As part of the GTU’s public outreach to the local community, a new speakers bureau lists faculty members who may be available to speak to civic, service, and community organizations in the Bay Area. You are invited to contact the GTU Communications Office at 510/649-2422 or jbrown@gtu.edu to learn more about this service. Possible presentations are described below. Visit the faculty pages to learn more about the presenters. For more GTU faculty experts, visit the expert resources list.

Jerome Baggett
Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley
Assistant Professor of Religion and Society

“’I'm Not Religious, I'm More Spiritual’: Piety, Personhood and the
Transformation of American Religion”
Summary: Based on the most recent and credible data available, Dr. Baggett contends that, contrary to the widespread assumption that U.S. society is becoming less religious, contemporary Americans are actually differently religious than they have been in times past. Among recent religious trends, he focuses on the shifting of religious authority to the self (rather than outside authority), an emphasis on religious experience and new forms of piety, shifting patterns of believing and belonging, and the emergence of innovative religious institutions. Dr. Baggett also discusses what these trends mean for both religious believers and leaders, as well as for our overall understanding of the place of religion in American society.

Other talks:
“Congregations and Public Life: What and How Local Religious
Communities Contribute to Civil Society”
“’Some Assembly Required’: The Perils and Promises of Gen X Religion”

Judith Berling
Graduate Theological Union
Professor of Chinese and Comparative Religions

“The Religious Diversity of America and its Impact on our Lives”
Summary: While most Americans are vaguely aware of the increased presence of other religions around them, few have taken in the full impact of U.S. religious diversity. A few examples: There are now more Muslims in American than Jews or Episcopalians. L.A. is the most complex Buddhist city in the world, with virtually every form of Buddhism represented. The issue of religious diversity is no longer an abstract one for American Christians; it is a fact of our everyday lives. This talk provides a framework for thinking about what understanding another religion entails-how to balance the two poles of understanding the other religion well on its own terms, and understanding it well from our particular position and perspective.

Other talks:
“The Two Poles: How to Understand Other Religions”
“Why I am a Confucian and Daoist Christian”

Jana Childers
San Francisco Theological Seminary
Professor of Speech-Communication and Homiletics
Dean of the Seminary and Vice-President of Academic Affairs

“The Preacher's Creative Process”
Summary: Creativity theorists have made a number of intriguing discoveries in recent decades. When placed alongside what actors, writers, directors and painters know about creativity, these discoveries raise some interesting questions for preachers.

Other talks:
“Preaching as Theatre”
“Preaching as Incarnational Activity”

James Donahue
Graduate Theological Union
President and Professor of Ethics

“Business Ethics for the 21st Century”
Summary: An overview of how to think externally about contemporary problems in business. Ethics can be summarized as focused on four concerns: 1) consequences, 2) rights, 3) justice, and 4) virtue. The main part of ethics is to be able to develop the skills to be able to ask the right question at the right time about the right thing to do as it relates to business decisions.

Other talk:
“The Use and Abuse of Religion in Public Life”

Arthur Holder
Graduate Theological Union
Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor of Christian Spirituality

“Ancient Spiritualities for Postmodern Seekers”
Summary: American culture today is faced with a “spirituality smorgasbord,” a pick-and-choose approach characteristic to the postmodern phenomenon of “New Age spirituality.” This is often coupled with a strong interest in Christian traditions of the past, a desire for an earlier more stable time: the eternal myth of the Golden Age. Through an examination of early medieval Celtic Christian spirituality, Dean Holder formulates his utopian vision for the future: a spiritual feast combining the freshness and focus of New Age seekers and the context and community of interpretation that churches provide.

Other talks:
“Yearning for God: Christian Mysticism and the Song of Songs”
“Spirituality and Imagination in Celtic Poetry and Art”

Lizette Larson-Miller
Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Associate Professor, Liturgical Studies

“Sacred Space in Public Places: Why We Engage in Memorials and Shrines”
Summary: Have you noticed the proliferation of roadside shrines or front lawn memorials marking the places of tragic deaths or events throughout our local communities and beyond? What do these places mean to the people who construct them? What can they teach all of us about the need for sacred space as a focal point for the expression of human emotions and spiritual engagement? This talk builds on a study of these public shrines and what the insights of the participants may offer for consideration and challenge to more established churches.

Other talks:
“How Church Buildings Mean: Theology and Architecture in the 21st Century”

Robert Russell
Graduate Theological Union
Director, Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
Professor of Theology and Science (In-Residence), GTU

“Creation and Cosmology”
Summary: Dr. Russell discusses the potential religious significance of Big Bang cosmology, including the beginning of the universe at “t=0” and its “fine-tuning” for life. He also explores philosophical and religious views that influenced the way cosmologists developed their theories throughout the 20th century. The ‘take away’ message of this lecture is that theology and science need not be in conflict, nor be isolated from each other, but rather that they enter into a dynamic relation which he calls ‘creative mutual interaction.’

Other talks:
“Evolution and Suffering in Nature: Is God Involved?”
“God's Action in the World and Quantum Mechanics”

Naomi Seidman
Graduate Theological Union
Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies, Director
Associate Professor of Jewish Culture

“Jesus in the Jewish Tradition”
Summary: During his lifetime and immediately after his death, Jesus received barely any mention in Jewish sources, what some have called "the loudest silence in history." In the centuries that followed, however, Jewish writing on Jesus and Christianity proliferated, from early Jewish-Christian polemics through the medieval Jewish "counter-histories" to the Gospels and modern reclamations of Jesus as a Jewish rabbi and leader. This lecture will provide a bird's-eye view of what Jews have had to say, in different periods and genres, about Jesus.

Other talks:
“Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation”
“The Sexual Politics of the Revival of Hebrew as a Spoken Tongue”