age or detache us from the rest of creation. As she writes:

We all deserve a Bible that beckons us to enter a wonderland where we encounter a living God who knows and loves us. We deserve a Bible that refuses to be co-opted in the service of culture wars. We deserve a Bible filled with the shock and awe of God’s presence, to the degree that the glory offered by the empires of this world has no appeal. We deserve an enchanted text.2

Finally, I've heard from several people repeatedly, "You have to read the book It's Not You, It's Everything!" The book is by Eric Minton, who is a psychotherapist right here in Knoxville and is a profound author and guide for the rest of us. Minton talks a lot about pain and insists "that the problem isn't just our troubled kids," (which he poignantly refers to as "our own pain made flesh"3), "but their context. That it isn't just our misfiring brains but our culture. That it's not just you; it's everything."4 While many of us recognize the symptoms, Minton seeks to locate the "source" in order to bring us into a better life, a life of "Radical okayness." I've just started this book but it's already one I wish I had read years ago, particularly as I worked as a Chaplain for university students. Minton is addressing the problems we're all feeling.

A final word about the purpose of these lectures. Perhaps it's best to state what they aren't. The purpose of these lectures (and future lectures) is not to create a space where people will come tell us everything we agree with or want to hear. Rather, the intent is to provide a hospitable space where different ideas are welcomed and engaged and have the potential to shape us in new ways. In a world in which we are tempted to find people who will reifying all our beliefs and ideologies, we are hoping that this will be a place where we learn to be hospitable listeners who are challenged by the work of others, whether we agree with them or not.

We want this to be a blessing not only to our church but to our city, so please feel free to invite others to these lectures! If you have youth, our youth group meets during this time in another part of the building.

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