Generated by All in One SEO Pro v5.0.0.1, this is an llms-full.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site. # Phillips Theological Seminary where faith leads ## Blog ### [News](https://ptstulsa.edu/news/) **Published:** December 13, 2018 **Author:** anderj37 --- ### [Phillips Theological Seminary Welcomes Two New Faculty Members for Fall](https://ptstulsa.edu/2026/05/26/chukka-stork/) **Published:** May 26, 2026 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary announces the addition of two scholars to its faculty in the 2026-27 academic year. The Rev. Dr. S. Helen Chukka is joining the faculty as Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible. She is currently Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Wartburg Theological Seminary. Dr. Hannah Stork, who completed her PhD at Yale University this year, comes to Phillips as Assistant Professor of the History(ies) of Global Christianity(ies). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/chukka-stork-welcome-1024x538.png)We are grateful to welcome Drs. Chukka and Stork to the Phillips community,” said Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs Lisa Davison, PhD. “Their scholarly contributions and teaching experience will enrich the formation of our students and deepen our academic offerings.” Chukka brings to Phillips nearly a decade of biblical scholarship informed by intersectional feminist and Dalit theology. She completed her PhD in Hebrew Bible from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where her dissertation applied anti-caste perspectives to Ezra 9-10. Stork joins Phillips from Yale, where she finalized her doctoral dissertation in Eastern Mediterranean and West Asian Religions. She studies the interactions between various Near Eastern Christian populations and the first Muslim communities in Late Antiquity and how those encounters shaped religious and cultural identity. Each scholar represents the ongoing commitment at Phillips for faculty members who are active researchers and engage contemporary theological questions in their teaching. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Phillips Theological Seminary is a progressive graduate school of theology in Tulsa, Okla., affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Phillips prepares students for ministry, public service, and faithful leadership through rigorous academic study and formation. For more information, visit ptstulsa.edu. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Theological Seminary Presents 2026 Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship April 27](https://ptstulsa.edu/2026/03/13/trml/) **Published:** March 13, 2026 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** *Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown, Candler School of Theology’s Bandy Professor of Preaching, to deliver annual lecture* Phillips Theological Seminary hosts its annual Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship on Monday, April 27 at 901 N. Mingo Road in Tulsa. The event features a lecture by the Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. A reception and opening for an art exhibit by Anthony Suber begins at 5:30 p.m., with the lecture at 6:45 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is available at [events.ptstulsa.edu](http://events.ptstulsa.edu). Fry Brown holds the Bandy Professor of Preaching chair, a chaired professorship created in 1986 with a gift from B. Jackson Bandy that is considered by many to be the country’s premier chair in homiletics. She has taught at Candler since 1994, and in 2010 became the first African American woman to attain the rank of full professor there. Her research interests include homiletics, womanism, womanist ethics, socio-cultural transformation, and African diaspora history with a focus on African American spiritual values. She is the author of multiple books, including *Weary Throats and New Song: Black Women Proclaiming God’s Word* (Abingdon Press, 2003), *Can a Sister Get a Little Help: Advice and Encouragement for Black Women in Ministry* (Pilgrim Press, 2008), and *Delivering the Sermon: Voice, Body and Animation in Proclamation* (Fortress Press, 2008). Fry Brown is ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and has served as the denomination’s historiographer, executive director of research and scholarship, and editor of the AME Review. She also served as president of the AME General Officers’ Council from 2021 to 2024. She recently received recognition from the National Black Church Initiative as one of the 25 Most Effective Christian Biblical Preachers of 2025–2026. In February 2026, the Faculty of Seminary of the Southwest named her the 2026 McDonald Teaching Award recipient, given annually in recognition of exceptional teaching. The Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship is an annual event at Phillips that commemorates the May 31–June 1, 1921, destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, and examines the ongoing historical, spiritual, and social legacies of that violence. The lectureship engages Greenwood’s prosperity as evidence of faith and the devastation, shifting attention from the aesthetics of inanimate buildings to the stories of human lives. The lecture will also stream live on the [Phillips YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs7R10NeXxvuscmmyeaEztQ). For more information, contact Krystal Grizzle at . --- **About Phillips Theological Seminary** Phillips Theological Seminary is a progressive graduate school of theology in Tulsa, Oklahoma, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Phillips prepares students for ministry, public service, and faithful leadership through rigorous academic study and formation. For more information, visit ptstulsa.edu. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Seminary Stands in Solidarity with Minneapolis Protestors, Calls for Collective Stand to Affirm Beloved Community and Shared Humanity](https://ptstulsa.edu/2026/01/24/phillips-ice-mn/) **Published:** January 24, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ##### By Trista Soendker Nicholson, Center for Religion in Public Life Interim Director Phillips Theological Seminary continues to stand in solidarity with the overwhelming show of support for beloved community in Minneapolis and calls for continued peaceful protests against government leaders and policies dehumanizing our neighbors throughout the country. The right to protest is Constitutionally protected, and Phillips supports nonviolent protests. The right to peacefully resist should be protected by our civil authorities, and community members who are standing up for the rights and humanity of our neighbors should never be attacked by their government. The actions of the Trump Administration threaten our communities and our rights to protest unjust government actions. The activities of ICE, including the detention of children, citizens and legal immigrants, have already tried to foster an “us vs. them” mentality. Recent actions have exacerbated these divisions, with government officials even demonizing the victims of violence as “domestic terrorists.” **[LINK](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/experts-question-noem-calling-good-a-domestic-terrorist-heres-what-the-term-means)** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/minneapolis-alums-768x1024.jpeg)Several of our Phillips Theological Seminary alums are in Minnesota putting their faith into action and also supporting our alum, Dan Adolphson, Associate Pastor of First Christian Church in Minneapolis. The photo shows our alums (left to right) Joshua Shawnee, Chris Moore, Kelley Becker and Dan Adolphson. Other alums we know who are or have been in Minneapolis taking part in protection and protests include: Michelle Scott-Huffman, David Wheeler, Lori Walke, Sherri Curry and Bob Barrett. Phillips also reaffirms the call for all of us to live into a vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s *Beloved Community*. This vision, commemorated earlier this week, includes standing up against injustice and seeking to create a community bound together by love. A first step of living into this vision together is to courageously stand for nonviolent resistance in the face of horrifically violent acts. We are grateful for the witness of our alums and students in Minneapolis supporting this work in the midst of personal risk. The King Center teaches the fundamental principles of nonviolent resistance, building on Dr. King’s work to forge beloved communities as we resist injustice. In a 1957 speech, “Birth of A New Nation,” Dr. King said, “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness.” **[LINK](https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/)** The Phillips community is invited to review the tenets of King’s philosophy as we continue to resist the policies of the Administration that seek to divide us from one another. The King Center offers resources to help us meet this historical moment and encourages us to reclaim the vision of the Beloved Community again today as we challenge systems of injustice. Engaging this work not only allows us to live into King’s vision of Beloved Community, but more importantly to follow Christ’s call. May we continue to resist situations of injustice and oppression as agents of Christ’s peace. **Categories:** News --- ### [Remembering Elizabeth Box Price (1941–2025)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/12/31/remembering-elizabeth-box-price/) **Published:** December 31, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** **![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/elizabeth-box-price.jpg)As 2025 closes, we remember Professor of Christian Education Emerita Elizabeth Box Price (June 27, 1941 – January 3, 2025).** “Elizabeth Box Price was one of the most important administrative leaders in Phillips’ transition from Enid to Tulsa,” wrote President Emeritus Gary Peluso-Verdend. “I am not speaking primarily of the relocation but of the ways the seminary approaches teaching and learning.” Elizabeth taught the faculty how to reach the adult learner and demonstrated that Christian education is itself a way of doing theology. She also led the effort to change Phillips to a block schedule and shift the view of a syllabus being what teachers teach to a set of assessable learning goals for the students. “In short, Elizabeth did a great deal of work in shaping the ethos and laying the foundations of Phillips’ educational culture on which the seminary’s educational administration and faculty have built over the past 30 years,” Peluso-Verdend said. **OBITUARY** Dr. Elizabeth Box Price was born June 27th, 1941, in Aberdeen, Mississippi, to Grace and Page Box. The birth of two younger brothers, Page Jr. and David, would complete her birth family. She grew up surrounded by an extended family of grand-parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, to whom she was always “Sassy.. All her life she carried many happy memories of large family gatherings and, with her brothers and cousins, of adventures in the woods which surrounded her home. Although marriage and career took her to Oklahoma, she always remembered her deep Mississippi roots. She attended Aberdeen schools and was graduated from Aberdeen High School in 1959, having been named Valedictorian of her graduating class. Elizabeth attended Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion in 1963. In 1965 she was graduated cum laude from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas, with a Master’s degree in Christian Education. She completed her formal education when she was awarded her doctorate from Oklahoma State University with a focus on adult learning. While at Perkins, she met her future husband, fellow student John Price, and the two were married on September 5, 1965, in Aberdeen. In 1982, she began her long and distinguished career in higher education as a member of the founding faculty of the Wimberly School of Religion at Oklahoma City University. In 1989, she joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary. She first served as Dean of the Seminary’s Enid campus and later transitioned to teaching, writing, and faculty development after the Enid and Tulsa campuses consolidated in Tulsa. Upon her retirement in 2004, the Seminary named her Professor of Christian Education Emerita. Elizabeth felt a deep bond with the whole of Creation and was never happier than when she could be outdoors, experiencing the wonder and beauty of the entire cosmos, often walking or hiking during the day, and stargazing at night. Even as her dementia descended into darkness, she said to John, “There is so much beautiful in the world to see.” She and John together had visited 23 national parks before her stroke derailed their plans to visit them all. These visits, and travels to four continents and most of the fifty States, deepened her understanding of and appreciation for both the diversity and the unity of all life. Her growing interest in Creation-centered spirituality—which unites nature, the cosmos, and humanity—along with the convergence of science, religion, and ways of knowing inspired her to develop a seminary-level course titled “Christian Nurture and The New Cosmology.” This course was recognized for excellence by an award from the prestigious Templeton Foundation. Elizabeth was one of a consortium of six women seminary professors who received a research grant to examine how congregations implement change around issues of greater inclusiveness and openness, particularly as regards LGBTQ persons and others whom congregations often marginalize. Their research was published in 2003 as *[People of a Compassionate God: Creating Welcoming Congregations](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/579172.People_of_a_Compassionate_God)*. She was also co-editor of an earlier book, *[By What Authority: A Conversation on Teaching Among United Methodists](https://www.amazon.com.au/What-Authority-Conversation-Teaching-Methodists/dp/0687045568)*. Elizabeth was ordained a Deacon in The United Methodist Church in 1996. She lived her ordained ministry primarily through her teaching, but also by acting upon her concern for issues of justice, compassion, and mercy. Elizabeth loved music and her strong soprano voice gifted many church choirs throughout the years. After she and John moved to Georgetown, Texas, in 2017, she joined the San Gabriel Chorale, a community performance group dedicated to classical choral works. Elizabeth cherished family and took especial delight in her roles as Mom, Grand-mama, and Aunt Sassy. Elizabeth was preceded in death by her parents, The Reverend Page Box and Grace Jones Box, her Brother Page Box Jr., and sister-in-law Mary Anna Harris Price. Those who hold the gift of her life in memory, gratitude, and love include: - Her husband of 59 years, The Reverend John R. Price. - Daughter Joye Price and daughter-in-law Brenda Marlin, and their children: Alexandra McBurnett, Rachel McBurnett, Madelyn Reed, and Elizabeth Reed. - Son Jonathan Price and daughter-in-law Sarah Duncan Price, and their children: Duncan Price and Anderson Price. - Brother David Box and sister-in-law Nell Boren Box. - Sister-in-law Patricia Ware Kahl and her husband, Russ Kahl. - Brother-in-law Don Price. - Sister-in-law Faye Ann Price Presnal and brother-in-law Glade Presnal. - As well as beloved cousins, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces/nephews, great-grand-nieces, former students, colleagues, neighbors, and friends whose lives she touched in so many ways. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to [Phillips Theological Seminary](https://ptstulsa.edu/donate/), [The Nature Conservancy](https://www.nature.org/en-us/membership-and-giving/donate-to-our-mission/), or the environmental charity of your choice. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Names the Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson as Center for Religion in Public Life Interim Executive Director](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/11/04/crpl-interim/) **Published:** November 4, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Trista-Soendker-Nicholson-300x225.jpg)The Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes the Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson as interim executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life. She will begin her two-year term on January 1, 2026. Soendker Nicholson, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and PhD candidate at Wesley House Cambridge (UK), brings a deep background in public theology, ministry, and advocacy to this role. She has served as a pastor for several congregations in the Missouri Annual Conference and teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Saint Paul School of Theology. Her teaching includes courses in Wesleyan Theology and History, Preaching, and Hebrew Scriptures. Soendker Nicholson’s ongoing doctoral research, “More Power, Less Glory: An Analysis of Martin E. Marty’s Writing on Christian Nationalism and Fundamentalism in the Wesleyan Movement,” explores intersections of faith, politics, and public life. She anticipates the awarding of her PhD in 2026. “Trista’s deep commitment in connecting theology with the pressing issues of our public life makes her an ideal leader for this next chapter of the Center for Religion in Public Life,” said President F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD. “Her experience as both a pastor and public theologian will help Phillips continue to equip faith leaders for deep learning, faithful leadership and global impact.” Before entering ordained ministry, Soendker Nicholson worked on Capitol Hill for U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Ike Skelton, gaining firsthand experience in the legislative process and advocacy work. She later served as a nonprofit advocate and has continued to integrate those skills into her ministry. Her volunteer leadership with Missouri Faith Voices and Missouri Jobs With Justice reflects a long-standing commitment to social justice and faith-based organizing in the community. The Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary serves as a hub for progressive engagement, equipping leaders and communities to respond faithfully to public issues through scholarship, dialogue, and advocacy. The executive director develops and leads this work by teaching courses on religion and public life, fostering partnerships with faith-based and civic organizations, and expanding the center’s effect through public events, research and collaborative initiatives. “I am honored to join Phillips in this work,” said Soendker Nicholson. “The Center for Religion in Public Life embodies the best of what theological education can offer. It’s a place where faith and public responsibility meet for the good of all. I look forward to partnering with others to advance this mission in congregations and the community.” Soendker Nicholson succeeds the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, founding director of the Center, who has served Phillips in a variety of leadership roles, including as president. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Receives $1 Million Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative Grant](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/10/10/pathways_grant/) **Published:** October 10, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary has received a grant of $1 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Town and Country Leadership Project. The new project is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, which is intended to help theological schools across the United States and Canada strengthen their educational and financial capacities to prepare and support pastoral leaders for Christian congregations both now and into the future. The grant will support the launch of the Town and Country Leadership Project, a new program designed to enhance the vitality of rural and small congregations and to equip pastors and lay leaders for the challenges and changes of ministry in these communities. These initiatives will create an ecosystem connecting Phillips students, alums, and congregational leaders in shared formation and innovation. The project’s two long-term goals are to build leadership capacity and expand seminary engagement. “This grant represents a transformative opportunity,” said F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD, President of Phillips Theological Seminary. “The Town and Country Leadership Project will allow us to walk alongside congregations and leaders in small towns and rural settings, places where faith communities are often central to community life, and help ensure they thrive in the years to come.” Phillips Theological Seminary is one of 163 theological schools that have received grants since 2021 through the Pathways initiative. Together, the schools serve a broad spectrum of Christian traditions in the U.S. and Canada. They are affiliated with evangelical, mainline Protestant, nondenominational, Pentecostal, Orthodox, Catholic, Black church, Latino, Asian American, Indigenous and historic peace church traditions. “Theological schools have long played a central role for most denominations and church networks in preparing and supporting pastoral leaders who guide congregations,” said Christopher L. Coble, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion. “These schools are paying close attention to the challenges churches are facing today and will face in the foreseeable future. The grants will help these schools engage in wide-ranging, innovative efforts to adapt their educational programs and build their financial capacities so they can better prepare pastors and lay ministers to effectively lead the congregations they will serve in the future.” About Lilly Endowment Inc. [Lilly Endowment Inc.](https://lillyendowment.org/) is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of religion and lift up in fair, accurate and balanced ways the roles that people of all faiths and various religious communities play in the United States and around the globe. **Categories:** News --- ### [In Memoriam: the Rev. Frances Ann (Clare) Schnarre](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/07/28/rev-frances-ann-schnarre/) **Published:** July 28, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Frances-Ann-Clare-Schnarre-242x300.png)Phillips Theological Seminary remembers and honors the life and ministry of the Rev. Frances Ann (Clare) Schnarre, who passed away on July 25, 2025, at age 73 in Centralia, Missouri. Schnarre dedicated her life to ministry and compassionate community service, significantly influencing rural ministry education through her leadership with the Missouri School of Religion, whose legacy continues as the Center for Ministry and Lay Training at Phillips Theological Seminary Born January 23, 1952, in Troy, Missouri, Frances Schnarre felt a deep call to ministry that led her from farming, and an accounting degree, into pastoral service. Ordained in 2001, she served as associate pastor at First Christian Church in Centralia, MO, as Director of the Missouri School of Religion, and later as Pastor of Granville Christian Church until her retirement in 2019. Her passion extended beyond ministry into advocacy, notably as District Representative for Growing Hope Globally and as a dedicated Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). “Frances Schnarre embodied genuine compassion, faithful leadership, and tireless advocacy,” said Phillips Seminary President the Rev. F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD. “Her profound impact on rural congregations and individuals continues to inspire our commitment to serving these communities with dedication, understanding and love.” Funeral services for Rev. Schnarre will be held at 10 a.m. July 29, 2025, at First Christian Church in Centralia, MO. The service will also be streamed on [YouTube](https://m.youtube.com/@firstchristianchurch-centr9544?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwL0RZFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHsyJyqBlQbZFGNglXSlqVdwJhJGfg-LKHkKCYRTyajdYZU3sIhmt4JNzrhNn_aem_elzDAV_UD6XmeYgp7ysKwQ). **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Theological Seminary Mourns the Passing of John Hadley Bennett](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/07/22/john-bennett/) **Published:** July 22, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary honors the life of the Rev. Dr. John Hadley Bennett, a dedicated leader whose ministry profoundly influenced rural churches and communities throughout his home state of Missouri and beyond. Bennett, who passed away at age 85 on July 15, 2025, played an important role in what is now known as the [Center for Ministry and Lay Training](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/center-for-ministry-and-lay-training/) at Phillips Theological Seminary. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/john-bennett.jpg)Born on April 18, 1940, in Bonne Terre, Missouri, Bennett was ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in 1965. Throughout his career, he held significant pastoral and leadership roles, culminating in his tenure as associate director and then director of the Missouri School of Religion Center for Rural Ministry in Jefferson City. Under his leadership, the center became an essential resource for equipping clergy and laypersons for effective rural and small church ministry. Upon his retirement in 2005, the Missouri School of Religion honored Bennett by establishing the John Bennett Award for Meritorious Ministry in Church and Community. Following the closure of the Missouri School of Religion, Phillips Theological Seminary assumed responsibility for its programs, incorporating them into its own educational offerings through the Center for Ministry and Lay Training. This transition ensured the continuation of Bennett’s passion for nurturing vibrant and resilient congregations. “John Bennett’s unwavering commitment to justice, community empowerment, and pastoral excellence deeply resonates with our mission at Phillips,” said President F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD. “His legacy is reflected daily in the ongoing work and leadership of the Center for Ministry and Lay Training.” A passionate advocate for social justice throughout his ministry, Bennett said, “my ministry is bracketed by participation in a Civil Rights March led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago in 1964 and participation in the ‘Medicaid 23’ Justice Witness Event in the Missouri Senate Gallery on May 6, 2014, in which we declared, ‘Medicaid expansion is a moral imperative!’” Bennett’s accolades include the David Brent Racial Justice Award, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award, and the Torch Bearer for Justice Award. He is survived by his children, grandchildren, and a host of family and friends. Memorial services will be held at First Christian Church in Jefferson City, Missouri, on July 26, 2025. **Categories:** News --- ### [Oklahoma United Methodists and Phillips Theological Seminary Partner for New Center for Black Faith, Leadership & Transformation](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/06/13/okumc-partners/) **Published:** June 13, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary announces a new partnership with the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church to host the Center for Black Faith, Leadership & Transformation on its Tulsa, Okla. campus, beginning July 1. The collaboration, formalized in a three-year agreement, connects Phillips to this important work by the Oklahoma Conference. The center will serve as a hub for cultivating African-American leadership within the United Methodist Church and beyond, led by its inaugural director, Gwendolyn Collins-Derrick. “The launch of the Center for Black Faith, Leadership & Transformation reflects our shared commitment to justice, leadership development, and faith in action,” said Phillips President F. Douglas Powe Jr. “We are energized by the possibilities this partnership brings to our campus and our broader community.” Phillips will provide office space and campus access for the center’s administrative operations which will also foster shared learning and initiatives. “The Oklahoma Conference is excited to work with President Powe and Phillips Theological Seminary as we begin this new work in the Tulsa area,” said the Rev. Dr. Derrek Belase, connectional ministries director with the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church. “Our mission and ministry will be strengthened in ways that today we cannot even envision.” The center’s mission is to strengthen and expand the United Methodist Church’s presence and witness within African-American communities across Oklahoma. Key areas of focus will include: - community engagement - leadership development - coordination of events and ministry initiatives - collaboration with institutional partners. The seminary and the center expect to engage in meaningful conversations and collaborative projects that support and elevate African-American congregational leadership. “We are honored to welcome this new chapter in our ongoing work of theological education and public witness,” said President Powe. “Together with Oklahoma United Methodists, we seek to serve the church and the world more faithfully.” **Categories:** News --- ### [Wise Stewards Initiative Seminar Includes Phillips and Lexington Seminaries](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/03/28/wise-stewards/) **Published:** March 28, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The presidents of Phillips Theological Seminary and Lexington Theological Seminary recently participated in the 2025 Wise Stewards Initiative Seminar organized by the In Trust Center for Theological Schools. Both seminaries were also represented by members of their boards. The program is designed to enhance governance and leadership within theological institutions. Eleven schools from Canada and the United States took part in the seminar, demonstrating their commitment to institutional excellence and collaborative learning. In Trust’s seminar, with colleagues at the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, provided a platform for theological schools to share best practices, address challenges and explore strategies for governance. The participation of leaders from Lexington and Phillips, both affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), highlights their dedication to build stronger relationships and think about their thriving into the future. Attending from Phillips: Todd Adams (board member), Connie Dietz (board member), Claire Meredith (board chair), and President Doug Powe. Attending from Lexington: Leslie Geoghegan (board member), President Charisse Gillett, William Lee (board chair), and Jim Wheeler (board member). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/wise-stewards-powe-1024x635.png)Back row (left to right) Rev. Jim Wheeler, Rev. Dr. William Lee, Rev. Dr. Todd Adams, Rev. Dr. Douglas Powe. Front row (left to right) Dr. Charisse Gillett, Leslie Geoghegan, Amy L. Kardash (President, In Trust Center), Claire Meredith, Connie Dietz. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Enlivens Spirit of Generosity to Support Students in Pastoral Leadership](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/03/13/enlivens-generosity/) **Published:** March 13, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** **by Anne Carter Walker, PhD, Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/seminary-scholars-logo-no-alpha-236x300.png)Phillips Theological Seminary is a progressive school that believes education should be available to everyone, not just those who can afford it. The increased costs of undergraduate education often force students to delay or bypass graduate school or to drop out of school altogether, and therefore to forego vocational aspirations. With the median annual salary for a denominational pastor with a master’s degree falling around $45,000, a seminary education is becoming more and more out of reach for many people with a heart for ministry and a passion for social change. It is these concerns that prompted a partnership across Phillips to understand more about the student debt burden and how seminary resources might assist in closing the student debt gap and nurturing the future of pastoral ministry. Last fall, the Phillips Board of Trustees approved enhancements to our financial resources for students pursuing ministry and pastoral leadership. This commitment dedicates over $5 million over the next five years to support students financially, including sweeping increases in all student aid, dedicated resources to pay for students’ books and travel expenses, and a competitive scholarship + stipend program. **Increases in Tuition Remission for All Phillips Students** Included in the $5 million package are across-the-board tuition reductions for all Phillips students at both the master’s and doctoral levels. Starting in January 2025, all Phillips students receive 80-100% tuition remission. Providing this support means that students—who often carry full time course loads and hold down full- and part-time jobs in addition to one or two ministry roles, and are by-and-large in mid-life, which means they likely care for dependents and/or elders—can effectively let go of much of the financial burden of seminary, allowing them to pursue their total wholeness, and wholeness in the work of ministry, as they make their way through theological education. This is especially unheard of at the doctoral level, where most students across North American pay out of pocket or pay a substantial portion of their program costs. **Support for Books, Travel, and Lodging** Not only do Phillips students receive support for tuition, our school also pays for their books, through the Phillips business office. With a great majority of Phillips students residing outside of the Tulsa metro area, many of them out-of-state, travel support is also an essential consideration in the total expense to students in seminary. Phillips offers up to $1,500 annually per student for travel and lodging expenses. And, with the addition of [Bedford House](https://ptstulsa.edu/emerging-vision/), a new Phillips short-term lodging and conference facility which is currently under construction, students will have additional opportunities to create spaces of community and belonging as they pursue their studies. Bedford House is set to open in Fall 2025. **Seminary Scholars: A Community of Belonging, Right Here in Tulsa** New to Phillips in the Fall of 2025 will be the [Seminary Scholars program](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/scholars/), a collective of scholarship + stipend recipients who are committed to their theological studies and to building community here in Tulsa. Seminary Scholars provides 100% tuition coverage plus a $21,000 annual stiped to select student applicants who pursue their studies at the master’s level, maintain a 3.5 GPA, and reside in Tulsa. The impetus behind Seminary Scholars is the creation of a meaningful network of support and belonging for those pursuing pastoral leadership and ministry while resourcing the whole student, both in and outside of the classroom. While taking classes from Phillips’ [world-class faculty](https://ptstulsa.edu/faculty-directory/), Seminary Scholars will be resourced with professional development opportunities, community mentoring and internships, and social gatherings to nurture their personal and professional lives and find sustainable living here in Tulsa. **Enlivening a Spirit of Generosity** Phillips is able to provide a sustainable path to a degree in pastoral ministry by supporting the whole student while we make pathways for the development of the future of ministry and pastoral leadership. This work is tangible act to ethically and responsibly nourish and strengthen our investment in the students and in the future of this work. It is a sincere effort to find creative ways to improve the experiences of our students, to make Phillips more available to community and local stakeholders, and to continue to pursue the Phillips mission to impact the world through the provision of progressive theological education in the way of Jesus. This work is not possible without the individuals and donors who have invested in Phillips and in the future of the church. For more information on Phillips degree programs and study options, visit . To make a gift to Phillips, visit . **Categories:** Seminary Scholars **Tags:** #seminaryscholars, #stipend, tulsa --- ### [Introducing the Seminary Scholars Program at Phillips Theological Seminary: A Holistic Approach to Theological Education](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/03/13/holistic-approach/) **Published:** March 13, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** **by Devaunjue “Jay” Williams, Program Coordinator for Admissions & Recruitment** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/seminary-scholars-logo-no-alpha-236x300.png)At Phillips Theological Seminary, we are deeply committed to not only educating future leaders in ministry but also supporting the growth of these individuals in every facet of their lives. Our newly launched *Seminary Scholars Program* embodies this commitment, offering a comprehensive support system for students who wish to grow in Community Formation, Spiritual Formation, and Professional/Academic Formation. Through this program, we aim to provide a nurturing and empowering environment that allows scholars to thrive in all areas of their journey—intellectual, spiritual, and relational. **A Holistic Approach to Seminary Education** Theological education is about much more than the transfer of knowledge—it’s about transforming lives. Our Seminary Scholars program takes a holistic approach to the educational experience by addressing the academic, spiritual, and communal needs of our students. We understand that the pursuit of a theological education is not only an intellectual endeavor, but also a deep spiritual journey and a transformative personal experience. Therefore, we’ve created this program to meet scholars where they are and provide them with the support they need to succeed, grow, and become effective leaders in their communities. **Commitment 1: Community Formation** At Phillips, we believe that education doesn’t take place in isolation. It’s a relational and communal process, and we are committed to fostering a robust and vibrant community where students feel connected, supported, and empowered. Our Seminary Scholars will be part of a close-knit network of like-minded individuals who share a passion for theological exploration and social transformation. Through regular events, workshops, and group discussions, our students will engage with faculty, companion scholars, and local leaders. The relationships and networks built during this time will be crucial not only for personal support, but also for future collaboration in ministry and social engagement. Students will be encouraged to cultivate deep relationships with one another, providing a foundation of trust and mutual growth that will serve them well throughout their careers. We recognize the importance of community—both within the seminary and beyond—and aim to create a space where our students can learn from each other’s experiences and work together for the common good. Our commitment to community formation extends beyond academic spaces, providing opportunities for students to serve together in local initiatives, engage in interfaith dialogue, and participate in outreach programs that create positive change. **Commitment 2: Spiritual Formation** For many students, theological education is as much about spiritual growth as it is about intellectual development. The Seminary Scholars Program takes this into account by placing a strong emphasis on *Spiritual Formation*. We believe that deepening one’s relationship with God, self, and others is essential to preparing future leaders in ministry. Spiritual formation is not just something that happens during chapel services or spiritual retreats. It is a continual process that influences every part of life. Through personalized spiritual guidance, retreats, prayer groups, and other spiritual practices, we help our Seminary Scholars discern their calling and deepen their faith with The Holy. We also support students in cultivating their own spiritual practices, equipping them with the tools they need to sustain their spiritual lives throughout their ministries. As scholars continue their education, they will have opportunities to participate in spiritual formation programs designed to strengthen their spiritual resilience and sense of vocation. In addition, our faculty and staff serve as spiritual mentors and companions, offering personalized support and guidance throughout each student’s journey. By the time our Seminary Scholars graduate, they will have developed a strong spiritual foundation to carry into their ministry vocations, able to shepherd others with wisdom, compassion, and authenticity. **Commitment 3: Professional and Academic Formation** The heart of Phillips Theological Seminary lies in its academic rigor and commitment to cultivating scholarly leaders. Our Seminary Scholars program places equal emphasis on *Professional and Academic Formation*, ensuring that students are not only equipped for theological reflection but also prepared for professional ministry and leadership in diverse contexts. Students in the Seminary Scholars program will have access to a variety of resources to support their academic success, including individualized academic advising, mentorship from experienced faculty, and opportunities for advanced research and writing. This academic support is complemented by hands-on professional formation experiences such as internships, field placements, and mentorship from practitioners in ministry, nonprofit work, and social justice. This commitment is about helping students integrate their academic knowledge with practical experience. Through these opportunities, students will develop skills and insights they can apply directly in their ministry settings. Whether students are preparing for parish ministry, chaplaincy, teaching, or social justice work, we are committed to providing them with the tools and training they need to excel in their chosen vocations. **Generous Financial Support: Alleviating the Burden** A significant barrier to theological education is the financial strain many students face. At Phillips, we believe that the best minds should not be held back by financial limitations. As part of our Seminary Scholars program, we offer substantial financial support that helps alleviate the burden of tuition, fees, and living expenses, allowing students to focus on their studies and spiritual development without the constant stress of financial worry. *By providing 100% tuition assistance and a $21,000 annual living stipend,* we ensure that our scholars can pursue their education with peace of mind. This financial support reflects our commitment to making theological education accessible and equitable to all students, regardless of their financial background. **A Work in Progress: Join Us in Shaping the Future** We are incredibly excited about the Seminary Scholars program and the opportunities it will provide for future students, but we are also in the building stages of this transformative initiative. As we work to shape and refine the program, we invite potential applicants—especially those who are passionate about ministry and social change—to join us in this important work. Together, we can build a program that serves as a model for theological education that is not only academically rigorous, but also spiritually nurturing and community focused. Our hope is that the Seminary Scholars program will enrich the lives of scholars for generations to come, helping them grow into effective, compassionate leaders who will make a lasting impact in their local communities and the world writ large. If you’re interested in applying to the Seminary Scholars program or want to learn more about how you can be part of this exciting new chapter at Phillips, you can [explore here](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/scholars/). The journey is just beginning, and we can’t wait to see the ways this program will evolve with the input and passion of the students who join us. We are here to support you every step of the way, and together, we can create a future that reflects the heart of theological education: one that nurtures the whole person—body, mind, and spirit. Let’s shape the future of ministry together. **Categories:** Seminary Scholars --- ### [Phillips Theological Seminary Receives Historic $2.1 Million Gift from Bedford Estate, Marking New Era in Funding](https://ptstulsa.edu/2025/02/25/historic-gift/) **Published:** February 25, 2025 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** A financial gift more than 60 years in the making will enable Phillips Theological Seminary to continue its practice of radical hospitality through the new student housing project, Bedford House. In a period of transformative change for graduate theological education, Phillips is receiving a gift of $2.1 million from the estate of Sidney Bedford Jr. This exceptional donation is the seminary’s largest since the Cadieux bequest and signifies a pivotal shift in support for housing on the Tulsa, Okla. campus. “The Bedford gift comes at a time when seminaries are no longer investing in buildings,” said Phillips President F. Douglas Powe Jr. “The historical nature of this contribution not only honors their lifetime of generosity but also propels us into a new era of educational excellence and sustainability as we construct a space that welcomes all.” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/sidney-bedford-sr-1949-yearbook-med-216x300.png)Sidney Bedford from the 1949 Phillips University yearbook. In 1961, Bedford established a scholarship fund in memory of his late wife that grew to a $2.1 million gift for Phillips Theological Seminary from the Sidney Bedford Jr. estate. The history of the gift dates to 1948 when Sidney Bedford first taught at the College of the Bible at Phillips University in Enid, Okla., the forerunner of Phillips Theological Seminary. In 1961, at the passing of his spouse, he established the Mrs. Sidney M. Bedford Memorial Scholarship at the school. Eight years later, Sidney Bedford Jr. and Dr. Mary Ruth Bedford started making regular contributions to the endowed scholarship at Phillips. In recognition of Dr. Bedford’s gifts to the seminary over the decades, the Advancement office created the Dr. Mary Ruth Bedford Award for Individual Giving in 2021. “Her legacy, coupled with that of her brother Sidney Jr., who continued their family’s tradition of philanthropy through substantial planned gifts, reflects an enduring priority to nurture graduate theological education,” said Phillips Vice President of Advancement Terry Ewing. The estate gift will allocate more than $1 million to the Bedford Endowed Scholarship. An additional $1.1 million will establish the Bedford Endowed Fund for Maintenance and Operations of Bedford House, underscoring the family’s longstanding commitment to the seminary’s future. The effect of the Bedford family’s contributions will continue to resonate within the seminary community, promising a vibrant future for theological education and serving as a beacon for the future. For more information about Phillips Theological Seminary and the Bedford family’s contributions, please contact Kurt Gwartney at 918.270.6470 or . **About Phillips Theological Seminary:** Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Phillips Theological Seminary offers comprehensive theological education dedicated to learning, leadership, and service to society. It provides a range of graduate and certificate programs that prepare students to be thoughtful, informed, and responsible religious leaders in diverse community contexts. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Board Names F. Douglas Powe, Jr. President of Phillips Theological Seminary](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/12/10/phillips-board-names-f-douglas-powe-jr-president-of-phillips-theological-seminary/) **Published:** December 10, 2024 **Author:** Holly Becker **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/DougPowe-300x298.jpg) Following a national search, the Board of Trustees of Phillips Theological Seminary has named the Rev. F. Douglas Powe, Jr., PhD as the school’s next president. Powe comes to Phillips from Wesley Theological Seminary where he currently serves as director of The Lewis Center for Church Leadership and the James C. Logan Chair in Evangelism (an E. Stanley Jones Professorship). “We had several outstanding candidates who could lead Phillips into the future, and Dr. Powe’s perspectives on the future of theological education and the church demonstrated a visionary and hopeful approach,” said Claire Meredith, chair of the seminary’s board of trustees and the presidential search committee. “Powe has an impressive record in leading, teaching and publishing,” Meredith said. “His work in evangelism, leadership development, rural and urban ministry will be valuable to Phillips as we continue to find new ways to live out our mission and vision.” Besides leading the Lewis Center at Wesley Theological Seminary, Powe also served as Professor of Evangelism and Urban Ministry. He also taught at Saint Paul School of Theology, Spelman College and the Candler School of Theology. “Phillips is uniquely positioned to help lead continued transformation in the church and community,” Powe said. “While some seminaries are scaling back, Phillips is growing with its multiple ministry centers and the building of a new residential hospitality center called Bedford House. The more I’ve learned about Phillips, the more thrilled I am to become part of the seminary community.” Powe is an ordained elder in the Baltimore/Washington Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He received his BA from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1987, his MDiv from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in 1998, and his PhD from Emory University in 2004. The search was led by a nine-member committee appointed by the Board of Trustees. The committee included board members, along with faculty, staff, and alum representation. The finalists also met with students, faculty and staff as part of the selection process. Academic Search assisted Phillips in the selection process. Powe will formally become president on January 31, 2025. Phillips will host an inaugural service next fall and a special reception during the 2025 Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly in Memphis, Tenn. to welcome Powe to the seminary as its new president. **Categories:** News **Tags:** Seminary News --- ### [Phillips Board Welcomes Interim President, Approves Sweeping Student Aid Increase](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/10/11/phillips-board-welcomes-interim-president-approves-sweeping-student-aid-increase/) **Published:** October 11, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Phillips Theological Seminary Board of Trustees approved a new student financial support program, named the seminary’s building project, and received the latest audit report at its meeting Oct. 7-8. Prior to the meeting, the Board of Trustees hosted a retirement celebration for the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman. At the event, they also bestowed the title of President Emerita to Pittman and announced that the conference space in the seminary’s new campus expansion will be named Pittman Hall in honor of both Nancy and Don Pittman. The board also welcomed new Interim President Gary Kidwell and several new board members while meeting on the Tulsa, Okla. campus. Trustees, faculty and administrators also participated in a day of shared governance learning and planning led by a consultant with the In Trust Center. The trustees voted for across-the-board increases in scholarship aid for all new and returning full-time degree-seeking students. They approved an increase in tuition remission percentages beginning spring 2025. Students currently receiving an 80 percent reduction will move up to 100 percent. The 60 percent remission will increase to 80 percent. Trustees are devoting more than $5 million over the next five years for the increased aid, including funding for a new Seminary Scholars program that will provide eight annual full tuition scholarships with stipends starting fall of 2025. In 2023, 54 percent of incoming students at Phillips named financial aid as the most significant factor in their decision to attend the seminary. Three-quarters of Black incoming students entered with more than $20,000 educational debt, and 75 percent of white incoming students entered with up to $10,000 of educational debt. “I want to thank our task group that understood the need to do more to help students with educational debt,” said Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs Anne Carter Walker. “We hope this investment will close the student indebtedness gap by decreasing the amount of borrowing needed to complete a Phillips degree.” In other action, the board agreed to name the new conference center and short-term housing project. More details behind the name will be announced soon. Board members also accepted the fiscal 2023-24 audit report which was reported as “clean” and unmodified by the auditors, the highest accounting opinion. **Categories:** News --- ### [Sept. 16: Installation of the Rev. Lisa Wilson Davison, PhD as Dean](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/09/04/sept-16-installation-of-the-rev-lisa-wilson-davison-phd-as-dean/) **Published:** September 4, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary announces the upcoming installation of the Rev. Dr. Lisa Wilson Davison as the new Vice President of Academic Affairs and the seventh Dean of the seminary. The installation takes place Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Meinders Chapel on the Tulsa campus and [online](https://www.youtube.com/@PhillipsSeminary/streams). Davison, in her 14th year as Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips, has been the interim dean since July 1, 2023. She officially assumed her new position July 1, 2024. “We appreciate Dr. Davison’s commitment to Phillips in a variety of roles over the years,” said Claire Meredith, chair of the Board of Trustees. “She brings a breadth of scholarship, teaching, church and institutional experience to this new role.” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Davison_Lisa-2-240x300.jpeg) The Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison Davison is a native of Radford, Va. with a BA (Religion and Spanish) from Lynchburg College; an MDiv from Brite Divinity School (TCU), and an MA from Vanderbilt University. She received her PhD in Hebrew Bible from Vanderbilt. She is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has served congregations in Texas and Kentucky. Davison has led several academic committees as chair at Phillips while also participating as an active member of many other committees, task forces and groups before serving as Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs. Her newest book is [*More Than a Womb: Childfree Women in the Hebrew Bible as Agents of the Holy*](https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Womb-Childfree-Hebrew/dp/1620329530/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=). Davison is also the author of [*Preaching the Women of the Bible*](https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Women-Bible-Wilson-Davison-ebook/dp/B003B66CBQ?ref_=ast_author_dp) (2006) and has contributed to the following books: *The Preacher’s Bible Handbook* (2019), *Living Pulpit 2018: Sermons in the Stone-Campbell Movement 1968-2018* (2018), and *Those Preaching Women: A Multicultural Collection* (2008). The installation can be viewed online at https://www.youtube.com/@PhillipsSeminary/streams. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Phillips Theological Seminary](https://www.ptstulsa.edu/) offers Christian graduate theological education in service of intelligent, just, and compassionate religious and civic communities. Phillips welcomes students to a safe and brave space for truth-seeking conversations about the Bible, Jesus, and faithful living. **Categories:** News --- ### [In Memoriam: Dr. Maynard Eugene Boring (1935-2024)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/07/02/eugene-boring/) **Published:** July 2, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** Phillips Theological Seminary mourns the passing of Dr. M. Eugene Boring on June 27, 2024. Dr. Boring became Professor of New Testament and Greek at Phillips University in 1967. He was later named  the Darbeth Distinguished Professor of New Testament at the Graduate Seminary at Phillips University in Enid, Okla. until 1986. **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/m-eugene-boring.jpeg)Phillips Theological Seminary mourns the passing of Dr. M. Eugene Boring on June 27, 2024. Dr. Boring became Professor of New Testament and Greek at Phillips University in 1967. He was later named the Darbeth Distinguished Professor of New Testament at the Graduate Seminary at Phillips University in Enid, Okla. until 1986. After leaving Phillips, Dr. Boring went on to teach at Texas Christian University and Brite Divinity School, from which he retired in 2003 as Professor Emeritus of New Testament. A renowned scholar of the New Testament, Dr. Boring was the author of many translations and books. He was an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). A Celebration of Life will be held Tuesday, July 9, 2024, at University Christian Church in Ft. Worth, Texas, at 4 p.m. A full obituary can be found [online](https://thompsonfuneral.com/tribute/details/6261/Maynard-Boring/obituary.html). The service will also be streamed live [CLICK TO WATCH](http://www.universitychristian.org/live/). May the Holy grant all those who loved and learned from Dr. Boring the fullness of the Divine Shalom. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Announces Interim President](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/06/03/kidwell-interim-president/) **Published:** June 3, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/gary_kidwell.png)The Rev. Gary W. Kidwell The Board of Trustees of Phillips Theological Seminary announces the appointment of the Rev. Gary W. Kidwell as interim president beginning Oct. 1, 2024. Kidwell comes to the seminary from the Christian Church Foundation where he has served as president since 2003. “With more than 20 years of service as trustee at Lexington Theological Seminary, including six years as chair of the board, along with decades of additional leadership experience, Gary brings important insight into graduate theological education,” said Claire Meredith, trustees chair. “Phillips is fortunate to have Gary step into the president’s role to lead the seminary as we take the time to conduct a national search for our next president.” Phillips President Nancy Claire Pittman will retire from the seminary Sept. 30. She has served the institution in several roles before being named the seminary’s first female president in 2019. ([read more](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/04/17/president-pittman-retire/)) In accepting this new call to ministry, Kidwell said, “Phillips is a great and vital seminary on solid ground. I look forward to serving as a bridge between Dr. Pittman’s outstanding leadership to the next president.” Kidwell is a graduate of Campbellsville University and received his Master of Divinity degree from Lexington Theological Seminary. He is a Chartered Financial Consultant, Certified Fundraising Executive, and a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. He holds a certificate in nonprofit management from Harvard Business School. Kidwell also brings the heart and passion of a church pastor to the role at Phillips having launched Twin Pines Christian Church in Lexington, KY, in 1985, as a new church pastor/developer. He also served as pastor of Walton Christian Church, Walton, KY, from 1980 to 1985. Kidwell and his spouse, Judy, are members of Geist Christian Church in Indianapolis and are the parents of two adult children. **About Phillips Theological Seminary** Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Phillips Theological Seminary offers comprehensive theological education dedicated to learning, leadership, and service to society. It provides a range of graduate programs that prepare students to be thoughtful, informed, and responsible religious leaders in diverse community contexts. **Categories:** News **Tags:** Disciples, Seminary News --- ### [Phillips Theological Seminary Celebrates 2024 Graduates, Awards Honorary Doctorate to Free Mom Hugs Founder](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/05/18/2024_graduation/) **Published:** May 18, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary awarded 24 degrees and certificates during its annual commencement ceremony May 18 at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Tulsa, Okla. The senior class reflection was delivered by Phillip Daniel Munsterman, graduating Master of Divinity student. The faculty address was given by Nancy Claire Pittman, president of Phillips who is retiring Sept. 30. Inspiring commencement music was provided by [Alex Geiger](https://www.instagram.com/alextgeiger/), graduating Master of Divinity student. This is the first year Phillips Theological Seminary recognizes students graduating with a concentration in Black Church Traditions. The first two to complete this concentration were Sharri L. Coleman and DeSean A. Jarrett. ![Sara Cunningham, founder of Free Mom Hugs and recipient of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, takes a selfie with the faculty and graduates after the 2024 Phillips Theological Ceremony commencement ceremony May 18, 2024.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Grads_1501_Thmb-1024x714.jpg)Sara Cunningham, founder of Free Mom Hugs and recipient of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, takes a selfie with the faculty and graduates after the 2024 Phillips Theological Ceremony commencement ceremony May 18, 2024. This year’s ceremony also honored Sara Cunningham with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Cunningham, the founder of [Free Mom Hugs](https://freemomhugs.org), has gained national acclaim for her dedication to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, providing support and advocacy that underscores the power of unconditional love and acceptance. Those receiving Doctor of Ministry degrees were Joshua Eugene Bell, Miriam Oropesa Gentle, and Celeste LeBak. Receiving Master of Divinity degrees were Heidi Hewitt Bounds, Alex Tavarus Geiger, Stephen Israel Hogue, DeSean A. Jarrett, Phillip Daniel Munsterman (High Honors), Rachel Lynn Neil, Kelly J. Perotti, Stacy Webb Reaves, and Angela Suzanne Wrentz (Honors). Receiving Master of Arts (Social Justice) degrees were Laurie Capehart Clark (Honors)**,** Erin Louise Gresham**,** Keith Orlando Jossell**,** and Jayson Quincey Robertson. Receiving Master of Theological Studies degrees were Joshua Michael Beck (Honors) Sharri L. Coleman, Thomas D. Schwartz, and George Allen Terrell. Receiving Certificates in Pastoral Ministry from the Center for Ministry and Lay Training were Steven Cody DeMint and Robert Alan Simpson. Receiving a Graduate Certificate was William Scott Harralson. For a video of the 2024 commencement, [CLICK HERE](https://youtube.com/live/pHUCJrvpvXM?feature=share). You can view chapel services and other live events at . **About Phillips Theological Seminary** Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Phillips Theological Seminary offers comprehensive theological education dedicated to learning, leadership, and service to society. It provides a range of graduate programs that prepare students to be thoughtful, informed, and responsible religious leaders in diverse community contexts. **Categories:** Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program, Event, News --- ### [President Nancy Claire Pittman to Retire from Phillips Theological Seminary](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/04/17/president-pittman-retire/) **Published:** April 17, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Board of Trustees of Phillips Theological Seminary has announced the upcoming retirement of President Nancy Claire Pittman effective Sept. 30, 2024. “Nancy has faithfully served Phillips in so many ways over the decades,” said Claire Meredith, chair of the Board of Trustees. “As president, she has tirelessly worked to strengthen the seminary’s core values while exploring new opportunities with grace and strength.” Pittman served Phillips in several roles before being named the seminary’s first female president in 2019. She was Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean before being named interim president in 2018. She has also directed the seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program and taught courses in the practice of ministry and the New Testament. “There likely has never been a more challenging time to lead a seminary than during Nancy’s tenure,” Meredith said. “She has skillfully led Phillips through the global pandemic and continuing shifts in mainline Protestant theological education. Her vision has opened up new and innovative opportunities for the seminary and those it serves, including construction of a new building for short-term student housing and conferences.” There will be a public celebration of Pittman’s service and retirement this fall. The board is now actively seeking an interim president and will conduct a national search for the next president. **Categories:** News --- ### [gOD-Talk: Reimagining Faith in the 21st Century coming to Tulsa, April 5](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/03/25/god-talk-reimagining-faith/) **Published:** March 25, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/GodTalk-poster-Blue-Final-1a-tag1Rating2-203x300.jpg)Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Okla. is one of the stops on the multi-city film screening tour of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s documentary film, *gOD-Talk: Reimagining Faith in the 21st Century*, including panel discussions exploring how and why African American millennials are creating new ways to engage with religion and spirituality. Originally premiering in October 2023, gOD-Talk is the first feature-length film from the NMAAHC. The Oklahoma screening is April 5 on the seminary’s Tulsa campus, 901 N. Mingo Rd. with a reception at 5:45 p.m. and the film at 6:30 p.m. Updates, registration details and additional information can be found on the Phillips events website, [ptstulsa.edu/events](https://ptstulsa.edu/events). The documentary undertaken by NMAAHC’s Center for the Study of African American Religious Life in association with the Pew Research Center is the culmination project of a five-year study exploring the lives of seven Black millennials—Atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Ifa and Spiritualist—and how they reimagine faith in the 21st century. The film was executive produced by Kevin Young, NMAAHC’s Andrew W. Mellon Director. NMAAHC curator Teddy Reeves is the film’s creator and producer along with director and writer, Kim Moir, NMAAHC museum specialist. The film includes narration from Javicia Leslie Walker, film poster design by artist Nikkolas Smith and original music from Grammy winner Fantastic Negrito. “gOD-Talk is charting new ground in the exploration of Black faith both in the scholarly study of religion and cinematic expression,” Reeves said. “The film gives millennials, the world’s largest living generation, the space to not only wrestle with the complexities of their faith—from issues pertaining to gender and sexuality, abuse and trauma, hip-hop, gentrification and more—but to discuss how they are fearlessly reconstructing their spirituality within or beyond the confines of their traditional upbringings.” The gOD-Talk film tour and accompanying “talk back” panel discussions will take place at conferences, festivals, museums and community curations around the world. Registration and more details can be found on the [NMAAHC website](https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/museum-centers/african-american-religious-life/god-talk-black-millennials-and-faith). Discussions will feature principals from the film and leading millennial voices. The film is rated PG-13. **MEDIA ONLY CONTACT TULSA VENUE CONTACT TULSA SCREENING DETAILS** Melissa Wood Holly Becker April 5, 5:45 p.m. reception 202-297-6161 918-270-6446 6:30 p.m. screening Phillips Theological Seminary, 901 N. Mingo Rd., Tulsa, OK 74116 918-610-8303 [ptstulsa.edu/events](https://ptstulsa.edu/events) **Categories:** Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program, Event, News --- ### [Phillips Theological Seminary Announces New Academic Dean](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/03/22/new_dean_2024/) **Published:** March 22, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary is pleased to announce the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison as the next Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean. “Dr. Davison’s new role will keep Phillips moving into the future while remaining firmly rooted in our Disciples ethos and vision,” said President Nancy Claire Pittman. “Following a national search and in-person visits with four candidates, it was clear that she was the best choice as we reimagine graduate theological education.” Davison, in her 14th year as Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips, has been the interim dean since July 1, 2023. She will continue to serve in that capacity before officially assuming her new position July 1, 2024. “We appreciate Dr. Davison’s commitment to Phillips in a variety of roles over the years,” said Claire Meredith, chair of the Board of Trustees. “She brings a breadth of scholarship, teaching, church and institutional experience to this new role.” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Davison_Lisa-2-240x300.jpeg)The Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison Davison is a native of Radford, Va. with a BA (Religion and Spanish) from Lynchburg College; an MDiv from Brite Divinity School (TCU), and an MA from Vanderbilt University. She received her PhD in Hebrew Bible from Vanderbilt. She is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has served congregations in Texas and Kentucky. Davison has led several academic committees as chair at Phillips while also participating as an active member of many other committees, task forces and groups before serving as interim Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs. She continues to serve as the Formation Director for Disciples of Christ students. Her newest book is [*More Than a Womb: Childfree Women in the Hebrew Bible as Agents of the Holy*](https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Womb-Childfree-Hebrew/dp/1620329530/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=). Davison is also the author of [*Preaching the Women of the Bible*](https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Women-Bible-Wilson-Davison-ebook/dp/B003B66CBQ?ref_=ast_author_dp) (2006) and has contributed to the following books: *The Preacher’s Bible Handbook* (2019), *Living Pulpit 2018: Sermons in the Stone-Campbell Movement 1968-2018* (2018), and *Those Preaching Women: A Multicultural Collection* (2008). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Phillips Theological Seminary](https://www.ptstulsa.edu/) offers Christian graduate theological education in service of intelligent, just, and compassionate religious and civic communities. Phillips welcomes students to a safe and brave space for truth-seeking conversations about the Bible, Jesus, and faithful living. **Categories:** News --- ### [Exclusive Visual Art Exhibit Opening April 29 at Phillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/03/18/exclusive-visual-art-exhibit-opening-april-29-at-phillips/) **Published:** March 18, 2024 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** "Halim Flowers - Something New, Black Birds (2121)" is a solo exhibit of new works created by internationally known visual artist, spoken word performer, businessman and author of 11 published nonfiction works, Halim Flowers. The exhibit opens during Phillips Theological Seminary's annual Tulsa Race Massacre Lecture Series. Monday, April 29, Philips presents a lecture by Dr. Tracey Hucks, “Religion, the Black Body, and Intimate Terror in Trinidad” to commemorate the massacre, suggesting lessons the history offers, and interpreting the inherited legacies that must be confronted. Prior to the lecture, will be a reception launching the opening of Halim Flowers art exhibit featuring paintings exclusively created for this event. **Content:** **OVERVIEW:** “Halim Flowers – Something New, Black Birds (2121)” is a solo exhibit of new works created by internationally known visual artist, spoken word performer, businessman and author of 11 published nonfiction works, Halim Flowers. The exhibit opens during Phillips Theological Seminary’s annual Tulsa Race Massacre Lecture Series. Monday, April 29, Philips presents a lecture by Dr. Tracey Hucks, “Religion, the Black Body, and Intimate Terror in Trinidad” to commemorate the massacre, suggesting lessons the history offers, and interpreting the inherited legacies that must be confronted. Prior to the lecture, will be a reception launching the opening of Halim Flowers art exhibit featuring paintings exclusively created for this event. In describing this body of work, Flowers began with these Bible verses: *“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”* — Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV) *“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” —* Isaiah 43:19-21 (KJV) **SOMETHING NEW, BLACK BIRDS (2121)** is a collection of 21 original paintings created by the visual artist Halim A. Flowers. The works were inspired by the painter’s researching the tragedy that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the evening of May 31, 1921. Upon visiting the city and connecting viscerally with the land that was once held sacred by the indigenous people before colonization, the elasticity of his imagination expanded after learning more about the local histories encompassing all cultural denominations that shared the area. Upon returning to his studio from his trip to Tulsa this year, and after deep meditation, prayer, and fasting, Flowers was guided by his intuitive spirit to allow a visual language to flow through him that would imagine what the City of Tulsa – in particular its Greenwood area – would look like in the year of 2121, two centuries after the historic fatal events. “In order to not repeat the past, we must use our collective imagination capital now, in order to alchemize a more loving and genuinely equitable future,” Flowers wrote. “The human family fails collectively, for its lack of vision. Therefore, I have initiated a success for the city holistically, by creating a unique visual language aesthetic, for its people to have the audacity to love and dream together across generic divisive constructs. “Soul planes dropping bombs of love, mass graves resurrecting in joy, and the five civilized vibes are just a few of the visual poetries that will be illustrated in this collection. I believe that love is the vaccine to cure the spiritual hearts from the illness of indifference. It is through this vision and prayer that this body of work can bring the City of Tulsa together in radical love that will transcend all superficial barriers that serve to fracture the strong and resilient people of this industrious city.” “We are honored to work with Phillips Theological Seminary on the Tulsa Race Massacre Lecture Series through art,” said gallery owner Nicole Longnecker. “The choice of Halim Flowers for this important solo exhibit was driven by the clear message in his work to bring communities together and illuminate topics that generate societal connections through love.” **HALIM FLOWERS** Halim A. Flowers (b. 1980, Washington, DC) is an activist working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including painting, sound, fashion, and performance. At age 16, he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. At 38, after 22 years behind bars, he was released after successfully petitioning for resentencing. Art was Halim’s road to resilience and redemption. While in prison, Halim became a memoirist and poet with an irrepressible drive to make meaning out of darkness. Liberated through self-expression, he wrote and published 11 non-fiction works about the causes and consequences of the American prison system. He mentored incarcerated youths through D.C.’s Young Men Emerging program and took courses at Georgetown University through its Prisons and Justice Initiative. Halim’s experiences were captured in the Emmy award-winning documentary, “Thug Life In DC.” It’s powerful evidence of the persistence of human creativity in the most inhumane of circumstances. He refused to be rendered invisible. In the aftermath of his incarceration, Halim became a husband and a father. It was his wife, Lauren McKinney, who encouraged him to pick up a paintbrush. Halim has created a spectrum of colorful, politically charged paintings to reclaim the individuality and agency that gets broken down in carceral spaces. He keeps an aura of kindness and positivity, choosing to send a message of love even when the subject is serious. Halim’s work has been exhibited at the MoMA PS1 and the National Arts Club in New York City. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including Halcyon Arts Lab and Echoing Green fellowships. He is a sought-after speaker and has been featured on panels at universities and conferences around the country. In 2022 he launched his own streetwear clothing brand, debuted at New York Fashion Week and released his first album of rap music called “Ultracrepidarian*.*” Halim Flowers’ body of work is a visceral, visual embodiment about the ambition of racial justice, prison reform, financial literacy, and transcending adversity suggesting a sense of renewal, positivity and hope. **ABOUT PHILLIPS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY** Phillips Theological Seminary offers Christian graduate theological education in service of intelligent, just, and compassionate religious and civic communities. Phillips welcomes students to a safe and brave space for truth-seeking conversations about the Bible, Jesus, and faithful living. **WHO: HALIM FLOWERS – SOMETHING NEW, BLACK BIRDS (2121)** **WHERE:** Phillips Theological Seminary, 901 N Mingo Rd, Tulsa, OK 74116 **WHEN:** Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship and Exhibit Schedule Monday, April 29, 2024 - 5:30 p.m. – Reception and opening of “Something New, Black Birds (2121)” by Halim Flowers - 6:45 p.m. – Dr. Tracey Hucks lecture, “Religion, the Black Body, and Intimate Terror in Trinidad” Tuesday, April 30, 2024 - 6:30 p.m. – Reception at Greenwood Rising with a Discussion with Halim Flowers Wednesday, May 1, 2024 - 6 p.m. – VIP reception with Halim Flowers, including live painting and discussion **MORE INFO:** or (918) 610-8303 **IMAGES:** Halim Flowers, “A More Perfect Union (2121 Amendment),” 2024, acrylic, oil sticks on canvas, 36 x 24 inches Halim Flowers, “GAP Band 2.0 (Live At Love Hall 2121),” 2024, acrylic, oil stick on canvas, 24 x 36 inches (Images courtesy the artist and Nicole Longnecker Gallery) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Halim-Picture1-231x300.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Halim-Picture2-300x205.jpg) **Categories:** Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program, Event, News --- ### [Phillips Seminary Presents Carrie Newcomer in a Free Concert Jan. 25](https://ptstulsa.edu/2024/01/11/free-concert-carrie-newcomer/) **Published:** January 11, 2024 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary announces an uplifting and inspiring musical evening with the renowned singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer as part of our annual event, Remind & Renew. This year’s theme, “Charting New Terrain: Mapping Ministry in a Changed World,” aims to explore new perspectives in ministry and community engagement. “We are excited to have Carrie Newcomer, an accomplished recording artist, performer, and educator, join us for this special occasion,” said Kurt Gwartney, senior director of communications at Phillips. “Carrie’s music resonates with depth and compassion, and her presence is a testament to the power of storytelling through song.” **Event Details:** - Date: January 25, 2024 - Time: 7 p.m. - Location: Harvard Avenue Christian Church, 5502 S Harvard E Ave, Tulsa, OK 74135 - Admission: Free (Tickets available online) In addition to her concert, Newcomer will lead a special workshop, titled “Telling Our Story in Song,” during the Remind & Renew conference, which runs from Jan. 24-26. This workshop is a must-attend for anyone interested in exploring the intersection of music, narrative, and spirituality. (Workshop attendance requires registration and a fee. [CLICK TO REGISTER](bit.ly/remindandrenew)) Don’t miss this opportunity to join us for an evening of soulful music and community. Tickets for the concert are free and can be obtained online. Church congregations and individuals alike are invited to be part of this enriching experience. For more information and to reserve your tickets online, please visit to [bit.ly/remindandrenew](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/remind-renew/). We look forward to an evening of memorable music and meaningful conversation with Carrie Newcomer on Jan. 25. --- **About Remind & Renew:** Remind & Renew is an annual event focused on exploring contemporary issues in ministry and spiritual practice. Through workshops, discussions, and musical events, we aim to provide a space for learning, reflection, and community building. **About Carrie Newcomer:** Carrie Newcomer is a celebrated songwriter, recording artist, performer, and educator known for her poignant lyrics and engaging performances. Her work reflects a deep understanding of storytelling through music, making her an influential voice in contemporary spiritual and community dialogues. [LEARN MORE](https://www.carrienewcomer.com/) For more information, please contact: Kurt Gwartney, Sr. Director of Communications 918-270-6470 **Categories:** News **Tags:** Remind & Renew --- ### [Art Exhibit from Trace Logan open through Oct. 20: Special Event Oct. 11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/10/08/art-exhibit-from-trace-logan-open-through-oct-20-special-event-oct-11/) **Published:** October 8, 2023 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # *Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self* by Trace Logan August 21-October 20. Public viewing from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/LGBTQ-history-event-4-x-6-in-200x300.png)What does it mean to be seen? How do we express our true selves in a world that often expects us to fit into certain molds? How can art help us explore these questions and challenge our assumptions? These are some of the questions that inspire Trace Logan, a Philadelphia-born artist who currently lives in Oklahoma City. Trace works with various mediums, such as acrylic, digital art, photography, and collage, to create stunning abstract portraits that reveal the invisible narratives of self. He is also a proud member of the LGBTQ community and a passionate advocate for social justice. Trace’s latest project, *Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self*, will be on display at the Chapman Commons from August 21, 2023, to October 20, 2023. It features portraits of members of Trace’s community, mostly LGBTQ individuals, who have agreed to share their stories and perspectives through art. Trace uses abstraction to create a visual contrast between personal identity and public persona. He combines elements of texture, color, and movement with realistic facial features to create a dynamic and expressive representation of each subject. The result is a captivating and thought-provoking collection of artworks that invite viewers to reflect on their own identities and perceptions. **Categories:** Event --- ### [Top 5 reasons Jesus Followers Should Celebrate Pride Month](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/06/06/top-5-pride-month/) **Published:** June 6, 2023 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** ***Editor’s Note:*** *President Nancy Claire Pittman offers this list for celebrating Pride Month.* Top 5 reasons cis-gendered, heterosexual followers of Jesus should celebrate Pride Month with queer siblings and colleagues (written by one cis-gendered heterosexual follower of Jesus to others) : 1. Jesus, echoing Jewish teaching, says “love your neighbor.” 2. Celebrating God’s love for all and welcoming everyone to the table is a very Jesus thing to do. 3. Affirming that each person is made in the image of God, just as they are, is a very Jesus thing to accept. 4. Calling people to stop harassing salesclerks and managers of stores that support the queer community is a way to hunger and thirst for righteousness. 5. You may actually love and accept the people you think you hate and reject. Jesus already does. **Categories:** News --- ### [Watch the Phillips Commencement Online](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/05/19/2023-phillips-commencement/) **Published:** May 19, 2023 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** You’re invited to watch the commencement live from Metropolitan Baptist Church in Tulsa, Okla. starting at 11 a.m. Central time on **[YouTube](https://youtu.be/3NELEQYXfyI)**. Please download the commencement program to more fully participate in the exercises. **[DOWNLOAD or VIEW](https://www.flipsnack.com/phillipsseminary/2023-phillips-theological-seminary-commencement-program/full-view.html)** **Categories:** News **Tags:** 2023, commencement --- ### [The Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison Named Interim Dean](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/05/11/davison-interim-dean/) **Published:** May 11, 2023 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary announces the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison as interim dean, effective July 1. Davison, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips for nearly 13 years, will oversee the Office of Academic Affairs until the naming of a permanent dean following a national search. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Davison_Lisa-2-240x300.jpeg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-davison/)The Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison “Besides being an outstanding scholar of the Hebrew Bible, Dr. Davison is also known for her commitment to preaching, teaching and leading in the church and the academy,” said Phillips President Nancy Claire Pittman. “She brings a breadth of institutional and ecclesial experience to this new role.” Davison is a native of Radford, Va. with a BA (Religion and Spanish) from Lynchburg College; an MDiv from Brite Divinity School (TCU), and an MA from Vanderbilt University. She received her PhD in Hebrew Bible from Vanderbilt. She is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has served congregations in Texas and Kentucky. Davison has led several academic committees as chair at Phillips while also participating as an active member of many other committees, task forces and groups. Her newest book is [*More Than a Womb: Childfree Women in the Hebrew Bible as Agents of the Holy*](https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Womb-Childfree-Hebrew/dp/1620329530/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=). Davison is also the author of [*Preaching the Women of the Bible*](https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Women-Bible-Wilson-Davison-ebook/dp/B003B66CBQ?ref_=ast_author_dp) (2006) and has contributed to the following books: *The Preacher’s Bible Handbook* (2019), *Living Pulpit 2018: Sermons in the Stone-Campbell Movement 1968-2018* (2018), and *Those Preaching Women: A Multicultural Collection* (2008). **Categories:** News **Tags:** dean, Disciples, doc, faculty --- ### [VP of Academic Affairs, Dean Departing Phillips this Summer](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/05/04/butler-departure/) **Published:** May 4, 2023 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** *Editor’s Note: President Nancy Claire Pittman sent the following message to Phillips Theological Seminary employees, students and board members May 3, 2023.* Dear Phillips community, I am writing to inform you of the departure of our esteemed Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean, Lee H. Butler, Jr., from Phillips Theological Seminary as he becomes the next president of The Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colo starting July 1. We celebrate the tremendous opportunity this is for Dr. Butler as we recognize his dedicated faithfulness to Phillips the past three years. His contributions as an administrative leader, informed by his scholarship, have made significant contributions to Phillips and helped to reposition our future for growth. We are grateful for Dr. Butler’s leadership, dedication, and service to Phillips Theological Seminary, and we wish him all the best in this exciting new chapter of his career. We are confident that he will continue to make deep and meaningful contributions to theological education and scholarship wherever he is called. I have invited him to be our commencement speaker this year as a way of honoring his time here at Phillips and he has accepted. In those days of celebrating achievements, we will honor and say goodbye to him. As Phillips begins the search for a new dean, we remain committed to maintaining the high standards of academic excellence, social justice, and inclusivity that are our hallmarks. Thank you for your understanding during this time of transition. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. Peace this day. Nancy Claire Pittman, president **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Awarded Grant from Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/04/24/lilly-endowments-children-grant/) **Published:** April 24, 2023 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** Phillips Theological Seminary has received a grant of $1,236,483 from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Worshiping with Children: Imaging and Imagining the Presence of God program.   The program is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. The aim of the national initiative is to support faith-based organizations as they help children grow in faith and deepen their relationships with God. “When I was sent the information about the initiative, I felt excited about putting together a proposal centered on worship and the arts,” said the Rev. Allie Utley, Ph.D. “My hope is that I can equip church leaders in cultivating meaningful and moving sacred spaces through which children can come to know the Holy.” **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary has received a grant of $1,236,483 from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Worshiping with Children: Imaging and Imagining the Presence of God program. The program is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. The aim of the national initiative is to support faith-based organizations as they help children grow in faith and deepen their relationships with God. “When I was sent the information about the initiative, I felt excited about putting together a proposal centered on worship and the arts,” said the Rev. Allie Utley, Ph.D. “My hope is that I can equip church leaders in cultivating meaningful and moving sacred spaces through which children can come to know the Holy.” Utley, who is the Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Practical Theology at Phillips, will be the program’s director. She has an interdisciplinary interest in worship and affect theory and has long intuited that some worship spaces have a “certain energy” and others do not. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/allie-utley-baptism-300x225.jpeg)The Rev. Dr. Allie Utley is the Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Practical Theology at Phillips. “It is this energy that appeals to and engages people for whom language, the most dominant element of many worship services, is not always accessible — people with certain cognitive disabilities and young children as examples,” Utley said. Lilly Endowment is making nearly $32 million in grants through this invitational round of the Nurturing Children initiative. The grants are funding efforts to help organizations develop new and/or enhance existing programs that support congregations as they design worship services and prayer practices that more intentionally and fully engage children. Phillips Theological Seminary is one of 26 organizations taking part in the initiative. They represent and serve congregations in a broad spectrum of Christian traditions, including mainline Protestant, evangelical, Catholic, Pentecostal, Black church, Hispanic and Asian traditions. Many organizations also serve churches that describe themselves as nondenominational, ecumenical and multi-denominational. Lilly Endowment launched the Nurturing Children initiative in 2022 as part of its commitment to support efforts that strengthen the religious education and formation of children and enhance the vitality of Christian congregations. [**About Lilly Endowment Inc**](https://lillyendowment.org/) Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. The principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of diverse religious traditions by supporting fair and accurate portrayals of the role religion plays in the United States and across the globe. **Categories:** News **Tags:** children, grant, Lilly Endowment, utley --- ### [Phillips Seminary Welcomes New Art Exhibit with Second Annual Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/03/30/art-lectureship/) **Published:** March 30, 2023 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/pts_langsouls_vertad-152x300.png)The largest exhibition in the region of works by African American artist Harvey Johnson will be on display at Phillips Theological Seminary during its second annual Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship. The art exhibit, “The Language of Our Souls: The Visual Poetry of Harvey Johnson,” begins April 23 with a champagne reception for Johnson from 5–9 p.m. The works will be on public display April 25–30 from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. at the seminary, 901 N. Mingo Rd. in Tulsa, Okla. African American Episcopal Church Bishop of Ecumenical and Urban Affairs the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Nathaniel Leath will address the community April 24 at 6:45 p.m. Leath’s presentation on “The Destruction of Black Wall Street and the Burden of Invisibility” will be available in person and online. A 5:30 p.m. welcome reception precedes the lecture and features live music. Tickets for the receptions and lecture are available at no charge through [Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phillips-theological-seminary-tulsa-oklahoma-8247126586). “Our event this year combines the power of art with the urgent call to social justice,” said Lee H. Butler, Jr., vice president of academic affairs and academic dean at Phillips. “This lectureship commemorates the race massacre, suggests lessons the history offers, and interprets the inherited legacies that must be confronted.” The art exhibit features more than a dozen of Johnson’s works along with pieces by Delita Martin, John Biggers and Kermit Oliver. Visitors will have the opportunity to view 27 pieces that showcase the beauty, resilience and strength of Black culture and community. “My visual poetry expresses the relationship between our African ancestral communities throughout America,” Johnson writes in a statement on his work. He says the foundational aesthetic “is deeply grounded in African spirituals, gospels, blues, and jazz, recognizing the capacity of the African American community in America to ascend above racial abuse, while transforming it into a positive spiritual humanity.” Johnson came to Houston from Port Arthur to study art at Texas Southern University under world-renowned artist, sculptor, and teacher, Biggers, who founded the school’s art program in 1949. He completed his undergraduate degree at TSU and went on to get his MFA at Washington State University. He returned two years later to teach art at TSU for 34 years before retiring in 2007. A selection of works scheduled for the exhibition includes: - John Biggers… Our Grandmother, How I Got Over - Harvey Johnson… The Welcoming Table, Walk Together Children, Eulogy, 1921 (Tulsa) - Delita Martin… Walk with Me, Bloodline, My Sisters Keeper - Kermit Oliver… Burnt Church. For additional information on the lectureship and exhibit, contact the seminary at 918-610-8303. For media inquiries, contact Kurt Gwartney at or by calling 918-270-6470. **Categories:** News --- ### [Marshall, Special Award Recipients Honored](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/02/07/marshall-special-award/) **Published:** February 7, 2023 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The alumni association of Phillips Theological Seminary awarded its 2023 Marshall Awards to the Rev. Renee J. Bridwell and the Rev. Dr. Mark W. Pumphrey during the Remind & Renew conference in Tulsa, Okla. The Rev. Daniel B. Merrick, Jr. was also honored with a special, posthumous award. Bridwell and Pumphrey, were each honored for their lifetime of service to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The Marshall Award recognizes graduates of Phillips Theological Seminary, Phillips Graduate Seminary, The Graduate Seminary of Phillips University, or the College of the Bible whose service to God, the church and the humancommunity has been faithful and exemplary. While studying for her MDiv at Phillips Graduate Seminary, Bridwell served as co-pastor with her husband, Steve, at First Christian Church in Hennessey, Okla. Following her ordination, they accepted a joint call to First Christian Church in Marion, Ill. She served in a variety of regional roles throughout her ministry, including her final full-time ministry as Associate Regional Minister in the Kansas region. Bridwell has also volunteered in some 50-60 sessions of summer church camp in three different regions, led youth mission trips and International Affairs Seminars, and served on the Oklahoma region’s Task Force on Women. Pumphrey, who received three degrees from Phillips (BS, MDiv and DMin), started his journey into ministry in 1972 as a youth minister in Colorado and continued to serve the local church for more than four decades. He spent 18 years at South Broadway Christian Church in Denver—the longest tenure in the church’s 133 history. In 2017 he came out of retirement to serve at First Christian Church in Greeley, Colo. where he is now Co-Pastor. He has also served on the Phillips Alumni/ae Association Board, including two terms as president, and held positions on the General Board of the Christian Church and on the Administrative Committee and in the Central Rocky Mountain Region. The special posthumous award was given to Merrick, editor of the *Chalice Hymnal,* who served congregations in Illinois, Wisconsin and the Panama Canal Zone during his ministry career. He received a BA in religion in 1948, returning to Phillips to receive a BDiv from the College of the Bible in 1954. Merrick won his first hymn writing contest in 1950 and was known for writing a Christmas hymn each year of his ministry. He was a member of the Hymn Society of America for more than 50 years and assembled a personal hymnological library of more than 1,100 volumes. Those volumes, now known as the Merrick Hymnody Collection, were donated to Phillips Theological Seminary after his passing in 2004. His hymns have been published in several major hymnals and he was an important part of the Association of Disciples Musicians. **Categories:** News --- ### [February Brings Third Annual Black History & African American Heritage Month Worship Series](https://ptstulsa.edu/2023/02/01/third-annual-black-history-worship-series/) **Published:** February 1, 2023 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program (BCTAF) at Phillips offers its third annual worship series during Black History and African American Heritage month. [CLICK TO WATCH](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztsgxX1NhSbwPbLE-If2FpIL) The series features a different speaker through February. The 2023 preachers include: - Feb. 7: James H. Hill, Jr., PhD, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma - Feb. 14: The Rev. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, PhD, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Shaw Divinity School - Feb. 21: The Rev. Luke Powery, PhD, Associate Professor of Religion and Dean of Duke University Chapel - Feb. 28: The Rev. Courtney Buggs, PhD, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Christian Theological Seminary. The series will be broadcast at 11:30 a.m. CST each Tuesday from the Meinders Chapel at Phillips Theological Seminary on [YouTube](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztsgxX1NhSbwPbLE-If2FpIL). They will also be available for viewing after the service. **Categories:** Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program, News --- ### [United Methodist Church Elects Phillips Alum, Student to Episcopacy](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/11/02/phillips-umc-episcopacy/) **Published:** November 2, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/david-wilson-e1667429047599-280x300.jpg)The Rev. Dr. David Wilson For the first time in Phillips Theological Seminary history, two clergy with ties to the seminary were elected to the episcopacy of the United Methodist Church. The Rev. Dee Williamston, a Doctor of Ministry student, and the Rev. Dr. David Wilson, an alum, were selected Wednesday at the South Central Jurisdictional (SCJ) conference in Houston. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Dee-Williamston-e1667428987123-300x300.jpg)The Rev. Dee Williamston The pair also set other historic firsts, according to conference officials. Wilson, who serves as Assistant to the Bishop in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, is the first Native American elected from the jurisdiction. Williamston, the Clergy Excellence Director/Assistant to the Bishop in the Great Plains Conference, is the first Black woman to win election to the episcopacy from the SCJ. Also elected was the Rev. Laura Merrill, Capital District Superintendent for the Rio Texas Conference. The election of Merrill and Williamston is the first time the SCJ has elected two women to the office of bishop. The SCJ includes a dozen annual conferences across Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Wilson, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, was the first clergy person from the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference to graduate from Phillips and was named the Phillips Distinguished Alumni for 2007. Williamston is in progress toward her DMin in the Transformational Leadership in Intercultural Community track at Phillips. Read more about each newly elected United Methodist bishops: - [Laura Merrill](https://www.scjumc.org/2022/08/30/lauramerrill2/) - [Dee Williamston](https://www.scjumc.org/2022/08/29/deewilliamston/) - [David Wilson](https://www.scjumc.org/2022/08/28/davidwilson/) **Categories:** News --- ### [On the Passing of Joe Robert Jones](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/09/20/passing-of-joe-robert-jones/) **Published:** September 20, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** There would likely be no Phillips Theological Seminary in 2022 were it not for the guidance and stewardship of Joe Robert Jones, who died on the 86th anniversary of his birthday, Sept. 18, 2022. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/joe-jones.jpeg)Joe Robert Jones 1936-2022 In 1975, Joe was called to be Dean of Phillips University Graduate Seminary in Enid, Okla., and four years later, he was appointed President of Phillips University where he served until 1989. Joe continued his leadership in theological education with an appointment to be Dean of the Faculty at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN, and returned to his true calling to teach theology to ministry students. He retired from CTS as Professor Emeritus of Theology and Ethics in 2000 and returned to the family home, Anchor Point, on Fort Gibson Lake, Okla. There he wrote his prized work, the two-volume [*A Grammar of Christian Faith: Systematic Explorations in Christian Life and Doctrine*](https://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Christian-Faith-Systematic-Explorations/dp/0742513114), a primer on faith for the church, which his daughter Verity helped to edit. Also in retirement, Joe spent 2005-2006 at his alma mater, Yale Divinity School, as Visiting Professor of Theology. Throughout his life, Joe devotedly taught Sunday school classes and led study groups for both clergy and laity. In 2012, Joe and Sarah made a health-related decision to move back to their hometown, Oklahoma City, where Sarah passed away on April 2, 2016, three days before their 58th wedding anniversary. Joe Jones was born to Idabel Augusta (Seitz) Jones and Judge Dick Sterling Jones in 1936 in Oklahoma City. He graduated from Classen High School and attended the University of Oklahoma where he lettered in both basketball and baseball. While in college, he also discovered a passion for philosophy and theology. Following graduation from OU, he married his high school sweetheart, Sarah Jane Jones, in 1958, and together they set off for New Haven, CT, where Joe attended Yale Divinity School, earning his Bachelors of Divinity degree in 1961 and his Ph.D in philosophical theology in 1970. Joe’s deepening theological commitments led him into Christian ministry as well as the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. This insistence on the profound connection between faith, intellect and social justice continued throughout his life. While at Yale, Joe and Sarah also started their family, becoming the parents of two daughters. In 1965, he accepted his first teaching position at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Soon their third daughter was born, and the family joined Community Christian Church in Richardson, Texas. His community activism continued in Dallas focusing on fair housing policies and the integration of public schools and school boards. In 1972, Joe was awarded a year-long research fellowship at Oxford University and the family spent the year in the United Kingdom. It is impossible to capture the intensely present being that was Joe Jones. Loving God meant loving humanity, which for him, included not only family and close friends, but also his students, colleagues, neighbors, community members – all those known to him and those unknown. And that compassion meant devoting his energy to building a better, more just world. He was a passionate teacher, brilliant theologian, stately church leader, and he loved the students he taught, keeping in touch with many of them for decades. No one who knew Joe escaped the force of his theological arguments nor the way his sharply analytical mind dissected current political situations with alarming acuity. He loved his country even when critical and despairing about its future. He may have taught Christian doctrines like soteriology and eschatology with insightful theological precision, but he showed us what unconditional love and unearned grace looked like on a daily basis through his own way of life. And he was happiest when he was shooting hoops with his grandchildren and teaching them the fine arts of fishing and cussing. Joe spent his final years at Epworth Villa under hospice care and the loving watch of his daughter Kindy and her husband Bill. At the end, he waited for his three daughters to arrive, lifted his beautiful hands, then slipped into a deep sleep and passed quietly into God’s embrace. Joe was preceded in death by his parents and his siblings, Charles Redman Jones, Mary Carolyn (Jones) Ford, and Sterling Brown Jones, and by his wife, Sarah Jane Jones. He is survived by three daughters. The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones followed most closely in his footsteps as a theologian. One of the great delights of Joe’s life was participating in her installation as President of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York in 2008. Kindy Jones is an attorney who serves as Deputy Attorney General of the Litigation Unit of the Office of Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma, and claims pride of place as the best “debater and defender”—in grand Joe-style—in the Jones family. The Rev. Verity Jones is a program director in religion at Lilly Endowment where she continues Joe’s commitment to strengthening and supporting the vitality of Christian congregations. He is also survived by Kindy’s husband, Bill Bean, and Verity’s husband, William Wagnon, and four grandchildren, Jess Eddy, Cole Eddy, Charis Jones and Gracie Wagnon, a great granddaughter, Mesa Marie Eddy, and foster daughter, Denise Milano. He is also survived by his beloved niece, Dr. Krista Jones, and her husband, Rev. Craig Stinson, as well as many other nieces, nephews and cousins whom he dearly loved. Visitation hours are Friday, September 23, from 4:00 – 6:00 pm at Smith & Kernke Funeral Home, 14624 N. May, Oklahoma City. We will gather for Joe’s funeral on Saturday, September 24, at 11 a.m. at Southern Hills Christian Church, 3207 S. Boulevard, Edmond, with burial immediately following at Rose Hill Cemetery, 6001 NW Grand Blvd, Oklahoma City. All are welcome. The family requests that memorial contributions be made to Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, in honor of the Rev. Dr. Joe Jones, 3041 Broadway, NYC, NY 10027. **Categories:** News --- ### [Center for Religion in Public Life Offers New "One from Many" Course](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/08/16/one-from-many-course/) **Published:** August 16, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** # **“One from Many:” America’s Original Motto and Unfinished Project** ## September 22 – October 13, 2022 ## A free, online course offered by the Center for Religion in Public Life ## at Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, Okla. ## Instructor: Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, Executive Director ## To Participate, Contact: ***By Gary Peluso-Verdend*** I remember 1976, the year of our nation’s bicentennial celebration. Coming right after the end of the Vietnam War and Watergate, and with the unfinished work of the various civil rights movements on the national consciousness, Americans celebrated but clouds lingered. I wonder what kind of celebration might be planned for 250 years in 2026—or will our dueling narratives simply make 2026 less a celebration than an occasion to reinforce the battle lines? ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/One-From-Many-Text-with-Outline-1002x1024.jpg)Can the people of the United States rise to the challenge to form a more perfect union—of the most diverse collection of persons ever in human history seeking to be one democratic republic—for the sake of justice, defense, the common welfare, the blessings of liberty, and peace? Can we approximate becoming, in the vision expressed in the nation’s first national motto, one from many, *e pluribus unum*? For all of my career starting with my dissertation 35 years ago on the ecumenical movement, I’ve worked on the question of the nature of the communities we seek within our congregations and in our nation. What kinds of community can human beings achieve: how welcoming, how inclusive and diverse? Given human brain structures, cultures, ethics, religions, and a few thousand years of experience in cities and several hundred in nation-states, for what kind of community can we hope and work? In the four lectures and discussions for this course, I’ll explore these topics: - September 22: Why does the U.S. need manyness? Why do we need oneness? - September 29: What are the metaphors we use to imagine what “one from many” means and looks like, in practice? - October 6: What are biological, cultural, historical, and religious obstacles *to* and resources *for* creating “one from many”? - October 13: What is the nature of the nation we seek? Each week I’ll record and post a 25-40 minute lecture on the topic. Then on Thursday nights, Sept. 22-Oct. 13, at 7 p.m. central time, I’ll host a discussion of the week’s lecture. **Contact: to be a part of the course.** **Categories:** News --- ### [Cortney Lemke to Lead Admissions for Phillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/07/15/cortney-lemke-to-lead-admissions-for-phillips/) **Published:** July 15, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** Philips Theological Seminary welcomes Cortney Lemke as its new Director of Admissions. In her role, she will be responsible for guiding prospective students on their path to becoming enrolled students and members of the Phillips community. “I am encouraged by the creative, collaborative, and justice-seeking values of Phillips and am eager to accompany students as they develop life-giving and difference-making theologies,” Lemke said. Lemke says her experience as part of a non-church family and “Air Force brat” inform her interfaith and ecumenical spirit that helps her be a bridge for individuals from diverse backgrounds and places interested in personal and spiritual growth. **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Cortney-Lemke-professional-photo-1024x683.jpg)Philips Theological Seminary welcomes Cortney Lemke as its new Director of Admissions. In her role, she will be responsible for guiding prospective students on their path to becoming enrolled students and members of the Phillips community. “I am encouraged by the creative, collaborative, and justice-seeking values of Phillips and am eager to accompany students as they develop life-giving and difference-making theologies,” Lemke said. Lemke says her experience as part of a non-church family and “Air Force brat” inform her interfaith and ecumenical spirit that helps her be a bridge for individuals from diverse backgrounds and places interested in personal and spiritual growth. “Having grown up in myriad diverse spaces (in order of life: Alaska, Arizona, Japan, Arkansas, Nebraska, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri), I learned early to adopt a ‘yes/and’ worldview and recognized from a young age how life experience shifts our hermeneutic experience of God and ‘other,’” she said. “I am delighted to add Oklahoma to my ever-expanding lists of ‘borders crossed’ and am eager to learn more about its social-spiritual geography.” Lemke recently received her MDiv from Saint Paul School of Theology where her studies specialized in women, church, and society. She also served as class co-president and student recruitment representative. “I am excited to join Phillips during a time of great transition,” Lemke said. “Many in the church and religious education spaces see downward trends and visualize catastrophe, but the practical and relational culture of Phillips allows the institution to recognize the gravity of these downward trends yet embrace change as an opportunity to transform their scope and offerings.” **Categories:** News **Tags:** admissions, Theological Education --- ### [Statement on Tulsa’s Saint Francis Hospital Campus Shooting](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/06/02/saint-francis-shooting/) **Published:** June 2, 2022 **Author:** Lee Butler **Excerpt:** The Phillips Theological Seminary community prays for the families of the victims whose lives were taken by the shooter whose suffering caused him to take his own life too. We pray for the City of Tulsa that has experienced complicated grief from another instance of gun violence on the 101st anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. We are dedicated to promoting fellowship and advocating a courageous spirituality that does not surrender to the terror of the day or night. We stand and walk with all our neighbors who love peace and justice. We declare and affirm that, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. (I John 4:18)” **Content:** On May 31–June 1, 1921, dates which “live in infamy,” the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Okla. was destroyed by hatred. Fake news fueled the flames of rage that burned to the ground the signs of Black pride and self-determination. As I stood in memoriam on the corner of Greenwood and Archer at a 10:30 p.m. candlelight vigil on May 31 remembering the lives and livelihood lost during the Tulsa Race Massacre, I was aware of my hyper-vigilance as I surveilled the cars filled with passengers cruising by the Greenwood Rising Museum. Would someone shatter the peaceful gathering of the night with a drive by shooting? A prayerful vigil in the name of peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation should not be a moment of embodied fear. As citizens of Tulsa remembered the trauma of the past and imagined a vision for the future on June 1, 2022, we were again reminded of what it means to live every day in terror. We had not recovered from the traumas of a super market in Buffalo, NY, a church in Laguna Woods, Calif., and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas when the Natalie Building at Saint Francis Hospital, near 61st and Yale in Tulsa, reported an active shooter who claimed four lives. A building set apart for the restoration of ailing bodies has been declared another unsafe space. Is no place sacred for embracing and celebrating life? Our hearts continue to break as another act of gun violence has further implanted fear in our bodies. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/saint-francis-response.png)The Phillips Theological Seminary community prays for the families of the victims whose lives were taken by the shooter whose suffering caused him to take his own life too. We pray for the City of Tulsa that has experienced complicated grief from another instance of gun violence on the 101st anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. We are dedicated to promoting fellowship and advocating a courageous spirituality that does not surrender to the terror of the day or night. We stand and walk with all our neighbors who love peace and justice. We declare and affirm that, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. (I John 4:18)” Lee H. Butler, Jr., Ph.D. Acting President Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions and Africana Pastoral Theology **Categories:** News --- ### [Statement on Robb Elementary School](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/05/31/statement-on-robb-elementary-school/) **Published:** May 31, 2022 **Author:** Lee Butler **Content:** *Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.* —Jeremiah 31:15 (NRSV Updated Edition) Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet, spoke of Rachel’s inconsolable wailing at the loss of her children. Today, Phillips Theological Seminary is Rachel as we wail for the children whose lives were taken at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday May 24, 2022. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/jeremiah-31-1-15-1.png)The Latinx community has again been added to the list of racial and ethnic communities assaulted and left traumatized by gun violence. A lone, 18-year-old gunman, armed with two AR-15 assault rifles, which continues to be the massacre weapon of choice, entered a fourth-grade classroom and massacred 19 children whose smiles and laughter will be no more. Along with the children, we remember the legacies of the two teachers who violently died. We pray for all the families gripped by complicated grief and the religious leaders who must find words of comfort to speak at 22 gravesites. Yes, we also pray for the confused and guilt laden family members of the gunman who gather at his grave and hide their faces in shame. We pray for the peace that passes all understanding be experienced by all who mourn this tragedy. Finally, as we weep and wail, we pray for this nation. We pray that the rage that seems to be embedded in our nation be transformed from the embrace of destruction into the embrace of abundant life. May our refusal to be comforted become works of righteousness to stop the carnage. Lee H. Butler, Jr., PhD Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean, William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions and Africana Pastoral Theology May 27, 2022 **Categories:** Conversations, News --- ### [2022 Commencement Ceremony May 21 at 11 A.M.](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/05/19/2022-commencement-ceremony-may-21-at-11-a-m/) **Published:** May 19, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Join the Phillips Theological Seminary community as we celebrate the graduation of the Class of 2022. On this page you can view the live stream of the service from Tulsa’s Metropolitan Baptist Church, our hosts for commencement. You can also view and download a copy of the commencement program to help follow along. **Categories:** Uncategorized --- ### [A Statement on the Buffalo Massacre and Laguna Woods Shootings](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/05/17/7292/) **Published:** May 17, 2022 **Author:** Lee Butler **Excerpt:** Today, Phillips Theological Seminary laments and mourns with the communities of Buffalo, NY and Laguna Woods, Calif. Although our hearts are heavy, we remain steadfast in our commitment to counter a culture that provokes heinous acts of terror and supports a claim of “not guilty” with a description of psychological instability. We are committed to challenging oppression until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:24). **Content:** Two men, on different days, travelled miles and hours away from their homes to kill those they knew not. While the actions of both men have been called crazy, we must not overlook the fact that both men were calculating. Ethnocentric rage consumed their hearts. Xenophobia consumed their souls. Both gunmen believed the ravenous lion within would only be satisfied by human sacrifice. Neither gunmen assaulted the young. Like the most notorious massacres in American history, the gunmen attacked the elderly—the wisdom of the community. Their violence claimed the lives of those who represent the stability of community. The blood cries out from the ground, “Black Lives Matter!” and “Asian Lives Matter!” while the blood that seems to run cold within the perpetrators’ veins respond, “Our Lives Matter!” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/may-shootings-response-300x251.png)One place, an oasis in a food desert, and another place, a sanctuary in the midst of hostility. Both became spaces of victimization and sites of trauma as crimes against humanity were once again motivated by hate. Is there a place of safety beyond our front doors? Perhaps it is safer to stay home to shop and worship online. Shall we ever find peace in the valley? It is difficult to imagine as we walk through a valley overshadowed by death. Shall we see the day when the lion shall lie down with the lamb? It is difficult to imagine when our “adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking who among us may be devoured” (I Peter 5:8). Today, Phillips Theological Seminary laments and mourns with the communities of Buffalo, NY and Laguna Woods, Calif. Although our hearts are heavy, we remain steadfast in our commitment to counter a culture that provokes heinous acts of terror and supports a claim of “not guilty” with a description of psychological instability. We are committed to challenging oppression until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:24). Lee H. Butler, Jr., PhD Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean, William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions and Africana Pastoral Theology **Categories:** News --- ### [The Rev. Dr. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough to Join Phillips Faculty](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/03/31/chelsea-brooke-yarborough-faculty/) **Published:** March 31, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes the Rev. Dr. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough as Assistant Professor of African American Preaching, Sacred Rhetoric, and Black Practical Theology beginning July 1, 2022. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/chelsea-brooke-yarborough.jpg)Yarborough is an ordained minister, a poet, and an enneagram enthusiast. Her PhD dissertation, *“That’ll Preach”: Decentering the Pulpit through the Non-Pulpit Homiletical Practice of Black Women*, studied the sacred proclamation of Sojourner Truth, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Fannie Lou Hamer. “My interest focuses on how Black women’s preaching pushes against spatial demarcation for the sacred in order to invite a wider canon of worship and preaching expressions,” Yarborough said. “In particular, my work imagines the possibilities of preaching outside of the pulpit by looking at historical Black women who were non-pulpit preachers.” Originally from Baltimore, Md., Yarborough earned her BA in political science from Elon University (2012), followed by an MDiv from the Wake Forest University School of Divinity (2015), and PhD in Homiletics and Liturgics from Vanderbilt University (2021). “I am looking forward to joining the faculty at Phillips because of the imaginative ideas for theological education I have heard during different conversations with faculty, staff and students,” she said. “Their intentional focus on justice alongside the intentionality of implementing practices with this at the center is critical for me. I am excited to be a part of this growing community.” She has received multiple awards and honors throughout her academic career, including two dissertation doctoral fellowships from the Forum for Theological Exploration. While at Vanderbilt, Yarborough also served as resident director of Friendship House, an intentional community bringing together students and adults on the autism spectrum. She also continues to write grade school curriculum for the United Methodist Publishing House. Yarborough is currently Assistant Professor of Liturgical Studies and a Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow and the Styberg Teaching Fellow at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. She is a member of the Academy of Homiletics (current secretary of the Black Caucus), the North American Academy of Liturgy, and the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network. --- [Listen](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-chelsea-yarborough/) to her conversation on the Committing Faith in Public podcast. [**CLICK TO LISTEN**](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-chelsea-yarborough/) You can also watch her sermon from Remind & Renew 2022. **Categories:** News --- ### [Special Online Lectures: Black Histories in Native (American) Lands](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/02/16/black-histories-native-american-lands/) **Published:** February 16, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Black-Histories-in-Native-Lands-1080-Ad-Final-4.png)](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztsgxX1NhSbwPbLE-If2FpIL)Phillips Theological Seminary is pleased to announce two lectures as part of The Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program. The lectures focus on the Black heritage and history in Indian Territory, including Freedpersons, Black Indians, and Afro-Natives. Both lectures will be presented on the seminary’s **[YouTube channel](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztsgxX1NhSbwPbLE-If2FpIL)**. You can see a preview online now. [**CLICK TO WATCH**](https://youtu.be/K_p7X7iiFVg) **Dr. Nakia Parker, presenting Feb. 28 at 7 p.m.,** is a historian of nineteenth-century U.S. slavery, African American, and American Indian history. She is currently an Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University. Parker is currently working on her book manuscript, *Trails of Tears and Freedom: Black Life in Indian Slave Country, 1830-1866* which examines the forced migrations, labor practices, family life and kinship networks, and resistance strategies of people of African and Afro-Native descent in Choctaw and Chickasaw slaveholding communities. This project emphasizes the pivotal role of slavery to the dispossession of Native people from their homelands in the Deep South, the physical and legal processes of Choctaw and Chickasaw expulsion, and to resettlement in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). It reconstructs how enslaved people interacted with others who lived in and bordered their new homeland, including Indigenous peoples like the Comanche and the Caddo. **Dr. Alaina E. Roberts, presenting March 3 at 7 p.m.,** is an award-winning historian who studies the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to the modern day. She is currently an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Roberts writes, teaches, and presents public talks about Black and Native history in the West, family history, slavery in the Five Tribes (the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Indian Nations), Native American enrollment politics, and Indigeneity in North America and across the globe. In addition to multiple academic articles, her writing has appeared in news outlets like the *Washington Post*, *High Country News*, and *TIME* magazine, and she has been profiled by *CNN*, *Smithsonian Magazine*, and the *Boston Globe*. **Categories:** Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program, News, Presentations, Uncategorized --- ### [Library Renovation Photo Gallery](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/) **Published:** November 17, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ### Phillips will provide regular photo updates to this gallery as the library renovation continues. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-01-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-01/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-02-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-02/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-03-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-03/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-04-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-04/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-05-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-05/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-06-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-06/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-07-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-07/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-08-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-08/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-09-150x150.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/library-and-assorted-pics-09/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Reno-Shot-1-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/reno-shot-1/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Reno-Shot-2-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/reno-shot-2/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Reno-Shot-3-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/reno-shot-3/) **Categories:** Library **Tags:** library, renovation --- ### [As Antisemitism Rises, Phillips Professors Call for Reading Scripture with Respect for Judaism](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/01/19/reading-scripture-with-respect-for-judaism/) **Published:** January 19, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** “Our students are expected to respect the Hebrew Bible as having inherent value,” said Lisa Davison, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips. “In my Hebrew Bible courses, students learn about the history of Christian supersessionism in the interpretation of these texts and are empowered to read/preach/teach the Hebrew Bible in ways that are respectful of Jewish tradition.” Warren Carter, LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament at the seminary, is teaching an upper-level course on reading the New Testament in the context of first-century Judaism this semester. The course enables students to be familiar with some of the vibrancy and faithfulness that marked first-century Judaism and to think about ways in which the New Testament writings engaged this tradition and its texts. **Content:** While the hostage situation at the Congregation Beth Israel Reform synagogue in Texas ended with the hostages being released, this latest attack on a Jewish house of worship is a sign of the continued rise in antisemitism in the United States. “The antisemitic activities, especially from those who claim the title Christian, appear to come out of the wrong idea that Christianity somehow supersedes Judaism,” said Nancy Claire Pittman, president of Phillips Theological Seminary. “As a Christian seminary president and a New Testament scholar, I lament this rise in antisemitic attacks and on behalf of the whole Phillips community express solidarity for the Colleyville synagogue and other synagogues, especially those in our home community of Tulsa, Okla.” About three-quarters of Jews surveyed in 2020 by the [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=effa670d01-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_01_19_04_43&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-effa670d01-400153437) said there is more antisemitism in the U.S. than five years ago. The same survey indicated more than half said they feel less safe as a Jewish person in America over the same time. The [2021 State of Antisemitism Report in America](http://ajc.org/Report2021) by the American Jewish Committee showed 24 percent of American Jews were the target of antisemitism over the past 12 months and that 39 percent have changed their behavior because of fear of antisemitism. “Our students are expected to respect the Hebrew Bible as having inherent value,” said Lisa Davison, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips. “In my Hebrew Bible courses, students learn about the history of Christian supersessionism in the interpretation of these texts and are empowered to read/preach/teach the Hebrew Bible in ways that are respectful of Jewish tradition.” Warren Carter, LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament at the seminary, is teaching an upper-level course on reading the New Testament in the context of first-century Judaism this semester. The course enables students to be familiar with some of the vibrancy and faithfulness that marked first-century Judaism and to think about ways in which the New Testament writings engaged this tradition and its texts. “Sometimes the New Testament writers draw on Jewish paradigms of faithfulness and encounter with the divine in respectful ways to recognize that Jews and Christians co-exist in the divine purposes,” he said. “Other times they do so in nasty, even hateful, ways in blaming Jews for putting Jesus to death when in fact the Roman governor Pilate ordered his crucifixion, or falsely claiming that Jesus-followers have replaced Jews in the divine purposes,” Carter said. “Christian readers must recognize these hateful texts to be unacceptable ethically, theologically, and historically.” [![Exterior of the Cadieux Building at Phillips Theological Seminary](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Building-Front-1024x683.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/)Exterior of the Cadieux Building at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Okla. Phillips offers a variety of audit, lay training and online courses that can help Christian congregations to understand their indebtedness to Jewish traditions and to learn to be in solidarity to extend hospitality and compassion to synagogue communities. For help in finding a course or to request a faculty speaker, contact Kurt Gwartney in the seminary communications office at 918.270.6470 or by emailing kurt.gwartney@ptstulsa.edu. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Welcomes New History of World Christianities Faculty Member Briana L. Wong](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/01/13/phillips-welcomes-new-history-of-world-christianities-faculty-member-briana-l-wong/) **Published:** January 13, 2022 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/briana-wong-photo-1024x683.jpg)Briana L. Wong, PhD, will join the Phillips Seminary faculty July 1, 2022. Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes Briana L. Wong, PhD, as Assistant Professor of the History of World Christianities beginning July 1, 2022. Wong’s research interests include the history and anthropology of Christianity in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She joined the steering committee of the American Academy of Religion’s World Christianity Unit in the fall of 2017 and began serving as a co-chair of the unit in the spring of 2019. “As a theological educator, I’m committed to developing and walking alongside students as learners and as future leaders, whether inside or outside of the church,” Wong said. “I’m looking forward to bringing my study of Christianity across the globe to the students at Phillips.” Her dissertation, a multi-sited ethnography, featured the religious experiences of Cambodian Christians in the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Paris, and Phnom Penh, exploring questions of conversion, cosmology, spirituality, and ministry practices. Originally from northern California, Wong earned her BA in history and French from Columbia University (2012), followed by an MDiv (2015) and PhD in World Christianity and History of Religions (2020) from Princeton Theological Seminary. Within the field of World Christianity, she has written on multiple religious belonging, responses to the COVID-19 crisis within the transnational Cambodian evangelical community, and the ordination of women. “I was drawn to Phillips because of the seminary’s orientation toward justice,” Wong said. “I identify with the seminary’s commitment to the righting of historic wrongs in the church and society, and to prioritizing the stories of those whom the powerful in society have tried to silence.” Wong comes to Phillips from the Wake Forest University School of Divinity where she held the position of Visiting Assistant Professor of World Christianity and Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow. **Categories:** News --- ### [Library Renovation Update 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/01/04/library-renovation-update-2/) **Published:** January 4, 2022 **Author:** Sandy Shapoval **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Library-Renovation-220104.png)Walls are disappearing as the library renovation continues at Phillips. Thanks to Adam Hall, general contractor, for the photo. ### Librarian’s Log: Renovation Date 01.07.2022 Happy New Year! I hope your January beginnings are unfolding gently. Just kidding about the holographic shelving. But the renovation allows us to expand our current metal shelving arrangement by roughly 65 percent. This delights us in a couple of ways: it serves a practical need to keep our materials on campus as opposed to moving them into a robotically controlled, super-secret dark storage vault, or worse yet, from our having to weed materials from our collection. The construction folk have been working while the seminary was closed for the holidays. The area in Phase One is unrecognizable to me—too many walls are missing, and temporary walls in new locations block light that normally orients me. In the meantime the librarians continue to take turns at our service desk, connecting you to the information and resources you need. **Categories:** Library --- ### [Library Renovation Update](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/12/17/library-renovation-update/) **Published:** December 17, 2021 **Author:** Sandy Shapoval **Content:** Librarian’s Log: Renovation Date 12.17.2021. Happy Friday! The librarians all wish you peace and joy for the upcoming Christmas season. The last several weeks have marked major changes in the Phillips library. Our book movers have finished relocating all our collections that were in the main part of the library to other areas in the seminary — on shelving, not in boxes. This is very good news for us all; there will be no major disruptions for our community members in obtaining any of our hard-copy books and journals for the duration of the renovation. Relocation is also the name of the game for the librarians. During this early phase of the project, you will find Lucy in the Board of Trustees’ conference room, and me (Sandy) in President Pittman’s conference room. I’ve thought about bringing in beach towels to make a fort among the boxes I’ve dragged into this formerly lovely space. You can see a few pictures of the future library by clicking on the small images at the bottom of the page. Check back next week for more about the holographic shelving system in our renovated space. Sandy Shapoval Dean of the Library and Research Services [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lib-render-Slide1-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/12/17/library-renovation-update/lib-render-slide1/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lib-render-Slide2-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/12/17/library-renovation-update/lib-render-slide2/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lib-render-Slide3-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/12/17/library-renovation-update/lib-render-slide3/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lib-render-Slide4-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/12/17/library-renovation-update/lib-render-slide4/) [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lib-render-Slide5-150x150.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/12/17/library-renovation-update/lib-render-slide5/) **Categories:** Library --- ### [Phillips Library Renovation Begins](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/phillips-library-renovation-begins/) **Published:** November 17, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![A worker moves a cart of books from the Phillips library.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Library-and-Assorted-Pics-06.jpg)One of the first steps in the library renovation is moving books to the Tabbernee Conference Center. The library staff will continue to provide all services throughout the project. The board of trustees for Phillips Theological Seminary recently approved a nearly $1.2 million renovation of the seminary library. The project is already underway with the removal of books to the Tabbernee Conference Center (TCC). “We will continue our full complement of services to our students, faculty and special borrowers throughout the project,” said Sandy Shapoval, library dean. “Though our circulating collection is in the TCC, we will be pleased to retrieve any and all materials from that location.” The renovation, expected to last about nine months, will begin below the floor of the library to replace and repair longstanding plumbing issues. Once this infrastructure is in place, work will start on the rest of the space. “Besides updating our look, the renovation allows us to reconfigure the library to better provide class and collaborative space while also affording an 85 percent increase in shelving capacity,” Shapoval said. The library’s floor space currently accommodates 45,000 volumes. The new configuration will increase that to about 74,000. The re-design is also taking lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic into consideration to provide more safety for library staff and patrons. “The project should be finished in time for the fall 2022 semester,” Shapoval said. “I will use this blog page to provide updates, photos and answer questions about the renovation, so keep checking on our progress.” [CLICK](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/17/library-renovation-gallery/) to see library renovation photos **Categories:** Library **Tags:** library, renovation --- ### [Phillips Student Receives Western History Association Conference Scholarship](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/11/11/wha-scholarship/) **Published:** November 11, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Joshua-Shawnee-WHA-Awards-Ceremony.jpg)Pictured are Angelika Joseph, honoree; Dr. Maria E. Montoya, President of the WHA; Rev. Joshua Shawnee, honoree. Phillips Theological Seminary student the Rev. Joshua Shawnee was awarded one of two Indian Student Conference Scholarships by the [Western History Association](https://www.westernhistory.org). The highly competitive honor provides financial assistance to Native American students wanting to attend the association’s conference. “It is a great honor to have a Phillips student win this award,” said [Dr. Lisa Barnett](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-barnett-2/), assistant professor of American religious history, a member of the Western Historical Association. “As far as I know, this is the first time Phillips has had a student receive this award.” Shawnee is a student in the Master of Theological Studies program and currently serves as Pastor of the [Parish Church of St. Jerome](https://www.stjerometulsa.org) in Tulsa, Okla. “The WHA conference was a remarkable opportunity to interact and engage with an impressive array of historians and to learn more about the research of other tribal scholars doing innovative, important work in service to their communities,” said Shawnee. Fr. Joshua comes from the Shawnee and Delaware peoples and is an enrolled member of the Shawnee Tribe. His primary research interest is the indigenous experience of Christianization and colonization and the suppression and reemergence of Two Spirit identities in North America. More than 500 people attended the WHA conference last month in Portland, Oregon, the first in-person post-pandemic gathering for the association. The other Indian Student Conference Scholarship honoree, Angelika Joseph, is a doctoral student at Princeton University. The Western History Association was founded in 1961 by a group of professional and avocational historians bound by their belief in the American West as a place rich in history and deserving of further study, according to the association’s website. **Categories:** News --- ### [Registration Open for Justice and the Practice of Ministry Event](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/07/21/practice-of-ministry-event/) **Published:** July 21, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Join the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary on August 10 for a conversation on *Justice and the Practice of Ministry*. This online event features a series of fast-paced presentations you can view ahead of the live conversation time in August. “This is a new opportunity for clergy, commissioned ministers, lay persons, congregational study and any interested in justice ministries,” Vice President for Advancement Terry Ewing said. Five Phillips Seminary faculty members will share presentations in their area of study: - Pastoral Care with [Lee H. Butler, Jr.](https://ptstulsa.edu/lee-butler/), PhD - New Testament with [Warren Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/warren-carter-2/), PhD - Hebrew Bible with [Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-davison/), PhD - Theology with [Lisa Dellinger](https://politicaltheology.com/author/ldellinger/), PhD - Faith Formation and Instruction with [Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](https://ptstulsa.edu/annie-lockhart-gilroy/), PhD. “Our hope is these brief presentations will start lively conversation and discussions during the event,” Ewing said. “The videos will also serve as an ongoing resource for personal and congregational study of justice ministries.” [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/register-1.png)](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/2g9ebuq3dp/index.html)Registrants will be able to watch the five TED-style video presentations prior to the live, online event which starts at 9 a.m.­ (Central) August 10. The videos will also be available for future use for ministry settings. “These discussions and conversations will be designed for multiple settings, small groups and one-on-one time with faculty,” Ewing said. Registration is open through August 8. The full event, including one continuing education unit, is $45. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Names Dr. Anne Carter Walker as Director of Supervised Year in Ministry and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Vocational Formation](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/07/09/announce-anne-carter-walker/) **Published:** July 9, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/anne-carter-walker.png)Dr. Anne Carter Walker Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes Anne Carter Walker, PhD, as Director of Supervised Year in Ministry and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Vocational Formation beginning July 26. Walker joins the Phillips mission with extensive experiences as a theological educator and administrator. A committed layperson in the United Methodist Church, her professional identity has been constructed by the fields of Practical Theology and Religious Education. As a theologian, her scholarship and leadership give careful attention to the whole person and to every person within the organization. “Recognizing the depth and breadth of Dr. Walker’s scholarly and vocational passions, I am convinced she will help Phillips to maintain our commitment to preparing persons to be ministry leaders within pandemic and post-pandemic worlds,” said Phillips Vice President of Academic Affairs Lee H. Butler, Jr. Walker earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree from Claremont School of Theology with a dissertation entitled, *Pedagogy for the Privileged: Developing Border-crossing Identity in Religious Education*. She earned a Master of Arts in Religious Education, a Master of Arts in Religion with a focus on theological ethics, both also from Claremont, and a Bachelor of Arts from Oklahoma City University in mass communications. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation who lives her home life guided by Cherokee and Choctaw cultures, she will help Phillips live with even greater intercultural sensitivity within its regional location. “I have experience in and understand intercultural dynamics in theological education, in organizational life, and in congregations, and hold deep commitments to social justice and faith-motivated praxis,” Walker said. Theological Field Education is a core curricular component of the Master of Divinity degree program at Phillips. As director of Supervised Year in Ministry, Walker will oversee all aspects of the theological field education program, including the development of robust curricular and pedagogical educational approaches to support the supervision and evaluation of students engaged in contextual education, work essential to theological and ministerial identity formation. “I believe the most significant call for a follower of Jesus is to engage deeply with the Christian story and vision to discern how one is being called into partnership with God in God’s work in the world,” Walker said. “I count this as my highest call as a Christian, and in all of my work in leadership, teaching, and ministry practice I have sought to create spaces for others to discover vocation.” “I am truly inspired by the enthusiasm that she brings to her new role here at Phillips,” Butler said. “During her on-campus interview, she shared that much of her dissertation was written within the Phillips Library! One can’t live here and not become Phillips. So, in many ways, Dr. Walker is coming home, and we welcome her return.” **Categories:** News --- ### [In Memory of the Rev. Dr. Don A. Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/06/27/in-memory-of-the-rev-dr-don-a-pittman/) **Published:** June 27, 2021 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** The Phillips Theological Seminary community shares the sad news that the Rev. Dr. Don A. Pittman, William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions Emeritus and husband of the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, our president, died Saturday evening (June 26, 2021) at a Tulsa, Okla. hospital. Services for Dr. Pittman are scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday, July 2, at [Harvard Avenue Christian Church](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/36.1259008,-95.8619648/5502+S+Harvard+Ave,+Tulsa,+OK+74135/@36.108999,-95.9364221,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m9!4m8!1m1!4e1!1m5!1m1!1s0x87b692e2a757dcf5:0xa3ea8b7fa4d59e9!2m2!1d-95.9408911!2d36.0844838) in Tulsa with interment set the following week in Fort Worth, Texas. Dr. Pittman arrived at Phillips Theological Seminary in 2000 as dean, and later as vice president of academic affairs, as the seminary’s fortunes were on an upswing but by no means secure. The school had recently been gifted the building that would become its Tulsa home on Mingo Road. But there were hundreds of small and large decisions about how best to transmute a corporate headquarters into a graduate theological school. Executive Vice President Emeritus Dr. John Imbler remembers taking Dr. Pittman, who had flown from Taiwan to interview for the Dean’s position, on a tour of the building while it was under renovation. “At an extended break period, Don and I walked through the skeleton of the structure wearing hard hats and stumbling through the construction rubble while I explained where the seminary had been, where it was, and where we wanted it to go,” Dr. Imbler said. “As we finished the walk-through, he looked at me and said, ‘I think I’ve caught your vision!’” The faculty also needed to be rebuilt and shaped for the future. A few years into his tenure, a partnership with another school resulted in the dual challenge of preparing the faculty to teach an unprecedented number of students and to render classes into a video-conference format. Dr. Pittman was well-suited to the required work. He was a serious scholar of Chinese Buddhism who taught in Mandarin, the kind of credentials a graduate faculty respects. He brought a deep knowledge and acquired wisdom regarding graduate theological education administration and of the ethos and networks of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Those skills and connections significantly strengthened the school’s faculty and administration, as well as helped to shape the campus. Dr. Lisa Davison, the Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips, initially met Dr. Pittman in her first year of college (1984) during a pre-ministry student meeting where he represented Brite Divinity School, where she decided to attend seminary. As one of Dr. Pittman’s graduate students and his student assistant at Brite, she came to appreciate his wisdom about Buddhism and other religions, his engaging teaching, and his dry sense of humor. “I remember one question that somehow involved Krishna and TCU football,” Dr. Davison said. “He gave us an opportunity to show what we knew as well as discover how this material could be applied in a variety of situations. His courses helped me to articulate my Christian faith in a way that was open to the Holy’s presence in all places and had integrity. It was because of Don’s influence that I chose History of Religions as my PhD minor.” > **[Read Dr. Davison’s “Blessing Upon the Retirement of Don Pittman”](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Blessing-Upon-the-Retirement-of-Don-Pittman.pdf)** Dr. Pittman was also known as an administrator who enjoyed the process of attentive listening and collaborative work across the seminary. “Don often took the lead in crafting policy revisions or new program changes,” said Dr. Joseph Bessler, Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology. “He would then visit one-on-one with each of the faculty serving on the relevant committee, getting their insights and suggestions, revising his initial draft and revisiting those colleagues. Often, by the time those changes would come to Faculty Senate, he had already done the work that enabled consensus decision making with minimum debate. He enjoyed that process of attentive listening and collaborative work.” Dr. Pittman’s personality was also an important companion to his skills and scholarship. The Phillips community remembers him as a fine golfer (killer at both playing putt-putt and designing a course for the staff to play), a jovial pancake flipper, a Country & Western singer, and a person who would greet new faculty with food at their doorstep. “The phone call I received from Don offering me a position at Phillips changed my life, as did his nurture and friendship as a dean, colleague, then friend,” said Dr. Richard Ward, Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship Emeritus. “He was a treasure, indeed.” “Don’s careful attention to detail, serious scholarship, decorum and dignity, and ability to hold the banks of the faculty’s needs and energies was well-muddled with a sneaky, mischievous, understated sense of humor,” said Dr. Gary Pelsuo-Verdend, President Emeritus. “In addition, his love for the congregational expression of church and desire for an educated clergy were always evident and foundational. A great example of that love is the charge given to graduating students at the close of the commencement service.” > [***Read the Intergenerational Charge***](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/commencement-program-Intergenerational-Charge.pdf) Dr. Ellen Blue, the Mouzon Biggs, Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity and United Methodist Studies Emerita, was the first faculty person hired by Dr. Pittman. She recalls his courage as Dean to allow her to offer an immersion course in New Orleans six months after hurricane Katrina had drowned eighty percent of the city. He also let her develop a course that focused on the unique experiences of women in Christian ministry at a time when no others were teaching that topic. “Because of his own deep centeredness, he could treat theological education as a calling that involves risk, whether that meant stepping off a plane in Taiwan with his family or taking the academic reins at an Oklahoma seminary which often challenges the community around it. He shepherded the faculties that relied on his leadership with kindness and with integrity,” said Dr. Blue. A former missionary in Taiwan, Dr. Pittman was an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He was also a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Association for Asian Studies, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, and the Association of Disciples for Theological Discussion. Dr. Pittman’s primary teaching and research interests were in the History of Religions, Buddhist Studies, Chinese Studies, cross-cultural and interfaith studies, and global Christianity. He taught many different courses at Phillips, including Contemporary World Religions, Introduction to a Christian Theology of Religions, Jewish-Christian and Muslim-Christian Dialogue, and the seminary BorderLinks study tour. His publications included *Ministry and Theology in Global Perspective: Contemporary Challenges for the Church*, co-edited with Ruben Habito and Terry Muck (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996) and *Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism:* *Taixu’s Reforms* (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), plus numerous scholarly articles (in English and Chinese), book reviews, encyclopedia entries, and sermons. His degrees include a BA from Texas Christian University (1970), MDiv from Vanderbilt University (1973), MA from Vanderbilt University (1976), PhD from the University of Chicago (1987), and post-doctoral studies at National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan (1994-95). The Phillips community asks that you join in keeping Dr. Nancy Pittman, Don’s mother, Eve, and his three daughters, Merillat, Katheryn, and Debra, in your prayers. The family continues to be thankful for the support they’ve all received during Don’s hospitalization and passing. The family has asked that memorial gifts may be made to [Phillips Theological Seminar](https://www.ptstulsa.edu/giving/)y and the [Parkinson Foundation of Oklahoma](https://parkinsonoklahoma.com/). --- *Special thanks to Gary Peluso-Verdend for his contribution to this remembrance.* **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Seminary Worship Kit, Summer Edition](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/05/25/worship-kit/) **Published:** May 25, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary is providing churches worshipping in-person and online an opportunity to take a break from the weekly creation of worship by providing a ready-to-stream, downloadable service. The seminary has created the complete digital service as a summer gift to pastors, congregational leaders and musicians needing a vacation. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/worship-kit-2-fb-post.png) “The Advancement Office staff felt that our friends and colleagues across the nation might need a summer break from the weekly work of crafting worship,” said Phillips Vice President of Advancement Terry Ewing. “When we shared this idea with others at the seminary, they were eager to contribute.” Members of the Phillips community contributed to the service, with Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean Lee H. Butler, Jr. providing a sermon on Psalm 13. In addition to offering the full service, each component of worship is available for download as its own file. This means congregations in need of a specific part of worship can pick and choose what they need. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/register-1.png)](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/zurc54z6ve/index.html) > Please click on the [REGISTER ](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/zurc54z6ve/index.html)button to see the download links. The worship components include: Prelude Music, Morning Prayer, Words of Confession and Assurance, Special Music, Scripture Reading, Sermon, Offering, Prayers of the People, Communion, Benediction, and Postlude. [CLICK HERE](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/zurc54z6ve/index.html) to register for the worship files download. [CLICK HERE](mailto:kurt.gwartney@ptstulsa.edu?subject=WORSHIP%20DOWNLOAD%20HELP) for technical questions or download issues. **Worship elements include:** Welcome and Introduction Prelude Music Morning Prayer Words of Confession and Assurance Special Music Scripture Reading Sermon Offering Prayers of the People Communion Benediction Postlude **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Theological Seminary in conjunction with Arts Organizations from around the Country Present the World Premiere of “They Still Want to Kill Us”](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/05/24/they-still-want-to-kill-us-2/) **Published:** May 24, 2021 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** **An Uncensored Aria performed and composed by Daniel Bernard Roumain Featuring mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and directed by Yoram Savion** **Commemorating centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and marking 1 year since the murder of George Floyd** **Streaming for free through July 31** **Nationwide (USA) – May 10, 2021 –** On May 25, 2021 at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern, a group of arts institutions across the nation will premiere the short film “They Still Want To Kill Us,” an aria by composer and activist **Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)**, performed by mezzo-soprano **J’Nai Bridges**, and directed by filmmaker **Yoram Savion**, to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. It speaks truth to what transpired in 1921 at the Tulsa Race Massacre, an atrocity all but deleted from history until recently. The work is being premiered to mark one year since the murder of George Floyd: a commentary on our progress this last century on the issue of race and America’s treatment of Black life. “They Still Want to Kill Us” will premiere on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/SOZOARTISTS) and [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/sozoartists); beginning May 26 it will stream for free at [ptstulsa.edu/art](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/) until July 31. The program will include the premiere of the piece by Savion, a discussion with DBR and Bridges, moderated by Jamilla Deria and a statement by Damario Solomon-Simmons of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation. Learn more about the uncensored aria and project at [www.theystillwanttokillus.com](http://www.theystillwanttokillus.com/). This work of social justice and global change is produced by **Rika Iino** and **Ichun Yeh** of Sozo Creative with support from Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Okla., and is commissioned by the Apollo Theater, Opera Philadelphia, the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage Anywhere, Joe’s Pub, Stanford Live, University Musical Society at the University of Michigan, Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University, The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, Creative Alliance, Bill Bragin, and Washington Performing Arts with support from National Sawdust and the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation, distributed by ActiveCultures, Esty Dinur, globalFEST, ¡Globalquerque!, and HotHouse. “Daniel’s beautiful project was in need, and the nationwide response of all these organizations quickly coming together to make an even bigger version of it happen shows what can happen when people work together in this historical moment of racial reckoning in the USA,” states Jamilla Deria, Executive Director of the UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center. “Together, we are imagining what more we could all do because we have realized what’s at stake for everyone in society. We must lift each other up, and Daniel’s project is a perfect vehicle to demonstrate both the brutal reality and communal potential of American society.” “The ending to DBR’s aria is a powerful witness to the diverse ways the Tulsa Race Massacre continues to be memorialized and remembered, even within Black America,” said Dr. Arthur Carter, Jr., director of Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life at Phillips Seminary. “Indeed, some have found the ending objectionable, and it is their right. Yet, the aria’s invocation of Divine judgment justifiably condemns the heinous acts and crimes perpetrated during and after the Tulsa Race Massacre.” **Composer statement** DBR: “What happened to American citizens on May 31, 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma was a massacre by white people perpetrated upon Black people. A toxic mix of misinformation, bigotry, ignorance, and white rage ignited a race war that left hundreds dead, a community destroyed, and a nation still struggling for its identity. It seems that some white people still want to kill us (Black people), and the murder of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and so many others is evidence of this bloodlust sown deep within the American psyche. What are the words and methods of The New Racism? Each day we bear witness to it. Violence against those who are Other in America is deeply rooted in our history, and we have a choice. We can be silent — or we can move mountains and create new spaces for our communities.” **Background** During the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred over 18 hours from May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked residents, homes, businesses, and places of worship in the predominantly Black Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. This thriving business district and surrounding residential area, referred to as “Black Wall Street,” was burned to the ground. The tragedy remains one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history, and, for a period, remained one of the least known. Despite the fact hundreds of people were killed and thousands more left homeless, news reports were largely suppressed. They Still Want to Kill Us was filmed in May 2021 in New York City’s Sultan Room and Central Park’s historic Seneca Village site. A 19th-century settlement mostly populated by the largest number of African American landowners in New York before the Civil War, the site was torn down to help make way for Central Park. 225 residents (two-thirds Black and one-third Irish) lost 50 homes, three churches, and a school of African American children. Through archival image references and evocative visual narrative, we connect the past and the present, highlighting a pattern of hidden and historically ignored state violence and the forcible displacement of African American landowning communities across the nation. The aria is a part of a larger pocket opera of the same name currently being developed by DBR and slated to premiere in the 21-22 season. **Collaborators** [**DBR**](https://www.danielroumain.com/)’s acclaimed work as a composer, performer, educator, and activist spans more than two decades, and he has been commissioned by venerable artists and institutions worldwide. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (*New York Times*), DBR is perhaps the only composer whose collaborations span Philip Glass, Bill T. Jones, Savion Glover, and Lady Gaga. He most recently scored the film *Ailey* (d. Jamila Wignot), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2021. American mezzo-soprano [**J’Nai Bridges**](https://jnaibridgesmezzo.com/), known for her “rich, dark, exciting sound” (*Opera News*) is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after talents of her generation, gracing the world’s top stages in repertoire ranging from traditional favorites to world premieres to spirituals and standards. [**Yoram Savion**](https://www.sozoartists.com/yoramsavion) is a filmmaker, writer, and multimedia artist. His pan-genre, award-winning onscreen work spans movement-based documentation, narrative, documentary for youth- and humanitarian-centric initiatives, and creative work for multinational brands. The innovative filming techniques developed in the production studio he co-founded has drawn a strong global following, with more than a half billion views online. **Sozo Creative** believes in the role of artists as thought partners and catalysts for innovation. With art and technology, social impact and immersive arts as their three core creative tracks, Sozo’s global portfolio spans the spectrum of film, digital content, educational residencies, live performances, and site-reactive activations. Founded and led by women, Sozo’s team of world class artists and producers partner with brands, arts institutions, creative agencies and civic entities, building artistic and cultural bridges through bold, perspective-changing projects, to invoke a vibrant, trusting, and compassionate society. For more information, visit [sozoartists.com](http://www.sozoartists.com/). Call to Action** As an essential part of the project, we refer the public to support the Justice for Greenwood Foundation (), a network of activists, attorneys, volunteers, experts, and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre seeking accountability, financial compensation, publication, and greater truth-telling around the facts and legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. **Phillips Seminary Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life** Dr. Carter also said, “The commemoration and memorialization of such atrocities demand that we sincerely listen to the diversity of voices seeking first to honor and humanize the victims and survivors of our nation’s practices of racial terror. If we are ever to assuage the harsh realities of systemic racism, we must learn to embrace the discomfort that accompanies selfless inclusion and heartfelt repentance.” **Categories:** Uncategorized --- ### [Dean of Students Announces Retirement from Phillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/04/29/dean-of-students-retirement/) **Published:** April 29, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MaryAnn-Morris-Smaller.png)MaryAnn Morris in the Phillips Chapel (2020) Dean of Students MaryAnn Morris has decided to enter retirement at the close of the current academic year at Phillips Theological Seminary. During her time at the seminary, Morris journeyed from student, to alumna, to admissions staff, to director of admissions, to dean of students. As dean of students, she supervised the registrar’s office, admissions and recruitment. “Every step along her path, she has lived our highest values and given so much of who she is to support the mission of Phillips Seminary,” said Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean Lee H. Butler, Jr. “Her ministry among us has been directed by a compassionate care of all souls but especially our students.” In her letter of retirement, Morris shared, “After working remotely from January through March, it was quite an adjustment to leave my spouse and be away from home again most of the week. . . . (This,) along with the desire to explore a writing project I have been dreaming of for years, have led me to this place.” The seminary is planning opportunities for ways small groups may express their thanks and well-wishes to Morris in light of ongoing COVID-19 precautions. “Until we are able to be gathered all together as an in-person community that includes trustees, administration, staff, and students to express our gratitude, please join me now in thanking MaryAnn Morris, Dean of Students, for being a gift of friendship within Phillips Seminary,” Butler said. **Categories:** News --- ### [Arts Showcase: A Sacred Commemoration for the Centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/04/16/arts-showcace/) **Published:** April 16, 2021 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/210407-Art-Showcase-Graphic-1-1024x819.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/)Phillips Theological Seminary Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life invites artists of all ages to participate in a showcase of works as part of a sacred commemoration for the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The submission deadline for the arts showcase is May 11. Artwork must be original to the artist submitting the work. The mediums for the showcase are: spoken word, original music, 2D or 3D artwork, computer-generated visual art. All submissions will be made online and must follow [category guidelines](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/). Members of the Black Christian Traditions and African American Faith Life committee will serve as judges for the showcase and award a $500 best in show honor and up to $1,500 in combined prizes. Judging criteria is based on interpretation of the topic, originality, technique and composition. The works will be featured in a video shared across social media and the seminary’s website, [ptstulsa.edu/art](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/). **Categories:** Uncategorized --- ### [A Conversation with the Author of "Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples With Its Historical Racial Trauma"](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/02/10/black-wall-street-100/) **Published:** February 10, 2021 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary President Nancy Claire Pittman welcomes author, attorney and consultant Hannibal Johnson for a discussion of his most recent book, *Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with its Historical Racial Trauma*. The conversation takes place Feb. 22 at 6:30 p.m. [online](https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__eXSqJJWTVSXOpcLv5LBuw). This special presentation is part of the seminary’s Black History and African American Heritage Month commemoration in collaboration with the Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program at Phillips. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/black-wall-street-100-book-cover.jpg)Johnson’s book is endorsed by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission and the 400 Years of African American History Commission, furthering the educational mission of both bodies. The book offers updates on developments in Tulsa generally and in Tulsa’s Greenwood District specifically since the publication of his first book, *Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District*. President Pittman and Johnson will participate in a Zoom webinar and take questions from attendees. Registration is required to join the webinar. **[CLICK TO REGISTER](https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__eXSqJJWTVSXOpcLv5LBuw)** “*Black Wall Street 100* is a window into what distinguishes the Tulsa of today from the Tulsa of a century ago,” Johnson said. “Before peering through that porthole, we must first reflect on Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District in all its splendor and squalor, from the prodigious entrepreneurial spirit that pervaded it to the carnage that characterized the 1921 massacre to the post-massacre rebound and rebuilding that raised the District to new heights to the mid-twentieth-century decline that proved to be a second near-fatal blow to the current recalibration and rebranding of a resurgent, but differently configured, community.” [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/register-1.png)](https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__eXSqJJWTVSXOpcLv5LBuw)The book offers Tulsa’s trajectory as possibly instructive for other communities similarly seeking to address their own histories of racial trauma. While also realizing Tulsa may also benefit from learning more about the paths taken by other communities. “Through sharing and synergy, we stand a better chance of doing the work necessary to spur healing and move farther toward the reconciliation of which we so often speak” Johnson said. **Categories:** Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program, News --- ### [Phillips Announces New Liturgy and Practical Theology Faculty Member](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/12/15/liturgy-and-practical-theology-faculty/) **Published:** December 15, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes Allie Utley as Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Practical Theology beginning July 1. Utley’s scholarship and professional identity within the fields of Liturgics and Practical Theology have been formed and influenced by her primary professors and academic mentors the Rev. Dr. John McClure and the late Rev. Dr. Dale Andrews, two scholar-teachers of the Presbyterian and African Methodist Episcopal Churches. **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Allie-Utley-scaled.jpeg)(Photo by Cali Godley) Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes Allie Utley as Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Practical Theology beginning July 1. Utley’s scholarship and professional identity within the fields of Liturgics and Practical Theology have been formed and influenced by her primary professors and academic mentors the Rev. Dr. John McClure and the late Rev. Dr. Dale Andrews, two scholar-teachers of the Presbyterian and African Methodist Episcopal Churches. “We’re delighted to welcome a scholar-teacher with intercultural sensitivities to join our educational mission,” said Phillips Vice President for Academic Affairs Lee H. Butler, Jr. Utley is a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) candidate in the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University with an area specialization in homiletics and liturgical studies. She earned her MDiv from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, MA from The Ohio State University with a major in music theory and cognition, and BA from the music department of Appalachian State University with a major in piano performance. The Vanderbilt program, which concentrates on rhetoric, homiletics, liturgy, and ritual, has the distinctive unifying element of practical theology. This element has led Utley to identify herself as a practical theologian who seeks “to privilege lived human experience and to ground theory in actual bodies and practices.” Her interdisciplinary scholarship and work in the practice of ministry attends to issues of faith, disability, and ministerial practice. Utley has been active in her professional guild, the North American Academy of Liturgy, where her work on affective praxis has been well received. She has been an active lay leader within the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is in the final phase of the Presbyterian ordination process. “I strongly believe that this lay experience, in combination with my passion for teaching, have prepared me to be an effective theological educator,” Utley said. “Not only does Utley embrace the powerful preaching tradition of the Presbyterian Church supported by her mentor John McClure, she also embraces the practical theology tradition of her African Methodist Episcopal mentor, Dale Andrews,” Butler said. “With the memory of Andrews continuing to whisper in her ears, she brings an intercultural sensitivity to her scholarship that attends to emotions within the contexts of worship. Inspiring students to be aware of the emotional content ritual and ritual space will be a profound contribution to the pastoral formation we do here at Phillips.” **Categories:** News --- ### [Statement Regarding Spring 2021 Classes and Events](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/12/07/statement-regarding-spring-2021-classes-and-events/) **Published:** December 7, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** Due to the widespread prevalence of the coronavirus in Tulsa County, Phillips Theological Seminary will remain fully online for Spring 2021 classes and events. The administration will announce a decision on how the seminary will celebrate commencement by April 1. “While we miss being with each other on campus, we also do not anticipate a significant reduction in the spread of COVID-19 that would make it safe to be in-person until later in 2021,” said Phillips President Nancy Claire Pittman. **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Phillips-Spring-2021-Statement-1024x576.png)Due to the widespread prevalence of the coronavirus in Tulsa County, Phillips Theological Seminary will remain fully online for Spring 2021 classes and events. The administration will announce a decision on how the seminary will celebrate commencement by April 1. “While we miss being with each other on campus, we also do not anticipate a significant reduction in the spread of COVID-19 that would make it safe to be in-person until later in 2021,” said Phillips President Nancy Claire Pittman. The Phillips “Living Together: Classroom Reopening Task Force,” led by Dean Lee H. Butler, Jr., continues its work of data collection in order to recommend plans for a safe return to campus and has already instituted changes to help reduce the spread of illness. “The Novel Coronavirus has created conditions that are antithetical to human thriving,” said Butler. “Life and living together in relationship in this time of COVID-19 does, however, mean that we must exercise wisdom and good judgment.” Butler said while all courses will be online, some will happen synchronously, where students gather at the same time for class. Some courses will be delivered asynchronously, allowing students to complete coursework on their own schedule. Some classes will be a hybrid of the two methods. “Phillips is dedicated to ensuring quality theological education whether courses are online, on campus, or a combination,” Pittman said. “We’ve been providing online classes for more than a decade and will continue to do so with the same commitment to providing theological formation within one community of learning and companionship, whether together or apart.” **Categories:** News --- ### [Dr. Lisa Barnett Joins Disciples History Journal Editorial Board](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/08/12/barnett-journal-of-discipliana/) **Published:** August 12, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. Lisa Barnett will be a part of the launch of *The Journal of Discipliana* as an online publication starting in early 2021. The project is a revival of the former *Discipliana* journal, first published in 1941. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Untitled-design-1.png)Dr. Lisa Barnett will serve a three-year term on the editorial board of *The Journal of Discipliana.* The new online journal goes live in 2021, but a brief preview “teaser” should be available this fall. Barnett, an assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Phillips Theological Seminary, has agreed to serve a three-year term on the editorial review board of the journal. The journal’s new online format means articles will be published throughout the year and be available without a subscription. *The Journal of Discipliana* is part of the Disciples Historical Society devoted to the history of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and other streams of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Dr. Mark Toulouse is the journal’s editor and the project is overseen by Dr. Rick Lowery, president of the historical society. Both Toulouse and Lowery are former Phillips faculty members. “I’m honored and excited to be a part of the renewal of *The Journal of Discipliana*,” Barnett said. “My hope is that our work on the review board will encourage scholars and researchers to contribute to this important project. As a seminary professor, I’m also pleased this information will be open to all who are interested.” Barnett is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and was the 2012 winner of the Isaac Errett Award for History sponsored by the *Stone-Campbell Journal* and the Disciples Historical Society. Her paper was published in the Spring 2013 edition of the *Stone-Campbell Journal*. She is also the author of two essays in the book on the history of Brite Divinity School published by TCU Press in 2011, and has a chapter included in *Border Policing: A History of Enforcement and Evasion in North America* released in April 2020 with the University of Texas Press. Barnett did her PhD work in the history department at Texas Christian University, focusing on U.S. history since 1877 and specifically American Indian history and American religious history. She has two Master’s degrees from Brite Divinity School—a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology degree in History. **Categories:** News **Tags:** Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Disciples, faculty --- ### [Statement on the Passing of the Rev. C.T. Vivian and U.S. Rep. John Lewis](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/07/22/statement-on-vivian-and-lewis/) **Published:** July 22, 2020 **Author:** Arthur Carter **Content:** --- > *You can turn your back on me, but you cannot turn your back upon the idea of justice. You can turn your back now and you can keep your club in your hand, but you cannot beat down justice…* > > [C.T. Vivian addressing Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU6IEC7JXN8), Selma, 1965 > *We are tired; We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people arrested… We want our freedom and we want it now. We do not want to go to jail. But we will go to jail if this is the price we must pay for love, brotherhood, and true peace*. > > [John Lewis, March on Washington](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFs1eTsokJg), 1963 --- Phillips Theological Seminary mourns with the nation in the passing of the Rev. Cordy Tindell (C.T.) [Vivian](https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669105/) (1924–2020) and U.S. Rep. John Robert Lewis (1940–2020). We celebrate their lives of service as iconic leaders of Civil and Human Rights: lives dedicated to the causes of love and racial and social justice. As scions of the beloved community, they were committed to the spirit of nonviolent resistance, exemplars of moral courage, and provocateurs for human dignity. Both souls took flight, within hours of one another, on Friday, July 17, 2020. As this nation bids farewell to these two agents of change, the Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program (BCTAFL) at Phillips Theological Seminary honors their devotion to nonviolent resistance, and we thank them for their clarion call to the nation to treat all with liberty and equality. We offer our prayers and condolences to the families and friends of the Rev. C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis. As we mourn the passing of these great revolutionaries, we celebrate the fruit of their hands, hearts, and toil. Their dedication to nonviolent protest stirred a community and touched the world. Rooted in both a resolute faith and spiritual call, their belief in the beloved community prohibited silence, demanded action, and sought collaboration; it provoked a courageous faith that enlivened people to confront corrupt pretenses of democracy with righteous demands for truth and justice. Their works were expressions of Black faith and life being a synthesis of the spiritual, religious, and political. Rev. Vivian, born in rural Missouri, recognized the moral and theological impacts of racial discrimination and economic and social injustice early in his life. In 1947, Vivian already found himself in the movement helping desegregate a restaurant in Peoria, Illinois. A founding member of the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, Rev. Vivian became a key figure within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) at the height of the Civil Rights movement, joining its executive staff as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s national director of affiliates. Vivian led sit-ins, marches, voter registration drives, and wade-ins across the country. Following the 1960s, he continued challenging and nonviolently disrupting systems of injustice as a strategist, minister, organizer, activist, author, educator, and divinity school dean. Rep. Lewis grew up in rural Alabama. At just 23 years old, he stood in the White House with the likes of A. Phillip Randolph and Martin L. King, Jr. as the youngest of the “Big Six” who met with President Kennedy in 1963. From 1963-1966, he was Chairman \[*sic*\] of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As the representative voice of a younger, activist generation, Lewis delivered one of the more revolution-oriented speeches at the 1963 March on Washington. After serving briefly within President Carter’s administration, Lewis served on Atlanta’s city council and then represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District for 18 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. There is a poignant chirality between the biographies of Vivian, the Midwestern, SCLC minister, and Lewis, the Southern, SNCC, politician, that mirrors the wide-ranging significance of theological education toward social change. Their lives intersected at Nashville’s American Baptist Theological Seminary (now, [American Baptist College](https://abcnash.edu)). Nashville provided them a nurturing environment, in part, because of a vibrant ethos conditioned by serious, justice-oriented theological education that was ripe for social change. The contributions and legacies of the Rev. C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis charge all institutions of theological education to take seriously their responsibilities for preparing workers for this generation’s continued strivings toward the beloved community. As the vestiges of white supremacy splinter society by stoking racialized fear and anxiety, the BCTAFL is inspired by the lives and legacies of Lewis and Vivian. The Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program at Phillips Theological Seminary celebrates the revolutionary impulse of C.T. Vivian and John Lewis. Whereas the pall of racism and economic exploitation continues to shadow this nation’s future with resurgent voter suppression, insidious police brutality, and rampant economic, ecological, and health inequalities, the BCTAFL is committed to educational endeavors to push, inform, train, and prepare this generation’s ministers, servants, and provocateurs for justice to work toward the establishment of a beloved community and a more just society. Through the attentive and contextual study of Black Church traditions and African American religiosity, we aspire to be a learning community that responds to the lives they modeled: a community seeking to educate persons to be both attentive to God and faithfully act with God to transform the world. Reverend Vivian and Rep. Lewis devoted themselves at an early age to a movement that [Alice Walker](https://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/in-search-of-our-mothers-garden/), in the late 1960s, adroitly described as a calling to life. > It gave us history and men \[and women\] far greater than Presidents. It gave us heroes, selfless \[people\] of courage and strength, for our little boys and girls to follow. It gave us hope for tomorrow. It called us to life. Because we live, it can never die.\* This movement was collaborative, communal, and life giving. Rev. [C.T. Vivian](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/ct-vivian-dead.html) and [Rep. John Lewis](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/john-lewis-dead.html) now join in rest with co-laborers [Toni Morrison](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/books/toni-morrison-dead.html) (1931–2019), [Rep. Elijah Cummings](https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000006773821/elijah-cummings.html) (1951–2019), [Katherine C. Johnson](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/science/katherine-johnson-dead.html) (1918–2020), the [Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/us/barbara-harris-dead.html) (1930–2020), the [Rev. Joseph E. Lowery](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/joseph-lowery-dead.html) (1921–2020), and the [Rev. Harry Blake](https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2020/04/08/civil-rights-icon-shreveport-pastor-harry-blake-dies-85/5120205002/) (1934–2020) still calling for justice and love. This cloud of witnesses, with scores of other committed, toiled for the beloved community we long for. We are thankful for their commitment to service. We are thankful for their charge. May our teaching celebrate their lives as we pursue a just, beloved community. Amen. \* Quote taken from Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Garden.” --- Dr. Arthur F. Carter, Jr. is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Director of the Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program at Phillips Theological Seminary **Categories:** Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program, News --- ### [Fall 2020 Courses to be Conducted Online Due to Pandemic](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/07/13/fall-2020-courses-to-be-conducted-online-due-to-pandemic/) **Published:** July 13, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** STATEMENT FROM PRESIDENT NANCY CLAIRE PITTMAN We are indeed living in very trying times as we all struggle to survive COVID-19 and navigate our way through the challenges and difficulties in its wake. The numbers of cases in Oklahoma and surrounding states continue to climb rapidly. In spite of the constant debates in public that pit public health against the national economy, medical scientists remain univocal: the only way to minimize the impact of this virus on us, on our families, and on our communities is to practice physical distancing and take precautions against the spread by wearing masks and washing hands, etc. For this reason, and after consultation with our new dean, Dr. Lee H. Butler, Jr., I am announcing that all fall semester classes at Phillips Theological Seminary, including fall orientation, will be conducted online, both synchronously and asynchronously. For persons enrolled in on-campus weekly or intensive classes, these courses will take place online at the published dates and times. Professors may use Zoom and other technologies, but students will be expected to be present throughout the semester at the appointed time for these courses. This will help us to maintain the normal rhythms of our community life. Courses normally labeled “online” will proceed as they usually do. Please know that the Student Services personnel and professors will continue to communicate plans for individual courses and work with students who might need to adjust schedules. For United Methodist students in the MDiv program: the United Methodist University Senate has now given permission for you to take online courses this fall from institutions, like Phillips, who have received approval from it. Remember, the board of trustees has voted to give all students an additional 10 percent tuition grant through December 2020. They remain committed to helping you, our students, deal with this ongoing crisis. If you are in need of additional short-term support in circumstances caused by COVID, please contact Dean of Students MaryAnn Morris. The faculty and staff of Phillips are also dedicated to your learning and well-being during this time. You and the communities you serve remain always in our prayers as you do whatever is necessary to love God and love your neighbors. Peace this day, Nancy Claire Pittman, President Phillips Theological Seminary **Categories:** News --- ### [Widespread Blackbaud Data Breach Includes Phillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/07/21/widespread-blackbaud-data-breach-includes-phillips/) **Published:** July 21, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary has learned that some of the personal information belonging to our donors was illegally taken as part of what is called a “ransomware” attack on our database vendor, [Blackbaud](https://www.blackbaud.com/securityincident). Blackbaud has assured the seminary the attackers did NOT access any credit card, bank account, or social security numbers. The files stolen by the attackers did include your relationship with Phillips, donation dates, and donation amounts. Blackbaud paid the ransom to have the data destroyed and is monitoring the internet to make sure the information is not available anywhere online. As part of their efforts to help prevent a recurrence, Blackbaud has implemented several changes designed to protect your data from additional incidents. Phillips takes the protection and security of your information seriously and wanted you to be aware of the incident. As with other attacks of this type, you may want to take steps to protect your personal data. You will find suggested next steps and resources for data protection below. The seminary apologizes that this happened and will continue to monitor Blackbaud’s response to this cybercrime incident. If you have additional questions about your data and how it’s used by the seminary, please contact Sharon Russ in the Advancement Office by calling 918.270.6404 or emailing . **IDENTITY THEFT INFORMATION** AARP offers the following warning signs that you may be an identity theft victim: - Bank and credit card statements list withdrawals or purchases you don’t remember making. - You get a bill or invoice for financial activity you don’t recognize or medical services you didn’t receive. - Your credit report lists accounts or liabilities you don’t recognize. - You are contacted by a debt collector about a debt you don’t owe. - You have trouble filing your taxes because the Internal Revenue Service says it already has a return from you. - You receive notice from a bank or company you do business with that it has suffered a data breach. You can read more about identity theft and scam protection on the [AARP website](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/guide-to-preventing-fraud.html). **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Seminary Offers Mail-In Ballot Notary Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/06/25/phillips-seminary-offers-mail-in-ballot-notary-service/) **Published:** June 25, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary joins ACTION Tulsa’s Notary Day, June 27 from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Saturday. COVID 19 has made voting more challenging and many voters have requested an absentee ballot. The notary service is free. All absentee ballots must be at the election board by 7 p.m. June 30, election day. The seminary is at [901 N. Mingo Road in Tulsa](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/directions/). Voters should bring their completed ballot, sealed in the envelope marked “Ballots,” the placed and sealed in the affidavit envelope. DO NOT SIGN the affidavit envelope until you are in the presence of the notary. You will also need to have a photo ID (your voter registration card will not work for this). Also, remember early voting is available at the Tulsa County Election Board on Thursday, June 25, 8 a.m.–6 p.m.; Friday, June 26, 8 a.m.–6 p.m., and Saturday, June 27, 9 a.m.–2 p.m. You may also have your absentee ballot safely notarized at these additional ACTION member locations: - The Journey Church – 3171 S 129th E Ave - Fellowship Lutheran Church – 6727 S Sheridan - All Souls Unitarian – 2952 S Peoria - First Lutheran Church – 1244 S Utica Ave - Fellowship Congregational Church – 2900 S Harvard Ave - Church of the Restoration – 1314 N Greenwood Ave - Church of St Mary – 1347 E 49th Pl If you are voting in person Tuesday, June 30, you should check your polling location. Several have changed due to COVID-19 concerns. Polls are open from 7 a.m.–7 p.m. Find your polling place online: . **Categories:** News **Tags:** action, ballot, election, tulsa, vote --- ### [Phillips Seminary Stands with African Americans’ Celebration of Juneteenth](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/06/15/phillips-seminary-stands-with-african-americans-celebration-of-juneteenth/) **Published:** June 15, 2020 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** With the discussion of President Donald Trump’s initial intention to hold a campaign rally in Tulsa this coming weekend, we at Phillips Theological Seminary continue to stand with the African American communities of Oklahoma as we consider the significance of the celebration of June 19th. This date, also known as [Juneteenth](https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/historical-legacy-juneteenth), commemorates for African Americans the end of the War Between the States. Whereas Gen. Robert E. Lee signed documents of surrender on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, the Confederacy did not yield to total surrender until June 19, 1865 when Union troops landed in Galveston, Texas and declared an end to the war. As the date of total emancipation, Juneteenth became a day of Jubilee, a day for celebrating African American freedom from slavery. Although Crispus Attucks, son of an African father and a Wampanoag Native American mother, was the “first to defy and first to die” in the Boston Massacre of 1770, his sacrifice did not prevent Africans from being enslaved in America. Making the case, Frederick Douglass examined the meaning of the Fourth of July for African Americans in an address to the Rochester Ladies’ Antislavery Society, Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852. Recounting the many indignities America had inflicted upon African Americans, Douglass declared, “Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessing in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” American slavery was a stumbling block for African Americans to celebrate American Independence Day. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Frederick-Douglass-Quote-July-Fourth-1.png) Juneteenth holds very special meaning within the state of Oklahoma because of its history of All-Black towns. From 1865 to approximately 1921, Oklahoma was a land of promise for emancipated African Americans, where 50 All-Black towns were established after the American Civil War (1861-1865). Up from slavery’s dehumanizing degradation, African Americans re-created lives that were defined by dignity, integrity, and self-determination. Consequently, the African Americans who established towns in Oklahoma chose to celebrate the 19th of June rather than the Fourth of July and to commemorate their emancipation from the American house of bondage. The independent newspapers of those towns wrote stories that declared their walk to freedom and often printed, as a Christian witness to God, the public programs that were worshipful and thankful. The events also sometimes included representatives from the Indian nations of Oklahoma. Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to the cause of freedom and offers leadership education that advocates biblically and theologically responsible witness to the world that is compassionate and justice-oriented. We stand with our African American sisters and brothers in celebration of Juneteenth. We are committed to efforts that declare the Kin-dom. May freedom ring and reign in Tulsa and across the United States of America. Nancy Claire Pittman, *President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry* **Categories:** News **Tags:** July Fourth, Juneteenth, Statement --- ### [Phillips Seminary Announces New Vice President, Dean](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/06/05/phillips-seminary-announces-new-vice-president-dean/) **Published:** June 5, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes the Rev. Dr. Lee H. Butler, Jr. as the seminary’s new Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean. Butler will also hold an endowed academic chair and serve as the William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions and Africana Pastoral Theology at Phillips. He was a mentee of the late Dr. Charles H. Long, a pre-eminent scholar in the History of Religions. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/lee_h._butler_jr._2-1024x948.jpg)The Rev. Dr. Lee H. Butler, Jr. Butler received his PhD in 1994 from Drew University in Psychology and Religion and a MPhil in 1992. He also holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Theological Seminary) with a bachelor’s degree in Religion from Bucknell University. Butler comes to Phillips from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) where he was the Distinguished Service Professor of Theology and Psychology. He was the first African American to achieve the rank of tenured full professor at CTS. He was also the founding director of the Center for the Study of Black Faith and Life at CTS. Through the work of the Center, he established the C. Shelby Rooks Lectureship as a tribute to the first African American to become president of a predominantly European American seminary and hosted the first Womanists-Womanist Collaborators Conference in theological education at CTS. “Dr. Butler brings to Phillips considerable experience in theological teaching and research and administrative leadership,” said the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, president of Phillips. “I’m certain he will help lead us to become the more diverse, equitable and inclusive institution we strive to be, while also supporting our efforts to continue to uphold academic excellence in service to church and community.” “There are so many challenges for theological education, our churches and our communities at this particular moment in history,” Butler said. “In these times of crises, there are increased vulnerabilities but also the opportunity of heightened possibilities.” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/lhb_oct_25_2013.jpg) Through his vision, he received grants to support faculty development, academic program restructuring and curriculum revision. He is known for his commitments to diversity and interculturality as a theological educator who engages in Africana religious studies, Native American studies and Korean pastoral theology. Committed to domestic and international study tours, he has led and facilitated study tours to Ghana, Brazil and South Africa. Butler is a recognized mentor of emerging scholars in collaboration with the Forum for Theological Exploration and the Hispanic Theological Initiative. As the chair of the Association of Theological Schools Committee on Race and Ethnicity in Theological Education (CORE), he worked to address the disenfranchisement experienced by scholars of color teaching within predominantly European American theological institutions. He is an active scholar and member of multiple professional organizations. He is a past president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Pastoral Theology, the Institute for Signifying Scriptures, Society for Process Consulting and the Association of Black Psychologists. He is an ordained minister of the American Baptist Churches/USA and active in his local congregation as preacher and teacher. “In an increasingly complex world, the ability to draw on a wide range of viewpoints, backgrounds, skills, experience and expertise internally increases the likelihood of making the right decisions as Dean,” Butler said. “I look forward to helping Phillips embrace its journey to increased diversity as a gift that promotes and supports institutional health and wholeness.” Butler will begin his service to Phillips on July 1 as the sixth Dean for the seminary. An installation service will be scheduled after his arrival. **Categories:** News --- ### [Statement on Mr. George Floyd and Nationwide Protests](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/06/01/statement-on-mr-george-floyd-and-nationwide-protests/) **Published:** June 1, 2020 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** The flames and winds that Christians celebrate at Pentecost this year have become flames of anger and winds of rage engulfing America. At Phillips Theological Seminary, as we have watched the multiple events from the week of May 25-29 including the death of Mr. George Floyd in Minneapolis and the cellular phone call of Ms. Amy Cooper in New York City’s Central Park, our hearts are full of compassion and our spirits are re-ignited to serve the call of justice which brings peace. We mourn with the family and friends of Mr. George Floyd. Because his life has been reduced to the spectacle of his death, we pray for his family and circle of friends as they gather to say their final farewells to one whom they loved. We also pray for the United States of America in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a nation embattled through confrontation and protests associated with Mr. Floyd’s death. Even as we know there is a time and season for everything under the sun, our spiritual commitment sees this as the time to make real the promise of liberty and justice for all. Every life is a gift from God. Our hearts are breaking as we witness the devaluing of humanity and the desecration of community. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Where_Do_We_Go_from_Here_Chaos_or_Community-background-1024x873.jpg)](http://www.thekinglegacy.org/books/where-do-we-go-here-chaos-or-community) In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. posed the question, *[Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?](http://www.thekinglegacy.org/books/where-do-we-go-here-chaos-or-community)* As we view the chaos erupting across America–some violence wrought by supremacists intent on agitating a race war–we are committed to the values that encourage, restore, and build community. We are praying for peace, advocating for justice, and working to support faith leaders on the front lines of this battle for the soul of America. This Pentecost may the gospel fire of justice and the spirit-filled winds of new life for our communities and nations blow through all of us as we walk with our siblings in the way of Jesus. ***The Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman*** President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of Ministry **Categories:** News **Tags:** Floyd, Protests, racism --- ### [Shall We Gather at (the River) Our Churches?](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/04/28/shall-we-gather-at-the-river-our-churches/) **Published:** April 28, 2020 **Author:** Ellen Blue **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/DublinTrinityCollegeMSEi40LifeAlbanFol38rMartyrdomAlban-1024x672.jpg)The martyrdom of St. Alban from a 13th Century manuscript of *The Life of St. Alban*. Matthew Paris was both scribe and illuminator for this manuscript. Scanned and slightly cropped from: Richard Marks and Nigel Morgan, The Golden Age of English Manuscript Painting, 1200-1500. / Public domain **By Ellen Blue** In the early days of the church, when Christians were being persecuted and even martyred, there was great excitement about dying for the faith. There are stories about believers who refused to be rescued from martyrdom even when they could have avoided it. There are tales of people who, on witnessing the executions of others, ran forward identifying themselves as Christians and demanding that they be killed, too. Church leaders eventually had to declare that so-called “voluntary martyrdom” did not count as true martyrdom in order to stop the trend. At times throughout the past two millennia, totalitarian governments have made Christian worship illegal. Sometimes Catholic worship or worship conducted by certain Protestant denominations has been banned. Those who worshipped in secret to preserve a Christian presence in an area are deemed heroic. They did not deliberately court imprisonment or death by gathering publicly, but we still consider them faithful witnesses. What does this history say to us in 2020 as various governors re-open their states during a pandemic and allow regular public worship to resume? What if a pastor insists that Christians must attend public worship in order to demonstrate their faith? Must believers convince themselves that Jesus will protect them from COVID-19 despite the warnings from medical professionals? These questions are especially appropriate because we have opportunities to stay connected with our churches and other members in ways that congregations have not historically had. Zoom gatherings, email, social media, and webcasts of church services can let us stay connected. For those without internet, making telephone calls, writing notes, and watching televised worship can offer meaningful community. We must also face the hard truth that if we attend public worship, it’s not just our own lives we’re risking. If I am exposed by a carrier without symptoms, then my family and everyone else that my family or I encounter may be exposed. As a United Methodist, I treasure our emphasis on connection, but at this moment, that connection is also a source of peril for the whole community. The fact that the secular government gives churches the “all clear” to gather does not mean that gathering is the right thing to do. Plenty of things which are legal are not moral or ethical or Christian courses of action. I believe that staying home and avoiding the high risk of being infected at a service (and then inevitability exposing others) is precisely the Christian response to the pandemic. Both Christian tradition and the mandate of Jesus to heal, rather than harm, make it so. **Categories:** Conversations **Tags:** church, ellen blue, john wesley, martyr, methodist, pandemic --- ### [May Commencement Postponed](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/04/06/may-commencement-postponed/) **Published:** April 6, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Because of the continued spread of the COVID-19 virus, May commencement for students at Phillips Theological Seminary is being postponed until early fall. The Academic Affairs office is currently considering possible dates for commencement and will let students know as soon as possible. That office is also examining how to offer other commencement-related events, including the senior dinner. Graduates should follow the instructions previously provided by Student Services for ordering regalia and place that order now in anticipation of the early fall commencement program. **Categories:** News --- ### [UPDATE: COVID-19 Response](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/03/13/update-covid-19-response/) **Published:** March 13, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary remains mindful of the COVID-19 pandemic and has made adjustments to its course schedule, events and daily operations at the Tulsa, Okla. campus. At this time, campus offices remain open on their regular schedules. Phillips has been in touch with its students and staff about changes made in response to the viral outbreak. The seminary encourages all students, staff and visitors to attend to their own health needs/concerns and make choices that do not put them or others at risk. If a member of the Phillips community or visitor has been in contact with someone who is symptomatic, or if the visitor, student or staff member has symptoms such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath, they should refrain from being on campus. The administration of Phillips Theological Seminary is receiving updates on the COVID-19 virus from the Tulsa Health Dept. The health department’s [COVID-19 webpage](https://www.tulsa-health.org/COVID19) contains helpful information on the virus. The Phillips administration is aware the situation is likely to change and is monitoring it carefully. If the administration decides additional steps need to be taken, the information will be communicated to those affected by the decision. Public statements will also be released on the seminary’s online [news page](https://ptstulsa.edu/news/). **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Implements Student Debt Reduction Plan](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/04/02/phillips-implements-student-debt-reduction-plan/) **Published:** April 2, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The executive committee of the Phillips Theological Seminary Board of Trustees has approved a student debt reduction plan in response to the economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The members of the committee, who act on behalf of the board between meetings, unanimously agreed March 31 that students enrolled for degree credit shall be given an additional 10 percent tuition remission grant for courses taken throughout 2020, both spring and fall semesters and the June DMin fortnight. The plan also cuts general student fees by half over the same time period. These changes are only for the 2020 calendar year. This means students receiving 60 percent tuition remission, you will now get 70 percent in tuition aid. Those at the 80 percent remission level, will get 90 percent off tuition. The semester fees will now drop to $62.50. “I’ve asked that the changes for the tuition remission rates go into effect immediately,” said President Nancy Claire Pittman. If students have already fully paid their spring 2020 tuition, the overpayment will be automatically credited to their fall balance. Students with credit on their accounts may request a refund. In consultation with the presidential leadership team at Phillips, Pittman also decided this semester’s on-campus courses will continue to meet online through at least April 30. “I deeply appreciate the flexibility of the faculty and all our students in helping us flatten the curve of this pandemic,” Pittman said. “In these weeks of stress and uncertainty, I am gratified by the work of the faculty and staff who have risen to every challenge they have been given with a willingness to serve our students,” she said. “I am overwhelmed by the board’s dedication to the welfare of our students in this troubling time.” **Categories:** News --- ### [Roger Allan Sizemore: April 1, 1937-March 17, 2020](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/03/24/roger-allan-sizemore-april-1-1937-march-17-2020/) **Published:** March 24, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Excerpt:** The first president of the Phillips Graduate Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Roger Allan Sizemore, died March 17, 2020 after a life of service in higher education and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Sizemore served as president of PGS from 1988-90 after the Graduate Seminary of Philips University separated from the university in 1987. He served as Dean of the graduate seminary from 1984-87. **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Sizemore-Roger.jpg)Roger Allan Sizemore The first president of the Phillips Graduate Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Roger Allan Sizemore, died March 17, 2020 after a life of service in higher education and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Sizemore served as president of PGS from 1988-90 after the Graduate Seminary of Philips University separated from the university in 1987. He served as Dean of the graduate seminary from 1984-87. He was born in Grayson, Kentucky on April 1, 1937. Sizemore was a graduate of Steubenville high school, Steubenville, Ohio, attended Milligan College (BA), Butler University/Christian Theological Seminary (MDiv with honors), East Tennessee State University (MA in Psychology), and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (PhD in Philosophy and Theology). He attended post doctoral studies programs at Ohio State University, Columbia University and The University of Tuebingen, Germany. He was the author of *[Keeping in Touch](https://okla-am.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=PHILLIPS_ALMA2112891570002690&context=L&vid=PHILLIPS&lang=en_US&search_scope=alma_scope&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,Keeping%20in%20touch&offset=0)*, a book on human potentials. Sizemore was a former professor of religion at Milligan College and Professor of Psychology at the Citadel. As an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Sizemore served as pastor for congregations in Texas, Georgia and Kentucky. He was also the owner of the Sizemore Consulting Group. Sizemore is survived by his wife, Brenda Talley Sizemore, his children, and many more relatives. He was preceded in death by his parents, the Rev. Alva D. Sizemore, Juanita Conley Sizemore, and his grandson, Hunter Sizemore. Memorials may be made to The New Church Development for The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Georgia, the Morris Brown College 2020 Capital Campaign, or to a charity of your choice. A Memorial service will be announced at a later date to celebrate Sizemore’s life. Online condolences may be expressed at [wagesandsons.com](https://www.wagesandsons.com/obits/roger-allan-sizemore/). --- *The photo and obituary information come from the* [*Wages and Sons Funeral Homes and Crematories*](https://www.wagesandsons.com/obits/roger-allan-sizemore/)*.* **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Announces New Faculty Member, Peter Capretto](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/03/12/phillips-announces-new-faculty-member-peter-carpetto/) **Published:** March 12, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Interim Dean Joe Bessler is pleased to announce that Peter Capretto is joining the Phillips Theological Seminary faculty beginning the fall of 2020 as Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care in Religion and Culture. “We were pleased with the number of strong candidates for this faculty search,” said Bessler. “I believe Peter will strengthen the long history of academic excellence at Phillips as we continue to provide education for clergy and the church.” Capretto received his PhD from Vanderbilt University in 2019 in Religion, Psychology, and Culture. He also brings clinical experience to his faculty position having served as a pastoral counselor at the Pastoral Counseling Centers of Tennessee. His teaching and research areas include pastoral care, practical theology, trauma studies, chaplaincy, disability studies, empathy, and theological ethics. The title of his dissertation is, “Social Recognition and the Ethics of Empathy in Pastoral Theological Anthropology.” Capretto’s professional memberships include the American Academy of Religion, Society for Pastoral Theology, Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, and Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion. **Categories:** News --- ### [Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/03/11/responding-to-the-covid-19-pandemic/) **Published:** March 11, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary continues to be mindful of the COVID-19 virus and is monitoring any shift in circumstances that might require the seminary to adjust for on-campus courses, events and daily operations at the Tulsa, Okla. campus. Should changes be necessary, Phillips will notify students and all staff with high-priority emails and through the alert notification system. The seminary encourages all students and staff to attend to their own health needs/concerns and make choices that do not put them or others at risk. If a member of the Phillips community has been in contact with someone who is symptomatic, or if the student or staff member has symptoms such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath, they should refrain from being on campus. If a student experiences symptoms once on the Tulsa campus, they should notify Student Services immediately and be prepared to self-isolate. Staff with symptoms should contact their immediate supervisor and self-isolate. The administration of Phillips Theological Seminary is receiving updates on the COVID-19 virus from the Tulsa Health Dept. The health department’s [COVID-19 webpage](https://www.tulsa-health.org/COVID19) contains helpful information on the virus. As the health department recommends, individuals can protect themselves and others by taking every day preventative actions: - Seek medical care right away. Before you go to a doctor’s office or emergency room, call ahead and tell them about your recent travel and your symptoms. - Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. - Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. - Avoid close contact with people who are sick. - Stay home when you are sick. - Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash. - Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces. **Categories:** News --- ### [One from Many Services Start Feb. 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/2020/01/14/one-from-many-services-start-feb-2/) **Published:** January 14, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The evening before the first nominating contest in the polarized Democratic presidential primaries, Tulsa-area residents are invited to come together in the American spirit of E Pluribus Unum, One from Many, at Phillips Theological Seminary. The service begins at 2 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 2 at 901 N. Mingo Rd. in Tulsa. The seminary is just north of Mingo Rd. and Admiral Blvd. near I-244. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Copy-of-a-MONTHLY-INTERFAITH-SERVICE-OF-HOPE-FOR-aMERICAS-FUTURE-1-300x150.png)](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/one-from-many-interfaith-service-of-hope-for-americas-future-tickets-88718335931?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=escb&utm-source=cp&utm-term=listing) This is the inaugural monthly interfaith service sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice and the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips. The event is intended as a place for people of moral and spiritual conviction to be reminded of the universal practices that help them work side-by-side for the common good, such as the Golden Rule. “The nation is torn between competing stories of who we have been, who we are, and where we should be headed. Especially during this presidential election year, the Center and OCCJ want to create a space for people who desire to see America fulfilling the promises of ‘one from many’ and ‘liberty and justice for all’ to gather and be renewed in hope,” said the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, director of the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary. “We intend that everyone who has an expansive vision of who the promises of America should include would feel welcome at these services.” Each gathering is a 45-minute service of encouragement and challenge. Participants will have the opportunity to welcome one another, enjoy performances and readings, sing, and reflect with one of Tulsa’s interfaith community leaders on the topic: This is the America in which I want to live, and here is how my faith informs that understanding. For more information on the gathering, [go online](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/one-from-many-interfaith-service-of-hope-for-americas-future-tickets-88718335931?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=escb&utm-source=cp&utm-term=listing) or contact Peluso-Verdend at . **Categories:** News --- ### [What the Bible Says, or Doesn't Say, About Homosexuality](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/20/what-the-bible-says-or-doesnt-say-about-homosexuality/) **Published:** March 20, 2019 **Author:** Lisa Davison **Content:** [Download the full paper by the Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/The-Bible-and-Homosexuality-Lisa-Davison.pdf)[Download](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/The-Bible-and-Homosexuality-Lisa-Davison.pdf) Within Christian circles, the debate about homosexuality has been at the forefront over the past few decades. It is not that this issue was unheard of until recently, but that it was not the focus of so much attention. Much like the civil rights movement and the women’s movement, there was no problem as long as those in the GLBT community kept their place within a heterosexist religious system. Only when GLBT persons began to ask for equal rights did the church make it such a hot topic. The fodder for many of the arguments against homosexuality has been a handful of biblical texts, which have been interpreted historically by modern scholars as condemning of intimate relationships between two persons of the same sex. In fact, some of the more modern translations of the bible contributed to the church’s anti-gay teachings (e.g., the New Revised Standard Version translation of 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10 used the word, “sodomites,” to translate a Greek word that had no etymological connection to the town and/or people of Sodom). Most people caught up in the turmoil over the issue have been laity who relied upon their pastors/priests to instruct them on the biblical stance toward homosexuality. Many church leaders have presented their biases without allowing their congregants to study what the bible actually says, or doesn’t say about this topic . For example, many persons in the church are still unaware that there is no word for “homosexuality” in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, the three original languages of the bible. In fact, the word did not appear in the English language until the late 19th century. Neither the ancient Israelites nor their later descendants within 1st century Judaism and the early church had any concept of sexual orientation, which is a relatively new concept for us today. Understanding the historical, sociological, and ideological background of biblical texts is essential in determining both an original meaning as well as a meaning for the modern faith community. Particularly within the community that wrote and passed down the texts of the 1st Testament, the primary concern for Ancient Israel was for survival. The dangers of life in those times meant that their people were constantly on the verge of extinction. Many children did not survive past the age of 2 or 3, and life expectancy was very short, especially for women, who often died in childbirth. Procreation was of the utmost importance. Anything that endangered the possibility for children (e.g., masturbation, non-intercourse sexual activities, etc.) was a threat to the whole community. During the writing of the New Testament, the early church was also a minority group, but its greatest threat came from the Greek culture, especially their religions, and the threat of assimilation. In trying to prove their legitimacy and carve out their identity, early church leaders, such as Paul, tried to emphasize the sins of Greek religion, especially their incorporation of sexual behavior within their rituals. Anything even closely resembling their behavior (e.g., temple prostitutes, fertility rituals, etc.) was strictly prohibited for the new Christian community. Given this backdrop for the reading and interpretation of the biblical materials, stories and 2 passages once thought to condemn many things, homosexuality being one, are seen in a much different light. The threats that existed for Ancient Israel and the early church are not what threaten today’s world and church. We face possible extinction not due to lack of procreation but because of over population. The Christian faith is no longer a minority voice, especially in the United States. Just as the biblical texts were written in certain historical contexts, so must we interpret them today, within our own contemporary world. **Categories:** Conversations, Presentations --- ### [Phillips Seminary Completes Accreditation Site Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/09/27/phillips-seminary-completes-accreditation-site-visit/) **Published:** September 27, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/IMG_4203-1024x768.jpg)Members of the accreditation team take time for a photo with some of the Board of Trustees members and administrators during their visit to the Phillips Theological Seminary campus.Phillips Theological Seminary’s accreditation visit from the Association of Theological Schools concluded Thursday morning, Sept. 26, following more than two days of in-depth conversations with alums, board members, students, staff, faculty, and administration. The five accreditation team members explored all facets of Phillips and expressed their appreciation for the transparency and cooperation they experienced during their time in Tulsa. “This was a very positive process,” said Phillips President Nancy Claire Pittman. “We look forward to receiving the final recommendations from ATS as we continue our work of theological formation.” The accreditation report is expected in mid-February following approval by ATS commissioners. The Commission on Accrediting of ATS accredits institutions and approves degree programs offered by accredited schools like Phillips. There are more than 270 ATS member schools that reflect a variety of doctrinal, ecclesiastical, and theological perspectives. More information on the ATS accreditation process is available [online](https://www.ats.edu/accrediting/overview-accrediting). **Categories:** Uncategorized --- ### [Phillips Seminary Names New Vice President of Advancement](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/09/04/phillips-seminary-names-new-vice-president-of-advancement/) **Published:** September 4, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Terry Ewing will join the staff of Phillips Theological Seminary as its first Vice President of Advancement in October. Ewing brings decades of fundraising and development experience in the local church and higher education to Phillips. “After conducting a national search, I’m pleased that we were able to attract a person like Terry who has experience serving congregations and also understands the unique needs of graduate theological formation,” said the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, president of Phillips. “We’re also thrilled to have an alumnus of the seminary leading this important work.” Ewing received a Master of Divinity degree from the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University in 1974. He previously served as associate regional minister for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kentucky, Chaplain and Church Relations at Eureka College, and led University Place Christian Church in Champaign, Ill. as the senior minister. Most recently, he was the Director of Advancement at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth. “With the unique combination of its ethos, setting, and mission, I believe Phillips has a tremendous role in making an important contribution to ministry across denominations and within the broader culture,” Ewing said. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Celebrates a Great 2019 General Assembly](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/08/16/phillips-celebrates-a-great-2019-general-assembly/) **Published:** August 16, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary had an amazing General Assembly thanks to our friends and alums who turned out in record numbers to learn, welcome, and celebrate our work of theological formation in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). More than 100 prospective students visited the Phillips booth in the exhibit hall and many of you took some time to relax on our comfy couches, eat some chocolate, and pick up a pronoun preference button. Dr. Lisa Davison led Bible study each morning of GA. You can watch her presentations online. President Nancy Claire Pittman preached to a standing-room-only congregation at West Des Moines Christian Church on Sunday and brought the scripture text to Tuesday evening worship. Nearly 70 learners spent Friday and Saturday before General Assembly in Dr. Lisa Barnett’s class, *Doing and Denying Justice: A History of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Social Justice*. Participants received a treasure trove of printed and digital resources to take back to their churches and ministries. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-Pre-GA-class-1024x618.jpeg)Phillips Ministry Training Program Director Leslie LeSieur introduces Dr. Lisa Barnett to the pre-General Assembly course, *Doing and Denying Justice: A History of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Social Justice*. It was wonderful to see so many friends celebrating President Pittman as the seminary’s new president. The dessert and bubbly were not as sweet as the great conversations heard throughout the ballroom. At our luncheon on Tuesday (no chicken), we heard from President Pittman about using the phrase “theological formation” to describe what Phillips does. She challenged and invited each person at the event to be a part of this work. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-GA-Phillips-Luncheon-1024x356.jpg)Phillips Theological Seminary Board Chair Claire Meredith speaks to the alums and friends luncheon crowd during the 2019 General Assembly in Des Moines, IA. At the end of the luncheon, the Rev. Anna Hubbard gathered the alums who identify as female to gather for a photo with the first female president of Phillips. It was an inspiring moment. ![Phillips Theological Seminary female alums gather for a group photo at the 2019 General Assembly.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-GA-Phillips-Female-Alums-1024x572.jpg) **Categories:** News --- ### [Accreditation Visit Public Comment Period is Open for Phillips Theological Seminary](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/07/16/accreditation-visit-public-comment-period-is-open-for-phillips-theological-seminary/) **Published:** July 16, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary is preparing to receive an evaluation committee from The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS). This evaluation visit is scheduled to take place Sept. 23–26, 2019. The visit relates to the seminary’s continued accreditation with ATS and includes a review of the institution in order to evaluate its compliance with ATS standards. Interested parties may review the ATS accrediting standards [online](http://www.ats.edu/uploads/accrediting/documents/standards-of-accreditation.pdf). At this time, Phillips Theological Seminary invites comments in writing to the seminary and/or the ATS Commission on Accrediting concerning the seminary’s qualifications for accreditation. Comments received in writing will be made available to the visiting evaluation committee. These comments should be sent by email to [Ashley Gibson](mailto:ashley.gibson@ptstulsa.edu?subject=ATS%20Accredication%20Comment) or in writing to Phillips Theological Seminary, ATTN: ATS Accreditation, 901 N. Mingo Rd., Tulsa, OK 74116, or to The Association of Theological Schools Commission on Accrediting, 10 Summit Park Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15275-1110. Email comments may also be sent to the ATS [director, commission information services](mailto:accrediting@ats.edu) **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Awards 22 Diplomas at 2019 Commencement](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/05/18/phillips-awards-22-diplomas-at-2019-commencement/) **Published:** May 18, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Excerpt:** Phillips Theological Seminary awarded 22 diplomas at its commencement ceremony May 18 at First Christian Church in Tulsa, Okla. **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary awarded 22 diplomas at its commencement ceremony May 18 at First Christian Church in Tulsa, Okla. There were seven Master of Divinity graduates, three Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture graduates, two Master of Arts (Social Justice) graduates, three Master of Theological Studies graduates, two Doctor of Ministry graduates and two Graduate Diplomas in General Theological Studies, and two Graduate Diplomas in Advanced Ministry Studies. Richard F. Ward, PhD, Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship, delivered the faculty reflection. MDiv graduate Kara Yarborough Farrow provided the Senior Class Reflection. 2019 Commencement Senior Class Reflection from Kara Yarborough Farrow, MDiv2019 Commencement Faculty Reflection from Richard Ward, PhDYou can [download](https://ptstulsa.edu/commencement-program-2019-draft-11/) a copy of the commencement program and scroll below to see the 2018-2019 graduates. **Graduate Diploma in General Theological Studies** - Jennifer Marie Moreno - Mary Elizabeth Risi **Graduate Diploma in Advanced Ministry Studies** - Peggy D. Farris - Marilyn Frances Pickrel **Master of Arts (Social Justice)** - Paige Isabella Clark - Sara Elise Rudolph-Pollard **Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture** - John A. Jacobs, Jr. - Rahab “Faith” Muthoni Wambugu - Darren Brentan Williams **Master of Theological Studies** - Jessica Barr - Henry Peyton Holub (honors) - Daniel Farris Pigg (high honors) **Master of Divinity** - Kara Yarborough Farrow (high honors) - Yadenee Zoe Hailu - David Huitt - Randa Kay Reeves - Linda Marie Tucker - Cristine Alise Warring (high honors) - Allison Paige Wheeler (high honors) - Brent Edward Wiescamp **Doctor of Ministry** - Lara Blackwood Pickrel *Project: Not Yet Sisters: Friendship as Model for Mission and Ministry,* **Adviser:** Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker **Reader:** Dr. Ellen Blue - Wilma Zalabak *Project: Mining for Trust and Love in Community on Franklin Gateway, In Marietta, Georgia, with Listening and Preaching as Tools* A**dviser:** Dr. Kathleen D. McCallie **Reader:** Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker **Categories:** News **Tags:** commencement --- ### [Phillips Seminary to Host Alumni/Alumnae Luncheon at Oklahoma United Methodist Annual Conference](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/04/18/phillips-seminary-to-host-alumni-alumnae-luncheon-at-oklahoma-united-methodist-annual-conference/) **Published:** April 18, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Join Phillips Seminary as we gather with Alumni/Alumnae during the Oklahoma United Methodist Annual Conference lunch break on Tuesday, May 28th. The luncheon will be hosted at Pizzeria Gusto at 2415 N Walker Ave. in Oklahoma City, OK. Seminary president Nancy Claire Pittman will speak at the event. Tickets can be purchased [here for $18 per person](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/UMCLunch/index.html). Seating is limited, so purchase your tickets now. **Categories:** News --- ### [Phillips Offers Discerning Ministry Entrepreneurship Course](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/25/phillips-offers-discerning-ministry-entrepreneurship-course/) **Published:** March 25, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary has a two-day course April 26–27 that will help answer the question, “Should I start a church or a nonprofit?” The course is offered with the help of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) New Church Ministry and National Benevolent Association offices and is open to all who register by April 19. Course instructors are: - Nancy Claire Pittman, president of Phillips. - Terrell L. McTyer, minister of new church strategies with the New Church Ministry. - Larry J. Morris, III, incubate program associate with the National Benevolent Association. The course price is $40. The classes are April 26 and 27 from 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m. at Phillips Theological Seminary, 901 N. Mingo Rd., Tulsa, Okla. Students will engage in and reflect on interactive discernment exercises to help discover the call to do ministry differently. ([READ more](http://www.hopepmt.org/2017/04/18/discerning-should-start-church-nonprofit/) about this course.) Register online by April 19. [REGISTER HERE](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/rjrzf3s6eo/index.html) **Categories:** News **Tags:** Audit, Courses --- ### [Remind & Renew 2019: Homily by the Rev. Lori Walke](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/22/remind-renew-2019-homily-by-the-rev-lori-walke/) **Published:** March 22, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** This homily was presented in the closing worship service of Remind & Renew 2019 by the Rev. Lori Walke. **Categories:** Presentations **Tags:** Remind & Renew --- ### [Remind & Renew 2019 - "Facing Empire: Shepherds Who Are Not Shepherds?" by Dr. Warren Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/22/remind-renew-2019-facing-empire-shepherds-who-are-not-shepherds-by-dr-warren-carter/) **Published:** March 22, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The second presentation by Dr. Warren Carter for Remind & Renew 2019. **Categories:** Presentations **Tags:** Remind & Renew --- ### [Remind & Renew 2019 - “(Re)Citing Acts: Sightings of Difference through Sites of Diaspora: Acts 8:26-40” by Dr. Arthur Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/22/remind-renew-2019-reciting-acts-sightings-of-difference-through-sites-of-diaspora-acts-826-40-by-dr-arthur-carter/) **Published:** March 22, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The second presentation by Dr. Arthur Carter for Remind & Renew 2019. **Categories:** Presentations **Tags:** Remind & Renew --- ### [Remind & Renew 2019 - “Facing Empire: Why Are There So Many Sick Folks in the Gospels?” by Dr. Warren Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/22/remind-renew-2019-facing-empire-why-are-there-so-many-sick-folks-in-the-gospels-by-dr-warren-carter/) **Published:** March 22, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The first presentation by Dr. Warren Carter for Remind & Renew 2019. **Categories:** Presentations **Tags:** Remind & Renew --- ### [Remind & Renew 2019: Homily by Dr. Cassandra Gould](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/22/remind-renew-2019-homily-by-dr-cassandra-gould/) **Published:** March 22, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** This homily was presented in the opening worship service of Remind & Renew 2019 by Dr. Cassandra Gould. **Categories:** Presentations **Tags:** Remind & Renew --- ### [Remind & Renew 2019 - "(Re)Citing Acts: Sightings of Difference through Sites of Diaspora: Acts 6:1 - 8:5" by Dr. Arthur Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/22/remind-renew-2019-reciting-acts-sightings-of-difference-through-sites-of-diaspora-acts-61-85-by-dr-arthur-carter/) **Published:** March 22, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The first presentation by Dr. Arthur Carter for Remind & Renew 2019. **Categories:** Presentations **Tags:** Remind & Renew --- ### [2019 Weekly Lenten Devotions Available](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/03/05/2019-weekly-lenten-devotions-available/) **Published:** March 5, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary is pleased to offer a weekly devotional for use on your Lenten journey. The Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible, has written reflections for the Lectionary Psalm for each Sunday of Lent. These reflections can be used for your own personal study, or the entire devotional can be [downloaded](https://ptstulsa.edu/?attachment_id=2827) for use in your local congregation, either as Sunday School material or worship resourcing. Thank you for the opportunity to journey with you as we prepare together along the road to the cross. **[DOWNLOAD PDF FILE](https://ptstulsa.edu/?attachment_id=2827)** **Categories:** News --- ### [Inauguration of Nancy Claire Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/02/08/inauguration-of-nancy-claire-pittman/) **Published:** February 8, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Excerpt:** The public is invited to the inauguration of the fourth president for Phillips Theological Seminary, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Meinders Chapel on the seminary campus. **Content:** ![The public is invited to the inauguration of the fourth president for Phillips Theological Seminary, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Meinders Chapel on the seminary campus.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Nancy-Inauguration-013019.png)The public is invited to the inauguration of the fourth president for Phillips Theological Seminary, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Meinders Chapel on the seminary campus. **Categories:** News --- ### [Rev. Bob Lawrence Homily 11-29-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/11/30/rev-bob-lawrence-homily-11-29-12/) **Published:** November 30, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was given on November 29, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dr. Mindy McGarrah Sharp Homily 12-04-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/12/05/dr-mindy-mcgarrah-sharp-homily-12-04-12/) **Published:** December 5, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on December 4, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker Homily 12-05-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/12/06/dr-sarah-morice-brubaker-homily-12-05-12/) **Published:** December 6, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on December 5, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dr. Joe Bessler Homily 12-06-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/12/07/dr-joe-bessler-homily-12-06-12/) **Published:** December 7, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on December 6, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dr. Brandon Scott Reflection 11-28-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/11/29/dr-brandon-scott-reflection-11-28-12/) **Published:** November 29, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following reflection was offered on November 28, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Travis Smith McKee Homily 11-15-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/11/15/travis-smith-mckee-homily-11-15-12/) **Published:** November 15, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on November 15, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Rev. Todd Scoggins Homily 11-08-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/11/09/rev-todd-scoggins-homily-11-08-12/) **Published:** November 9, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on November 8, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [JustHope Remarks 10-11-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/10/12/justhope-remarks-10-11-12/) **Published:** October 12, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following remarks were given on October 11, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. To view the papyrus in question visit: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty-research/research-projects/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Rev. Christy Moore Homily 10-03-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/10/04/rev-christy-moore-homily-10-03-12/) **Published:** October 4, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 3, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dennis Smith Homily 10-04-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/10/04/dennis-smith-homily-10-04-12/) **Published:** October 4, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 4, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. Visit http://www.justhope.org to learn more about the organization. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Ellen Blue Homily 06-21-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/06/22/ellen-blue-homily-06-21-12/) **Published:** June 22, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on June 21, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Ellen Blue Homily 06-20-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/06/21/ellen-blue-homily-06-20-12/) **Published:** June 21, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on June 20, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Ellen Blue Homily 06-19-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/06/20/ellen-blue-homily-06-19-12/) **Published:** June 20, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on June 19, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Dr. Kirt Moelling Homily 06-04-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/06/05/rev-dr-kirt-moelling-homily-06-04-12/) **Published:** June 5, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on June 4, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [George Rowe Homily 5-10-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/05/11/george-rowe-homily-5-10-12/) **Published:** May 11, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on May 10, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Gary Peluso-Verdend Homily 05-08-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/05/09/gary-peluso-verdend-homily-05-08-12/) **Published:** May 9, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on May 8, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Joe Bessler Homily 05-03-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/05/04/joe-bessler-homily-05-03-12/) **Published:** May 4, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on May 3, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Andrea Clark Homily 05-01-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/05/02/andrea-clark-homily-05-01-12/) **Published:** May 2, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on May 1, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Linda Ford Homily 04-24-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/04/25/linda-ford-homily-04-24-12/) **Published:** April 25, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Linda Ford on April 24, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Brandon Scott Homily 04-10-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/04/11/brandon-scott-homily-04-10-12/) **Published:** April 11, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Dr. Brandon Scott on April 10, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Ellen Blue Homily 06-22-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/06/25/ellen-blue-homily-06-22-12/) **Published:** June 25, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on June 22, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Matthew Westfox 10-02-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/10/03/rev-matthew-westfox-10-02-12/) **Published:** October 3, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 2, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Richard Mize Homily 09-27-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/09/28/richard-mize-homily-09-27-12/) **Published:** September 28, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on September 27, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Barney McLaughlin Homily 09-25-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/09/26/barney-mclaughlin-homily-09-25-12/) **Published:** September 26, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on September 25, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Susan Payne Homily 09-12-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/09/13/rev-susan-payne-homily-09-12-12/) **Published:** September 13, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on September 12, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Susanna Southard Homily 08-28-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/08/30/susanna-southard-homily-08-28-12/) **Published:** August 30, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Rise Up My Love My Fair One – Recorded by Innismara Vocal Ensemble. Music by Healey Willan, Words based on Song of Songs 2: 8-1 was featured in this homily. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Gary Peluso-Verdend Homily 08-23-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/08/24/gary-peluso-verdend-homily-08-23-12/) **Published:** August 24, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on August 23, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Gary Peluso-Verdend Homily 08-22-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/08/23/gary-peluso-verdend-homily-08-22-12/) **Published:** August 23, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on August 22, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Gary Peluso-Verdend Homily 08-16-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/08/17/gary-peluso-verdend-homily-08-16-12/) **Published:** August 17, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on August 16, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Dr. Joseph Bessler Homily 11-15-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/11/16/dr-joseph-bessler-homily-11-15-11/) **Published:** November 16, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Dr. Joseph Bessler in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on November 15, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker Homily 11-10-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/11/11/dr-sarah-morice-brubaker-homily-11-10-11/) **Published:** November 11, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker on November 10, 2011 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Heather Nygard-Scherer Homily 12-08-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/12/09/heather-nygard-scherer-homily-12-08-11/) **Published:** December 9, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Heather Nygard-Sherer in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on December 8, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Paula Steinbacher Homily 12-01-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/12/02/paula-steinbacher-homily-12-01-11/) **Published:** December 2, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Paula Steinbacher in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on December 1, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Hank Jenkins Homily 11-30-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/12/01/hank-jenkins-homily-11-30-11/) **Published:** December 1, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Hank Jenkins in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on November 30, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Debra Garfinkel Homily 02-09-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/02/10/debra-garfinkel-homily-02-09-12/) **Published:** February 10, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on January 9, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Ellen Blue Homily 02-07-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/02/08/ellen-blue-homily-02-07-12/) **Published:** February 8, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on January 7, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Susanna Southard Homily 01-26-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/01/27/susanna-southard-homily-01-26-12/) **Published:** January 27, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Susanna Southard on January 26, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Gary Peluso-Verdend Homily 01-24-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/01/25/gary-peluso-verdend-homily-01-24-12/) **Published:** January 25, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend on January 24, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Gary Peluso-Verdend Homily 01-12-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/01/13/gary-peluso-verdend-homily-01-12-12/) **Published:** January 13, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on January 12, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Nancy Claire Pittman Homily 01-11-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/01/12/nancy-claire-pittman-homily-01-11-12/) **Published:** January 12, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on January 12, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Richard F. Ward Homily 01-10-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/01/11/richard-f-ward-homily-01-10-12/) **Published:** January 11, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on January 10, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Lisa Wilson Davision Homily 01-09-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/01/10/lisa-wilson-davision-homily-01-09-12/) **Published:** January 10, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on January 9, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Susan Payne Homily 03-26-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/03/27/rev-susan-payne-homily-03-26-12/) **Published:** March 27, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Rev. Susan Payne on March 26, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Dr. Richard Ward Homily 03-15-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/03/16/dr-richard-ward-homily-03-15-12/) **Published:** March 16, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Dr. Richard Ward on March 15, 2012, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Nancy Pittman Homily 03-08-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/03/09/nancy-pittman-homily-03-08-12/) **Published:** March 9, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Nancy Pittman on March 6 & 8, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Mady Fraser Homily 03-01-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/03/02/mady-fraser-homily-03-01-12/) **Published:** March 2, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Mady Fraser on March 1, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Sarah Morice Brubaker Homily 02-28-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/02/29/sarah-morice-brubaker-homily-02-28-12/) **Published:** February 29, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Sarah Morice Brubaker on February 28, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Dennis Smith Homily 02-23-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/02/24/dennis-smith-homily-02-23-12/) **Published:** February 24, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Dennis Smith on February 23, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Jared Vazquez Homily 02-21-12](https://ptstulsa.edu/2012/02/22/jared-vazquez-homily-02-21-12/) **Published:** February 22, 2012 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Jared Vazquez on February 21, 2012 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [9-11 Memorial Service (3 of 3) 9-8-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/12/9-11-memorial-service-3-of-3-9-8-11/) **Published:** September 12, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 8, 2011. The speaker is Bill Hemm. The sermon is from Romans 14:1-12. This is the third of three 9-11 memorial services. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [9-11 Memorial Service (2 of 3) 9-7-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/12/9-11-memorial-service-2-of-3-9-7-11/) **Published:** September 12, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 7, 2011. The speaker is Mindy McGarrah Sharp. The sermon is from Matthew 18:21-25. This is the second of three 9-11 memorial services. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Bob Lawrence Homily 9-1-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/08/bob-lawrence-homily-9-1-11/) **Published:** September 8, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 1, 2011. The speaker is Bob Lawrence. The sermon is from Exodus 12:1-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Dennis Smith Homily 8-30-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/08/dennis-smith-homily-8-30-11/) **Published:** September 8, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from August 30, 2011. The speaker is Dennis Smith. The sermon is from Matthew 18:20. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Peluso-Verdend Homily 8-24-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/07/peluso-verdend-homily-8-24-11/) **Published:** September 7, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from August 24, 2011. The speaker is Gary Peluso-Verdend. The sermon is from Matthew 16:21-28. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Peluso-Verdend Homily 8-23-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/06/peluso-verdend-homily-8-23-11/) **Published:** September 6, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from August 23, 2011. The speaker is Gary Peluso-Verdend. The sermon is from Exodus 3:1-15. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [PTS Fall 2011 Orientation Chapel 08-18-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/06/pts-fall-2011-orientation-chapel-08-18-11/) **Published:** September 6, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from August 18, 2011. The speaker is Gary Peluso-Verdend. The sermon is from Romans 12:1-8. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Shawnthea Monroe Dmin Fortnight Homily 6-30-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/08/29/shawnthea-monroe-dmin-fortnight-homily-6-30-11/) **Published:** August 29, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 30, 2011. The speaker is Shawnthea Monroe. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Genesis 32:22-31. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Belva Brown Jordan Homily 11-02-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/11/03/rev-belva-brown-jordan-homily-11-02-11/) **Published:** November 3, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by The Rev. Belva Brown Jordan in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on November 2, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Andy Beck Homily 10-27-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/10/27/andy-beck-homily-10-27-11/) **Published:** October 27, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on October 27, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Susanna Southard Homily 10-17-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/10/17/susanna-southard-homily-10-17-11/) **Published:** October 17, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Susanna Southard in the Meinders Chapel at Phillips Theological Seminary on October 17, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Laura West Homily 10-06-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/10/06/laura-west-homily-10-06-11/) **Published:** October 6, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Laura West in the Meinders Chapel at Phillips Theological Seminary on October 6, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Geoff Brewster Homily 10-05-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/10/05/rev-geoff-brewster-homily-10-05-11/) **Published:** October 5, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Rev. Geoff Brewster in the Meinders Chapel at Phillips Theological Seminary on October 5, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Michael Davison Homily 10-04-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/10/04/rev-michael-davison-homily-10-04-11/) **Published:** October 4, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Rev. Michael Davison in the Meinders Chapel at Phillips Theological Seminary on October 4, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Dr. Richard Ward Homily 09-29-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/30/dr-richard-ward-homily-09-29-11/) **Published:** September 30, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Dr. Richard Ward in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on September 29, 2011 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rev. Bethany Albrecht Homily 09-28-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/29/rev-bethany-albrecht-homily-09-28-11/) **Published:** September 29, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Rev. Bethany Albrecht in the Meinders Chapel at PTS on September 28, 2011. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Wambugu Gachungi Homily 09-21-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/21/wambugu-gachungi-homily-09-21-11/) **Published:** September 21, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 21, 2011. The speaker is Wambugu Gachungi. The response is from Exodus 17: 1-7. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Brandon Scott Homily 09-20-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/20/brandon-scott-homily-09-20-11/) **Published:** September 20, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 20, 2011. The speaker is Dr. Brandon Scott. The response is from Phillippians 2: 1-13. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [9-11 Memorial Service (1 of 3) 9-6-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/09/12/9-11-memorial-service-1-of-3-9-6-11/) **Published:** September 12, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 6, 2011. The speaker is Lisa Davison. The sermon is from Job 42:11-17. This is the first of three 9-11 memorial services. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Lisa Anderson Homily 11-09-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/11/10/lisa-anderson-homily-11-09-11/) **Published:** November 10, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered by Lisa Anderson on November 9, 2011 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Susanna Southard Homily 3-3-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/03/19/susanna-southard-homily-3-3-2011/) **Published:** March 19, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 3, 2011. The speaker is Susanna Southard. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Exodus 24:1-2, 9-18. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Jim Wilson Homily 3-1-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/03/18/jim-wilson-homily-3-1-2011/) **Published:** March 18, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 1, 2011. The speaker is Jim Wilson. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 17:1-9, 14-16. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Mindy McGarrah Sharp Sermon 5-4-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/05/06/mindy-mcgarrah-sharp-sermon-5-4-11/) **Published:** May 6, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from May 4, 2011. The speaker is Mindy McGarrah Sharp. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 24:13-35. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Nancy Pittman Sermon 5-4-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/05/04/nancy-pittman-sermon-5-4-2011/) **Published:** May 4, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from May 4, 2011. The speaker is Nancy Pittman. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Lori Walke Homily 4-14-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/04/14/lori-walke-homily-4-14-2011/) **Published:** April 14, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 14, 2011. The speaker is Lori Walke. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 27:11-54. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Belva Brown Jordan Homily 4-13-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/04/14/belva-brown-jordan-homily-4-13-2011/) **Published:** April 14, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 13, 2011. The speaker is Belva Brown Jordan. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is John 3:1-17. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [James White Homily 4-12-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/04/13/james-white-homily-4-12-2011/) **Published:** April 13, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 12, 2011. The speaker is James White. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 21:1-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Linda Ford Homily 04-07-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/04/11/linda-ford-homily-04-07-2011/) **Published:** April 11, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 7th, 2011. The speaker is Linda Ford. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Ezekiel 37:1-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [John Thomas Homily 4-6-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/04/07/john-thomas-homily-4-6-2011/) **Published:** April 7, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 6th, 2011. The speaker is John Thomas. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is John 11:1-45. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Mark Rickman Homily 4-5-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/04/06/mark-rickman-homily-4-5-2011/) **Published:** April 6, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 5, 2011. The speaker is Mark Rickman. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is John 11:1-45. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Geoff Brewster Homily 3-10-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/03/21/geoff-brewster-homily-3-10-2011/) **Published:** March 21, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 10, 2011. The speaker is Geoff Brewster. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 4:1-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 3-9-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/03/20/richard-ward-homily-3-9-2011/) **Published:** March 20, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 9, 2011. The speaker is Richard Ward. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Isaiah 58:1-12 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Gary Peluso-Verdend Homily 5-9-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/06/02/gary-peluso-verdend-homily-5-9-2011/) **Published:** June 2, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from May 9, 2011. The speaker is Gary Peluso-Verdend. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is John 10:1-10. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Scott Taylor Sermon 5-5-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/05/12/scott-taylor-sermon-5-5-2011/) **Published:** May 12, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from May 5, 2011. The speaker is Scott Taylor. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 24:13-35. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Shawnthea Monroe Dmin Fortnight Homily 6-29-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/08/28/shawnthea-monroe-dmin-fortnight-homily-6-29-11/) **Published:** August 28, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 29, 2011. The speaker is Shawnthea Monroe. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 15:1-10. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Shawnthea Monroe Dmin Fortnight Homily 6-28-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/08/23/shawnthea-monroe-dmin-fortnight-homily-6-28-11/) **Published:** August 23, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 28, 2011. The speaker is Shawnthea Monroe. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Genesis 28:10-19a. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Shawnthea Monroe Dmin Fortnight Homily 6-27-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/08/22/shawnthea-monroe-dmin-fortnight-homily-6-27-11/) **Published:** August 22, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 27, 2011. The speaker is Shawnthea Monroe. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 1. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Susanna Southard DMin Fortnight Homily 6-23-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/08/22/susanna-southard-dmin-fortnight-homily-6-23-11/) **Published:** August 22, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 23, 2011. The speaker is Susanna Southard. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Genesis 22:1-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Ellen Blue DMin Fortnight Homily 6-22-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/08/19/ellen-blue-dmin-fortnight-homily-6-22-11/) **Published:** August 19, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 22, 2011. The speaker is Ellen Blue. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Genesis 22:1-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Richard Ward DMin Fortnight Homily 6-21-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/08/19/richard-ward-dmin-fortnight-homily-6-21-11/) **Published:** August 19, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 21, 2011. The speaker is Richard Ward. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Genesis 22:1-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Laura West Homily 12-2-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/12/04/laura-west-homily-12-2-10/) **Published:** December 4, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from December 2, 2010. The speaker is Laura West. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 15:1-10. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Sandra Kunz Homily 12-1-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/12/02/sandra-kunz-homily-12-1-2010/) **Published:** December 2, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from December 1, 2010. The speakers include Sandra Kunz and her students. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 3:1-12. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Linda Ford Homily 11-30-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/12/02/linda-ford-homily-11-30-2010/) **Published:** December 2, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 30, 2010. The preacher is Linda Ford. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 3:1-12. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Nancy Pittman Sermon 11-17-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/11/17/nancy-pittman-sermon-11-17-2010/) **Published:** November 17, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 17, 2010. The preacher is Nancy Pittman. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 24:36-44. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Wambugu Gachungi Sermon 11-16-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/11/17/wambugu-gachungi-sermon-11-16-2010/) **Published:** November 17, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 16, 2010. The preacher is Wambugu Gachungi. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Jeremiah 2:1-9. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Andrea Clark Homily 11-10-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/11/11/andrea-clark-homily-11-10-2010/) **Published:** November 11, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 10, 2010. The preacher is Andrea Clark. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Exodus 3:1-10. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Richard Ward Christmas Reading 12-15-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/12/20/richard-ward-christmas-reading-12-15-2010/) **Published:** December 20, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording of Richard Ward Reading the Christmas story from the Gospel According to Matthew:18-25. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Sarah Morice Brubaker Homily 12-14-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/12/17/sarah-morice-brubaker-homily-12-14-2010/) **Published:** December 17, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from December 14, 2010. The speaker is Sarah Morice Brubaker. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Isaiah 7:10-16. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Rick Lowery Homily 12-9-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/12/09/rick-lowery-homily-12-9-2010/) **Published:** December 9, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from December 9, 2010. The speaker is Rick Lowery. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Isaiah 11:1-10. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Nancy Pittman Sermon 1-5-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/01/05/nancy-pittman-sermon-1-5-2011/) **Published:** January 5, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 5, 2011. The speaker is Nancy Pittman. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is John 1:10-18. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Nancy Pittman Sermon 1-4-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/01/04/nancy-pittman-sermon-1-4-2011/) **Published:** January 4, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 4, 2011. The speaker is Nancy Pittman. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 2:13-23. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Joe Bessler Homily 1-6-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/01/07/joe-bessler-homily-1-6-2011/) **Published:** January 7, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 6, 2011. The speaker is Joe Bessler as Andy Rooney. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 2:1-12. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Lisa Davison Sermon 1-13-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/01/18/lisa-davison-sermon-1-13-11/) **Published:** January 18, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 13, 2011. The speaker is Lisa Davison. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is 2 Kings 21:1-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Lisa Davison Sermon 1-11-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/01/11/lisa-davison-sermon-1-11-11/) **Published:** January 11, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 11, 2011. The speaker is Lisa Davison. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is 2 Kings 4:8-17. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Lisa Davison Sermon 1-10-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/01/11/lisa-davison-sermon-1-10-11/) **Published:** January 11, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 10, 2011. The speaker is Lisa Davison. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Joshua 2:1-21. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Bill Hemm Homily 02-24-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/02/25/bill-hemm-homily-02-24-2011/) **Published:** February 25, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 24, 2011. The speaker is Bill Hemm. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Matthew 6:24-34. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Brandon Scott Reflection 02-22-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/02/25/brandon-scott-reflection-02-22-2011/) **Published:** February 25, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 22, 2011. The speaker is Brandon Scott. The Biblical texts to which this reflection is a response are Matthew 6:9-12 and Luke 11:2-4. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Sarah Morice Brubaker Homily 02-24-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/02/24/sarah-morice-brubaker-homily-02-24-2011/) **Published:** February 24, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 17, 2011. The speaker is Sarah Morice Brubaker. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Andy Beck Homily 02-16-2011](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/02/23/andy-beck-homily-02-16-2011/) **Published:** February 23, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 16, 2011. The speaker is Andy Beck. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is 1 Corinthians 3:1-9. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [Lisa Davison Sermon 1-12-11](https://ptstulsa.edu/2011/01/18/lisa-davison-sermon-1-12-11/) **Published:** January 18, 2011 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 12, 2011. The speaker is Lisa Davison. The Biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Micah 6:1-8. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings, Uncategorized --- ### [(Luke 17:11-19) Homily by Todd Freeman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/10/11/luke-1711-19-homily-by-todd-freeman/) **Published:** October 11, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from October 7, 2010. The preacher is Todd Freeman. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 17:11-19. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Southard Homily 11-2-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/11/04/southard-homily-11-2-2010/) **Published:** November 4, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 2, 2010. The preacher is Susanna Southard. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Haggai 1:15b-2:9. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Spangler-Dunning Homily 11-3-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/11/05/spangler-dunning-homily-11-3-2010/) **Published:** November 5, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 3, 2010. The preacher is Bill Spangler-Dunning. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Haggai 1:15b-2:9. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Bethany Albrecht Homily 9-28-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/29/bethany-albrecht-homily-9-28-10/) **Published:** September 29, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 28, 2010. The preacher is Bethany J. Albrecht. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is 2 Timothy 1:1-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Brandon Scott Reflection 9-23-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/28/brandon-scott-reflection-9-23-10/) **Published:** September 28, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 23, 2010. The speaker is Brandon Scott. The biblical to which this reflection is a response is Luke 16:19-31. Accompanying Power Point presentation can be found at www.ptstulsa.edu/userPDFs/LazarusParable.ppt. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Cathey Edwards Homily 9-16-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/16/cathey-edwards-homily-9-16-2010/) **Published:** September 16, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 16, 2010. The preacher is Cathey Edwards. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Jeremiah 8:18-9:1. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Kristi Evans Homily 9-15-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/15/kristi-evans-homily-9-15-10/) **Published:** September 15, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 15, 2010. The preacher is Kristi Evans. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Jeremiah 8:18-9:1. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Bessler Homily 9-14-2010](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/14/bessler-homily-9-14-2010/) **Published:** September 14, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 14, 2010. The preacher is Joe Bessler. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Jeremiah 8:18-9:1. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Meditation Service 9-7-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/09/meditation-service-9-7-10/) **Published:** September 9, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Taize Chant from a Meditation & Prayer Chapel Service on September 7, 2010. Soloist is Karen Robu. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [PTS Orientation Chapel Service 9-1-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/03/pts-orientation-chapel-service-9-1-10/) **Published:** September 3, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** PTS orientation service homily by Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend.The text to which this sermon is a response is Philemon 1:1-21 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Gary Peluso Homily 8-31-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/09/02/gary-peluso-homily-8-31-10/) **Published:** September 2, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** PTS orientation service homily by Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend.The text to which this sermon is a response is Jeremiah 18:1-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [PTS Orientation Chapel Service 8-26-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/08/31/pts-orientation-chapel-service-8-26-10/) **Published:** August 31, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** PTS orientation service homily by Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend.The text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 14: 1, 7-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 6-30-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/07/12/richard-ward-homily-6-30-10/) **Published:** July 12, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 30, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Galatians 6: 1-6, 7-16. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 7-1-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/07/12/richard-ward-homily-7-1-10/) **Published:** July 12, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from July 1, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 10:1-11 and 16-20. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 6-25-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/06/30/richard-ward-homily-6-25-10/) **Published:** June 30, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 25, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Luke 9:51-62. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 6-28-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/06/30/richard-ward-homily-6-28-10/) **Published:** June 30, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 28, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are 2 Kings 5:15-19 and Luke 4:16-30. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 6-29-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/06/30/richard-ward-homily-6-29-10/) **Published:** June 30, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 29, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 6-23-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/06/29/richard-ward-homily-6-23-10/) **Published:** June 29, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 23, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Psalm 77. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 6-22-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/06/29/richard-ward-homily-6-22-10/) **Published:** June 29, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 22, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Richard Ward Homily 6-24-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/06/29/richard-ward-homily-6-24-10/) **Published:** June 29, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from June 24, 2010. The preacher is Richard Ward. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Galatians 5:1, 13-25. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Kristi Evans Homily 5-12-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/05/12/kristi-evans-homily-5-12-10/) **Published:** May 12, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from May 12, 2010. The preacher is Kristi Evans. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is John 17: 20-26. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Anti-Racism Service 4-29-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/04/30/anti-racism-service-4-29-10/) **Published:** April 30, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Worship service in participation with the YWCA national Stand Against Racism, with students representing seven different denominations and opening comments by PTS Chapel Director, Sheri Curry. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Scott Taylor Homily 4-28-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/04/28/scott-taylor-homily-4-28-10/) **Published:** April 28, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 28th, 2010. The preacher is Scott Taylor. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Acts 11:1-18. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Earth Day Message 4-22-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/04/26/earth-day-message-4-22-10/) **Published:** April 26, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Worship in honor of Earth Day by students from the Christian Education and Youth class under the direction of Dr. Sandra Costen Kunz. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Garnes Homily 4-21-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/04/23/garnes-homily-4-21-10/) **Published:** April 23, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 21, 2010. The preacher is Kirstie Jeanette Garnes. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Luke 7:36-47. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Grounds Homily 4-13-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/04/22/grounds-homily-4-13-10/) **Published:** April 22, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Chapel message offered by Rev. Dr. Richard A. Grounds, who is the Project Director for the Euchee Language Project based in Sapulpa, Oklahoma and who serves as adjunct faculty at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Native American Worship 4-14-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/04/22/native-american-worship-4-14-10/) **Published:** April 22, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel worship within a context of denominational and native prayers, responsive readings, and songs under the leadership of Rev. David Dunson, PTS student, and Rev. Glen Chebon Kernell, Jr., PTS M.Div 2006. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Imbler Homily 4-20-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/04/22/imbler-homily-4-20-10/) **Published:** April 22, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from April 20th, 2010. The preacher is John Imbler. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are John 10:22-30. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Intro to NT Class 3-9-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/03/11/intro-to-nt-class-3-9-10/) **Published:** March 11, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Two stories offered by members of the Introduction to New Testament Class in the Meinders Chapel on March 9, 2010. “The Prodigal Daughter”, written by Pat Hoerth, read by Thomasina Allen; and “Finding Father” written & read by Patience Mutiso. (Permission to Podcast the music in this service obtained from OneLicense.net.) **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Sherri Curry 3-11-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/03/11/sermon-by-sherri-curry-3-11-10/) **Published:** March 11, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 11th, 2010. The preacher is Sherri Curry. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are 2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Linda Ford 3-10-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/03/10/sermon-by-linda-ford-3-10-10/) **Published:** March 10, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 10th, 2010. The preacher is Linda Ford. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Shannon Fleck](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/03/05/sermon-by-shannon-fleck/) **Published:** March 5, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 25th, 2010. The preacher is Shannon Fleck. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are 1 Samuel 3:1-10. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Sarah Morice Brubaker](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/03/03/sermon-by-sarah-morice-brubaker/) **Published:** March 3, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 2nd, 2010. The preacher is Sarah Morice Brubaker. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Luke 13:1-9. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Nancy Pittman 3-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/03/03/sermon-by-nancy-pittman-3-10/) **Published:** March 3, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from March 3rd, 2010. The preacher is Nancy Pittman. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Isaiah 55:1-9. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Margaret Johnson](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/26/sermon-by-margaret-johnson/) **Published:** February 26, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 17, 2010. The preacher is Margaret Johnson. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Luke 4:1-13. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Dennis Smith](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/17/sermon-by-dennis-smith/) **Published:** February 17, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 16th, 2010. The preacher is Rev. Dr. Dennis Smith. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Romans 10:1-4. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Joe Bessler 2-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/26/sermon-by-joe-bessler-2-10/) **Published:** February 26, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 23rd, 2010. The preacher is Joe Bessler. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Philippians 3:17-4:1. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Kyle Meador](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/26/sermon-by-kyle-meador/) **Published:** February 26, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 24th, 2010. The preacher is Kyle Meador. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Psalm 27. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Lonnie Snyder 2-10](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/19/sermon-by-lonnie-snyder-2-10/) **Published:** February 19, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 10th, 2010. The preacher is Lonnie Snyder. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Romans Luke 8:26-39. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Belva Brown Jordan](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/09/sermon-by-belva-brown-jordan/) **Published:** February 9, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from December 8th, 2009. The preacher is Rev. Belva Brown Jordan. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Luke 3:7-18. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Joe Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/09/sermon-by-joe-bessler/) **Published:** February 9, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 19th, 2009. The preacher is Rev. Dr. Joe Bessler. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are John18:33-38. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Susanna Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/10/sermon-by-susanna-southard/) **Published:** February 10, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 26th, 2010. The preacher is Rev. Susanna Southard. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Jeremiah 38:5-13. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Geoff Brewster](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/11/sermon-by-geoff-brewster/) **Published:** February 11, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 27th, 2010. The preacher is Geoff Brewster. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Luke 3:7-18. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Debbie Blue (Abraham)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/11/25/sermon-by-debbie-blue-abraham/) **Published:** November 25, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Message titled Roaming the Unknown, part of the Stacey Lecture series By Rev. Debbie Blue. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Gen. 12:1-3. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Ellen Blue](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/11/18/sermon-by-ellen-blue/) **Published:** November 18, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 17th, 2009. The preacher is Rev. Dr. Ellen Blue. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are -John18:33-37. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Jim Perkin](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/11/12/sermon-by-jim-perkin/) **Published:** November 12, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 11, 2009. The preacher is Jim Perkin. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Matthew 25: 31-45. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Debbie Blue (Fruit)](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/11/09/sermon-by-debbie-blue-fruit/) **Published:** November 9, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Sermon by Rev. Debbie Blue, titled Fruit, as part of the Stacey Lecture series. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are John 15:9-17. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/11/05/sermon-by-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** November 5, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 4, 2009. The preacher is Rev. Dr. Nancy Pittman. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Mark 12:38-44. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Jim Wilson](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/11/04/sermon-by-jim-wilson/) **Published:** November 4, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from November 3rd, 2009. The preacher is Rev. Jim Wilson. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Mark 12:38-44. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Sheri Curry](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/10/06/sermon-by-sheri-curry/) **Published:** October 6, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from October 9, 2009. The preacher is Sheri Curry, coordinator of chapel and worship at PTS, a PTS alumna, and a Presbyterian laywoman. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Hebrews 4:12-16. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Ray Owens](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/10/01/sermon-by-ray-owens/) **Published:** October 1, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from October 1, 2009. The preacher is Rev. Dr. Ray Owens, pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Tulsa and affiliate faculty member at PTS. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Hebrews 2:5-9. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Susan Payne](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/09/23/sermon-by-susan-payne/) **Published:** September 23, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 23, 2009. The preacher is Susan Payne, Master of Divinity student at PTS and pastor of the Disciples of Christ congregation in Prague, OK. The biblical text to which this sermon is a response is Mark 9:38-41. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Reflections on Ministry 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/09/22/reflections-on-ministry-1/) **Published:** September 22, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Three students reflected on ministry in chapel on 9- 15-2009: Clint Collins – sr., MDiv, Disciple, Christy Moore – sr., MDiv, Disciple, Paul Staat – sr., MAMC, United Methodist. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Reflection by Brandon Scott](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/09/09/reflection-by-brandon-scott/) **Published:** September 9, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from September 9, 2009. The speaker is Dr. Brandon Scott, Darbeth Distinguished Professor of New Testament. The biblical text to which this reflection is a response is Mark 8:27-38. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Maureen Olson](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/09/02/sermon-by-maureen-olson/) **Published:** September 2, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from 9/2/09. The preacher is Maureen Olson, senior M.Div. student at PTS and candidate for the Ministry of Word and Sacrament under the care of the Presbyterian Church. The text to which this sermon is a response is Mark 7:24-37 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Gary PelusoVerdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2009/08/25/sermon-by-gary-pelusoverdend/) **Published:** August 25, 2009 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from August 25th, 2009. The preacher is Gary Peluso-Verdend, president of the seminary and Associate Professor of Practical Theology. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are James 1:17-27 and Mark 7:1-23. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/12/sermon-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** February 12, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from January 14th, 2010. The preacher is Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are John 2:1-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sermon by Robert Cloninger](https://ptstulsa.edu/2010/02/17/sermon-by-robert-cloninger/) **Published:** February 17, 2010 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Meinders Chapel recording from February 11, 2010. The preacher is Robert Cloninger. The biblical texts to which this sermon is a response are Romans 13:8-14. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Rev. Bruce Barkhauer Homily 09-19-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/09/19/rev-bruce-barkhauer-homily-09-19-2013/) **Published:** September 19, 2013 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was given on September 19, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dr. Davison & Dr. Smith Reflections 09-24-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/09/24/dr-davison-dr-smith-reflections-09-24-2013/) **Published:** September 24, 2013 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The following reflections were given on September 24, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Rev. Dean Phelps Homily 10-01-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/10/01/rev-dean-phelps-homily-10-01-2013/) **Published:** October 1, 2013 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 1, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. The song, If you come up empty – Music & Lyrics: Dan Phelps copyrighted 2007 Dean Phelps, www.deanphelpsmusic.com. All rights reserved. Used by permission. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Josh Linton Homily 10-03-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/10/03/josh-linton-homily-10-03-2013/) **Published:** October 3, 2013 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 3, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Joshua Bell & Bettina Lehovec Tellings 10-08-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/10/08/joshua-bell-bettina-lehovec-tellings-10-08-2013/) **Published:** October 8, 2013 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The following tellings were offered on October 8, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Rev. Kathy McCallie Homily 10-10-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/10/10/rev-kathy-mccallie-homily-10-10-2013/) **Published:** October 10, 2013 **Author:** Kathy McCallie **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 10, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dr. Richard F. Ward Homily 10-14-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/10/14/dr-richard-f-ward-homily-10-14-2013/) **Published:** October 14, 2013 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 14, 2013 in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Dr. Dennis Smith Homily 10-29-2013](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/10/29/dr-dennis-smith-homily-10-29-2013/) **Published:** October 29, 2013 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The following homily was offered on October 29, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [My Kind Of Uppity Woman (Mark 7:24-37) by Barbara McBride-Smith](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/11/07/my-kind-of-uppity-woman-mark-724-37-by-barbara-mcbride-smith/) **Published:** November 7, 2013 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** The following homily was offered on November 7, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [On The Lord's Supper - Communion Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/11/12/on-the-lords-supper-communion-service/) **Published:** November 12, 2013 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The following was offered on November 12, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Which Would You Call It? (Luke 15:11-32) by Dr. Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/01/27/which-would-you-call-it-luke-1511-32-by-dr-richard-ward/) **Published:** January 27, 2019 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** The following homily was offered on November 14, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Naomi's Story (Deut 24:17-22) by Dr. Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/11/19/naomis-story-deut-2417-22-by-dr-lisa-davison/) **Published:** November 19, 2013 **Author:** Lisa Davison **Content:** The following homily was offered on November 19, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [How Stories Move Us (Phil 4:4) by Dr. Joe Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/12/12/how-stories-move-us-phil-44-by-dr-joe-bessler/) **Published:** December 12, 2013 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** Dr Joe Bessler on Thursday, Dec 12th 2013 in the Meinders Chapel, preaching in response to Philippians 4:4. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Worst Advent Ever (Matt 3:1-12) by Dr. Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2013/12/03/the-worst-advent-ever-matt-31-12-by-dr-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** December 3, 2013 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** The following homily was offered on December 3, 2013, in the Meinders Chapel at PTS. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Cultural Mythology and the Emergent Church by Dr. Joseph Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/05/13/cultural-mythology-and-the-emergent-church-by-dr-joseph-bessler/) **Published:** May 13, 2014 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** In a response to Acts 7:55-60, Dr. Joseph Bessler shares about the impact of cultural mythology on both the present and the emergent church. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Life of an Innkeeper by Christine Vitt](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/06/12/the-life-of-an-innkeeper-by-christine-vitt/) **Published:** June 12, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Christine Vitt, administrative assistant at the South Broadway Christian Church in Denver, Colo., shares what it’s like to be the innkeeper in the Good Samaritan story. This reflection was shared during the 2014 Remind and Renew Conference at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [You're In Good Company by Susanna Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/09/17/youre-in-good-company-by-susanna-southard/) **Published:** September 17, 2014 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** Susanna Southard, Instructor in Ministry Studies and Chaplain at Phillips, speaks about the ways God sustains people during the journey of spiritual transformation. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Demands of Ministry by Rev. Guy Langston](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/08/14/the-demands-of-ministry-by-rev-guy-langston/) **Published:** August 14, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Rev. Guy Langston, a retired minister in the United Methodist Church, reflects on Matthew 10:24-39 and shares how Jesus prepared his disciples to face the demands of ministry. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Expanding Spaces of Belonging by Josh Linton](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/09/25/expanding-spaces-of-belonging-by-josh-linton/) **Published:** September 25, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Josh Linton, Director of Recruitment at Phillips Theological Seminary, speaks about the need to expand spaces of belonging both in person and online. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Wrestling with Biblical Authority by Rev. Todd Freeman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/11/07/wrestling-with-biblical-authority-by-rev-todd-freeman/) **Published:** November 7, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Rev. Todd Freeman, pastor of College Hill Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, shares about the need to wrestle with biblical authority both as individuals and as church communities. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [2015 Remind & Renew Revisited by Ray Owens](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/01/15/2015-remind-renew-revisited-by-ray-owens/) **Published:** January 15, 2015 **Author:** Ray Owens **Content:** From the 2015 Remind & Renew Annual Conference (Faith & Vital Worship), the Rev. Dr. Ray Owens, Pastor at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Tulsa, and Phillips affiliate faculty member, reflects on life as a group project. Please enjoy the re-posting of this homily. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [2015 Remind & Renew Revisited by Marlin Lavanhar](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/01/14/2015-remind-renew-revisited-by-marlin-lavanhar/) **Published:** January 14, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** From the 2015 Remind & Renew Annual Conference (Faith & Vital Worship), the Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanar, Senior Minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, reflects on Acts Chapter 17: 22-28. Please enjoy the re-posting of this homily. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [BorderLinks Reflections Part I](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/03/12/borderlinks-reflections-part-i/) **Published:** March 12, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Fall 2014 BorderLinks Class shares some of their experiences from their time spent visiting the U.S./Mexico border. Part I of II. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [All Will Be Well by Dr. Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/01/02/all-will-be-well-by-dr-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** January 2, 2015 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** Dr. Nancy Pittman, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean at Phillips, explores the reality of human pain and tragedy in light of Paul’s encouragement to the Thessalonians, saying when God’s work is finished, all will be well. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Advent Longing for Hope and Justice by Dr. Joseph Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/12/23/advent-longing-for-hope-and-justice-by-dr-joseph-bessler/) **Published:** December 23, 2014 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** Dr. Joe Bessler, the Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology at Phillips, calls people to listen to the joy and frustration of Advent texts in order to rediscover the hope and justice present in Christmas. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [On Miracles Alone We Cannot Live by Rabbi Charles Sherman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/12/19/on-miracles-alone-we-cannot-live-by-rabbi-charles-sherman/) **Published:** December 19, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Rabbi Emeritus Charles Sherman of Temple Israel in Tulsa shares the miracle and meaning of Chanukah as he reminds his listeners that on miracles alone we cannot live. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Carry Each Other in Hope by Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/11/28/carry-each-other-in-hope-by-dr-sarah-morice-brubaker/) **Published:** November 28, 2014 **Author:** Sarah Morice Brubaker **Content:** Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker, Assistant Professor of Theology at Phillips, invites us to create an artful response to life’s circumstances, and, in doing so, to carry each other in hope. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [This Too Is Ministry by Dr. Ellen Blue](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/11/21/this-too-is-ministry-by-dr-ellen-blue/) **Published:** November 21, 2014 **Author:** Ellen Blue **Content:** Dr. Ellen Blue, Mouzon Biggs, Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity and United Methodist Studies at Phillips, shares stories of service, study and solitude all work together in the life of a minister, saying these, too, is ministry. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Assumptions of Faith by Dr. Joseph A. Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/10/31/assumptions-of-faith-by-dr-joseph-a-bessler/) **Published:** October 31, 2014 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** Dr. Joseph A. Bessler, the Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology at Phillips, shares how engaging in difficult faith conversations can help Christians understand and be open to new aspects of faith. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Looking Forward Part II by Joe Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/06/30/looking-forward-part-ii-by-joe-bessler/) **Published:** June 30, 2015 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** Dr. Joe Bessler, the Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology and Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Assessment, reflects on Looking Forward as he begins a semester long sabbatical. He also reflects on 2 Corinthians 12: 7b-10 and Mark 6: 1-6. This is part II of his reflection. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Stilling the Storm by Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/06/23/stilling-the-storm-by-richard-ward/) **Published:** June 23, 2015 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Richard Ward, Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship, offers his thoughts related to the texts Mark 4: 35-41 and Psalms 44 and 69 on the first day of worship for the summer 2015 DMin Fortnight. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Irritating Rewards by Nancy Claire Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/05/07/irritating-rewards-by-nancy-claire-pittman/) **Published:** May 7, 2015 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** Phillips’ Dean, Nancy Claire Pittman, offers a reflection on Acts 8: 26-40 and the upcoming Student Awards Day. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Good News by Ray Owens](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/28/the-good-news-by-ray-owens/) **Published:** April 28, 2015 **Author:** Ray Owens **Content:** Affiliate Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Black Church Studies at Phillips, the Rev. Dr. Ray Owens, tells us that it’s our vocation to proclaim the Good News. Biblical text included is Mark 1: 1-8 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [JustHope](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/11/03/justhope/) **Published:** November 3, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The JustHope delegation offers the chapel service on this day with special guests from Nicaragua. Leslie Penrose, Executive Director, and Phillips Theological Seminary alumna, includes special information about the December/Advent occasion honoring Mary, the mother of Jesus. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Cautionary Tale by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/08/25/a-cautionary-tale-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** August 25, 2015 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** President, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, offers the homily on the first day of the 2015 Fall semester. His reflection is on 1 Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, and 41-43. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Glittering Jesus by Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/01/06/a-glittering-jesus-by-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** January 6, 2016 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** This reflection was offered by the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean at Phillips Theological Seminary. Pittman reflects on Ephesians 1: 15-23 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Embrace the Darkness by Kurt Gwartney](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/01/05/embrace-the-darkness-by-kurt-gwartney/) **Published:** January 5, 2016 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Kurt Gwartney, Senior Director of Seminary Relations, and 1999 Phillips alumnus, reflects on embracing the darkness in this contemplation offered during the Spring 2016 Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Fortnight held annually in January. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A History of Phillips by John Imbler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/01/16/a-history-of-phillips-by-john-imbler/) **Published:** January 16, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. John Imbler offers a reflection on the history of Phillips Theological Seminary. Imbler is an Adjunct Instructor of History of Christianity & Disciples Studies as well as, an Executive Vice President Emeritus of Phillips. Imbler retired from Phillips in 2013, after 21 years of service. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Transfiguration by Sarah Morice Brubaker](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/02/02/transfiguration-by-sarah-morice-brubaker/) **Published:** February 2, 2016 **Author:** Sarah Morice Brubaker **Content:** Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker, Assistant Professor of Theology at Phillips Theological Seminary, offers a reflection on transfiguration and how it resembles a Super Bowl commercial. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Moving Vocation by Mindy McGarrah Sharp](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/06/21/a-moving-vocation-by-mindy-mcgarrah-sharp/) **Published:** June 21, 2016 **Author:** Melinda McGarrah Sharp **Content:** Dr. Mindy McGarrah Sharp offers the initial reflection during the summer 2016 DMin Fortnight at Phillips Theological Seminary. Sharp is the Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Ethics at Phillips. Her reflection is based on 2 Kings 2: 1-2; 6-14; and Luke 9: 51-62. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Child's Life: What is it Worth to You? by Yvonne Lewis](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/03/29/a-childs-life-what-is-it-worth-to-you-by-yvonne-lewis/) **Published:** March 29, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips alum, Yvonne Lewis, offers the reflection “A Child’s Life: What is it Worth to You?” Lewis is a former local long-time news anchor, who currently works in ministry, child advocacy and is a motivational speaker. The learn more about Ms. Lewis, please visit www.yvonne.life **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Commonwealth & Community by Kathy McCallie](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/04/05/commonwealth-community-by-kathy-mccallie/) **Published:** April 5, 2016 **Author:** Kathy McCallie **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Kathy McCallie offers a reflection on Mark 10: 17-25 during a special weekly worship service held at the Tabbernee Conference Center. McCallie is the Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program and an Assistant Professor of Ministerial Leadership and Ethics at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [When Grief & Hope Converge by Mindy McGarrah Sharp](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/04/08/when-grief-hope-converge-by-mindy-mcgarrah-sharp/) **Published:** April 8, 2016 **Author:** Melinda McGarrah Sharp **Content:** During the concentrated course weekend for “Caring in Depth: Death and Dying” Dr. Mindy McGarrah Sharp offers a reflection on Luke 21: 25-36. Sharp is the Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Ethics at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Cautionary Tale by Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/06/22/a-cautionary-tale-by-lisa-davison/) **Published:** June 22, 2016 **Author:** Lisa Davison **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison, the Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips, offers a Cautionary Tale during the Summer 2016 DMin fortnight at Phillips Theological Seminary. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Getting Second Sight? Careful What You Ask For by Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/06/29/getting-second-sight-careful-what-you-ask-for-by-richard-ward/) **Published:** June 29, 2016 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Richard Ward offers this reflection during the Summer 2016 DMin fortnight. Ward is the Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship at Phillips, as well as the denominational formation director for the United Church of Christ. His reflection is based on 2 Corinthians 5: 6-10, 16-17 and Mark 8: 22-26. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Leaving our Place by MaryAnn Morris](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/08/23/leaving-our-place-by-maryann-morris/) **Published:** August 23, 2016 **Author:** MaryAnn Morris **Content:** On the first day of the Fall semester seated classes, students, faculty, staff and friends filled the chapel to hear the interim Director of Admissions and Student Services, MaryAnn Morris, deliver the message “Leaving Our Place.” She reflects on Luke 14: 1, 7-14. Morris is also a Phillips alumna. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Power of Music by Sarah Morice Brubaker](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/09/13/the-power-of-music-by-sarah-morice-brubaker/) **Published:** September 13, 2016 **Author:** Sarah Morice Brubaker **Content:** Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker offers a reflection on the Power of Music in this weekly chapel podcast at Phillips Seminary. Morice Brubaker is Assistant Professor of Theology at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Who do you say I am by Brandon Scott](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/09/20/who-do-you-say-i-am-by-brandon-scott/) **Published:** September 20, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. Bernard Brandon Scott offers the homily during regular weekly chapel based on Mark 8: 27-33, asking the same old question, Who do you say I am? Scott is the Darbeth Distinguished Professor of New Testament Emeritus at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Hope Displaced by Alexis Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/11/08/hope-displaced-by-alexis-carter/) **Published:** November 8, 2016 **Author:** Alexis Carter Thomas **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend offers a Litany of Repentance immediately prior to the homily offered by the Rev. Alexis Carter during today’s election day chapel service. Dr. Peluso-Verdend is the President and Associate Professor of Practical Ministry. Rev. Carter is the Leader of Discipleship Ministries at Tulsa’s Metropolitan Baptist Church. Rev. Carter’s reflection is based on Isaiah 65: 17-25. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Via Positiva by Bill Crowell](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/03/via-positiva-by-bill-crowell/) **Published:** January 3, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips begins the new year with its annual January Doctor of Ministry Fortnight for the first two weeks of the year. The Rev. Bill Crowell is offering several reflections on creation spirituality. Crowell is the pastor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Tulsa. This reflection is on Via Positiva. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Via Creativa by Bill Crowell](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/05/via-creativa-by-bill-crowell/) **Published:** January 5, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Bill Crowell, pastor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Tulsa, offers further reflections on creation spirituality the third installment on Via Creativa. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Via Negativa by Bill Crowell](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/04/via-negativa-by-bill-crowell/) **Published:** January 4, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Bill Crowell continues his reflections on creation spirituality with a reflection on Via Negativa. Crowell is the pastor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Tulsa **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The God of the Living by MaryAnn Morris](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/06/13/the-god-of-the-living-by-maryann-morris/) **Published:** June 13, 2017 **Author:** MaryAnn Morris **Content:** This chapel service included a reflection from MaryAnn Morris, who is the Director of Admissions and Student Services at Phillips Theological Seminary. Morris is also a Phillips alumna. Her reflection is based on Mark 12: 18-27. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A 21st Century Faith by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/06/20/a-21st-century-faith-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** June 20, 2017 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** President of Phillips Theological Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, offers a message during the first day of chapel services during the June Doctor of Ministry fortnight. Dr. Peluso-Verdend’s message is A 21st Century Faith…in order that humankind can see the 22nd Century. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Grossly Unremarkable by Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/06/22/grossly-unremarkable-by-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** June 22, 2017 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** The Dean of the seminary, and Vice President of Academic Affairs, the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, offers the homily during this chapel service of DMin fortnight. Her reflection is based on Romans 6: 1b-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Storytelling Concert with Barbara McBride-Smith and Corinne Stavish, part 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/07/16/storytelling-concert-with-barbara-mcbride-smith-and-corinne-stavish-part-1/) **Published:** July 16, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Award-winning storytellers Barbara McBride-Smith and Corinne Stavish give a concert as part of the Storytelling in Ministry module offered at Phillips. Part one features examples of biblical midrash, a form of storytelling that explores ethics and values. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Whose Image Are We Worshiping? (Psalm 8) by Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/01/30/whose-image-are-we-worshiping-psalm-8-by-dr-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** January 30, 2014 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend on Thursday, Jan 30th, 2014 in the Meinders Chapel, preaching in response to Psalm 8. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Eunuch & Phillip (Acts 8:26-40) by Dr. Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/02/06/eunuch-phillip-acts-826-40-by-dr-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** February 6, 2014 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** Rev. Dr. Nancy Pittman on Thursday, Feb 6th, 2014 in the PTS Meinders Chapel, preaching in response to Acts 8:26-40. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Patrick’s Mountain by Dr. Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/03/06/patricks-mountain-by-dr-richard-ward/) **Published:** March 6, 2014 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** Dr. Ward shares two stories about two very different mountaintop experiences. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Loving Your Enemies (Matt 5: 38-48) by Dr. Robert Hill](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/02/18/loving-your-enemies-matt-5-38-48-by-dr-robert-hill/) **Published:** February 18, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. Hill examines how loving your enemies can revolutionize the world. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Like an Eagle by Anthony James](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/03/26/like-an-eagle-by-anthony-james/) **Published:** March 26, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Anthony James shares why a bald eagle is unlike any other bird, and what that means for Christians. This message was shared during the Remind and Renew conference. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Reflections from BorderLinks: A Migrant Story by Russ Hall](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/04/02/reflections-from-borderlinks-a-migrant-story-by-russ-hall/) **Published:** April 2, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips student Russ Hall speaks from his experience with BorderLinks to discuss the realities of migration on the U.S. – Mexico border. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Politics in the Faith Setting by Kurt Gwartney](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/04/09/politics-in-the-faith-setting-by-kurt-gwartney/) **Published:** April 9, 2014 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Kurt Gwartney, news director at KGOU, discusses the need for respectful discourse in both faith and political settings. This message was shared during the Remind and Renew conference. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Church and Climate Change by Pat Hoerth](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/04/15/the-church-and-climate-change-by-pat-hoerth/) **Published:** April 15, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Pat Hoerth, a United Methodist Deaconess and spiritual director at Turtle Rock Farm, shares the need for clergy to address issues of climate change and sustainable living. This message was offered at the Remind and Renew conference. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Forgiveness in 64 Colors by Donald Davis](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/04/24/forgiveness-in-64-colors-by-donald-davis/) **Published:** April 24, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Donald Davis, a master storyteller and retired Methoidst minister, reflects on Matthew 6:5-15 and shares two colorful stories of forgiveness. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Theology of Work, part 1, by Dr. David Miller](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/05/09/the-theology-of-work-part-1-by-dr-david-miller/) **Published:** May 9, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. David Miller, the Project Director for the Faith and Work Initiative at Princeton University, shares why church is not about Sunday, but about Monday, in the first part of a two-part podcast. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Theology of Work, part 2, by Dr. David Miller](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/05/10/the-theology-of-work-part-2-by-dr-david-miller/) **Published:** May 10, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. David Miller, the Project Director for the Faith and Work Institute at Princeton University, shares about his research on faith and work in the second of a two-part podcast. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Life of Risk-Taking Faith by Courtney Fowler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/05/29/a-life-of-risk-taking-faith-by-courtney-fowler/) **Published:** May 29, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Courtney Fowler, a global health advocate and lay leader in the United Methodist Church, shares the impact clergy have had on her and how she feels called to impact the world. This was shared at the 2014 Remind and Renew Conference at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Living in Love by Judy Deere](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/06/26/living-in-love-by-judy-deere/) **Published:** June 26, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Judy Aaron, the Director of Admissions and Student Services at Phillips, shares about recognizing diversity and living with kindness and compassion for others. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A New Creation by Dr. Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/07/09/a-new-creation-by-dr-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** July 9, 2014 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** Dr. Nancy Pittman explores what happens when people encounter the holy in a new way and shares how it relates to a recent trip to Turkey. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Storytelling Concert with Barbara McBride-Smith and Corinne Stavish, part 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/08/01/storytelling-concert-with-barbara-mcbride-smith-and-corinne-stavish-part-2/) **Published:** August 1, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Award-winning storytellers Barbara McBride-Smith and Corinne Stavish give a concert as part of the Storytelling in Ministry module offered at Phillips. Part 2 features examples of personal narrative, a storytelling style that draws on personal experience. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Seeking Home by President Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/08/27/seeking-home-by-president-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** August 27, 2014 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** President Gary Peluso-Verdend speaks about the common need for a place of safety and what it means to be a Christian seeking home. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Sing a New Song by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr.](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/10/07/sing-a-new-song-by-rev-jesse-jackson-jr/) **Published:** October 7, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Phillips alumnus and Board member and the pastor of East 6th St. Christian Church in Oklahoma City, speaks about the power of music and calls on God’s people to sing a new song. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [In the Name of God by Susanna Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/01/30/in-the-name-of-god-by-susanna-southard/) **Published:** January 30, 2015 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** Instructor in Ministry Studies and Chaplain Susanna Southard speaks about the need for prophetic voices in vulnerable communities and shares why it is both necessary and dangerous work to be called to speak in the name of God. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Injustice Threat to Justice by Darell Christopher](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/02/03/injustice-threat-to-justice-by-darell-christopher/) **Published:** February 3, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** 2006 Phillips Alum reflects on the civil rights movement and the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Christopher, pastor at First Christian Church, Tahlequah, is an accomplished musician, as well as internet radio host for a Gospel music program Sunday mornings on radioidl.com. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [When Two or More are Gathered by Mindy McGarrah Sharp](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/02/12/when-two-or-more-are-gathered-by-mindy-mcgarrah-sharp/) **Published:** February 12, 2015 **Author:** Melinda McGarrah Sharp **Content:** Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology & Ethics, McGarrah Sharp reflects on Matthew 18:20; about the webs of life that hold us together and keep us apart; where beauty and tension are present when two or more are gathered. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Christian Civil Discourse by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/02/17/christian-civil-discourse-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** February 17, 2015 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** President and Associate Professor of Practical Theology, Peluso-Verdend reflects on Ephesians 4: 17-27 and 29; about Christians listening and speaking in truth and love. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Mark's Gospel as Haunted Text by Josh Linton](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/02/24/marks-gospel-as-haunted-text-by-josh-linton/) **Published:** February 24, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips alumnus and Director of Recruitment at the seminary, Linton shares a very personal story about Mark’s haunting text (Mark 1: 15-16) and those displaced by the varying ideas and images of Jesus. **Categories:** Uncategorized --- ### [That Ishmael Might Live in Your Sight by Alexis Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/02/26/that-ishmael-might-live-in-your-sight-by-alexis-carter/) **Published:** February 26, 2015 **Author:** Alexis Carter Thomas **Content:** Carter is the leader of Discipleship Ministries at Tulsa’s Metropolitan Baptist Church and is a founding board member of “Gravity,” a center for contemplative activism. Her reflection is based on Genesis 17: 18. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [What's Love Got to do with it? by Judy Deere](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/03/03/whats-love-got-to-do-with-it-by-judy-deere/) **Published:** March 3, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Deere is a Phillips Alumna and is the Director of Admissions and Student Services at Phillips. Her reflection is based on 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8a and 13. She begins her homily with a Creek song, “Vnokeckvt Omecicen” (shortened translation “giving with love”). **Categories:** Uncategorized --- ### [They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/03/05/they-will-know-we-are-christians-by-our-love/) **Published:** March 5, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips students Jinx Barber, Josh Bell and Grant Ragsdale sing and perform Ragsdale’s arrangement of “They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” This arrangement was originally played for a chapel service on February 17, 2015. (Published with permission from Ragsdale). **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Lenten Journey Continues by Joe Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/03/10/the-lenten-journey-continues-by-joe-bessler/) **Published:** March 10, 2015 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** Bessler initially recites a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Bessler also shares a story about four-legged companions, including his own cat named Picasso. He then reflects on Matthew 4: 1-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [BorderLinks Reflections Part II](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/03/17/borderlinks-reflections-part-ii/) **Published:** March 17, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Fall 2014 BorderLinks Class shares some of their experiences from their time spent visiting the U.S./Mexico border. Part II of I. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Pay Attention, People! by Dennis Smith](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/03/19/pay-attention-people-by-dennis-smith/) **Published:** March 19, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Professor of New Testament offers this reflection on Mark 7: 31-37 and encourages everyone to just…listen. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Living Between Good Friday & Easter Sunday by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/07/living-between-good-friday-easter-sunday-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** April 7, 2015 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The President of Phillips reflects on Mark 16: 1-8 and offers his thoughts on living between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The People Could Fly by Kim & Reggie Harris](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/16/the-people-could-fly-by-kim-reggie-harris/) **Published:** April 16, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Renowned storytellers, Kim & Reggie Harris, share a folk story with the community about freedom. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Craddock Memorial Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/13/craddock-memorial-service/) **Published:** April 13, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Listen to the full memorial service in its entirety for Fred B. Craddock recorded on April 13, 2015. Featured speakers include the Rev. Dr. Richard Ward, the Rev. Lori Walke, and the Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Craddock Tribute by Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/13/craddock-tribute-by-richard-ward/) **Published:** April 13, 2015 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** Richard Ward, the Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship at Phillips, offers a tribute to the late Fred B. Craddock at a special memorial service recorded on April 13, 2015. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Craddock Tribute by Lori Walke](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/13/craddock-tribute-by-lori-walke/) **Published:** April 13, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Lori Walke, Phillips alum, and associate pastor at Mayflower Congregational UCC in Oklahoma CIty, offers a tribute to the late Fred B. Craddock at a special memorial service recorded on April 13, 2015. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Craddock Tribute by Robin Meyers](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/13/craddock-tribute-by-robin-meyers/) **Published:** April 13, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Robin Meyers, Phillips alum, and senior pastor at Mayflower Congregational UCC in Oklahoma CIty, offers a tribute to the late Fred B. Craddock at a special memorial service recorded on April 13, 2015. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Domestic Violence Education by Missy Iski](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/04/30/domestic-violence-education-by-missy-iski/) **Published:** April 30, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** DVIS representative, Missy Iski, gives a presentation on the services offered by Domestic Violence Intervention Services, Inc. in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and educates the Phillips community about victims of domestic violence. Scripture offered: Micah 6:8 as translated by Dr. Lisa Wilson Davison. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [How Shall we Honor our Mothers? by Bill Inglish](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/05/05/how-shall-we-honor-our-mothers-by-bill-inglish/) **Published:** May 5, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips alumnus and Senior Pastor at Disciples Christian Church in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the Rev. Dr. Bill Inglish reflects on Isaiah 66:13 in this week preceding Mother’s Day, and asks us how shall we honor our mothers? **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Pardadox of Change by Mik King](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/05/12/pardadox-of-change-by-mik-king/) **Published:** May 12, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Graduating senior, Mik King, offers a homily reflection on Genesis 16: 7-13 during one of the final chapel services of the Spring 2015 semester. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Opportunities not Losses by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/05/14/opportunities-not-losses-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** May 14, 2015 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Phillips President Gary Peluso-Verdend offers a reflection on Psalm 137:1 and Isaiah 43:18-19. He proposes that this is a time of wonderful opportunities rather than for lamenting our losses. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Vanity of Vanities by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/06/24/vanity-of-vanities-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** June 24, 2015 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, President of Phillips Theological Seminary, challenges the congregation of DMin students, to remind people from time to time that they will die. Do you remind people what makes life worth living? His reflections are based on Ecclesiastes 1:1-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [It's About More Than You by Sonja Tobey](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/06/25/its-about-more-than-you-by-sonja-tobey/) **Published:** June 25, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Senior Pastor at Vinita First United Methodist Church in Vinita, Oklahoma and recent Phillips alumna, the Rev. Dr. Sonja Tobey reflects on 2 Corinthians 8: 7-15. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Looking Forward Part I by Joe Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/06/30/looking-forward-part-i-by-joe-bessler/) **Published:** June 30, 2015 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** Dr. Joe Bessler, the Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology and Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Assessment, reflects on Looking Forward as he begins a semester long sabbatical. He also reflects on 2 Corinthians 12: 7b-10 and Mark 6: 1-6. This is part I of his reflection. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [What Makes Life Worth Living? by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/06/26/what-makes-life-worth-living-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** June 26, 2015 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** President and Associate Professor of Practical Theology, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, offers his second homily during the June 2015 DMin Fortnight. His reflection is based on Psalm 8. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [I Will Break Their Hearts of Stone by Sonja Tobey](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/07/01/i-will-break-their-hearts-of-stone-by-sonja-tobey/) **Published:** July 1, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Sonja Tobey, recent Doctor of Ministry graduate of Phillips Theological Seminary, reflects on Ezekiel 2: 1-5. Tobey is the Senior Pastor at Vinita First United Methodist Church in Vinita, Oklahoma. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [2014 Remind & Renew Revisited by John Thomas](https://ptstulsa.edu/2014/01/23/2014-remind-renew-revisited-by-john-thomas/) **Published:** January 23, 2014 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** From the 2014 Remind & Renew Annual Conference, the Rev. Dr. John Thomas, Associate Dean and Director of Supervised Ministries at Phillips, asks can these bones live? Please enjoy the re-posting of this homily. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Who Do You Say Jesus Is? by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/08/17/who-do-you-say-jesus-is-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** August 17, 2015 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** President and Associate Professor of Practical Theology, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, offers a reflection on Mark 8: 27-30 during the opening Chapel service during new student orientation for the Fall 2015 semester. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Faith & Work Part I (Revisited) by David Miller](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/08/27/faith-work-part-i-revisited-by-david-miller/) **Published:** August 27, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. David Miller, Director of the Faith & Work Initiative at Princeton University, gives a presentation on the Theology Work at the 2014 Remind & Renew Annual Conference at Phillips. This is part one of a two part re-posting. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Faith & Work Part II (Revisited) by David Miller](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/09/03/faith-work-part-ii-revisited-by-david-miller/) **Published:** September 3, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Dr. David Miller, Director of the Faith & Work Initiative at Princeton University, gives a presentation on the Theology Work at the 2014 Remind & Renew Annual Conference at Phillips. This is part two of a two part re-posting. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Black Lives Matter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/09/08/black-lives-matter/) **Published:** September 8, 2015 **Author:** Sarah Morice Brubaker **Content:** The Rev. Diane Burl, current Phillips student and Pastor at Quinn Chapel AME, Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker, Assistant Professor of Theology at Phillips, offer a dialogical sermon in response to the call from AME bishops to end racism in America. The accompanying scripture is Genesis 16. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Chasing After Wind by Susanna Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/09/15/chasing-after-wind-by-susanna-southard/) **Published:** September 15, 2015 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** Susanna Weslie Southard, Instructor in Ministry Studies, Chaplain, and Director of Teaching with Technology at Phillips, offers a homily based on selections from Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 Ecclesiastes. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Unchangeable by Ellen Blue](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/09/22/unchangeable-by-ellen-blue/) **Published:** September 22, 2015 **Author:** Ellen Blue **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Ellen Blue, the Mouzon Biggs, Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity and United Methodist Studies at Phillips Theological Seminary, offers a sermon on Esther 7: 1-6, 9-10; and Esther 9: 20-22; 28. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Turning the World Around by Kim & Reggie Harris](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/10/19/turning-the-world-around-by-kim-reggie-harris/) **Published:** October 19, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Featured during Concentrated Course Week II Fall 2015, Kim & Reggie Harris visited the seminary for the second time. The Harrises are renowned storytellers who lead inspirational worship experiences around the world, infusing a variety of musical genres to inspire and entertain. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [After Exhaustion, Abundance by Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/09/29/after-exhaustion-abundance-by-richard-ward/) **Published:** September 29, 2015 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Richard Ward reflects on the risks and rewards of casting our nets in deeper waters. Biblical text is from Luke 5: 11. Ward is the Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Who are we, really? by Anna Holloway](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/10/27/who-are-we-really-by-anna-holloway/) **Published:** October 27, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** This service was presented by the InterReligious Understanding Program at Phillips, with student Chelsea Peary reading, and Anna Holloway offering the homily. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The End is Near by Josh Linton](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/11/10/the-end-is-near-by-josh-linton/) **Published:** November 10, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Josh Linton, Director of Recruitment, tackles an apocalyptic text (Mark 13) during our weekly chapel service. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [O for a World by Chris Moore](https://ptstulsa.edu/2015/11/13/o-for-a-world-by-chris-moore/) **Published:** November 13, 2015 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Chris Moore, Senior Minister at Fellowship Congregational Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, offers a reflection on Micah 6:8. Moore is also a Phillips alum. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Embrace the Light by Imam John Ederer](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/01/08/embrace-the-light-by-imam-john-ederer/) **Published:** January 8, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Imam John Ederer, spiritual leader of the Islamic Society of Tulsa, offers a reflection during the DMin fortnight at Phillips Theological Seminary. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Ledger Paintings by Nancy Claire Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/02/23/ledger-paintings-by-nancy-claire-pittman/) **Published:** February 23, 2016 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman offers the homily at this worship service honoring three Phillips graduates who are contributing authors to the book: Coming Full Circle, Constructing Native Christian Theology. This books seeks to encourage young Native American scholars and non-Native theologians to reconsider the rich possibilities present in the intersection between Native theory and practice and Christian theology and practice. Accompanying this recording, Luke 8: 4-8 is read in Muskogee Creek and English by the Rev. Judy Deere and student Brent Stanfield. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Two Roads by Chris Moore](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/03/15/two-roads-by-chris-moore/) **Published:** March 15, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Chris Moore, Pastor at Fellowship Congregational Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, offers this homily with an initial reading of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” Moore is also a Phillips alumnus. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [BorderLinks Reflections](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/03/08/borderlinks-reflections/) **Published:** March 8, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The most recent BorderLinks Immersion Course offer their reflections from their time spent in Arizona and Mexico in January 2016. BorderLinks is a non-profit organization that promotes study of issues on the border between Mexico and the United States and in New Orleans with churches and organizations dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Call of Duty by Trayce Stewart](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/04/26/call-of-duty-by-trayce-stewart/) **Published:** April 26, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Trayce Stewart visited Phillips Theological Seminary today and was the featured guest speaker during Chapel service. Rev. Stewart is pastor at Second Chance Christian Church in Columbus, Ohio. Her reflection is based on Acts 1:8. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Sermon by Sarah Morice Brubaker](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/04/19/a-sermon-by-sarah-morice-brubaker/) **Published:** April 19, 2016 **Author:** Sarah Morice Brubaker **Content:** The Rev. Nancy Claire Pittman, Phillips Theological Seminary Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs offers an introduction and recognition for Dr. Sharon Jacob, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Phillips, in honor of her first book, “Reading Mary Alongside Indian Surrogate Mothers.” Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker, Assistant Professor of Theology at Phillips, offers a reflection based on Mark 14: 1-11. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Wonder of One by Susanna Weslie Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/05/03/the-wonder-of-one-by-susanna-weslie-southard/) **Published:** May 3, 2016 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** Rev. Susanna Weslie Southard offers the reflection today, based on John 17: 20-23. Southard is the Chaplain, Instructor of Ministry Studies, and Director of Teaching with Technology at Phillips Theological Seminary. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Commencement Reflection by Joe Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/05/14/a-commencement-reflection-by-joe-bessler/) **Published:** May 14, 2016 **Author:** Joe Bessler **Content:** The annual commencement services for the class of 2015-2016 graduates of Phillips Theological Seminary was held at First Christian Church, in Tulsa, on Saturday, May 14, 2016. Dr. Joe Bessler offers the faculty reflection at this graduation ceremony. Bessler is the Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology and Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Assessment at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Love, Anger & Christian Practice by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/06/23/love-anger-christian-practice-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** June 23, 2016 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** President and Associate Professor of Practical Theology, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, offers a reflection during the summer 2016 DMin fortnight. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Hope Made Dragon by Nancy Claire Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/06/24/hope-made-dragon-by-nancy-claire-pittman/) **Published:** June 24, 2016 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** The Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Phillips, offers this homily during the summer 2016 DMin fortnight. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Wisdom's Journey by Kathy McCallie](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/06/27/wisdoms-journey-by-kathy-mccallie/) **Published:** June 27, 2016 **Author:** Kathy McCallie **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Kathy McCallie, Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Phillips, offers this reflection during the Summer 2016 DMin fortnight. Her reflection is based on Proverbs 8, selected verses. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Be Here Now by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/08/15/be-here-now-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** August 15, 2016 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** During the opening evening of the new student orientation for fall 2016, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend offers the reflection based on Exodus 4: 1-13. Dr. Peluso-Verdend is the President and Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [What's in a Name? by Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/08/16/whats-in-a-name-by-richard-ward/) **Published:** August 16, 2016 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** On the second night of new student orientation for the fall semester 2016, the Rev. Dr. Richard Ward offered a reflection based on Genesis 32: 22-31. Ward is the Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship and the Denominational Formation Director for United Church of Christ at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Blessings for the Journey by Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/08/17/blessings-for-the-journey-by-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** August 17, 2016 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** On the final day of Fall 2016 new student orientation, the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the seminary, offers the reflection based on Romans 12: 1-8. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [How do we do theology right? by Josh Linton](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/08/19/how-do-we-do-theology-right-by-josh-linton/) **Published:** August 19, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Josh Linton, Director of Recruitment at Phillips, and Phillips alum, offers a reflection during this additional chapel service during Fall semester 2016. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Reflection by Geoff Brewster](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/08/30/a-reflection-by-geoff-brewster/) **Published:** August 30, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Geoff Brewster offers a reflection on Acts 10: 9-16 during weekly chapel services at Phillips. Brewster is the Senior Director of Stewardship at Phillips and is also a Phillips alum. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Creation Spirituality by Bill Crowell](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/09/23/creation-spirituality-by-bill-crowell/) **Published:** September 23, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Bill Crowell, pastor at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Tulsa, offers a reflection on creation spirituality. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Joys, Challenges & Dangers of Ministry by Pam Holt](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/09/27/the-joys-challenges-dangers-of-ministry-by-pam-holt/) **Published:** September 27, 2016 **Author:** Pamela Holt **Content:** The Rev. Pamela Holt, Regional Minister for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Oklahoma, and Phillips Trustee, offers a reflection on the joys, challenges and dangers of ministry. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Gratitude by Darell Christopher](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/10/04/gratitude-by-darell-christopher/) **Published:** October 4, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Darell Christopher is the Pastor at First Christian Church in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He is also the Assistant Recruiter at Phillips and is a Phillips alumnus. He reflects on gratitude: Luke 17: 11-19. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Story Worth Telling by Susanna Weslie Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/10/18/a-story-worth-telling-by-susanna-weslie-southard/) **Published:** October 18, 2016 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** Susanna Weslie Southard offers the homily during this second week of concentrated courses. Southard is the Chaplain, Director of Teaching with Technology and Instructor of Ministry Studies at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Just Hope by David Calderon](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/10/25/just-hope-by-david-calderon/) **Published:** October 25, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Senor David Calderon, one of the visiting JustHope delegation from Nicaragua, offers a reflection on his spiritual journey and his vision on eco-friendly farming. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [What Are You Teaching These Days? by Nancy Claire Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/11/11/what-are-you-teaching-these-days-by-nancy-claire-pittman/) **Published:** November 11, 2016 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** This additional worship service was offered during the Fall semester with the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman offering the homily. Pittman is the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Phillips. Her reflection is based on Luke 6: 37-42 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [On Common Ground by Bill Blue Eagle McCutchen](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/11/18/on-common-ground-by-bill-blue-eagle-mccutchen/) **Published:** November 18, 2016 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Bill Blue Eagle McCutchen, offers this reflection during an additional chapel service on November 18, 2016. McCutchen is a Phillips alumnus, and is also the pastor and certified White Bison fire starter at Blue Eagle Wellbriety Ministries. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Reflection on Thanks by Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/2016/11/29/a-reflection-on-thanks-by-lisa-davison/) **Published:** November 29, 2016 **Author:** Lisa Davison **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Lisa Wilson Davison reflects on thanks during this chapel service. Davison is the Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible and Denominational Formation Director for Disciples of Christ students at Phillips. Her reflection is based on Leviticus 23: 21b-22 and 39-44. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Via Transformativa by Bill Crowell](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/06/via-transformativa-by-bill-crowell/) **Published:** January 6, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The final reflection on the four pathways of creation spirituality offered by the Rev. Bill Crowell is Via Transformativa. Crowell is the pastor at Tulsa’s St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Refusing the Hand of the Empire by Rosemary McCombs Maxey](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/10/refusing-the-hand-of-the-empire-by-rosemary-mccombs-maxey/) **Published:** January 10, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** This reflection is offered by the Reverend Rosemary McCombs Maxey. Maxey is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and is well known throughout the United Church of Christ. She has served on many national boards and committees and has been a leading voice and member of the UCC Council for American Indian Ministries (CAIM). Maxey’s insights and experiences are particularly helpful to those who wish to know more about and support Standing Rock. Her reflection is based on Micah 6: 8 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Many Religions, One God by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/12/many-religions-one-god-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** January 12, 2017 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Phillips President, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, offers the homily during this final chapel service of the Doctor of Ministry fortnight offered every January. Dr. Peluso-Verdend’s reflection is based on Genesis 11: 1-9 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Seminary Reflections](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/20/seminary-reflections/) **Published:** January 20, 2017 **Author:** Sandy Shapoval **Content:** Two Phillips alumna offer reflections during this chapel service. Sandy Shapoval, Director of the Phillips Library and the Rev. Gina Jackson, Director of Worship, offer two reflections of their time at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Grace of Being Cut to the Quick by Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/01/31/the-grace-of-being-cut-to-the-quick-by-gary-peluso-verdend/) **Published:** January 31, 2017 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The President of Phillips Theological Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, offers this homily on the first day of on campus classes of the Spring 2017 Semester. Dr. Peluso-Verdend’s reflection is based on 2 Samuel 11:26-12:7a **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Life Choices by Susanna Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/02/07/life-choices-by-susanna-southard/) **Published:** February 7, 2017 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** The Rev. Susanna Weslie Southard delivers the homily during today’s worship service. Southard is the Director of Teaching with Technology, an Instructor in Ministry Studies and the Chaplain at Phillips. Her reflection is based on Deuteronomy 30: 15-20. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Reflection by Rev. M.C. Potter](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/02/14/a-reflection-by-rev-m-c-potter/) **Published:** February 14, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Former Phillips Board of Trustees member, the Rev. Dr. M.C. Potter, offers the reflection during this chapel service. Rev. Potter is the long time pastor at Antioch Baptist Church. His reflection is based on 1 Kings 18: 43-44 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [She Persisted by Kathy McCallie](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/02/17/she-persisted-by-kathy-mccallie/) **Published:** February 17, 2017 **Author:** Kathy McCallie **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Kathy McCallie offers the reflection today, “She Persisted.” McCallie is the Assistant Professor of Ministerial Leadership and Ethics, and the Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Phillips. Her reflection today is based on 1 Kings 17: 8-24. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [There is a Crack in Everything. That's How the Light Gets In by Grayson Lucky](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/02/21/there-is-a-crack-in-everything-thats-how-the-light-gets-in-by-grayson-lucky/) **Published:** February 21, 2017 **Author:** Grayson Lucky **Content:** This reflection was offered by the Rev. Dr. Grayson Lucky. Lucky is ordained in the United Methodist Church and he is an affiliate instructor of United Methodist Studies at Phillips. His reflection is based on 2 Peter 1: 16-19 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Preparing for Lent by Amy Venable](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/02/28/preparing-for-lent-by-amy-venable/) **Published:** February 28, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Amy Venable visited campus with a message on Mardi Gras, as the campus and community prepares for the Christian season of Lent, the six week period prior to Easter. Venable is the chaplain at Holland Hall school in Tulsa. Her reflection is based on Acts 7: 30-34. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Gift of Discomfort by Sarah Morice Brubaker](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/03/14/the-gift-of-discomfort-by-sarah-morice-brubaker/) **Published:** March 14, 2017 **Author:** Sarah Morice Brubaker **Content:** Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker, Assistant Professor of Theology at Phillips, offers a Lenten reflection on the Gift of Discomfort based on Jonah 2: 1-10. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Reflection by Sr. Ellie Finlay](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/03/21/a-reflection-by-sr-ellie-finlay/) **Published:** March 21, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Director of St. John’s Center for Spiritual Formation, Sr. Ellie Finlay, offers the reflection in chapel during this second week of Spring Concentrated Courses. Finlay is a solitary (hermit) nun in the Anglican tradition. She is an experienced spiritual director and retreat conductor. Her background includes traditional convent life and education in theology, philosophy, and spiritual direction. She has studied with mediation masters from several major religious traditions and now specializes in the theory and practice of meditation. Her reflection is based on Mark 10: 17-21 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [You Want To by J.D. Morrison](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/03/28/you-want-to-by-j-d-morrison/) **Published:** March 28, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Phillips alumnus, and current DMin student, JD Morrison, offers a reflection during chapel this week. Morrison works with the Tulsa Boys Home and with Fellowship Congregational UCC Church in Tulsa. His reflection is based on Psalm 34: 1 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Praying through Clenched Teeth by Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/04/21/praying-through-clenched-teeth-by-richard-ward/) **Published:** April 21, 2017 **Author:** Richard Ward **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Richard F. Ward gives today’s reflection during an additional chapel service on the campus of Phillips Theological Seminary. Ward is the Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship at Phillips. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Religious Liberty by Ryan Kiesel](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/05/02/religious-liberty-by-ryan-kiesel/) **Published:** May 2, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Ryan Kiesel offers this reflection on religious liberty during a chapel service at Phillips Theological Seminary. Kiesel is currently the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma. He served three terms in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [The Nostalgia Trap by Nancy Claire Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/05/09/the-nostalgia-trap-by-nancy-claire-pittman/) **Published:** May 9, 2017 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman offers the reflection today in this final “regular” chapel service of the spring semester. Dr. Pittman is the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean at Phillips, as well as the Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry. Her reflection is based on Acts 2: 42-47 **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Prequels and Sequels by John Thomas, Jr.](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/06/23/prequels-and-sequels-by-john-thomas-jr/) **Published:** June 23, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Dr. John Thomas, Jr. offers the homily during this chapel service of DMin fortnight at Phillips Theological Seminary. Thomas is the the Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Phillips, as well as the director of Supervised Ministries, the director of denominational formation for Baptist Traditions, and the associate dean for contextual education and supervised ministries at Phillips. His reflection is based on Matthew 9: 35-38; 10: 1-8. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [A Reflection by David Wilson by: David Wilson](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/06/26/a-reflection-by-david-wilson-by-david-wilson/) **Published:** June 26, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The guest homilist for today’s DMin fortnight chapel service is the Rev. Dr. David M. Wilson. Dr. Wilson is currently serving as the Superintendent of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference of the United Methodist Church. He holds an MDiv from Phillips and was the first clergy person from OIMC to graduate from Phillips. In 2007, he was named a Distinguished Alum of the seminary. The musical accompaniment to this recording was offered by Sue Straw. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Intersectionality, Intercultural, Interfaith by Gerald Davis](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/06/27/intersectionality-intercultural-interfaith-by-gerald-davis/) **Published:** June 27, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Gerald Davis offers the homily during this DMin chapel service. He is currently serving as the minister of the Church of the Restoration Unitarian Universalist and as an affiliate minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, both in Tulsa. Previously, he served as the County Director for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Over the years, Rev. Davis and his ministry have followed the arc of the universe as it bends towards social justice. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Enough Already by Susanna Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/06/29/enough-already-by-susanna-southard/) **Published:** June 29, 2017 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** The reflection on this final day of DMin Fortnight chapel services at Phillips Theological Seminary is offered by the Rev. Susanna Weslie Southard. Southard is the Director of Teaching with Technology, an Instructor in Ministry Studies and the Chaplain at Phillips. Her reflection is based on Genesis 21: 8-21. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [On the Road Together by Gerald Davis](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/09/14/on-the-road-together-by-gerald-davis/) **Published:** September 14, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Gerald Davis offers the homily during this June 27th chapel service. He is currently serving as the minister of the Church of the Restoration Unitarian Universalist and as an affiliate minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, both in Tulsa. Previously, he served as the County Director for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Over the years, Rev. Davis and his ministry have followed the arc of the universe as it bends towards social justice. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings --- ### [Board of Trustees Selects New President](https://ptstulsa.edu/2019/01/03/board-of-trustees-selects-new-president/) **Published:** January 3, 2019 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ## **The Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman Named President of Phillips Theological Seminary** Following a seven-month long search that yielded an impressive and diverse pool of applicants, the Board of Trustees of Phillips Theological Seminary has named the Rev. Dr. Nancy Pittman as the school’s next president. Pittman has served as interim president of the Seminary since July 1, 2018 and will immediately assume the presidency. “Dr. Pittman is the clear choice because of her strong leadership skills and vision for the future of theological education,” said Claire Meredith, chair of the seminary’s board of trustees and the presidential search committee. “It was a tribute to the seminary that we attracted so strong a pool of candidates for the presidency and a clear affirmation of Nancy’s abilities and readiness to lead that she emerged as the ideal fit for this time in Phillips’ history,” Meredith said. Pittman has served Phillips in several roles before being named president. She was Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean before being named interim president. She has also directed the seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program and taught courses in the practice of ministry and the New Testament. “I appreciate the confidence the board has in me to lead Phillips into the future,” Pittman said. “As we continue to develop habits of hospitable inclusion of persons from many diversities, we will be better equipped to serve our mission of teaching and learning the ways of Jesus to a world that needs to hear of the compassion, grace and justice he offers the world. And we will remain firm in our historic commitment to train pastors of local congregations, ministers of various institutions, and religious leaders in a variety of settings.” ![Nancy Pittman in the Phillips Theological Seminary Chapel](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nancy-Pittman-in-Chapel-1024x681.jpg)The Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman in the Phillips Theological Seminary chapel. Pittman was named president of the seminary Jan. 3, 2019 by the Board of Trustees following a national search by the Presidential Transition Committee.Pittman was ordained into the ministry by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest on April 1, 1984. She received her BA from Texas Christian University in 1979, her MDiv from Brite Divinity School in 1984, and her PhD from Southern Methodist University in 1997. “I hope we renew our concern for churches and communities that are seeking to be faithful to Jesus in the neighborhoods they serve in ever new, ever inspiring ways,” Pittman said. “We have much work to do as we live into the transitions that have come and are coming our way.” The search was led by a 15-member committee appointed by the Board of Trustees. The committee included six board members, along with faculty, staff, student, and alumni representation. Independent consultant Rebekah Burch Basinger served as counsel during the search. Basinger’s services were funded in part by a grant from the In Trust Center for Theological Schools. Phillips is planning a special reception during the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly in Des Moines, Iowa to celebrate Pittman’s new office. Phillips Theological Seminary offers Christian graduate theological education in service of intelligent, just, and compassionate religious and civic communities. Phillips welcomes students to a safe and brave space for truth-seeking conversations about the Bible, Jesus, and faithful living. **Categories:** News, Uncategorized --- ### [New Student Orientation by Gerald Davis](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/09/26/new-student-orientation-by-gerald-davis/) **Published:** September 26, 2017 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Rev. Gerald Davis offers the homily during this Fall 2017 new student orientation chapel service. He is currently serving as the minister of the Church of the Restoration Unitarian Universalist and as an affiliate minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, both in Tulsa. Previously, he served as the County Director for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Over the years, Rev. Davis and his ministry have followed the arc of the universe as it bends towards social justice. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings **Tags:** Featured --- ### [Reflection on Romans by Nancy Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/2017/10/03/reflection-on-romans-by-nancy-pittman/) **Published:** October 3, 2017 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** The Dean of the seminary, and Vice President of Academic Affairs, the Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, offers the homily during this chapel service during the Fall 2017 new student orientation. Her reflection is based on Romans 12. **Categories:** Chapel Recordings **Tags:** Featured --- ### [Presidential Candidate Selection Enters New Stage](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/10/24/presidential-candidate-selection-enters-new-stage/) **Published:** October 24, 2018 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** ***From Board of Trustees Chair Claire Meredith:*** The Phillips Theological Seminary transition team has been busy reviewing the applications for the position of president. After the September Board of Trustees meeting and intercultural development training, the team met and selected six candidates for further consideration. The trustees on the transition team have each taken one candidate and held a conference call with references. The rest of the team has been listening in to take notes. The team will meet again Oct. 29 to decide which candidates to invite to Tulsa in mid-December for in-person interviews. We expect to make a formal announcement after the Board of Trustees meeting in February. Thank you for your continued dedication to the work of the seminary during this transition. **Categories:** News **Tags:** Seminary News --- ### [Six Presidential Applicants Selected as Finalists](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/09/28/six-presidential-applicants-selected-as-finalists/) **Published:** September 28, 2018 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** The Presidential Transition Committee has selected six applicants as semifinalists to be the next president of Phillips Theological Seminary. The names of the semifinalists will remain confidential. “We are pleased with the quality and quantity of candidates interested in leading Phillips,” said Claire Meredith, chair of the Board of Trustees. “The number of impressive nominees and applicants for this position shows me that the seminary is highly respected as a graduate theological school.” The transition committee is currently contacting the semifinalists and sending its appreciation to those who are not moving forward in the search. “I was encouraged by the great response from our greater Phillips community to our request for nominations,” Meredith said. “I look forward to the committee’s engagement with the semifinalists and final selection of our next president.” **Categories:** News **Tags:** Seminary News --- ### [Remind & Renew 2019... Negotiating Empire: Stories of Accommodation and Resistance from the New Testament](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/11/27/remind-renew-2019-negotiating-empire-stories-of-accommodation-and-resistance-from-the-new-testament/) **Published:** November 27, 2018 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** Christian churches have a long record of both supporting and resisting the empires they have encountered over the centuries. Two Phillips Theological Seminary faculty members will explore this complicated relationship during the 2019 Remind & Renew conference, *Negotiating Empire: Stories of Accommodation and Resistance from the New Testament*, Jan. 23–24 in Tulsa, Okla. Phillips New Testament scholars, Dr. Arthur Carter and Dr. Warren Carter, will discuss how early Christian communities dealt with the Roman Empire in differing ways. Arthur Carter will primarily speak from the Acts of the Apostles and bring his focus on diaspora studies as a lens to explore early Christian identity construction within early imperial Rome. Warren Carter will primarily use the text from the Book of Matthew to examine “interactions between the Jesus movement and the imperial world.” “Focusing on the varied experiences of early Christians and the empire in which they lived will provide insight for people of faith today who experience their own feelings of unease and lack of belonging in today’s world,” said Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, interim president of Phillips. In a special evening event, Dr. Phil Snider will present a talk on Jan. 23 at 7 p.m. titled, “Reeling, Resisting, and Regathering: On the Urgency of Being the Church.” Snider is the pastor of Brentwood Christian Church in Springfield, MO and the editor of a new Chalice Press book, *[Preaching as Resistance: Voices of Hope, Justice, and Solidarity](https://www.chalicepress.com/PreachingAsResistance)*. “Phil’s book is receiving wonderful reviews,” Pittman said. “We also decided to invite two clergywomen who have sermons included in this new book.” Preachers for the 2019 Remind & Renew are [Dr. Cassandra Gould](https://sojo.net/biography/reverend-dr-cassandra-gould), executive director of Missouri Faith Voice and a pastor in the AME church, and the [Rev. Lori Walke](http://www.revloriwalke.com/about-lori/), associate minister of Mayflower United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. The [Rev. Emily Bowen-Marler](https://brentwoodchristianchurch.wordpress.com/staff/), associate minister at Brentwood Christian Church, returns to Remind & Renew as this year’s worship leader. Registration for Remind & Renew 2019 is now open. Sign up by Jan. 4 and receive the early registration discount. [CLICK TO REGISTER](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/form16/index.html) **Categories:** News **Tags:** Events --- ### [Deeper Repair](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/06/12/deeper-repair/) **Published:** June 12, 2018 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** I nodded off in church on Sunday (okay, that’s a fiction, but go with it, please) and, immediately, I fell into a dream. In the dream, I walked into a building I knew was a church. I don’t remember how the outside of this church looked. And I did not get beyond the entryway before I woke up. Somehow, I knew it was not a place to go in order to “get religion” for an hour, to be recharged for the rest of the week, to lead a “balanced life,” or to be given a perspective that complements one’s life without challenging anything fundamental, any core belief or disposition or practice. The entry space was spare. In fact, all that was in front of me was a one person, sitting at a folding table. On the table was a series of clip boards with what looked to be sign-up sheets. Second from the top of the sign-up sheets were words. There was one sheet for each word or phrase: 1. Shame and Guilt 2. Self-Righteousness 3. Recognizing and Disempowering God-substitutes 4. Fear, Anxiety, and Death 5. Loneliness and Aloneness 6. Anger and Love 7. God and Money 8. God, Soil, and Food 9. Justice and Love for Yourself 10. Justice and Love for Intimate Relationships 11. Justice and Love for Your Family 12. Justice and Love for Your Neighbors 13. Justice and Love for Your Nation 14. Justice and Love for Others 15. Justice and Love for Creation 16. Speaking Truth in Love 17. Conflict, Brokenness, Penance, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation 18. God, Race, and America There was also a heading at the very top of each page, before the words in the list above. The same heading on every page. “Christian Therapy,” followed by a colon. Christian Therapy: Self-Righteousness. Christian Therapy: Anger and Love. Christian Therapy: Justice and Love for Others. Christian Therapy: God, Race, and America. I noted that #1 through #5 were listed as “prerequisite for all other studies.” “What is all this?” I asked the woman at the table. “The pages in front of you are sign-up sheets for courses at this church. If you are familiar with adult education offerings at most churches, then the courses here will need some explanation, for these courses are unusual, in our experience.” I raised an eyebrow like Spock. “Why is that? What makes them unusual?” “Because these courses are more like therapies than they are akin to classes one might get in a school.” I sniffed and wrinkled my nose. “Therapies? Are we reverting again to the ‘triumph of the therapeutic,’ that reality begins and ends in how I feel? I’d hoped we left than behind in the 70s.” “No, this is not touchy-feely stuff, although dealing with emotions is very much involved. Therapy here is analogous to physical therapy: repairing something that is broken or was otherwise weakened and that needs strengthening in order for the body or mind or spirit to function as it should, as they should together. You see, from a Christian point of view, from a Jesus point of view, anyone living in this society is misshapen, lives out of alignment with God’s purposes as revealed in Jesus, and needs repair. Everyone needs personal and social therapies. Racism, patriarchy, nationalism, competition between classes, how we value and make and spend money, the way we treat anyone without power—from children to the poor, from the incarcerated to those with disabilities, to immigrants to the mentally ill to persons who aren’t Christians of a particular type. The way we approach all these distorted isms and the people implicated in these labels is misshapen and misshapes. Plus, there are the ways people make Jesus to say and mean things that Jesus did not say or mean!” “I’m with you there. So, these Christian therapies are ways of attempting to repair and heal all kinds of distorted thinking?” “That’s closer,” she replied. “Thinking yes, but also practices. The therapies are not so much about conditioning people to think a certain way but to practice in a new way: centered in love, because this church believes that God is love, Jesus was the incarnation of God’s love, and Christians are persons called to follow the loving way of Jesus. May I ask: when you go to church, how long are you there?” “An hour or two a week.” I was starting to feel wary. “Have you learned to practice in a more loving way in your life by “attending” (she said with air-quotes) an hour or two a week?” “I’d like to think I have in some ways, yes,” I said a little defensively. “Well, here, all the therapy classes run one or two times a week, for two hours each, with homework in between sessions, and lasting at least ninety days each. It is hard, if not impossible, to change fundamental habits of behaving with any less time, energy, and attention.” I was now feeling pretty humble, maybe even a little judged. “Hmm. That is a huge commitment.” “Yes. Unapologetically. Yes,” she said unblinkingly. I changed the subject to move away from uncomfortable feelings. “Tell me about this business of ‘prerequisites’ for the first five courses.” “Ah, right. So, a person must take the first five courses (Shame and Guilt; Self-Righteousness, Recognizing and Disempowering God-substitutes; Fear, Anxiety, and Death; Loneliness and Aloneness) before moving into the rest of the curriculum here. I’m sure you’re wondering why. Because we think it is fundamental to deal with your own shame and guilt, rather than project onto others or avoid responsibility; to deal with your own humanity and fallibility, which also opens you do deal with others with compassion; to recognize the idolatries that tempt you; to deal with the fact that you are going to die; and to make your peace with your own mind and self. If a person can’t become at least a willing beginner in these practices, they will be armored against the rest of the curriculum.” “Wow, so worship, service, Bible study? Where do these fit here?” “In every course.” “And children and youth?” “There are age-appropriate versions of each of the practices.” Then, after a slight pause: “So, are you going to sign up for any courses?” she asked as she held out a pen to me. I began to reach back with a trembling hand. Then, something in worship startled me awake. The service closed. I drove home, made lunch, and took up the Sunday chores. **Categories:** Conversations **Tags:** Church Practices, Faith and Public Life --- ### [Religious Interests and Legislation](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/06/05/religious-interests-and-legislation/) **Published:** June 5, 2018 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** I like to know where the food I eat and the legislation to which I am subject come from. Both are often too hard to trace! This blog is on legislation rather than food. Specifically, on legislation that implicates religion. There is a rather new, concerted, and powerful legislative effort to privilege a particular kind of Christianity in each state. Are you in a state that recently considered an “In God We Trust” bill about posting the national motto in every public school classroom, as was the case in Minnesota, or a bill that opponents argued would make it more difficult for anyone but married, heterosexual, Christian couples to adopt, as is the case in Oklahoma? If so, it is likely that your state has been Project Blitz-ed. You may have heard of ALEC. If you haven’t, you’ll want to know about it. ALEC is the American Legislative Council. ALEC provides model policies, from a conservative point-of-view, for state legislatures. Here is one [model policy](https://www.alec.org/model-policy/state-internet-tax-freedom-act/). If you’re in a state where legislators are doing everything they can to fund options and alternatives to what they consider is bloated public education, you may have experienced the work of ALEC. [Click here](https://www.alec.org/issue/state-budgets/) for their thinking about state budgets. Kansas was heavily influenced by such policies, until it was clear the math did not work. Recently, I read a good, if chilling (from my point of view) article in the New York Times by Katherine Stewart on a religious parallel to ALEC. Read her article [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/opinion/project-blitz-christian-nationalists.html) about Project Blitz. You’ll get more good information on Project Blitz reading [this piece](http://religiondispatches.org/project-blitz-seeks-to-do-for-christian-nationalism-what-alec-does-for-big-business/) from Frederick Clarkson in Religion Dispatches. [Project Blitz](http://cpcfoundation.com/first-freedom-coalition-project-blitz/), through the leadership of [Wallbuilders](https://wallbuilders.com/) and [Pro-Family Legislative Network](http://profamily.com/) founder David Barton, seeks to change the United States into what Barton and his partners believe America is at its best: a Christian nation in which every dominion of life—from religion to law to media to family—is “under the dominion” of the God they believe they agenda represents. Project Blitz has a strategy, as evidenced in this publication of the [Congregational Prayer Caucus Foundation](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwfCh32HsC3UYmV0NUp5cXZjT28/view). There are also many local chapters of the Prayer Caucus Foundation. (I looked up the [one in Oklahoma](http://cpcfoundation.com/states/oklahoma/), and it includes a majority of legislators in both houses. Note, the list is old and outdated, and it includes members of both parties; so, I have no idea what motivated any particular individual to sign on). The sidebar in Clarkson’s article summarizes the three categories of legislation that Project Blitz favors: legislation regarding our country’s religious heritage (e.g., National Motto Display Act); resolutions and proclamations recognizing the importance of religious history and freedom (e.g., a Proclamation for a Christian Heritage Week); religious liberty protection legislation (e.g., Resolution Establishing Public Policy Favoring Adoption by Intact, Hetero-sexual, Marriage-based Families). If you’d like to check which bills in each state fall into Project Blitz’s priority grid, [see the grid here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aNCKlvhokEZZLLG5IhOskk1NjXw_7Y15/view). Okay, confession—and this is no news to anyone who has read more than one of my blogs. I come down very differently, in terms of values and beliefs and understanding of the public good, from the minds behind Project Blitz. My point here is not related to my disagreement with them. But I did not know about the legislative agenda of Project Blitz/the Congregational Prayer Caucus Foundation until the NYT article was published. If there is a national (or international) interest behind a particular legislative proposal in my state, I want to know about it. If someone claims a bill is all about religious freedom but is supported by a national organization with an explicit statement about which kind of families should be favored (and, therefore, which should be dis-favored) in adoption legislation, as there was this past legislative session in Oklahoma, we should know. **Categories:** Conversations **Tags:** Faith and Public Life, Progressive Christianity, Social Justice --- ### [More Fred Rogers, Please](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/05/29/more-fred-rogers-please/) **Published:** May 29, 2018 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Fred Rogers, known to generations of children and their parents, as Mister Rogers, was a Presbyterian minister. His show, begun in 1968, embodied much of old mainline Protestantism at its best. Without naming the Name, he walked the walk, in public spaces, and taught more what the way of Jesus by living it than most of us preachers do when we preach. If the old mainline had modern saints, then the Rev. Fred Rogers is among them. Mister Rogers opened himself to forming a relationship with his audience, and everything he did on his show was relationship-building with his audience. Fred actually acted as if each child watching was his neighbor, his friend. A visitor at the seminary recently asked me about a poster in my office for last year’s adult Trialogue in Tulsa (sponsored by Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice; I am a board member). The theme was “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” She immediately reminisced. “When I was a kid, I loved Mister Rogers. I always thought he was speaking directly to me.” The focus on relationship was facilitated by the low-tech nature of the show. The show operated on a shoestring budget in its opening years, and that might have been a blessing. But even as the budget grew, the use of ancient devices such as obvious models of villages and puppets to tell stories never gave way to sophisticated animation or the latest in attention-grabbing tech. The show was as rich in imagination as it was low in its use of eye-popping technologies. Fred was an educator who grounded his teaching in the relationship he sought with his audience. He understood his audience. He never talked down to children. He did not avoid sensitive subjects. From dealing with race relations to death to anger to disabilities, Fred’s stories and characters talked about difficult matters that often silence adults. A teacher once told me a teacher teaches primarily students—content is secondary. Fred sought to friend and neighbor his audience, to form relationships. That relationship gave him permission to teach. Fred taught behaviors and values rather than beliefs. He did not use his show to teach propositional Christianity: the inspiration of the Bible, the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus. Every character and story and segment was not an object lesson for a particular Christian truth. Rather, he called his viewers “neighbor” and taught them to see differences as interesting and positive, to accept and learn how to deal with anger, disappointment, grief, to be curious about the world, and how to express joy. Like the old mainline, Fred embraced the arts and sciences as central to human life. Fred introduced his audience to all kinds of musicians (such as Yo-Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis) and himself wrote nearly 300 songs for the show. In addition, he invited his audience to dance and paint. Modern science was featured often. Through and with his artist and scientist guests, he demonstrated curiosity and love of experimentation and observation. In the old mainline point of view: all knowledge and practices that build up human beings is godly. Fred exuded kindness, unfailing kindness. Kindness is easy to parody, especially in today’s toxic Christian and national cultures that are marinated in fear of the other. But being unfailing kind is so difficult to imitate. A person who is unfailing kind is exceeding rare. Finally, Mister Rogers aired on *public*television and his show promoted a broad and deep sense of “public”—a public full of difference, tensions, and opportunities to neighbor someone who may not look like me but who is like me in desiring to be loved, cared for, respected, and to belong—as well as how to neighbor and befriend. In this public, neighbors of any particular faith would share public spaces with those who differ from themselves, would seek to engage in public and influence the public but not control the public. In order to be good neighbors, we have to recognize differences, practice emotional and social intelligence, show respect, know ourselves, be curious about our world, do something to make the world better or more beautiful through arts and sciences, and accept every opportunity we can to neighbor. More Fred Rogers, please. Christianity will be on the right track in this country when it forms more like Fred Rogers. And perhaps more of that kind of Christianity would do a better job, by how we live, in showing the public what it means to be neighbors. And, perhaps to see and help other see when a king (no, not King Friday) has no clothes. --- PBS has assembled an excellent resource base in this year of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show. . Among the video links: If you’ve never watched Fred Roger’s testimony before congress in 1969, watch it. PBS aired a one-hour special called “It’s You I Like” . A documentary on Mister Rogers is being released this summer: . If you’re prone to tears as I am, have a goodly number of tissues handy when you watch the trailer. And Tom Hanks is playing Fred Rogers in a movie telling the story of the encounter between a skeptical journalist and Fred that changed the journalist’s life because, in Fred, the reporter discovered a person who is how he appears: . **Categories:** Conversations **Tags:** Christianity and Social Equality, Faith and Public Life --- ### [Interpreting the Bible Against the Gospel](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/06/18/interpreting-the-bible-against-the-gospel/) **Published:** June 18, 2018 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** An Egyptian official from 4,000 years ago: Joseph’s people were such ingrates. My country took in caravans of Semites who were starving. We fed them. We gave them room to grow. The problem is we were too good to them. They multiplied like rats. Their numbers threatened to overwhelm the Egyptian population. After so many generations of living off of Egyptians, really to the point of exploitation, it was time to right the scales of justice. So, we culled their population by thinning out their male children. We put them to work—no more welfare for Semites! Well, they did not like the new terms of their arrangement in Egypt. They ignored decree after decree. About that time, a series of most unfortunate events hit our land. In the ensuing chaos, the Semites mounted an escape, but not before killing our firstborn on their way out! My people pursued them into the wilderness, but without success in bringing them back. Good riddance. Semites were lawbreakers who did not deserve to be here, anyway. A Sadducee and temple official, who held his job by the will of his boss, who held his job because the Romans gave it to him. The end of the week after Jesus disrupted the moneychangers in the temple precincts during the last week of his life: Jesus got what he deserved. The Romans need only the most slender excuse to shut down the temple, erect an image of one of their gods within, or level this city. The inane Zealots wage guerilla warfare against them constantly. The Pharisees stoke popular hated against our overlords. The actions of either group could bring the wrath of Caesar upon us. Me and my ilk are viewed as collaborators with the enemies, as traitors. We are not. We simply see no other option than to cooperate with them. We uphold their laws, and in so doing we preserve the lives of the many. This deluded Jesus of Nazareth threatened our very existence by that stunt in the temple precincts this week. People from all over the empire came here for Passover. They needed proper coinage for the temple tax and unblemished animals for sacrifice. The economy of Jerusalem, not just the temple, hinges on this season every year. Jesus’ destruction of property and disruption of business has seriously jeopardized Jerusalem’s ability to pay Rome what we owe this year. We’ll be lucky if the crucifixion of Jesus appeases the wrath of the governor and his overlords and they don’t decide to exact further retribution. The cost of breaking their laws is too high. We must live by their laws. Any one of a number of white clergy, North or South, in the decades preceding the Civil War: The separation of blacks and whites is the law. It is God’s law, it is natural law, and human laws need to reflect God’s natural laws. These ungodly individuals petitioning for the abolition of slavery are undermining the divine will. Some are going so far as to destroy other men’s property, or take a life, or claim the Constitution of the United States is illegitimate because it enshrines slavery in the law. Well, enshrining slavery is one of the matters that atheistic document got right! Now, if the Constitution declared this nation’s allegiance to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then the U.S. would be where we need to be: founded on the Bible and seeking to fulfill the will of God as we know that will through reading the Bible. God is not mocked by those who seek lifestyles and laws, like legitimizing blacks and whites living as equals, that are contrary to His will. An excerpt from my president’s greeting on the Phillips website: Some Bible interpreters claim they are not interpreting at all but are simply presenting the definitive, unadulterated words of God. Nonsense. We all interpret. In fact, it is our responsibility to interpret. How Christians interpret the Bible matters. It matters a great deal. The recent public statements by officials of the Trump administration using the Bible as a warrant for its policy of separating children from their families at the southern U.S. border, in the name of good order, is morally reprehensible. Those officials are interpreting scripture in a way that subverts the Gospel to promote their cruel version of Empire. That’s my interpretation. **Categories:** Conversations **Tags:** Biblical Interpretation, Christianity and Social Equality, Faith and Public Life, Progressive Christianity --- ### [Interpreting Faith in Public](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/06/26/interpreting-faith-in-public/) **Published:** June 26, 2018 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** A few years ago, I attended a conference of seminary presidents. At a workshop on crisis communications, we were advised to communicate with our publics regularly so that, in a crisis, constituents would recognize the seminary’s official “voice.” That workshop persuaded me to blog weekly, a task I’ve done for three years now. However, my role as president of Phillips Theological Seminary ends at the close of the day on June 30. It is time for me to silence my president’s voice, to reflect back, and to let you know about my plans. In creating a weekly blog, I had two intentions. In addition to becoming recognized as a public voice for the seminary, I intended to create a better known public Christian voice advocating for Phillips’ version of theological education. All schools of graduate theological education would claim to promote intellectually sound, critical inquiry. But schools of graduate theological education occupy different places of alignment and affinity with modern science, liberative social sciences (those that help us define the gaps between “is” and “ought”), fostering mutually critical conversations with theological authorities, and the use of critical tools in relation to texts—including sacred texts. Phillips Theological Seminary has a high affinity with the above-named approaches. Interpretation matters. I have emphasized and endeavored to demonstrate the importance of interpretation. We. All. Interpret. There is no such thing as uninterpreted scripture—OR an uninterpreted context. We bring ourselves, our experiences, our assumptions, and our prejudices to the privilege and responsibility of interpretation. Those who claim they are only repeating what God said are, well, misinterpreting. A major expression of interpretation is the story we tell ourselves or, better, the stories we tell ourselves. Who am I? Who are we? How do we define “we,” “us,” and “them”? Which narratives within the Bible do we emphasize, e.g., the Exodus story that runs from Exodus through the resurrection of Jesus, the human story that begins in a Garden and ends in a Heavenly City, the creation of order from chaos that sometimes requires a reversion to chaos before forming a new order, substitutionary blood sacrifices, the anti-empire, the flirtations with empire? All of these “salvation narratives” can be found in scripture, and each of these narratives changes how one sees the present moment. The importance of the stories we tell ourselves has been acutely manifest in the polarization spike since the 2016 presidential election. In my opinion, the U.S. has yet to tell ourselves a true story: a story that includes the suffering caused to indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans in birthing the nation and then becoming incredibly wealthy. I still glimpse moments of hope, especially when I remember the words of Lincoln or King, that the U.S. might one day realize the promise of “all \[persons\] are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” But, in the present day, I invoke a prominent biblical theme: in a very significant way, the U.S. remains Egypt, not the land of Promise. The U.S. acts more like Rome than according to the love-and-justice ethic of the Reign of God. There is a gap between “is” and “ought,” and people of faith should work in that gap. In this blog, I have tried to bring seminary conversations to a larger public than graduate theological education normally reaches. Theology is too important to be left to theologians. How people of faith show up in public life—in schools, in the marketplace, at work, in the streets and the courts, at political rallies and in voting booths—matters a great deal. How Christian laity behave in public is the ultimate outcome measure of all the church’s educational efforts! I do not want to see a Christian America. I do want to see Christians behaving according to the way of Jesus in America. For me, that means—in homes, with neighbors, and in all the public places that people of faith live and move—learning and having the courage to show up on the side of more compassion, more seeking the common good with persons of other faith traditions, more restorative justice, more love, more truth, and more reconciliation (which is a fruit of all these “mores”). From the way I see things, we religious-types can’t contribute to a richer public in the U.S. without much more robust conversations and arguments than the enfeebled, atrophied, perverted state of current discourse in both church and society. People of faith ought to lead in bettering the way we—we Christians, we Christians in the U.S.—talk to and show up with each other. By means of this blog, besides offering a voice of Phillips Seminary, I hope I have contributed at least of little of bettering the way some of us talk and show up. --- On July 1, I begin a yearlong sabbatical. The year after sabbatical, I’m charged to develop a center for religion in public life in Oklahoma. I previously wrote about that work here. I won’t be blogging for several months after I leave office. The seminary needs to clear the president’s blog space for a new voice, a new president. However, when I resume the work of offering interpretations and perspectives on how Christians commit their faith in public, we’ll let you know. Thank you for reading and thinking with me as I think aloud. **Categories:** Conversations **Tags:** Faith and Public Life, Progressive Christianity, Seminary News --- ### [Thoughts About the Interim Presidency](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/08/24/thoughts-about-the-interim-presidency/) **Published:** August 24, 2018 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** Phillips Theological Seminary is in a season of transition. Not so much in the understanding of our identity as a school offering theological education dedicated to learning the way of Jesus in order to cultivate vital congregations, communities, conversations, and the public good. Or in our core commitment to preparing Christian leadership for churches, non-profit faith-based organizations, or in other forms of ministry. Nonetheless, things are changing around here. With the stepping down of the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend from the presidency, with three new faculty members arriving this fall, with a number of personnel changes in key offices, with 50+ new students arriving this fall in degree program classes, and 80+ registrations in the Ministry Training Program, how we look and feel as a community is very different than a year ago. As interim president, it’s my job to lead this school through all this change. I hope to encourage the practice of the best of Phillips’ tradition: hospitality; devotion to our mission; excellence in teaching, learning, and research; exceptional support for students as they develop their skills in academic work while dealing with ministries, secular employment, families, etc. At the same time, I hope we learn some new habits around including persons from diverse races, sexual orientations, and other differences in identity. I hope we discover new ways to incorporate the gifts of all who enter the Phillips community as students, faculty, board members, friends. I hope we renew our concern for churches that are seeking to be faithful to Jesus in the communities they serve in ever new, ever inspiring ways. In other words, we have much work to do this year as we live into the transitions that have come and are coming our way. Because we have assembled a first-rate faculty and staff over the years, because we have so many friends and donors, because we have a student body that is filled with passionate, creative, interesting people, I am confident that we can do this work well. **Categories:** Conversations **Tags:** Seminary News, Theological Education --- ## Pages ### [Home](https://ptstulsa.edu/) **Published:** July 10, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** ### **Phillips Theological Seminary is observing summer hours and will be closed Fridays through the season.** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Graduation_641.jpg)![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/slider-overlay-1-e1584982079645.png)# LEARN DEEPLY LEAD FAITHFULLY LOVE GLOBALLY LOVE GLOBALLY # LEARN DEEPLY ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/wht-logo.png) ## Choosing Phillips Join Conversations That Expose You To New Ideas, Deepen Your Commitment And Give Insights To How We Can Minister In A Changing World. ## [Campus Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/) Our on-campus visit opportunities go beyond the facts and figures available on our website and brochures to describe the experience, highlighting aspects that are uniquely Phillips. We invite you and your family to experience our vibrant community and meet our faculty firsthand. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/15.jpg)![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pts-6-2.jpg)# When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers. --- ### [Billing and Payments](https://ptstulsa.edu/student-payments/) **Published:** January 4, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** Phillips Seminary offers an easy payment system for students to pay for their tuition, logo wear, and more. *This system is not for seminary donations. Those wishing to make a donation to the seminary please click [HERE](https://ptstulsa.edu/giving/).* [Student Payments](https://ptstulsa.jenzabarcloud.com/studsect.cfm) For tuition charges and student academic fees. For a step-by-step guide on how to use the student billing portion of your student portal, please [click here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Student-Portal-Instructions-Billing-.-Payments-and-Refunds.pdf). [Miscellaneous Payments](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/zhc9o7yh2r/index.html) For logo wear purchases, transcript requests, meal payments, and replacement badge etc. # Billing and Payments [Student Payments](https://ptstulsa.jenzabarcloud.com/studsect.cfm) [Student Billing Guide](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Student-Billing-Guide-26_27V.pdf) [Miscellaneous Payments](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/zhc9o7yh2r/index.html) ### How much are tuition and fees ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/TuitionFees-300x122.webp) **Tuition, per credit hour**Master$480.00DMin$480.00Graduate Certificate$140.00Special Student$140.00**Student Fees**General , Fall/Spring$100.00Student Life, Fall/Spring$25.00General, Summer (Masters)$60.00Student Life, Summer (Masters)$15.00General, Summer (DMin)$100.00Student Life, Summer (DMin)$25.00**Course Fees, per credit hour**Audit$40.00CPE Program$100.00**Course Fees, per course**Immersion, Domestic$550.00Immersion, Int’l Level I$900.00Immersion, Int’l Level II$1,700.00DMin Project/Continuation$150.00**Other Fees**Admissions Application$60.00Background Check$35.00Degree Change$25.00Incomplete$25.00Late Incomplete/Extension$40.00DMin Project Administrative$75.00Master Thesis Administrative$75.00Graduation$100.00 ### How do I view my bill ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/How-do-i-view-my-bill-1-267x300.jpg) Phillips does not mail paper statements. Instead, students can log into their student portal and view billing information. [How do I View My Bill](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/How-Do-I-Make-A-Payment.pdf) ### When do I need to pay my bill ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Bill-Due-Image-300x278.jpg) Payment is due in full by the end of the first day of class. Alternatively, students can elect to participate in the monthly payment plans offered in the fall and spring semesters. These enable students to spread their payments over the course of the semester. ### How do I make payments on my account ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Payment-Image-1-300x201.jpeg) We accept payments on your student account in three ways. **In person in our Business Office** We accept cash and checks as payment in the Business Office. Credit cards are only accepted online in your student portal. Receipts are available upon request **By mail** Checks are accepted as payment by mail. Please include your name and/or student ID with your payment and mail to: Phillips Theological Seminary Business Office 901 N Mingo Rd Tulsa, OK 74116 **Online, using your Sonis student portal ACH-** You can pay online with an Electronic Check (ACH). You may also store your ACH information, so it will be easily available for future transactions. **Credit/Debit Cards-** Credit or debit card payments can be made securely and easily online. Cards accepted include Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. [How Do I Make A Payment](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/How-Do-I-Make-A-Payment.pdf) ### How do I set up a payment plan ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Payment-Plans-300x278.jpg) Phillips partners with Transact for monthly automatic payment plans. These are available in up to six-month installment plans that are auto-drafted from your account, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to make a payment and potentially delaying your enrollment for the next semester. Payment plans are set up through the student portal. These are available for the fall and spring semesters and are designed to allow your account to be paid in full by the end of the current semester, so please be mindful of the due dates for signing up. [How Do I Set A Payment Plan](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/How-Do-I-Set-A-Payment-Plan.pdf) ### What happens to my bill if I withdraw from classes Depending on when you withdraw from a course, you may be eligible for a full or partial refund for that course. Fees are only refunded if the course is withdrawn from within the first two weeks in the fall and spring or first day in the summer. Below is our tuition refund schedule. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Tuition-Refund-Schedule-243x300.jpg) **Weeks (13 Week Courses) Days (Concentrated Courses) Tuition Refund Rate** 1-2 0 100% 3 1 80% 4 2 50% 5+ 3+ 0% ### What happens if I must withdraw due to military service All current semester tuition and fee charges will be cancelled and all payments refunded for student who must withdraw for military service. Different policies may apply to payments received from state and federal aid sources, depending on current regulations. See our Financial Aid Office, [Todd Mantock](todd.mantock@ptstulsa.edu), for more information on the impact on federal aid. Phone: (918) 270-6451 ### Can others pay my bill on my behalf ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Picture1-267x300.jpg) **Authorized users-** PTS students can establish other individuals as Authorized Users to make payments, review payment history, and view student account balances online. This feature is optional and completely controlled by you. Those who choose to give others access will enter the email address of their chosen user and a username and temporary password will be emailed to that person. Authorized Users can be deleted by the student at any time. [How Do I Invite A Payer](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/How-Do-I-Invite-A-Payer.pdf) - THIRD PARTY BILLING: Many third party private sources, such as employers, Veterans and vocational services and many others provide support for students by paying schools directly for tuition and fee costs. The Bursar handles all third party billing for student accounts. If you have an organization that would like to be billed directly for your tuition and fees, please contact the Director of Student Accounts at . - PRIVATE SCHOLARSHIPS: Other organizations may still provide support in your academic endeavors without being directly billed. They can simply send a check with your name in the memo field in the mail to: Phillips Theological Seminary Business Office 901 N Mingo Rd Tulsa, OK 74116 ### How do I give permission for someone else to see my billing information or to talk to PTS about my account ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Ferpa-300x199.png)Federal law limits the information the seminary may provide to spouses, friends, or relatives of our students. Your account is in *your* name. Information regarding your account may only be issued directly to you, the student, unless you authorize us to release your educational records to other individuals. You can give permission to other people to access their account information by filling out the [FERPA waiver form](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/FERPA-Waiver-02.20.2024.pdf). You can choose for what time period and what type of information you want to share. You can also revoke this permission at any time. ### What happens if I pay more than my balance due ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Financial-Aid-237x300.jpg)Before disbursement, all charges and financial aid on your account are considered anticipated. This means they are still subject to change, based on your enrollment. Financial aid is applied to your account during disbursement, which occurs after the fourth week of classes in the fall and spring and after the second day in the summer. Once disbursement occurs, charges are finalized, and financial aid is applied against the charges on your account. Any financial aid or payments that exceed the amount of charges on your account will be refunded to you. ### What is the difference between disbursement and refund periods **Disbursement** is when the Business Office finalizes your student account for the term. This includes applying financial aid (like grants, scholarships, and loans) and posting all charges such as tuition, fees, and other costs. This happens after the second week of classes. **Refunds** happen after the fourth week of classes, once everything on your account has been finalized. If your financial aid is more than what you owe, the extra amount is refunded to you to help with other education-related expenses like books or living costs. **In short:** - Disbursement (after week 2): Charges and financial aid are finalized on your account. - Refund (after week 4): Extra funds, if any, are sent to you. ### eRefunds ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Refund.jpg)Refunds are processed within two weeks of disbursement. If any additional aid is applied to your account after the first disbursement that causes a credit balance, it will be refunded within two weeks of the credit balance being created. The preferred method of processing refunds is direct deposit into your bank account through Transact eRefund. This is set up in your Sonis student portal. If no eRefund account is set up, a paper check will be mailed to the address we have on file for you. [How Do I Set Up Direct Deposit](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/How-Do-I-Set-Up-Direct-Deposit.pdf) ### What if I can’t afford to pay my bill If you are experiencing a financial hardship, we have resources that may help pay off your student account, including an Emergency Scholarship and Financial Need Scholarship. For more information, please contact our Financial Aid Officer, [Todd Mantock](todd.mantock@ptstulsa.edu). Phone: (918) 270-6451 ### When are billing holds applied Billing holds are applied to accounts the business day before registration opens for the next semester. This hold prevents enrolling in future classes and receiving a diploma. Holds will be placed on all accounts that have an unpaid balance and do not have a current semester payment plan. Billing holds are removed from accounts to allow enrolling in courses when the account is paid in full. ### What happens if my account is considered delinquent At the close of each semester, all accounts are evaluated and any accounts that have an outstanding balance from a previous semester with no active payment plan in place are sent to collections. A billing hold will remain on the account until it is paid in full. This hold prevents registering for future classes. If the account is not paid in full within 5 years of the original charge date, the student will not be eligible to register for future courses, for a period of 10 years. ### What is Tuition Insurance ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Grad-Guard-300x58.jpg) How can I safeguard my account against emergency situations? We are partnered with GradGuard to offer tuition insurance to help protect your investment in your seminary education. This insurance protects you against financial loss if you have to withdraw from classes due to a covered illness, injury, mental health condition, or loss of income. Our tuition insurance reimbursement program covers the cost of tuition insurance, up to the $1,500 level of coverage, for all degree seeking students who elect to utilize the tuition insurance service through gradguard. How do I sign up for tuition insurance? If you choose to sign up for tuition insurance, you can sign up straight from your student portal or from [GradGuard.com ](https://gradguard.com/tuition)before the end of the add/drop period. After signing up, degree seeking students can request [r](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/99qgllvbe1/index)[eimbursement](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/99qgllvbe1/index) from the business office. Once we have received your information and confirmed your coverage with GradGuard, we will send your reimbursement via your preferred reimbursement method at the end of the add/drop period, which is typically two weeks after the first day of class. If you have any questions regarding reimbursement for this service, please contact the business office. If you have any questions regarding coverage, please reach out to GradGuard at 866-985-7598 or [gradguard.com](https://gradguard.com/support). ### How do I get my books A program is in place that allows all degree-seeking students taking classes for credit to receive a textbook scholarship based on the estimated cost of the required books associated with their course(s). Beginning in Spring 2026, once your enrollment is finalized, funds will be added to your student account to help cover the cost of your books. You will receive the funds from this scholarship during the credit refund period, which is after the 4th week in the fall and spring semesters and after the second day in summer. To avoid delays in receiving your funds, we strongly advise that you sign up for eRefund through your student portal. For instructions, please click [**here**](https://9hbursbab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001le2KQ3x1zWJD3HbQKW8c9FrhQ_Hv4sit48vM6nQhieOEtJNVBsNRovgcGnI2KK6xV3uVZtxPOiLEDOK_3OdP60bJg3ArZkLj5dnpUQ1AbxY1QlBFq5rD5T1kvdxXqMU1oFNfhvwpXpFIjJFwqdwNdV446fKj7r1kSeCQkTJ72Oyb-l9gnoC3S0O9hImNUOCn9Ceu_Rc2W2Miswe_sqGA2DqJcWd-B9yHny_m2yK_tlKdYnAQ_y1RUA==&c=MwvYzfcpGmOD5PRqL8M-iFS1k5CndbbmRLpTyE4NkVEm49_P7WwDxg==&ch=s1jhc-x-KrVqOtJzuQiQbKaj3UhGbsgb6GxLp8kYjZ-lCj-KY1dN1g==). ### Who can I contact if I have questions about my account If you have any questions about your billing account, please do not hesitate to reach out! ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Ann-Nelson.png) Ann Nelson Director of Student Accounts (918) 270-6468 ### Who do I contact about ……. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Contact-Us-300x105.jpg) Academic AccommodationsStudent ServicesBilling HoldsBusiness OfficeChargesBusiness OfficeConsortium AgreementsFinancial AidDisbursementBusiness OfficeEmergency FundStudent ServicesFERPA WaiverRegistrarLoansFinancial AidPayment PlansBusiness OfficePaymentsBusiness OfficeRefundsBusiness OfficeReimbursementsBusiness OfficeScholarshipsFinancial AidTravel GrantsBusiness OfficeTuition AidFinancial AidTuition InsuranceBusiness OfficeVA CertificationFinancial AidTranscriptsRegistrar ### Personal billing information through email ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/email-300x200.jpg) The easiest and fastest way to get answers to all your questions is to send an email, but please be aware that we can only send information to your student email. We cannot send information to personal emails. ### Student Forms [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Forms-300x225.gif)](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EZ-BC-xa9j9Drf5HnZLTX0sBs1Xtgb61fKOxvCVh7LLYwA?e=mcc6VQ) - [Consortium Agreement](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EZ-BC-xa9j9Drf5HnZLTX0sBs1Xtgb61fKOxvCVh7LLYwA?e=mcc6VQ) - [FERPA Waiver](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/ETP1UuEoS8lLuwhiUtAlKXEBOdym3L6VZVlRRsc4dR758w?e=Yerc3N) - [Financial Responsibility Agreement](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EeZUZbKG4lFDkg5jICy7zBABd9CFpn-5RNiPJ7l_yGCexw?e=AhnQAD) - [Financial Need Scholarship Application](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/koecxbvfle/index) - [Tuition Insurance Reimbursement Form](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/99qgllvbe1/index) - [Emergency Scholarship Application](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/vtfnlkulft/index) (Tuition and Fees) - [Emergency Grant Fund Application](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/0aadp7roye/index) - [Travel Grant Application](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/t5iwa2lg9b/index) ### Financial Awareness Basics [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Financial-Awareness-300x180.webp)](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EZV1sXQtuFpJh2EXanW3f-YB7P8EBVWDGdq_jnOyAdSieQ?e=ViSwMP) - [The 411 on managing your finances](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EZV1sXQtuFpJh2EXanW3f-YB7P8EBVWDGdq_jnOyAdSieQ?e=ViSwMP) - [Glossary of financial terms](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/Edic6hS49rFMgBIXsptz5pwBs2vA5aoUd-FQswp2yH3W2w?e=txp0iQ) - [Understanding your paycheck](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/sites/PhillipsStudentHub/Shared%20Documents/Student%20Resources/Financial%20Literacy%20Basics/fab-understanding-your-paycheck-flyer.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=DrJ4Sx) - [Banking](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/ES3xCCFvw4BDiY4MvQfrNE4BoExcGE1qXKkfJzyzKWJTxw?e=dJ8T48) - [Budgeting](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EQ7v720kNUZKstwNeJj0AaABLxETIObTH1-Q8ndhE47iog?e=bn2P2s) - [Consumer credit and protection](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/Ee4C2vEvpGxCm8VS1_HaqAYB9PoseE0urfz8Sj2eLZDp7w?e=Dfdpy2) - [Consumer credit reports and scores](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EXB5FWrZYGZNjTgSoZ2H-98Bel2wuOKAClyCgF-NQlSECw?e=eiiW1B) - [Exploring career options](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EYtb-VZLE0RPij5cWnhLrrIBseqdmJMVkxgMmQ3CEnl50w?e=XcHobF) - [Insurance](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EfPw9vonr35OknfTtOzJoykBQYc9o2IoT_VP_WYzgCEnAA?e=xP9SqS) - [Managing your records](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EaQePKVKXc1HjmYB1FeyyxsBIGcLm5UfNdHC3V0Gpv2NgA?e=Esp7gP) - [Preventing identity theft](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EYA7llRzG0lBk4zhAeB4cigBruHDPxKZNoapL1rVEqbyqg?e=oC9Y5a) - [Saving](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/ET76Mkjsn-dLpZKAd4A9_e8BQ3C04S5ZD-xtaWnDz9ZfNQ?e=FEXJ2S) - [Student loan repayment estimator](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EfMvnMe3H_FNsLV7uu2ht-QBUvcyIgkE4fnxjJ32j9RFzA?e=bLACSe) - [The basics of student loans](https://ptstulsa.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PhillipsStudentHub/EY-90Lc3txlNqC4B9YEMr1YBF4Y-pZ-zPNLY8qhGmeShZg?e=tTsLJi) ### Glossary of billing terms - **Student Financial Responsibility Agreement:** A form you sign when you start at Phillips that says you understand you are responsible for paying your tuition and fees, even if your financial aid doesn’t cover the full amount. - **Disbursement:** When all your charges (like tuition and fees) and your financial aid are officially applied to your student account. - **Credit Balance:** Extra money left on your account after your tuition and fees have been paid. This can happen if your financial aid or scholarships are more than your charges. - **Anticipated Charges:** The tuition and fees we expect you’ll owe for your classes before your financial aid is applied. - **Anticipated Financial Aid:** The financial aid we expect you’ll receive, but that hasn’t been applied to your account yet. - **Refundable Scholarship:** A scholarship that lets you receive extra money back if it’s more than what you owe. - **Non-Refundable Scholarship:** A scholarship that only pays your school bill. If it’s more than what you owe, the extra either stays on your account for a future semester or is returned to the scholarship organization, depending on their instructions. For questions about tuition payments, contact [Toni Imbler](mailto:Toni.Imbler@ptstulsa.edu). For questions about textbook voucher payments, contact [MaryAnn Morris](mailto:MaryAnn.Morris@ptstulsa.edu). For questions about Logo Wear payments, contact [Joseph Edwards](mailto:joseph.edwards@ptstulsa.edu). For questions about charges to your credit card, contact [Karen McMillan](mailto:Karen.McMillan@ptstulsa.edu). Please direct other student payment questions to the [Office of Student Services](mailto:MaryAnn.Morris@ptstulsa.edu). --- The new student payment form is hosted on a highly secure server with the latest technology to offer secure connections. We are also employing CAPTCHA as an additional security measure. If you have questions about these technologies and the security of the site, contact [Kurt Gwartney](mailto:kurt.gwartney@ptstulsa.edu). When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. --- ### [Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/master-of-divinity-degree-mdiv/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Master of Divinity Degree (MDIV) > The 81 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. ### Program Goals Upon completing the MDiv program, students will be able to: - Situate biblical, historical, and theological documents within historical, religious, and cultural contexts; - Engage and interpret contemporary justice-related texts and movements that seek the transformation of church and society; - Reflect on and speak to their own personal and spiritual formation in the way of Jesus in light of course experiences; - Demonstrate their ability to exercise and reflect on appropriate practices of leadership in ecclesial and/or public context. ### How to Apply Qualified applicants for the Master of Divinity program must have a Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a 2.7 GPA in undergraduate work, and a completed application including the following items: - **Application** form and $60 application fee (fee is waived if application is submitted by November 1) - **Essay,** described on the application - **1 Denominational reference** (see list below to determine who should be utilized): - Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) applicants: regional minister - United Methodist applicants: district superintendent - United Church of Christ: conference minister - Presbyterian Church (USA): chair of the Committee on Preparation for Ministry - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America applicants: bishop - Episcopal Church applicants: bishop - All other applicants: the pastor of your church - **3 references** from the following individuals: - Professor (or business associate for those who have been out of college for awhile) - Professional associate - Lay leader in your church - **Official transcripts** from any undergraduate school where you received a degree and from any graduate school where you have completed work for credit. Official transcripts are ones that have the official institution seal and are mailed directly from the institution, not by the applicant. For full admission, the undergraduate transcript must show the degree and the date received. - **Authorization for criminal background check** - **FAFSA** for anyone interested in taking out a student loan - **TOEFL** Applicants for whom English is a second language must submit an official TOEFL score of at least 550 (paper-based) or 213 (computer-based) or 80 (internet-based) ### Why Choose Phillips Seminary? [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. For questions, please contact the office of Admissions at 918.270.6420. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png) --- ### [Apply Now](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Apply Now Ready to apply? Great! The admissions team will be available to help you every step of the way. Our application process is totally online. Please contact [Ulysses D. Allen, Director of Recruitment and Admissions](mailto://ulysses.allen@ptsultsa.edu) at [918.270.6463](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. You can also check out details for the new [Seminary Scholars](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/scholars/) program at Phillips. To apply, please click below: [Application](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index) *Note: International students should initiate the application process at least 6 months prior to the intended date of enrollment, as additional requirements may apply. Please contact [Student Services](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) for assistance.* ***Meeting these minimum requirements admission to any Phillips degree program does not guarantee admission into that program. Reasons for denial of admission are not shared. When an applicant is denied admission, that person must wait at least one calendar year before reapplying for admission.*** ### Application Deadlines DEADLINE to apply for the **Fall Semester**: **Just announced! Summer deadline for Fall 2026 admission:** July 1, 2026. - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: April 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by April 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: May 1 DEADLINE to apply for the **Spring Semester**: - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: November 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by November 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: December 1 DEADLINE to apply for the **Doctor of Ministry January Term**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: September 15 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by September 15 - Final Admissions Deadline: October 15 DEADLINE to apply for the **Doctor of Ministry October Term**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: April 1 - - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by April 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: May 1 Contact [Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy ](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu?subject=DMin%20Program) for more information about the DMin program. [Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: faculty, community, affordability, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by [visiting us](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/) today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png) --- ### [Visit Phillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** ## Virtual Campus Visits – Register now! # Visit Us On Campus The best way to discern whether or not a seminary is the right place for you to continue your studies is to visit the campus. We eagerly await an opportunity to host you. We want you to experience our passionate teachers, ecumenical dialogue, and genuine hospitality for yourself! #### **UPCOMING Virtual Open Houses** Master’s Virtual Open House October 6, 2026, 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm Central [Register here](https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/meeting/register/PF9KsMuDSZGd6ZkBv6sNEA) Master’s Virtual Open House November 3, 2026, 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm Central [Register here](https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/meeting/register/KXDAUQqxRHu47DEjrjvJCQ) Doctor of Ministry Virtual Open House December 1, 2026, 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm Central [Register here](https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/meeting/register/WYbkaQhDQu-BfxaGr-dm9A) Seminary Scholars Virtual Open House January 12, 2027, 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm Central [Register here](https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/meeting/register/UvCHDoWXS_ilE33Jb5e8og) For more information about Virtual Open Houses or to set-up an individual meeting about studies at Phillips, contact [Ulysses D. Allen, Director of Recruitment & Admissions, at ](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) [ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu.](mailto://ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) #### [**Click Here to Schedule a Campus Visit**](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) ## Schedule a Campus Visit [ Click Here ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPzts0KvrWWSeGVZcyJWVSu6Dy) **Complete the form below to request a campus visit.** A typical visit might include: - Campus tour - Chapel and community meal - Visits with faculty, staff and current students - Attend a class - Join us for a [special event](https://ptstulsa.edu/events/) - Experiencing a class - Lunch with current students, faculty & staff **Complete the form below to request a campus visit.** ## View Our Chapel Services [ Click Here ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPzts0KvrWWSeGVZcyJWVSu6Dy) Your Name \* Phone number \* Email \* What program(s) are you interested in learning about? (check all that apply) \* Master of Divinity Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture Master of Arts in Social Justice Master of Theological Studies Doctor of Ministry Non-degree programs I don’t know ## On-campus Visits – Join us! --- ### [Ask Admissions](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Ask Admissions Are you ready to apply to Phillips Theological Seminary, but still have a few questions? **The Admissions & Student Services Team is ready to help!** For general questions regarding the school, scholarships and financial aid, the curriculum, or the admissions process in general, please contact . He will be happy to set up a phone conversation with you, schedule a campus visit, or answer your questions via email. The team looks forward to hearing from you! ## Contact Us Do you want to learn more? Request information from us, and our team will get back to you ASAP. 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Name\* - Email\* - Phone\* - Preferred Method of Contact:Preferred Method of Contact: EmailText MessagePhone Call - What Would You Like to be Contacted About?\*What Would You Like to be Contacted About? - Inquiry - Campus Visit - Both - Please List Your Inquiry:\* - Please select the semester you are inquiring about:\*SpringFallN/A - Please select the year you wish to attend:\*20232024N/A - What is Your Preferred Campus Visit Date?\*Preferred Campus Visit Date: I would like to be contacted to schedule a campus visit - Untitled\*Tuesday, August 24 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, September 21 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, October 12Tuesday, October 19Tuesday, November 9 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, December 7 (Community Lunch)Friday, August 20 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, October 29 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, November 12 (Student Senate Lunch) - How Did You Hear About Phillips? Submit [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) --- ### [Costs & Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Financial Aid Phillips Theological Seminary provides tuition assistance so that no deserving student is denied the opportunity to obtain a theological education because of the cost. Phillips provides financial assistance through: - seminary tuition assistance - scholarships and fellowships [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) ### Tuition & Fees **2026-2027 Academic Year****Tuition**Degree-seeking students (per credit hour) $ 480.00Tuition for graduate certificate students (per credit hour)$ 140.00**Student Fees**Fall and Spring General Student fee (per semester) $ 100.00Fall and Spring Student Life fee (per semester)$ 25.00Summer Student fee (per semester)$ 75.00**Course Fees**Audit fee (per credit hour)$ 40.00Immersion Course fee, international trip, level II (per semester)$1,700.00Immersion Course fee, international trip, level I (per semester)$ 900.00Immersion Course fee, domestic trip (per semester)$ 550.00Outside CPE Program Transfer fee (per credit hour)$ 100.00DMin Project or Project Proposal Continuation fee$ 150.00**Other Student Fees**Application fee$ 60.00Background check fee$ 35.00Change of enrollment fee$ 25.00Change of degree program$ 25.00Fee for incomplete (per course, filed by deadline)$ 25.00Fee for incomplete (per course, filed after deadline)$ 40.00Extension of incomplete (per course)$ 40.00Master’s theses/DMin project reports administrative fee$ 75.00Graduation fee$ 100.00Videoconference fee (per session$ 25.00 ### Tuition Assistance **SEMINARY TUITION ASSISTANCE** Phillips provides tuition assistance to students who maintain satisfactory academic progress and are enrolled in the Master of Divinity, Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture, Master of Theological Studies, Master of Arts (Social Justice), or Doctor of Ministry program. Tuition assistance is distributed as follows: - DOC/UCC Students: 100% - Underrepresented Groups: 100% - All Other Students: 80% For more information on the designations associated with the categories of tuition aid listed above, contact Senior Director of Recruitment & Admissions, [Ulysses D. Allen](mailto://ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu). **ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL AID PROGRAMS FROM PHILLIPS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY** **Textbook Scholarships** – Scholarships that cover the cost of textbooks are available to each Phillips student on a per-credit-hour basis. No need to apply! For more information, contact the office of [Admissions and Student Services](mailto:megan.lovins@ptstulsa.edu) at 918.270.6421. **Travel Grants** – Phillips provides up to $1,500 annually, per student, in financial assistance for students traveling 100 miles or more round-trip to the Phillips campus. For more information, contact the office of [Admissions and Student Services](mailto:megan.lovins@ptstulsa.edu) at 918.270.6421. **VETERANS** Educational benefits are available to veterans. For more information, go to: **[Veterans Benefits](http://www.benefits.va.gov/benefits/).** **FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS** As a graduate institution of higher education, Phillips Theological Seminary is authorized by the Department of Education to offer only Federal Direct Unsubsidized Student Loans to degree-seeking students. To be eligible, students must maintain at least 6.0 credit hours of enrollment status and complete the **[Free Application for Federal Student Aid](https://fafsa.ed.gov/)** (FAFSA). The Phillips school code is **017239**. For more information on federal direct unsubsidized student loans, go to: **[Federal Direct Loans.](https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/index.action)** Compare us to other institutions on the **[College Navigator](https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/).** ### Scholarships [**Phillips Seminary Scholars Program**](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/scholars/) Launched in Fall 2025, Phillips continues to annually award Phillips Seminary Scholarships to eight incoming, masters-level students. Awards include 100% tuition assistance, plus living stipend. Awards include: - Two (2) awards for Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) students - One (1) award for Baptist students - One (1) award for United Church of Christ students - One (1) award for Methodist Students - Three (3) awards for any student applying to any masters-level program. 2027 Seminary Scholars application coming soon! **Matthew A. Thompson Fellowship for Student Leaders @ 100% Full Tuition** (up to 24 hours) The Matthew A. Thompson Fellowship for Student Leaders requires the completion of an application, including a written essay and two references. One qualified student will receive the award, which will cover 100% full tuition, fees, a book stipend, and a living stipend. Applications are submitted in the spring. One fellowship is available per year. Criteria required: - Currently enrolled full-time in a master’s degree - Good academic standing at Phillips, which means maintaining a 2.5 GPA or higher - Essay Components: Reflects upon the student’s \[1\] understanding of leadership and \[2\] quality of leadership offered in the Phillips Theological Seminary community - Reference Components: \[1\] a fellow Phillips student and \[2\] a Phillips faculty member - The Student Services Office will email the Application & Reference forms to students by Mar 15; submission deadline is April 15 **Robert T. and Harriet M. Peake Endowed Scholarship @ 100% Full Tuition** (up to 24 hours) The Robert T. and Harriet M. Peake Endowed Scholarship requires the completion of an application, including a written essay and two references. One qualified DOC student will receive the award, which will cover 100% full tuition, fees, and a book stipend. Applications are submitted in the spring. One scholarship is available per year. Criteria required: - Affiliation with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) - Currently enrolled full-time in a master’s degree program - Good academic standing at Phillips, which means maintaining a 2.5 GPA or higher - Essay Components: Demonstrated qualities of \[1\] leadership, \[2\] devotion to Christ, \[3\] outreach involvement, and \[4\] intellect without ego - Reference Components: \[1\] a leader in the student’s church/ministry setting and \[2\] a Phillips faculty member - The Student Services Office will email the Application & Reference forms to students by Mar 15; submission deadline is April 15. **FCC Tulsa Fellowship I: MDIV, Ministerial Leadership** This Fellowship for a ministerial leader requires the completion of an application, including a written essay and two references. One qualified student will receive the award, which will cover 100% tuition (18 total hours/9 per semester), fees, a book stipend, and a living stipend. Applications aresubmitted in the spring. Criteria required: - A currently enrolled MDIV student - Good academic standing, which means maintaining a 2.5 GPA or higher - Essay Components: Reflects upon \[1\] understanding of leadership and \[2\] description of how the student currently demonstrates ministerial leadership in their current context - Reference Components: \[1\] ministerial mentor or colleague and \[2\] a parishioner **FCC Tulsa Fellowship II: DMIN, Ministerial Leadership** This Fellowship for a ministerial leader requires the completion of an application, including a written essay and two references. One qualified student will receive the award, which will cover 100% tuition (12 total doctoral hours during the academic year), fees, a book stipend and a living stipend. Applications are submitted in the spring. Criteria required: - A currently enrolled DMIN student - Good academic standing, which means maintaining a 3.0 GPA or higher - Essay Components: Reflects upon \[1\] understanding of leadership and \[2\] description of how the student currently demonstrates ministerial leadership in their current context - Reference Components: \[1\] ministerial mentor or colleague and \[2\] a parishioner **FCC Tulsa Fellowship III: DMIN, Academic Excellence** This Fellowship for academic excellence requires the completion of an application, including a written essay and two references. One qualified student will receive the award, which will cover 100% tuition (12 total doctoral hours during the academic year), fees, a book stipend, and a living stipend. Applications are submitted in the spring. Criteria required: - A currently enrolled DMIN student - A minimum cumulative program GPA of 3.5 or higher - Essay Components: Reflects upon \[1\] the student’s own academic performance and \[2\] demonstrations of their intellect - Reference Components: \[1\] a Phillip faculty member \[2\] a fellow Phillips DMIN student **ADDITIONAL OUTSIDE SCHOLARSHIP RESOURCES** [**Outside Scholarships**](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Outside-Scholarship-Resource-List.pdf) – Resource list with links to multiple outside scholarships. For questions regarding financial aid, please contact [Todd Mantock](mailto:todd.mantock@ptstulsa.edu). When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by [visiting us](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/) today. Financial Aid Handbook 2022-2023 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/FINANCIAL-AID-HANDBOOK-2022-2023.pdf) --- ### [Programs of Study](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 81 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/master-of-divinity-degree-mdiv/) ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 81 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-ministry-culture/) ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This 39 credit hour program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/master-of-theological/) ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the 30 credit hour [DMin hybrid program](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) (online and on-campus) will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Phillips Theological Seminary partners with accreditated CPE Centers to offer Clinical Pastoral Education to degree-seeking students for academic credit. For more information about taking through your degree program contact [Ulysses Allen, Director of Recruitment](mailto://ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu). [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/cpeprogram/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificate Program Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png) --- ### [Audit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) **Published:** October 2, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. Contact the Ulysses D. Allen, Director of Recruitment and Admissions, for registration assistance, email or call 918.270.6420 --- ### Audit Courses Fall 2024 Some courses may have prerequisites. **AH 880.143 Colonialism and Complexities of Indigenous Identities**, Lisa Dellinger, Concentrated Weekends (Oct 3-5, Dec 5-7) **CE 5403 Educating Through the Different Stages of Life,** Anne Carter Walker, A-Term Concentrated Course (August 5-9) **Registration Deadline July 15** **DS 5003 History and Polity of the Disciples of Christ**, Lisa Barnett, A-Term Concentrated Course (August 5-9) **Registration Deadline July 15** **DMIN 808 The Biblical Message and the Praxis of God: Reading the New Testament in the Context of Empire**, Warren Carter, Concentrated Course (Oct. 7-11); Prerequisite: NT 500; this course runs concurrently with NT 600.11 **HC 6503 History of Religions in the U.S.**, Lisa Barnett, Asynchronous Online **NT 5003 Introduction to the New Testament**, Warren Carter, Synchronous Tuesdays, 8:30 – 11:15 am **NT 600.113 Reading the New Testament in the Context of Empire**, Warren Carter, Concentrated Course (Oct. 7-11); Prerequisite: NT 500; this course runs concurrently with DMIN 808 **NT 8253 New Testament Greek I**, Warren Carter, Synchronous Only Mondays/Thursdays, 8:30 – 9:45 am **PW 5403 The Theology and Practice of Public Worship**, Allie Utley, Asynchronous Online **TH 5003 Introduction to Theology**, Lisa Dellinger, Asynchronous Online, will accept auditors above course cap limit ### HC 502 History of Christianity I ***On-Campus: Tuesdays 2:30 pm – 5:15 pm*** This course is a survey of the development of the Christian church from the second century C.E. through the Middle Ages, examining the institutional history of the church as well as the theological developments in the church. Attention will be given to various theologians, theologies, and movements that shaped the period. The course highlights Christianity’s intellectual and cultural history with an emphasis on the church’s evolving relationship to political and social structures that allowed Christianity to be both a religion of protest and liberation as well as a religion of empire and conquest. **No Prerequisites.** Instructor: Briana Wong, Assistant Professor of the History of World Christianities ### NT 500 Introduction to New Testament ***On-campus: Tuesdays 8:30 am – 11:15 am*** An introduction to the writings of the New Testament, to the worlds from which they emerge, and to a range of interpretive methods or questions that interpreters might ask in making meaning of these texts. No Prerequisites. Instructor: Warren Carter, LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament. ### Online Courses: Aug 22 – Dec 09, 2022 Some courses may have prerequisites. ### HB 500 Introduction to the Hebrew Bible ***Online: asynchronous*** This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Students will learn about the historical backgrounds of these texts as well as the process of their composition and canonization. The biblical materials will be approached from an academic/critical perspective with insights into how they might be used in different contemporary contexts. **No prerequisites**. Instructor: Lisa W. Davison, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible. ### AH 675 Philosophy and Psychology of Religion ***Online: Video-Conferencing*** Tuesdays, 2:30pm – 5:15 pm This course introduces ministry students to foundational issues surrounding philosophical and psychological understandings of religious experience. More specifically, it equips students to examine cultural practices and beliefs through the lenses of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Students are encouraged to reflect theologically on the relation between theory and practice in the philosophy and psychology of religion, with special attention to how race, gender, ability, and subject position shapes philosophical discourse on faith. **No Prerequisites**. Instructor: Peter Capretto, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care in Religion and Culture. ### TH 500 Introduction to Christian Theology ***Online: asynchronous*** An introduction to the vocabulary, tasks, aims, and scope of theology, and various contextual methods and approaches to the discipline. Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to identify, describe, classify, and evaluate influential theological arguments, as well as place those arguments in their historical context. **No Prerequisites**. Instructor: Sarah Morice Brubaker, Associate Professor of Christian Systematic Theology. ### NT 825 New Testament Greek 1 ***Online: Video-Conferencing*** ***Mondays and Thursdays 8:30 am – 9:45 am*** An introduction to New Testament grammar and exegesis. Emphasis is placed on understanding the Greek text and how the Greek language affects the formation of the biblical message. **No Prerequisites.** Instructor: Warren Carter, LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament ### Hybrid Courses: Aug 22 – Dec 09, 2022 Some courses may have prerequisites. ### NT 880.01 Reading Race/Interpreting Scripture ***Intensive: Sept 29-Oct 01 (Thursday – Saturday); Online Asynchronous (6 sessions)*** The ways that people define race and racism play an integral role in their experiences and interpretation of reality and the world. Frequently, one’s view of justice, liberation, theology, and community intersect within the convictions and constructs of racialized understandings. These views of race inform, often unconsciously, how people interpret scripture and understand the presence of the divine in the world. Through careful study of i) ancient geopolitical and ethno-racial difference, ii) scholarly approaches to ethno-racial and minority biblical hermeneutics, and iii) contemporary discourses on race, ethnicity, and racism, this course in New Testament exegesis will help students become more attentive to the ways that race and racism (within a US context) organize understandings of early Christianity and more proficient in drawing on discourses of race/racism to interpret Christian scriptures. **This course will meet on campus September 29 2:30pm-6:30pm, September 30-October 1 8:30am-5:00pm. This course will meet online the weeks of Aug 22-28; Aug 29-Sept 4; Sept 12-18; Oct 31-Nov 6; Nov 14-20; Dec 5-11.** **Prerequisite: NT 500**. Instructor: Arthur Carter, Director of Black Church Studies and Assistant Professor of New Testament ### Intensive Courses – Fall, 2022 Some courses may have prerequisites. ### PL 675 Issues for Women in Christian Ministry ***Intensive: Sept 8-10; Oct 27-29 (Thursday – Saturday)*** This course examines issues often encountered by women performing ministerial functions (e.g., preaching, teaching, counseling, managing conflict) and the gifts of leadership which women commonly bring to the pastoral role. **This course will meet on campus September 8 2:30pm-6:30pm, September 9-10 8:30am-5:00pm, October 27 2:30pm-6:30pm and October 228-29 8:30am-5:00pm.** **No Prerequisites**. Instructor: Kathy McCallie, Associate Professor of Ministerial Leadership and Ethics ### HB 600 Exegesis: 8th Century Prophets ***Intensive: Sept 22-24; Nov 10-12 (Thursday – Saturday)*** This course consists of advanced exegetical study of Hebrew Bible writings and/or themes. Recent topics offered include: 8th Century Prophets, Psalms, and Job. It meets all Masters’ degree requirements for an advanced HB course. Students may repeat this course with different topics. Prerequisite: HB 500. **This course will meet on campus September 22 2:30pm-6:30pm, September 23-24 8:30am-5:00pm, November 10 2:30pm-6:30pm and November 11-12 8:30am-5:00pm.** **Prerequisite: HB 500** Instructor: Lisa Davison, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible ### CE 540 Educating Through the Different Stages of Life ***Intensive: Sept 29 – Oct ; Dec 01-03 (Thursday – Saturday)*** This first level course will explore cognitive, moral, and faith changes that often happens throughout the life span and will engage questions concerning teaching and learning through the human lifespan and multiple styles of learning. Students will examine burgeoning research on brain and cognitive development, qualitative research on how one’s culture aids one in the forming of their reality, and work on how faith is understood at different stages of life in different contexts. Students will have the opportunity to design and practice teaching lessons for specific age groups. **No Prerequisites.** **This course will meet on campus September 29 2:30pm-6:30pm, September 30-October 1 8:30am-5:00pm, December 01 2:30pm-6:30pm and December 02-03 8:30am-5:00pm.** **No Prerequisites.** Instructor: Annie Lockhart-Gilroy, Associate Professor of Christian Education and Practical Theology ### PR 880 Seminar in Preaching: Prophetic Preaching ***Intensive: October 17-21 (Monday-Friday)*** This course will explore the theoretical and practical contours of prophetic proclamation. This course is designed to help students understand their own commitments to the prophetic as they develop the abilities and skills necessary to deliver impactful and engaging sermons. The course addresses three important ideas (1) What is prophetic preaching? (2) What are critical components in prophetic preaching? (3) Who are key figures we can look to as important examples of this practice? The class will include readings, lectures, video presentations, discussions, individual, group and class exercises, as well as performance training and preaching practice. **This course will meet on campus October 17-21 8:30am – 5:00pm.** **No Prerequisites**. Instructor: Chelsea Yarborough, Assistant Professor of African American Preaching, Sacred Rhetoric, and Black Practical Theology [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value Phillips offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. --- ### [Doctor of Ministry](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Doctor of Ministry Degree (DMin) The Doctor of Ministry is designed for full-time pastoral leaders to deepen and advance their professional work in ministry through the building of greater expertise. As a rigorous academic program designed for working professionals, the Doctor of Ministry offers flexibility and accessibility as students achieve their educational goals. - Foundational courses are offered in January, June and October. - Up to 14 credits offered online (depending on specialization). - Cross listing of courses providing access to a wide variety of classes. - Program completion in three-to-six years. Phillips continues to offer financial aid to every person accepted into the DMin program. Phillips will continue to award 80 percent tuition assistance to all students, along with 100 percent tuition assistance to members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) or United Church of Christ along with those from specific underrepresented groups. > At Phillips, we know there are many factors to consider when choosing a DMin program: faculty, community, affordability, and more. [Contact Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) to learn just how close you can be to getting your Doctor of Ministry. You’re also always invited to visit us in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For detailed information on the DMin program at Phillips, you can [download](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/DMIN-Handbook-and-Project-Guidelines-2023-2024-FINAL-09152023.pdf) the program handbook. ### **[Doctor of Ministry Handbook](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/DMIN-Handbook-and-Project-Guidelines-2023-2024-FINAL-09152023.pdf)** ### Leadership in Public Ministry and Social Transformation ## **Leadership in Public Ministry and Social Transformation** The DMin in Leadership in Public Ministry and Social Transformation brings together professionals from diverse ministry contexts who are dedicated to ministry in the public square. This specialization equips leaders to see the relationship between various religious and social movements, participate in liberatory praxes, and create public ministries rooted in social justice. At the end of the experience, the student will complete and present a project that utilizes liberative and/or decolonial methodologies for developing justice-oriented ministry praxis that can be applied in public ministry contexts. **Specialization Courses** Each student will take at least two of the five courses offered as part of this specialization: - Education as An Act of Freedom - History of Social Justice in the US - Theology and Social Justice - Preaching for Social Transformation - Preaching Across Platforms In consultation with the specialization coordinator, the student will also take an elective that gives them a deeper understanding of a particular topic in which they are especially interested. Students enrolled in this specialization may begin specialization phase courses at any point in their program. Contact [Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) to start your application. ### Pastoral Leadership in Worship and Preaching ## **Pastoral Leadership in Worship and Preaching (PLWP)** The Pastoral Leadership in Worship and Preaching specialization is designed to enable pastors to gain greater clarity in preaching as a major function of congregational leadership and to develop their preaching gifts and abilities in service to the proclamation of God’s work in the world. Students enrolled in the PLWP will normally begin Specialization phase courses in January of their second year in the program. In order to complete coursework, they will need to have computers that support programs for viewing sermons (see the [DMin handbook](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/DMIN-Handbook-and-Project-Guidelines-2023-2024-FINAL-09152023.pdf) for details). Graduates of this DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in homiletics including abilities to: - articulate an understanding of preaching as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage - utilize comprehensive analysis of a congregational setting as a tool for understanding the effectiveness of preaching in a given situation - demonstrate advanced skills in biblical exegesis, sermon construction, and oral and visual communication (e.g., spatial considerations, use of digital and electronic media). Phillips is currently accepting students to the DMin specialization in Pastoral Leadership in Worship and Preaching for **Fall 2027**. Contact [Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) to start your application. ### Black Church Traditions and Public Proclamation ## **Black Church Traditions and Public Proclamation** Leadership within Black Christian Traditions has a strong history of encompassing congregational and civil leadership. The DMin in Black Church Traditions and Public Proclamation seeks to continue this tradition. Students in this cohort will study issues directly concerning Black clergy, clergy serving in majority Black faith contexts, as well as those working with or alongside communities concerned with the effects of race, justice, and faith in people of African descent. **COURSES** This specialization requires that students be admitted on a cohort basis. Each cohort will take two weeks of classes in the Fall and a travel course in June or an online course in the Spring. Each cohort will take classes on the following schedule: **Fall – Year 1 (in Tulsa)** Pastoral Leadership and Practical Theology in Context Education as a Practice of Freedom **June – Year 1** Immersion Course to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands **Fall – Year 2 (in Tulsa)** Constructive Theology of Ministry Preaching Justice- A Womanist Approach **June – Year 2** Immersion Course to Ghana **Fall – Year 3 (in Tulsa)** The Biblical Message and the Praxis of God Methods and Methodology **Spring – Year 3** Project Development Course (1 credit online) Phillips is currently accepting students to the DMin specialization in Black Church Studies and Public Proclamation for **Fall 2028**. Contact [Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) to start your application. ### How to Apply - **Application** form and $60 application fee - **2 essays**, described on the application form, and a **professional resume** - **4 references**, one each from the following individuals: - Church or denominational official - Official of your congregation or institution - Seminary professor familiar with your academic work - Professional colleague familiar with your recent work - **Official transcripts** from any undergraduate school and seminary from which you have received degrees. Official transcripts are ones that have the official institution seal and are mailed directly from the institution, not by the applicant. For full admission, the undergraduate transcript must show the degree and date received. - **Authorization for criminal background check** - **FAFSA** for anyone interested in taking out a student loan - Applicants for whom English is a second language must submit an official TOEFL score of at least 600 (paper-based) or 90 on the iBT Eligibility to be considered for admission to the DMin program requires all prospective students to have completed a master’s degree of no fewer than 36 credit hours from an institution of higher education accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. Within or in supplement to that degree, prospective students must also have completed masters-level coursework in the following areas: 1. nine credit hours of bible; 2. six credit hours of history; 3. nine credit hours of theology and ethics. Meeting these minimum requirements for DMin admission consideration does not guarantee admission into the Doctor of Ministry program. Certain DMin specializations may impose additional minimum requirements for admission consideration. In rare circumstances, DMin applicants may be accepted into the program upon the condition that they fulfill any missing required courses prior to matriculation. **DMin students begin their studies each Fall. April 1:** Early Bird application deadline (app fee waived) **May 1:** Final DMin application deadline [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png) --- ### [Master of Theological Studies (MTS)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/master-of-theological/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes or to prepare for advanced (doctoral) studies in theology and related fields. ### Course Overview The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks: Track I: General Theological Studies is designed for persons who seek through an engagement with contemporary biblical, theological, and historical studies to become better educated about important religious and ethical issues in our religiously plural world and/or to serve as more effective lay leaders in church and society. Track II: Pre-doctoral Theological Studies is specifically designed for persons who are preparing for further academic coursework in other institutions of higher education leading to a research doctorate in a specialized discipline of Religious Studies. ### Program Goals Upon completing either track of the MTS program, students will be able to: - Situate biblical, historical, and theological documents within historical, religious, and cultural contexts. - Engage and interpret contemporary justice-related texts and movements that seek the transformation of church and society. - Demonstrate an ability to conduct and evaluate advanced research by: - In Track I, producing an integrative paper in which the students engages in critical reflection on an interpretive issues or set of issues that has emerged in her or his course work with relevant biblical, theological, ethical, historical or cultural materials as articulated in the previous goals; or, - In Track II, producing a master’s thesis in which the student presents a sustained argument on a particular interpretive issue or set of issues with relevant biblical, theological, ethical, historical or cultural materials as articulated in the previous goals. ### How to Apply Qualified applicants for the Master of Theological Studies program must have a Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a 2.7 GPA in undergraduate work, and a completed application including the following items: Application form and $60 application fee (fee waived if application is submitted by November 1) Essay, described on the application form 3 references, one each from the following individuals: - Professor - Professional associate - Lay leader in your church/faith community; or another person who has held a leadership, mentoring, and/or supervisory role in your life Official transcripts from any undergraduate school where you received a degree and from any graduate school where you have completed work for credit. Official transcripts are ones that have the official institution seal and are mailed directly from the institution, not by the applicant. For full admission, the undergraduate transcript must show the degree and date received. Authorization for criminal background check FAFSA for anyone interested in taking out a student loan TOEFL Applicants for whom English is a second language must submit an official TOEFL score of at least 550 (paper-based), 213 (computer-based), or 80 (internet-based) Apply online for Master of Theological Studies [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Student-States-Graphic-121120-e1607717627811.png) --- ### [Master of Arts in Social Justice (MASJ)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) is a 39-hour credit degree program that gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; those who are leading faith-based community organizing; and those who are leading efforts for social change though congregational, community-based or other work in public ministry. ### Program Goals Upon completing the MA (Social Justice) program, students will be able to: - Act as responsible biblical interpreters critically informed by attention to the theme of justice in both testaments and in current historical, literary and theological scholarship in the field of biblical studies. - Attend to the continuing importance of events, texts and practices of church history and contemporary cross culture studies through the lenses of oppression, liberation, and reconciliation. - Articulate perspectives on issues and topics in the area of public theology and ethics, informed by methods such as feminist, liberationist, process, and post-colonial models attentive to the theme of justice. - Demonstrate an ability to conduct and evaluate advanced research by producing an integrative paper in which the student engages in critical reflection on a religious and/or cultural issue, or set of issues, that has emerged in her or his course work with relevant methods and materials as articulated in the previous goals; or a project in the launch course that includes critical reflection on a religious and/or cultural issue, or set of issues, that has emerged in her or his course work with relevant methods and materials as articulated in the previous goals. ### How to Apply Qualified applicants for the Master of Arts (Social Justice) program must have a Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a 2.7 GPA in undergraduate work, and a completed application including the following items: - **Application** form and $60 application fee (fee waived if the application submitted by November 1) - **Essay**, described on the application form - **3 references** from the following individuals: - Professor - Professional associate - Lay leader in your church/faith community; or another person who has held a leadership, mentoring, and/or supervisory role in your life - **Official transcripts** from any undergraduate school where you received a degree and from any graduate school where you have completed work for credit. Official transcripts are ones that have the official institution seal and are mailed directly from the institution, not by the applicant. For full admission, the undergraduate transcript must show the degree and the date received. - **Authorization for criminal background check** - **FAFSA** for anyone interested in taking out a student loan - **TOEFL** Applicants for whom English is a second language must submit an official TOEFL score of at least 550 (paper-based) or 213 (computer-based) or 80 (internet-based) [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png) --- ### [Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-ministry-culture/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Master of Arts in Ministry & Culture Degree (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 81 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree suits persons who are seeking leadership as an ordained deacon, who serve denominations that do not require the MDiv for ordination, or who are pursuing a path toward ministry for laypeople. Like the MDiv, the MAMC requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons answering the call to ministry with a breadth of application. ### Course Overview The MAMC is designed to meet the educational needs of persons interested in ministry in its many forms. Some of those forms might include: - congregational leadership in denominations that do not require in all cases the Master of Divinity degree for ordination, including a Disciples Ministries program for ordination candidates on the Apprentice Track of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); - forms of diaconal ministry, licensed professional ministry, commissioned, bi-vocational, or lay ministry (e.g., in Christian education, youth work, hospice care, and counseling and mediation). Additional specialized coursework beyond that required for the MAMC degree may be necessary to meet all of the educational expectations for authorized forms of ministry within certain communions. Students should include relevant denominational history and polity courses in their programs of study. Denominational formation directors are provided by the seminary for graduate professional students from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church (USA), Unitarian Universalist Church, and Baptist traditions. Additional formation directors may be provided as needed. Members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who are pursuing recognition as commissioned ministers or seeking ordination on the Apprentice Track may satisfy some or all of their educational requirements through a specially configured track of the MAMC degree program outlined below. Interested candidates should consult [Dr. Lisa Davison](mailto://lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu), the Denominational Formation Director for Disciples students, about their vocational aims and seek counsel about their educational options from their Regional Ministry Commissions. ### Program Goals Students in the MAMC program will develop their abilities to: - Act as responsible biblical interpreters critically informed by attention to both testaments at an introductory level and to current historical, literary, and theological scholarship in the field of biblical studies; - Articulate substantive issues in the areas of theology and ethics at an introductory level, informed by both historical understanding and awareness of contemporary cultural contexts; - Demonstrate the skills and practices associated with ministry in conversation with student’s denominational heritage, Christian traditions, and probable ministry setting; - Articulate an understanding of one’s own personal and spiritual formation appropriate to the practice of ministry. ### How to Apply? Qualified applicants for the Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture program must have a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a 2.7 GPA in undergraduate work, and a completed application including the following items: - **Application** form and $60 application fee (fee is waived if application is submitted by November 1) - **Essay,** described on the application form - **1 Denominational reference** form completed by the pastor of your church - **3 references** from the following individuals: - Professor - Professional associate - Lay leader in your church - **Official transcripts** from any undergraduate school where you received a degree and from any graduate school where you have completed work for credit. Official transcripts are ones that have the official institution seal and are mailed directly from the institution, not by the applicant. For full admission, the undergraduate transcript must show the degree and date received. - **Authorization for criminal background check** - **FAFSA** for anyone interested in taking out a student loan - **TOEFL** Applicants for whom English is a second language must submit an official TOEFL score of at least 550 (paper-based) or 213 (computer-based) or 80 (internet-based) [Apply Today](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/grd1vxfjsj/index)[Schedule a Visit](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index)[Request Info](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/aoo7olvzff/index) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png) --- ### [Financial Aid](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/financial-aid/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Financial Aid Phillips Theological Seminary provides tuition assistance so that no deserving student is denied the opportunity to obtain a theological education because of the cost. Phillips provides financial assistance through: - seminary tuition assistance - scholarships and fellowships [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/) ### Aid Programs **SEMINARY TUITION AID SCHOLARSHIPS** Phillips provides tuition aid scholarships to students who maintain satisfactory academic progress and are enrolled in the Master of Divinity, Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture, Master of Theological Studies, Master of Arts (Social Justice), or Doctor of Ministry program. Tuition aid scholarships are distributed as follows: - DOC/UCC Students: 100% - All Other Students: 80% - Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Groups: 100% **ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS FROM PHILLIPS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY** **Emergency Scholarship Fund** – The Emergency Scholarship Fund is available to help pay the remaining balance on a Phillips Seminary student account when an unexpected crisis occurs in the student’s life that has left them unable to fulfill the payment plan set up for tuition and fees. The funds are intended to assist a student in addressing an immediate, unexpected financial hardship which might otherwise prevent them from continued participation as a student at Phillips Seminary. For criteria and to apply, click **[HERE](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/vtfnlkulft/index)[.](" --- ### [Employment](https://ptstulsa.edu/employment/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** # Employment ### Read our Board of Trustees Commitment to Engaged Diversity Board of Trustees Commitment to Engaged Diversity The Board of Trustees of Phillips Theological Seminary believes that the Reign of God as announced by Jesus Christ is open to all people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, age, physical ability, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic class. This theological belief is the basis of the seminary’s non-discrimination statement, and it is also the basis for the seminary’s efforts to embrace and engage diverse persons in service of the mission of God, and specifically in service of the mission entrusted to this seminary. The Board of Trustees is committed to recruiting, educating, and engaging trustees, faculty, staff, and students with the range and depth of gifts, skills, and perspectives to move Phillips to become more of the community God calls the seminary to be. To this end, the Board will actively recruit a pool of candidates that reflects the diversity necessary for the ongoing work of the seminary, as well as to resource new strategic directions the Board may choose. Seminary’s Non-Discrimination Statement Phillips Theological Seminary accords equal rights and privileges to all members of the Seminary community. In the administration of its policies and procedures related to admissions, financial aid, academic programs, and hiring, the Seminary does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. Seminary’s Commitment to Disability Access Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to providing equal access to its programs of graduate professional education for all qualified students with learning, physical, medical, or psychological disabilities. [Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_504_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act)and the [Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act)prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Accordingly, the seminary aims to provide reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with a disability to ensure their access and participation in Seminary programs. For more information on Disability, please see [Academic Resources/Disability](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/academic-resources/) Seminary’s Commitment to Supplier Diversity Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to developing mutually beneficial relationships with small, minority-owned, women-owned, diversity based, disability-owned, disadvantaged, veteran owned and local business enterprises. The [Supplier Diversity Policy](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/culture-commitments/supplier-diversity-policy-2016/) is the seminary’s initiative to create opportunity for suppliers to market their products to the seminary and to encourage Phillips Theological Seminary to offer opportunities to such suppliers. The Tulsa Regional Chamber’s diversity business council, [Mosaic](http://www.mosaictulsa.com/), has honored Phillips repeatedly with its highest rating as an employer with an inclusive workplace culture. # Current Openings There are no current openings at this time. If you wish to submit your materials to our candidate library for future consideration, please email holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu. ## **Presidential Search** Phillips Theological Seminary invites applications from and nominations of visionary and strategic leaders prepared to serve as their next President. As the chief executive officer of the seminary, the President will be responsible for ensuring that the institution has the plans, personnel, culture, material assets, systems, and relationships necessary to fulfill its mission and to achieve the excellence for which Phillips strives. The President will exercise strategic and visionary leadership for the seminary while ensuring its continuing spiritual, academic, fiscal, and operational effectiveness. ##### **How to Apply** Phillips has partnered with [Academic Search](https://www.academicsearch.org/open-searches-public/entry/19348/?search=19348) to conduct this executive search. Click here to find the full position description: Applications should consist of a substantial letter of interest, a curriculum vitae, and a list of five professional references with full contact information. No references will be contacted without the explicit permission of the candidate. Applications, nominations, and expressions of interest can be submitted electronically, and in confidence, to: The position is open until filled but only applications received by Thursday, September 19, 2024, can be assured full consideration. The Seminary is being assisted by Academic Search. Confidential discussions about this opportunity may be arranged by contacting consultants Ann Hasselmo at and Chris Butler at . Further information about Phillips Theological Seminary is available at . ## **Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean** The Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean at Phillips Theological Seminary is the chief academic officer of the institution and as such holds a critical and unique position in the seminary’s governance as it is shared by the Board of Trustees, the administration, and the faculty. This person also interfaces with primary constituents of the seminary, including the churches and denominations served by students and alumni. Primary responsibilities for this position include directing all academic educational programming of the seminary and developing and leading the faculty and academic staff in ensuring the excellence of degree program curricula and student services. This position reports to the President and supervises all academic affairs staff including the Dean of the Library, the Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs, the Dean of the Chapel, the Executive Assistant to the Dean and Faculty, the DMin Director, the Director of Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life, the Registrar, the Director of Instructional Design, and the Financial Aid Officer. The position is open until filled but only applications received by Thursday, January 25, 2024, can be assured full consideration. The seminary is being assisted by Academic Search. Confidential discussions about this opportunity may be arranged by contacting consultants Ann Hasselmo at Ann.Hasselmo@academicsearch.org and Chris Butler at Chris.Butler@academicsearch.org. How to Apply: Applications should consist of a substantial letter of interest, a curriculum vitae, and a list of five professional references with full contact information. No references will be contacted without the explicit permission of the candidate. Applications, nominations, and expressions of interest can be submitted electronically, and in confidence, to: . ## Womanist/Black Feminist Scholar in Practical Theology, Theology, or Ethics Phillips Theological Seminary seeks a Womanist/Black Feminist scholar in Practical Theology, Theology, or Ethics for a tenure-track or tenure position. Rank will be determined based on experience. Applicants are expected to have a PhD or equivalent. ABD candidates may also apply. The successful candidate will teach four courses a year. The salary range is based on rank and is competitive for faculty among our peer institutions (i.e., free-standing ATS member schools that grant master’s and DMin professional degrees in the US), with Assistant Professor starting at $65,464. We offer a full range of benefits, including health insurance for faculty members (with a nominal employee contribution), a 14% contribution to a retirement fund, and generous funding for research, travel, and sabbaticals. Applicants should upload a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information of three recommenders to Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/190607 Review of application materials will commence October 1, 2026. The appointment is expected to begin July 1, 2027. Inquiries about the position and nominations for it can be directed to Dr. Lisa Davison, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, at lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu. [ Click for PDF Job Description ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Faculty-Job-Description_Womanist.pdf) ## Maintenance Manager Phillips Theological Seminary is seeking a Maintenance Manager to oversee the maintenance, repair, and improvement of our campus facilities and grounds. Working alongside the Maintenance Assistant, this position manages day-to-day facilities operations, coordinates contractors and major repair projects, and helps ensure a safe, welcoming, and well-maintained campus environment. For more information or to apply, please submit application materials (Cover Letter and Resume) to PTSHiring@ptstulsa.edu, noting the position title in the subject line. Location Requirement: This role requires on-site presence at our Tulsa, Oklahoma campus. [ Click for PDF Position Announcement ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Maintenance-Manager-Job-Description-1.pdf) ## Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible Phillips Theological Seminary seeks a scholar of the Hebrew Bible for a tenure-track position at the level of Assistant Professor. Applicants are expected to have a PhD or equivalent in Hebrew Bible. ABD will be considered. Ability in and/or experience for teaching courses in Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible, and Biblical Hebrew are requisite. An ability to contribute a strong secondary area of expertise is desired. The successful candidate will teach four courses a year. Salary is based on experience and rank. The salary range for Assistant Professor is from $65,400 to $78,000, which is competitive for faculty among our peer institutions (i.e. free standing ATS member schools that grant Master’s and DMin professional degrees in the US). We offer a full range of benefits, including health insurance for faculty members, a 14% contribution to a retirement fund, generous funding to support research, travel, online teaching, and research sabbaticals. The appointee will teach in the Seminary’s degree programs (MDiv, MTS, MAMC, MASJ, DMin). In addition to supplying required courses, the appointee will teach electives consistent with the Seminary’s mission, the biblical area’s needs, and the appointee’s research interests. The four courses will be taught in a variety of schedules and modalities (in person; thirteen weeks; synchronous; asynchronous; short-format intensives; hybrid). Phillips is a seminary of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Faculty members are expected to work constructively within an ecumenical and progressive ethos informed by the Disciples’ practice of inclusive theological hospitality. Faculty responsibilities include maintaining an active and excellent research and publication agenda; competent and effective teaching; supervising DMin students; mentoring students in Masters’ degree programs; service on faculty committees; and active participation in the Seminary’s community life and in the broader local community (including living in Tulsa, Oklahoma). Applicants should email a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information of three recommenders to ptshiring@ptstulsa.edu. Review of application materials will commence October 15, 2025. The appointment is expected to begin July 1, 2026. Inquiries about the position and nominations for it can be directed to Dr. Lisa Davison, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, at lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu. Phillips Theological Seminary is an Equal Opportunity Employer. [ Click for PDF Position Announcement ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Job-Description_Assistant-Professor-of-Hebrew-Bible.pdf) ## Assistant Professor of the History(ies) of Global Christianity(ies) Phillips Theological Seminary invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position in the History(ies) of Global Christianity(ies) to begin July 1, 2026. Applicants are expected to have a PhD or equivalent in History(ies) of Christianity(ies). ABD will be considered. Ability in and/or experience for utilizing historical methodology that engages the study of Global Christianity from cultural, political, and social contexts as well as theological are requisite. This would include scholarship that engages an interdisciplinary approach around the fields of history, mission studies, ecumenical studies, theology, sociology of religion, anthropology of religion, religious studies, and gender studies. The candidate should be prepared to teach courses in early Church history. The successful candidate will teach four courses a year. Salary is based on experience and rank. The salary range for Assistant Professor is from $65,400 to $78,000, which is competitive for faculty among our peer institutions (i.e. free standing ATS member schools that grant Master’s and DMin professional degrees in the US). We offer a full range of benefits, including health insurance for faculty members, a 14% contribution to a retirement fund, generous funding to support research, travel, online teaching, and research sabbaticals. The appointee will teach in the Seminary’s degree programs (MDiv, MTS, MAMC, MASJ, DMin). In addition to supplying required courses, the appointee will teach electives consistent with the Seminary’s mission, the History of Christianity needs, and the appointee’s research interests. The four courses will be taught in a variety of schedules and modalities (in person; thirteen weeks; synchronous; asynchronous; short-format intensives; hybrid). Phillips is a seminary of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Faculty members are expected to work constructively within an ecumenical and progressive ethos informed by the Disciples’ practice of inclusive theological hospitality. Faculty responsibilities include maintaining an active and excellent research and publication agenda; competent and effective teaching; supervising DMin students; mentoring students in Masters’ degree programs; service on faculty committees; and active participation in the Seminary’s community life and in the broader local community (including living in Tulsa, Oklahoma). Applicants should email a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information of three recommenders to ptshiring@ptstulsa.edu. Review of application materials will commence October 15, 2025. The appointment is expected to begin July 1, 2026. Inquiries about the position and nominations for it can be directed to Dr. Lisa Davison, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, at lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu. Phillips Theological Seminary is an Equal Opportunity Employer. [ Click for PDF Job Description ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Assistant-Professor-Job-Description.pdf) ## Events & Hospitality Associate The Events & Hospitality Associate supports the Events & Hospitality department in delivering a welcoming and well-organized experience for guests, visitors, and the broader Phillips community. This part-time position assists with public programming and the day-to-day operations of Bedford House, contributing to the seminary’s mission of hospitality, community engagement, and relational solidarity. To apply, please submit a cover letter and resume to PTSHiring@ptstulsa.edu with Events & Hospitality Associate in the subject line. [ Click to PDF Job Description ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/JD-Events-Hospitality-Associate-2026.pdf) ## Visiting Assistant Professor (Hebrew Bible) Phillips Theological Seminary seeks a scholar of the Hebrew Bible for a three-year non-tenured track, term appointment, at the level of Visiting Assistant Professor. Areas of specialization are open. Applicants are expected to have a PhD or its equivalent. ABD will also be considered. Ability and/or experience in teaching courses in Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible, and Biblical Hebrew, is desirable. Ability to contribute to other areas of the curriculum will be considered. A letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information of three recommenders should be uploaded to the online application site at: ptshiring@ptstulsa.edu. Review of application materials will commence November 1. The appointment is expected to commence July 1, 2025. Those wishing to nominate others for the position are invited to contact: Dr. Lisa Davison, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, at lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu [ Click for PDF Position Announcement ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/JD-Visiting-Assistant-Professor-_-Hebrew-Bible-.pdf) **History and Culture** Phillips Theological Seminary is a 110-year-old educational institution that offers theological education dedicated to learning the way of Jesus in order to cultivate vital communities, vital conversations, and the public good. The primary method of fulfilling that mission has been offering master’s level education for clergy candidates. A key challenge is expanding the Seminary’s educational offerings to include a wider range of professional and lay education programs. The Seminary offers four master’s degrees, one doctoral degree, as well as a Graduate Certificate. The physical campus is in northeast Tulsa. Students take courses at the Tulsa campus weekly, in weekend and in week-long concentrated courses, and online. Phillips’s 110 students come from 17 states and 17 denominations. Phillips is a progressive Christian graduate school—meaning we employ critical historical scholarship and spiritually-formed imaginations as we seek to understand what it means to follow Jesus’ way in the world today, emphasizing how Christians should contribute to the common good through working for peace and justice with compassion and intelligence. Some people call the seminary “liberal.” The seminary’s non-discrimination statement is broad-ranging and fairly indicates both the seminary’s values and the diversity of persons who work and study at the seminary. Read the seminary’s non-discrimination statement [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/culture-commitments/). --- ### [Faculty Directory](https://ptstulsa.edu/faculty-directory/) **Published:** November 19, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Faculty Directory [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Barnett_Lisa-scaled-e1745269132229.jpg)### Lisa Barnett Associate Professor of American Religious History and Director of Formation for Disciples Students lisa.barnett@ptstulsa.edu](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-barnett-2/) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0251.jpg)### Joe Bessler Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology joe.bessler@ptstulsa.edu ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/DSC_0471.jpg)### Sarah Morice Brubaker Associate Professor of Christian Systematic Theology sarah.morice.brubaker@ptstulsa.edu [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Butler.png)### Lee H. Butler, Jr. Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean and William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions and Africana Pastoral Theology lee.butler@ptstulsa.edu](https://ptstulsa.edu/lee-butler/) [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capretto-Peter-Headshot-2020.jpeg)### Peter Capretto Associate Professor of Psychology, Culture, and Religion peter.capretto@ptstulsa.edu](https://ptstulsa.edu/peter-capretto/) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/DSC_0482.jpg)### Arthur Carter Director of Black Church Studies and African American Faith-Life, Director of Formation for Baptist Students, and Assistant Professor of New Testament arthur.carter@ptstulsa.edu [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0202.jpg)### Warren Carter LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament warren.carter@ptstulsa.edu](https://ptstulsa.edu/warren-carter-2/) [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Davison_Lisa-2-scaled.jpeg)### Lisa Davison Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-davison/) [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AL-G-picture-2.jpg)### Annie Lockhart-Gilroy Associate Professor of Christian Education and Practical Theology and Interim Director of the Doctor of Ministry program annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu](https://ptstulsa.edu/annie-lockhart-gilroy/) [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0261.jpg)### Kathy McCallie Associate Professor of Ministerial Leadership and Ethics and Director of Formation for UCC Students kathy.mccallie@ptstulsa.edu](https://ptstulsa.edu/kathleen-mccallie/) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/doug-powe-trml-2025-scaled.jpg)### F. Douglas Powe Jr. President and Mouzon Biggs, Jr. Professor of Methodist Studies douglas.powe@ptstulsa.edu ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Lisa-Dellinger-scaled.jpg)### Lisa Dellinger Visiting Assistant Professor of Constructive Theologies lisa.dellinger@ptstulsa.edu ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Allie-Utley-scaled.jpg)### Allie Utley Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Practical Theology allie.utley@ptstulsa.edu ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Briana-Wong-scaled.jpg)### Briana Wong Assistant Professor of the History of World Christianities briana.wong@ptstulsa.edu ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_5576-e1659638430188.jpg)### Chelsea Yarborough Assistant Professor of African American Preaching, Sacred Rhetoric, and Black Practical Theology chelsea.yarborough@ptstulsa.edu --- **Emeritae/i Professors:** Ellen Blue, Professor Emerita of the History of Christianity and United Methodist Studies Marilyn (Mady) Fraser Assistant Professor of Spirituality, Chaplain Emerita Harold Hatt Professor of Theology and Philosophy Emeritus Elizabeth Box Price (deceased) Professor of Christian Education Emerita Brandon Scott, Darbeth Distinguished Professor Emeritus of New Testament Richard Ward, Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship Emeritus **Adjunct and Affiliate Faculty:** Anne Carter Walker, Affiliate Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Vocational Formation Jacob George, Affiliate Instructor of Chaplaincy Studies Ray Owens, Affiliate Assistant Professor of Social Ethics and Black Church Studies Trista Soendker Nicholson, Affiliate Instructor of United Methodist Studies --- ### [Peter Capretto](https://ptstulsa.edu/peter-capretto/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Peter Capretto **Content:** # Peter Capretto Associate Professor of Psychology, Culture and Religion ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capretto-Peter-Headshot-2020.jpeg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capretto-Peter-Headshot-2020.jpeg) Dr. Peter Capretto is a pastoral theologian and philosopher of religion, who trained as an interdisciplinary scholar through the Ph.D. in Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt University. His research explores how social experiences such as empathy shape the ethics and politics of care—specifically around trauma, disability, and race. He is the author and editor of three books. His first monograph, Beyond the Empathy Trap: Cultivating Freedom and Solidarity in an Ethic of Care (Fordham University Press, 2026), explains why empathy limits interpersonal ethics and how justice-motivated caregivers can better prioritize their psychological investments within their work. His first edited volume, Trauma and Transcendence: Suffering and the Limits of Theory (Fordham University Press, 2018), brings together leading trauma theorists in psychology, theology, philosophy, psychiatry, and sociology to analyze the growing divisions emerging within trauma theory across the humanities and social sciences. His second edited volume, Spiritual Direction and the Other: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Accompaniment (Routledge, 2026), offers the first interdisciplinary study into how ancient traditions of spiritual accompaniment interface with the increasingly psychotherapeutic modalities of contemporary helping professions. His publications have also appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of Religion and Health, Los Angeles Review of Books, Political Theology, The Heythrop Journal, as well as scholarly anthologies. Trained clinically as a hospice chaplain, pastoral psychotherapist, and crisis counselor, Dr. Capretto uses his teaching and writing to situate theories of care in close proximity to cultured and lived experiences of psychic trauma, loss, and mourning. Prior to joining Phillips, he completed a six-year Fellowship in Theology and Practice, which is designed to train future leaders in practical theology. Dr. Capretto is also a former Graduate Writing Fellow with Vanderbilt University’s Writing Studio, where he worked as a transdisciplinary writing consultant and instructed in writing pedagogy. ### Education and CV PhD – Vanderbilt University, 2019 MA – Vanderbilt University, 2016 CPE – Nashville Clinical Pastoral Education Partnership, 2013 MTS – Vanderbilt Divinity School, 2012 BA – Allegheny College, 2010 **CV:** [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Capretto-Peter-CV-1-July-2026.pdf) --- ### [Pittman Hall](https://ptstulsa.edu/bedfordhouse/pittmanhall/) **Published:** June 8, 2026 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Pittman Hall offers a flexible and welcoming event venue in Tulsa. ![Interior shot of Pittman Hall event venue](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04964-1024x683.jpg) Our space can support conferences, banquets, lectures, receptions, retreats, trade shows, holiday parties, private events, and group events. In addition, Bedford House offers meeting spaces, event support, and on-site amenities. Together, these features make Pittman Hall a thoughtful setting for conversation, celebration, learning, and connection. ## Spaces Available to Book Pittman Hall and Bedford House can support a range of gatherings and group stays connected to your event. Booking OptionBest ForPricing / Availability**Pittman Hall Event Space**Banquets, conferences, lectures, receptions, celebrations, trade shows, holiday parties, and organizational gatherings$500/hour, 4-hour minimum $4,000 flat-rate for 1-3 nights**Breakout Rooms / Meeting Rooms**Workshops, planning sessions, board meetings, retreat breakouts, and small-group discussions$350/day**A/V Equipment**Presentations, lectures, panels, trainings, and hybrid-friendly meetingsIncluded / available by request**Catering Kitchen Access**Events with outside catering, vendor setup, or food service needsIncluded / available by request**On-Site Guest Rooms**Group stays connected to events, retreats, meetings, speakers, or visiting organizationsAvailable by inquiry for qualifying group events ## Planning Details - - Pittman Hall can seat up to **160 guests at round tables** or **220 guests in theater-style seating**. - Pittman Hall rentals include (20) **60-inch round tables**, (12) **6-foot rectangular tables**, black **table linens**, and (240) **chairs**. - In addition, Pittman Hall rentals include **A/V equipment** such as: two large screens, integrated sound system, professional lighting. Remote speaker streaming is available upon request. - Pittman Hall event venue rentals also include a **customizable stage setup** with wheelchair ramp and a **professional lectern**. - Groups booking events, retreats, or meetings may also request **breakout rooms**, **meeting rooms**, and **on-site guest rooms**. - If needed, **Outside catering** and **vendor access** are available by arrangement. If you are not sure which setup is right, submit an inquiry below. Once our team has reviewed your inquiry, we will follow up with availability, pricing, and next steps. ## Tell us about your event! ## Questions about booking our space? [ Drop us a line ](mailto:bedford.house@ptstulsa.edu) --- ### [Center for Ministry and Lay Training](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/center-for-ministry-and-lay-training/) **Published:** September 24, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Certificate in Pastoral Ministry We are a non-credit, non-degree program that offers online continuing education to anyone interested in deepening their ministry knowledge, strengthening their pastoral or congregational leadership roles, or working toward earning a Certificate in Pastoral Ministry! Our program is asynchronous and is accessible from anywhere in the world, which makes it ideal for those balancing ministry with other commitments. Join the conversations that will expose you to new ideas, deepen your commitments, and give insights on how to minister in a changing world. The Center for Ministry and Lay Training’s online program allows you to explore your call to ministry or even earn a Certificate in Pastoral Ministry. [Click here to apply.](https://ptstulsa.jenzabarcloud.com/CE_Intro1.cfm) Phillips is the only Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) seminary offering this Certificate in Pastoral Ministry. Since 1906, Phillips has been educating those who serve the church and is pleased to continue the 120-year legacy of the Bible College of Missouri through the Center for Ministry and Lay Training. As a student, you’ll not only learn from the Center for Ministry and Lay Training’s top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Center for Ministry and Lay Training is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. # Center for Ministry and Lay Training Highlights: - Affordable at **$100** per course - Entirely online and asynchronous - Fits into your schedule - Courses last eight weeks - High-quality Instructors with significant pastoral experience ## Register Today We’ll contact you within 24 hours. [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.jenzabarcloud.com/CE_Intro1.cfm) ### Testimonials This program is the best program ever! ![Bestguy Everson](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/BCTAF-Event-Flyer-Centering-our-Children-May-3rd.jpg) Bestguy Everson *Minister, Biggest Church Ever* The guy above me is RIGHT! ![Allie Rightperson](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Allie-Utley-scaled.jpeg) Allie Rightperson *Minister, 2nd Biggest Church* [](#) [](#) ### Frequently Asked Questions **Can I afford this program?** We’ve lowered the price to $100 per course. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, Phillips now provides tuition aid scholarships that cover most of the course costs. You will need to either purchase or borrow books for your course. **Am I too old?** We have participants of all ages. Nearly 40 percent of our students are over the age of 51. **Do I have time?** Our students are balancing work, school, and personal lives. If you’re unsure, contact our director about auditing a course. **Do I have to complete the certificate program?** No. If you just want to take one course to deepen your understanding of a topic, you can. Our courses are open to all who have a desire to learn. **Do I need a bachelor’s degree?** Ours is a certificate program and does not have a minimum degree requirement. This is part of our commitment to educate the whole church. **Who is teaching CMLT courses?** All of our faculty members are ordained ministers who come from a variety of Christian traditions, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church, USA, and more! They each hold, at minimum, a master’s degree and have several years of pastoral experience. **Can this certificate be used for ordained ministry?** This certificate is useful to many who are pursuing apprentice or multiple paths toward ordained ministry. It is also great for those who are licensed or commissioned. Please check with your judicatory committee on ministry for more information. **Can I transfer courses to the Center for Ministry and Lay Training from another institution?** It depends; please contact Senior Director, Leslie LeSieur if you believe you have coursework that you would like to be considered for transfer. **Can I transfer courses from the Center for Ministry and Lay Training to a different institution?** CMLT courses can not be transferred to accredited programs, but they may be transferred to other similar certificate programs. Please contact your institution for more information. **Is Phillips too liberal?** The seminary identifies as progressive and welcomes students and faculty from many walks of life. We believe respectful conversations in these courses will lead to a deeper understanding of faith that will better prepare our students for ministry in a changing world. ### Course Organization Unless a prerequisite is listed, each course can be taken in any order. Students who take one class at a time may finish the program in about three and a half years. Center for Ministry and Lay Training courses are organized as follows: **1. Biblical Knowledge (three courses)** 1A. Biblical Knowledge: Overview of the Bible 1B. Biblical Knowledge: Intro to the Old Testament (prerequisite: Overview of the Bible) 1C. Biblical Knowledge: Intro to the New Testament (prerequisite: Overview of the Bible) **2. Church Administration and Planning (three courses)** 2A. Church Administration & Planning: Admin & Planning 2B. Church Administration & Planning: Pastoral Leadership 2C. Church Administration & Planning: Utilizing Conflict **3. Communication** **4. Cross Cultural and Anti-Racism Experience** Cross Cultural: World Religions (Please note that Anti-Racism training is to be obtained in one’s home region) **5. Ecumenism** **6. Education and Leader Development** **7. Ethics** **8. Evangelism** **9. Mission of the Church in the World** **10. Pastoral Care** **11. Proclamation of the Word (prerequisite: Overview of the Bible and either Introduction to the Old or New Testament)** **12. Spiritual Development** **13. Stewardship** **14. Theology** **15. Understanding of Heritage (two courses)** 15A. Understanding of Heritage A: Church History 15B. Understanding of Heritage B: Disciples History & Polity **16. Worship** ### Course Descriptions **Church Administration and Planning** Pastors often express a desire to learn more about sound church administration. This course covers principles of church administration, including the development and implementation of short- and long-term goals with teams, committees, and boards that will enhance congregational life. The class will include necessary and appropriate administrative tasks (e.g., organizational analysis, working with ledgers and budgets, giving directions to a team, hiring practices, computer skills and electronic communication; and will lead to development of a work plan that demonstrates an understanding of congregational/contextual dynamics. **Christian Ethics** Ethics are the moral principles that govern our behavior. This course is an introduction and exploration of the basic concerns and issues involved in ethical reflection, the Biblical and theological foundations of Christian ethics, and the response of the Christian to perennial and contemporary social and moral issues, with a view to equipping the student for ethical reflection in preaching, teaching, and pastoral leadership. **Church History** This is a history class with one major exception – there is little emphasis on remembering dates except as “markers” in Christian History. By markers I mean paradigm shifts and movements in the transformation of the church from age to age. It is more important to grasp the movements in Christian History and just use dates as general “markers” or benchmarks during which the church was in transition or reformation. The course will include the use of “primary sources,” historical documents from church history. **Communication** The church has availed itself of technology throughout its history for the purpose of communicating its message to the culture. From the written word, to the Roman roads, to the lingua franca of Jesus’ time, to the printing press, the faith has adopted technology for its benefit. Today’s ministry leaders are faced with a quickly growing and changing number of options in the digital age. Students in this course will explore the theological underpinnings of the use of digital media in the sharing of the church’s message. Students will be expected to understand the pitfalls and promises of digital tools and their use in a variety of ministry settings. Students will be challenged to demonstrate effective use of digital media in ministry through a practical project. They will also develop the skills necessary to evaluate emerging digital tools for their effectiveness and how to promote ministries through targeted marketing and communication. At the conclusion of this course, the student should be an effective communicator and be able to facilitate effective communication within and on behalf of the church. **Conflict Utilization** The nature of church conflict will be examined using a variety of diagnostic scales and descriptors. Participants will also explore their personal response to conflict and their most likely strategic action. At the end of the course, students will be able to describe church conflict and set it in a theological context; recognize their preferred styles of managing conflict situations and how that affects their personal responses; identify appropriate intervention or non-intervention; and teach some conflict utilization skills that can be used in the congregation. **Disciples History and Polity** An exploration and analysis of the history, polity and characteristic beliefs of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The course will include the origins, development, growth and current status of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and its related groups around the world; discussions of the characteristic beliefs and practices which make the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) a unique part of the universal church while celebrating the Disciples’ ecumenical pilgrimage; and an awareness of how the polity of the Disciples of Christ works. **Ecumenism** Ecumenism involves making the unity of the whole church visible to the world. We explore ecumenism biblically, theologically, historically in light of the Disciples witness to Christian unity, our polar star. We conclude with a focus on local ecumenism. **Education and Leader Development** This is an introduction to, and exploration of, the foundations and principles of leader development. Students completing this course will have been exposed to basic approaches to Christian Education and leadership development and been given the skills to facilitate those working in a congregation’s Christian Education ministry. This class has been designed to address the Leader Development section of the Disciples of Christ Sixteen Areas of Ministerial Practice: “Know the foundations of Christian education and the principles of leader development. Show competence in teaching children, youth, and adults, including lay leaders and staff.” **Evangelism** Explore the tools and training to articulate a theology of evangelism and to exegete the community and congregational culture in order to design and lead evangelism efforts. Evangelism in the North American context has “lost it’s luster” in many respects. Because faith is considered a “private” matter, many in our churches and parishioners have foresworn to simply let it be … no faith-sharing for them. And yet, this stands in complete contrast to Jesus’ great commission to go and make disciples of all nations (people groups). The Evangelism course is not simply an online study about evangelism. Rather, it is an eight-week training course that will give you the tools to evaluate and articulate your own theology of evangelism and to exegete both your community’s and your congregation’s culture in order to design and lead effective evangelism efforts. **Introduction to the New Testament** This course will enhance the students’ understanding and use of the New Testament in their teaching, preaching and service to God’s world. Students will pay particular attention to the message of the texts while looking at major themes, textual issues, literary forms, social and cultural context, and other issues and concerns. Students will become better acquainted with the historical, cultural, social, and religious context of the writings; the themes of the Biblical drama centered upon Jesus; and the New Testament’s bearing on current issues and ministry. Prerequisite: Overview of the Bible. **Introduction to the Hebrew Bible** This course will be a survey of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), with a focus on understanding the nature of the literature, intent of the authors, the place of the books in the canon, and issues for interpretation in the life of the church. **Overview of the Bible** This course is an introduction to the content of the Bible and the methods of study that scholars use to understand it. Students will learn about the history of the periods in which various biblical books were written, and about how the individual writings came together into a single book. They will attempt to discover what the biblical writers were seeking to accomplish through their writings. This search will present students with understandings of the world and the place of humanity that can help illuminate alternative ways humans have experienced the world and attempted to make sense of it. **Mission of the Church in the World** Jesus called us to follow him into the world. This course will focus on the critical importance of Mission in the life of every congregation and the Church at large. We will engage this theologically and biblically. Students will explore many alternatives and ideas for doing congregational mission, not only in their own communities but globally. By the end of the course students will articulate the relationship of mission to the gospel, create Bible studies on the subject, and outline possibilities in their local settings. **Pastoral Care** Pastors serve people in very vulnerable situation of illness, death, divorce, family conflict, loss of employment and other trials. This course will help students assess pastoral situations, reflect upon them, make referrals, and walk alongside individuals to help them find God in their midst. It will also help students discover their own strengths and limitations in offering pastoral care. **Pastoral Leadership** Effective leadership in the church today appears to be a rare commodity. John Maxwell rightly asserts, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” An effective church leader can assess the state of a church or ministry, discern a Godly vision, and cast that vision in such a way that the congregation will follow. In this course students will identify their leadership styles, examine their strengths and weaknesses, and explore what it takes to effectively lead in the church today. **Proclamation of the Word** There’s more to preaching than just standing up in the pulpit and depending on the Holy Spirit to give you a string of coherent words. There’s more to preaching than the best practices of public speaking. And in today’s world, to reach younger adults, there’s more to preaching than a well-constructed sermon. The medium IS the message today. In this course, you will learn what preaching is all about. You’ll learn at least three different ways to prepare a sermon. And you’ll learn about how to deliver a sermon that does more than just teach. You’ll learn how to construct an inspiring, motivating, life-changing message based on the words from The Book. You’ll do lots of reading. You’ll watch lots of sermons. You’ll help your classmates work through their sermon preparation. And you’ll learn how to create, fashion, and deliver a message that makes a difference in the world. Soo … let’s get started! **Seven Events that Shaped the New Testament Worlds** How did the New Testament come into being? What worlds – complex, diverse, and multi-faceted – did early Jesus-followers live in as they sought to live faithfully? This course will help students understand 7 events or cultural traditions that constituted the worlds in which early Jesus folks lived. These events shaped the writings and formation of the New Testament. Understanding these events will, in turn, enrich our engagement with the New Testament. **Spiritual Development** The intent of this course is to explore the role of pastor as spiritual leader of the congregation; increase understanding of the individual’s own spiritual life; introduce the historical spiritual disciplines, including meditation and journaling; introduce the Christian mystics as examples of spiritual discipline; and experience spiritual companionship (direction) and explore its place in pastoral care. **Stewardship** This course will give attention to a holistic understanding of stewardship, but with a specific focus on the role of money in our personal life, congregational life and culture. Participants will explore various strategies for growing stewards and developing authentic stewardship ministries in the local congregation. While the content of this course may be most meaningful for those in leadership positions in the congregations, it will also be engaging for those who simply want to explore issues of faith and money. **Theology** How do we study and think about the unimaginable complexity we call God? How have our ancestors in the faith considered God and God’s interaction with the world? Students will learn to read and critically evaluate theological texts, and in the process learn to work with different theological approaches, see distinctions and similarities in various traditions, and develop a coherent personal description of the gospel and relate it to Christian life. **UCC History and Polity** Through weekly reading, online research, reflection, writing, and student interaction this course will enable and encourage students to be faithful interpreters of the UCC. This course requires that participants explore their own (or another local) UCC congregation, Association and Conference through personal contact and to engage in teaching and learning from each other. **World Religions** This course is a survey of the major world religions, with a focus on history of development, primary beliefs and practices, and cultural characteristics. Religions surveyed: Native American, African, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha’i. **Worship** Worship is central to the Christian life. This course will focus on the formulation of a theology for worship in the local congregation, an overview of the history and present trends in Christian worship, development of practical skills in planning and implementing weekly and special services of worship, introduction to the rich use of the arts and sacred music in the worship setting, and the development of resources which can be used for worship. ### Course Schedule **25/26 Session 5: March 2-April 26, 2026** **Stewardship** Rev. Dr. Bruce Barkhauer **Disciples History and Polity** Rev. Jeff Gill **Introduction to the New Testament** Rev. Dr. Kris Tenny-Brittian **Worship** Rev. Geoff Mitchell **25/26 Session 6: April 27-June 21, 2026** **Overview of the Bible** Rev. Dr. Alex Ruth **Pastoral Leadership** Rev. Dr. Bill Tenny-Brittian **Pastoral Care** Rev. Charla Gwartney **Church Administration and Planning** Dr. John Bracke **26/27 Session 1: June 22-August 16, 2026** **Disciples History and Polity** Rev. Jeff Gill **Spiritual Development** Rev. Dr. Kris Tenny-Brittian **Evangelism** Rev. Dr. Bill Tenny-Brittian **Communications** Kurt Gwartney, MDiv **UCC History, Polity and Identity** Rev. Margot Pickett **26/27 Session 2: August 17-October 11, 2026** **Mission of the Church in the World** Rev. David Avery **Proclamation of the Word** Rev. Dr. Bill Tenny-Brittian **Theology** Rev. Dr. Andy Mangum **World Religions** TBD **26/27 Session 3: October 12-December 6, 2026** **Disciples History and Polity** Rev. Jeff Gill **Overview of the Bible** Rev. Dr. Alex Ruth **Introduction to the Hebrew Bible** Dr. John Bracke **Education and Leader Development** Rev. Dr. Kris Tenny-Brittian ### How to Register Center for Ministry and Lay Training registration is available at the link below. The [link](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/form21/index.html) will take you to a secure, external registration site. Please send any inquiries to [Leslie LeSieur](mailto:leslie.lesieur@ptstulsa.edu), director of the program. [CLICK TO REGISTER](https://ptstulsa.jenzabarcloud.com/CE_Intro1.cfm) Payment is due at the time of registration. Credit cards are the only current accepted form of payment. What is the tuition cost? Thanks to generous support from our donors and Board of Trustees, Center for Ministry and Lay Training courses are available for **$100 per course** beginning June 26, 2022, a reduction from the standard $350 amount. We are pleased that these tuition aid scholarships will make it possible to open ministry training to more people. Whether you are interested in obtaining the Certificate in Pastoral Ministry or are a lay leader within a congregation looking to gain relevant training and insight into the Bible, theology, church history, or pastoral care, you can be a part of the Center for Ministry and Lay Training. - Books are an additional cost. Students are responsible for ordering their own text books, which are readily available from online booksellers or can be borrowed from a library. # Continuing Education Offerings Looking for a flexible way to keep learning? Our Continuing Education offerings provide affordable, self-paced learning experiences that fit your schedule. These courses feature engaging video content and reflection questions that can be explored individually or shared with your congregation, small group, or friends to encourage meaningful conversation. Current offerings include **Stewardship and Financial Leadership for Ministry Leaders** and **Women Who Changed Christian History**, with additional courses coming soon. Whether you’re looking to deepen your understanding of a topic or spark discussion in your community, these offerings provide a flexible way to keep learning. Registration takes just a few minutes, so you can get started today! ## Continuing Education Registration Registration only takes a few minutes. Get started today! [ Click Here ](https://phillips.myabsorb.com/#/public-dashboard) [Register Today](https://ptstulsa.jenzabarcloud.com/CE_Intro1.cfm)[Staff Directory](https://ptstulsa.edu/staff-directory/)[CMLT Student SSO Login](http://sso.ptstulsa.edu) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. For questions, please contact Leslie LeSieur at 918.270.6471. --- ### [Center for Religion in Public Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) **Published:** August 7, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Center for Religion in Public Life The Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson is the new director of the Center for Religion in Public Life. Over the coming months you will see blog posts, podcast episodes, resources and additional ways to engage the intersection between religion and the public square. Phillips looks forward to her leading our conversations we explore the way faith impacts and transforms our public lives. The best way to reach Trista is by [emailing](mailto:trista.nicholson@ptstulsa.edu) her. # Resources ### Noteworthy Articles [Thought-provoking articles framing religion in modern public life.](https://ptstulsa.edu/noteworthy-articles/) ### Reliable Research [Sources of some of the best data available on religion in the United States.](https://ptstulsa.edu/reliable-research/) ### Inspiring Speeches [Curated speeches from various periods in American history which use religious imagery and/or values to frame meaning in national life.](https://ptstulsa.edu/inspiring-speeches/) ### Faith and Public Issues in Oklahoma [A list of organizations that work on causes aligning with the values of the RPLI.](https://ptstulsa.edu/faith-and-public-issues-in-oklahoma/) ### The Christian Right Watch [Coverage on the movement known as the Christian Right.](https://ptstulsa.edu/the-christian-right-watch/) ### InterReligious Understanding [A program with the goal of educating and enlightening people for life and work in an increasingly diverse community.](https://ptstulsa.edu/interreligious-understanding/) [News Digest](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/news-digest/feed/) [Committing Faith in Public Podcast](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/podcast/feed/) [Blog](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/blog-posts/feed/) # RSS Feeds [News Digest](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/news-digest/feed/)[Faithful Disruption: Religion in Public Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/podcast/feed/)[Blog](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/blog-posts/feed/) --- ### [Day of Giving](https://ptstulsa.edu/giving/dayofgiving/) **Published:** June 12, 2025 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pts_dayofgiving_logo-002.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pts_dayofgiving_logo-002.png) ## 2026 Day of Giving Join us for Phillips Day of Giving on June 9–10 as we celebrate the many ways that Together We Are Phillips over 30 hours of giving and gratitude. In honor of this special celebration, we invite you to make a gift of $30 and help us reach our goal ($6,000) in 30 hours. Every gift—no matter the size—strengthens the transformational theological education, spiritual formation, and faithful leadership that define Phillips. Together We Are Phillips. Together, we make a lasting impact. [ Join us LIVE June 9 at 9:00 am Central Time ](https://www.facebook.com/PhillipsSeminary) # **2026 Day of Giving** ### Join us for Phillips Day of Giving on June 9–10 as we celebrate the many ways that Together We Are Phillips over 30 hours of giving and gratitude. ### In honor of this special celebration, we invite you to make a gift of $30 and help us reach our goal ($6,000) in 30 hours. Every gift—no matter the size—strengthens the transformational theological education, spiritual formation, and faithful leadership that define Phillips. ### Together We Are Phillips. Together, we make a lasting impact. ### Please use the form below to be a part of the 2026 Phillips Day of Giving. We’re inviting you, whatever your gift, to show your appreciation and support for Phillips Theological Seminary. ### We are LIVE at 9 a.m. Central on [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/PhillipsSeminary). > [**CLICK to WATCH LIVE**](https://www.facebook.com/PhillipsSeminary) --- For more than a century, Phillips Theological Seminary has prepared faithful leaders to serve congregations and communities with wisdom, compassion, and courage. On June 9–10, we invite you to join us for Phillips Day of Giving as we celebrate that Together We Are Phillips. Over 30 hours, alums, students, faculty, staff, trustees, donors, and friends will come together to demonstrate the collective strength of the Phillips community. Every gift is a meaningful expression of partnership in the seminary’s mission to provide transformative theological education and equip leaders for the church and the world. In honor of this year’s celebration, we invite you to make a gift of $30 as part of our 30-hour Day of Giving. Whether you choose to give $30, $300, or any amount that is meaningful to you, your generosity helps move Phillips into the future as we honor the past, celebrate the present, and move into the future. Phillips is more than a seminary—it is a community rooted in faith, committed to justice, and dedicated to preparing leaders who will make a difference in their ministries and communities. Together, through prayer, participation, advocacy, and financial support, we ensure that Phillips continues to thrive for generations to come. Join us on June 9–10 and be part of this special celebration. Together We Are Phillips, and together we are shaping the future of theological education. Together we give back. *TOGETHER we are PHILLIPS*. --- ### [Events](https://ptstulsa.edu/events/) **Published:** August 26, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Events at Phillips Theological Seminary Our annual events are offered each year both online and, in most cases, in person, creating opportunities for meaningful learning and connection. We are deeply grateful to our donors, alumni, students, and friends of Phillips, whose support helps us create engaging programs that foster deeper understanding and strengthen our community. Below is a list of our annual events, and you can preview highlights from last year by watching the corresponding videos on our YouTube channels. # Remind & Renew: January 14-15 # Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship: April 27 # PRIDE @Phillips: October 13 # Unraveling Empire at the Kitchen Table- Native Women’s Wisdom: November 3 ## Ministry Enrichment CEU Program Earn CEUs for attending our engaging events on timely topics. The program allows you to earn continuing education credits and deepen your practice of ministry alongside peers who are also committed to faithful service in a complex world. [ Details and Registration ](https://ptstulsa.edu/events/ministryenrichment/) --- ### [Awards](https://ptstulsa.edu/awards/) **Published:** May 2, 2023 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** **The Frank H. Marshall Award for Ministerial Excellence 2027** [Fillable Marshall Award Nomination Form](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Marshall-Nomination-Form-Updated-4.1.26.pdf) **The Rev. Daniel B. Merrick, Jr. Award 2027** [Fillable Merrick Nomination Form ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Merrick-Nomination-Form-Updated-4.1.26-1.pdf) --- ### [Legacy Partners](https://ptstulsa.edu/legacy-partners/) **Published:** February 25, 2026 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Legacy Partners Your legacy can shape the leaders who will shape the world. ## **A Legacy That Shapes Tomorrow** Legacy Partners is Phillips Theological Seminary’s new recognition society honoring those who include the seminary in their estate plans. These planned gifts — of any size — strengthen scholarships, support faculty, and ensure that future leaders are formed with wisdom, compassion, and courage. Planned gifts steady the long arc of Phillips’ work. They nourish the programs that shape thoughtful ministers and justice‑seekers. They offer the kind of stability every community needs if it hopes to dream beyond the present moment. Each legacy gift becomes part of the story God continues to write through this seminary and through all who love it. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Legacy-Partners-trans-logo.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Legacy-Partners-trans-logo.png) Legacy Partners recognizes and celebrates those who choose to bless the future of theological education in this way. ![](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/P-harlequin-round-background.png) [](#) [](#) ### **Why Legacy Gifts Matter** Planned gifts have a unique and lasting impact: - They extend your values beyond your lifetime, supporting the formation of future leaders. - They provide long‑term strength for Phillips’ mission and academic programs. - They allow you to make a meaningful gift while preserving financial flexibility for yourself and your loved ones. - They inspire others, creating a culture of generosity rooted in gratitude and hope. **Ways to Make a Legacy Gift** There is no single path to leaving a legacy. Planned gifts can be simple, flexible, and tailored to your intentions. No minimum amount is required for membership in Legacy Partners. What matters is the intention — the desire to bless the future of the church and the world through theological education. Click on the options below to learn more about the many ways you can leave a legacy. ### Bequests A gift made through your will or living trust — one of the easiest and most flexible ways to support Phillips. ### Beneficiary Designations By naming Phillips as a beneficiary of a retirement plan, life insurance policy, or donor‑advised fund, you can make a lasting gift with a simple form. ### Charitable Gift Annuities A gift that provides steady income for you or someone you love, while ensuring future support for Phillips. ### Charitable Remainder Trusts and Other Planned Gifts These arrangements can offer tax advantages, income benefits, and long term support for the seminary’s mission. ### **Become a Legacy Partner** If Phillips already has a place in your estate plans, we would be honored to welcome you as a **Founding Member** of Legacy Partners. If you are discerning such a gift, we would be glad to walk alongside you as you consider what best reflects your life, your values, and your hopes for the future. #### **Connect With Us** To share your legacy plans or request more information, please contact: **Office of Advancement** Malisa Pierce by **[email](malisa.pierce@ptstulsa.edu)** or with a phone call at 918-270- 6409. Your inquiry will be held in confidence unless you choose to be recognized publicly. --- ### [Ministry Enrichment Copy](https://ptstulsa.edu/events/ministryenrichment-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2018 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Ministry Enrichment Continuing Education and Learning ## **Ministry is demanding work.** ## **It requires continual renewal.** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/empty_pews_3203684a-300x187.jpeg) Ministers, chaplains, and other leaders are often pulled in many directions while caring for others, yet they also need space to grow, reflect, and be nourished. Phillips Theological Seminary’s Ministry Enrichment Continuing Education Unit (CEU) Program is designed to meet that need by offering structured, affordable opportunities for ongoing learning. This program allows you to earn continuing education credits and deepen your practice of ministry alongside peers who are also committed to faithful service in a complex world. Phillips provides a CEU certificate upon completion. **Registration & Fees:** - $75 per event - $200 for all four events (if enrolled by December 31, 2025) ## Each Ministry Experience combines: ✔ Faculty-selected pre-reading that grounds you in key themes ✔ Attendance at a timely, thought-provoking public event on an important social topic ✔ A guided post-event discussion with seminary faculty to connect insights directly to your ministry context. --- ### [Accreditation & Affiliations](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/accreditation-affiliations/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Accreditation and Affiliations Phillips Theological Seminary is accredited by the Commission on Accrediting of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in the United States and Canada. The ATS is Phillips’ gatekeeper with the U.S. Department of Education. Contact information for the ATS: The Commission on Accrediting of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States & Canada 10 Summit Park Drive Pittsburgh, PA 15275-1103 USA Telephone: 412.788.6505 Fax: 412.788.6510 Website: [www.ats.edu](http://www.ats.edu/) Phillips Theological Seminary is accredited to offer these degree programs: - [Master of Divinity](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/master-of-divinity-degree-mdiv/) (MDiv) - [Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-ministry-culture/) (MAMC) - [Master of Theological Studies](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/master-of-theological/) (MTS) - [Master of Arts (Social Justice)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) (MASJ) - [Doctor of Ministry](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) (DMin) Phillips Theological Seminary is accredited to offer a Comprehensive Distance Education Program. This means you may take: - 58 of the 81 hours of the MDiv program online; - 32 of the 48 hours of the MAMC and MTS programs online; - 25 of the 39 hours of the MASJ program online. ### Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Phillips Theological Seminary is one of the four graduate seminaries affiliated with the [Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)](http://disciples.org/). Within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Phillips has a covenantal relationship regarding funding with the following regions: - [Central Rocky Mountain](http://www.crmrdoc.org/) - [Greater Kansas City](http://kcdisciples.org/) - [Oklahoma](http://www.okdisciples.org/) - [Great River](http://www.grrcc.org/) (the portion comprised of Arkansas) - [Kansas](http://www.kansasdisciples.org/) - [Mid-America](http://www.mid-americadisciples.org/) - [Nebraska](http://www.disciples-ne.org/) ### United Methodist Church Phillips Theological Seminary is approved by the University Senate of The United Methodist Church to educate candidates for ministry in The United Methodist Church. Contact information for the University Senate, United Methodist Church: P.O. Box 871 Nashville, TN 37202-0871 Website: [University Senate of The UMC ](https://www.gbhem.org/education-leaders/university-senate/) ### Association Memberships Phillips Theological Seminary is a member of these civic, scholarly, professional, and church associations: - [American Theological Library Association](http://atla.com/) - [Association of Fundraising Professionals](http://www.afpnet.org/) - [Council for the Advancement and Support of Education](http://www.case.org/) - [Disciples of Christ Historical Society](http://www.discipleshistory.org/) - [The Disciples LGBTQ+ Alliance](http://disciplesallianceq.org/) - [In Trust](http://www.intrust.org/) - [Oklahoma Center for Non-Profits](http://www.oklahomacenterfornonprofits.org/) - [OK Ethics](http://www.okethics.org/) - [Southwest Commission on Religious Studies](http://www.swcrs-online.org/) - [Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce](https://www.tulsachamber.com/) --- ### [Vendors](https://ptstulsa.edu/vendors/) **Published:** January 4, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Vendor Information Portal [Submit a copy of your W-9](https://form.jotform.com/260826719974068)[Enroll in electronic payments](https://form.jotform.com/260827077910056)[Request our tax-exempt documentation](mailto:accountspayable@ptstulsa.edu) The Phillips Theological Seminary Accounts Payable team is responsible for processing vendor payments accurately, securely, and in a timely manner. We are committed to providing professional and responsive service while ensuring compliance with applicable financial and regulatory standards. **Required Documentation** All new vendors must submit a completed IRS Form W-9 before payment can be issued. To protect sensitive information, W-9 forms and banking details must be submitted through our secure, encrypted forms available at the top of this page. **Electronic Payments (EFT) Phillips strongly encourages vendors to enroll in electronic funds transfer (EFT/ACH) for faster and more reliable payment delivery. EFT information may be submitted or updated at any time using our secure, encrypted form available at the top of this page. **Invoice Submission Invoices must be emailed to accountspayable@ptstulsa.edu to ensure timely processing. Please include the name of the individual who placed the order and the building where the goods or services were delivered (Main Building or Bedford House). Including the department is also helpful when available. Incomplete or inaccurate invoices may result in processing delays. If email delivery is unavailable, invoices may also be mailed to: Phillips Theological Seminary Attn: Business Office 901 North Mingo Road Tulsa, OK 74116 **Payment Processing Vendor payments are processed twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. ACH payments may take up to several business days to appear in your account depending on your financial institution. If you are expecting a payment, please check with your bank for any pending transactions before contacting our office. **Payment Inquiries For questions regarding payment status, please contact the Business Office. To assist with timely research, please include the vendor name, invoice number, invoice date, and invoice amount with your inquiry. **Uncashed Checks Checks that remain uncashed for an extended period are subject to unclaimed property laws in the State of Oklahoma. If a check is not cashed within the applicable timeframe, Phillips Theological Seminary may be required to void the check and remit the funds to the State of Oklahoma in accordance with these laws. If you are unable to locate a check or have not deposited it within a reasonable timeframe, please contact the Business Office as soon as possible for assistance. **Tax-Exempt Status Phillips Theological Seminary is a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Applicable tax-exempt documentation is available upon request, using the form located at the top of this page or by contacting the Business Office. Vendors are responsible for the appropriate application of sales tax based on the goods or services provided. Questions regarding tax treatment should be addressed prior to invoicing to avoid delays in payment processing. **Contact Business Office 918-270-6420 accountspayable@ptstulsa.edu --- ### [Virtual Art Gallery](https://ptstulsa.edu/virtual-art-gallery/) **Published:** April 27, 2026 **Author:** Matt Dean **Content:** [Play Speculative Liturgies on itch.io](https://mattdean-pts.itch.io/speculative-liturgies) --- ### [Art Exhibits](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/) **Published:** April 12, 2021 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ART_188-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ART_188-scaled.jpg) # Art Exhibitions at Phillips Theological Seminary In keeping with the purpose and mission, Phillips Theological Seminary presents four visual art exhibitions to the public each year. Visual art offers a unique way for people to build connections with each other and a platform to challenge individual assumptions about the world and ourselves. The annual exhibitions at Phillips offer a comprehensive look at some of the most important issues facing our society today, through the interpretation of professional artists. The exhibitions provide a space for visitors to learn about different cultures, histories, and perspectives, and to reflect on their own sense of belonging and identity. The exhibitions also offer a platform for dialogue and action, and they encourage visitors to consider how they can contribute to a more just and equitable world, in keeping with the teachings of Jesus Christ. - The winter exhibition connects with the topic for the Remind & Renew conference. - The spring exhibition continues the tradition of an exhibit as part of the annual Tulsa Race Massacre Lecture. - The summer exhibition opens for new student orientation and is dedicated to the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. - The fall exhibition celebrates the rich and diverse cultures of the Indigenous peoples of North America. ## Artist Submissions Phillips invites local and regional artists to submit their artworks for a solo visual art exhibition at the seminary. Click the box for more information and a submission form. [ ART SUBMISSIONS ](https://ptstulsa.edu/submissions/) --- ## Now on View # When I Laid My Burden Down with Kaneem Smith and Romeo Clay Robinson On view weekdays through July 10 # **Speculative Liturgies: The Perpetual Bloom of Greenwood** ## Exhibition by Anthony Suber, April 27 –July 10 (weekdays) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/trm26_socialmedia_posts-2-240x300.png) Anthony Suber is a Texas-born multi-disciplinary artist based in South Texas. He holds a BFA from the University of Houston and an MFA from Houston Christian University. Suber’s practice spans exhibitions, public projects, and multi-layered activations presented nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece; Project Row Houses; Tinney Contemporary in Nashville; the University Museum at Texas Southern University; Art is Bond Gallery; and the Houston Museum of African American Culture. His solo exhibitions include Red Bud Arts Center, LRT Gallery, and Cindy Lisica Gallery, and Nicole Longnecker Gallery in Houston, Texas. In addition to his studio work, Suber is a Professor of Art at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts and serves as Creative Director of The Blackman Project, a nonprofit addressing art and mental health. His work has been featured in Arts and Culture Texas,Glasstire, The Houston Chronicle, and Free Press Houston. Suber was the recipient of the Artadia Art Prize in 2022 and the BIPOC Arts Network and Fund Award in 2025. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/DSC05590.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/DSC05590.jpg) ### Past Exhibitions ### Grown from this Threadbare Ground by Sally C. Garner ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Sally_Garner-1-200x300.jpg)Sally C. Garner Sally C. Garner is a fiber sculptor currently exploring the various opposing forces between nature and humanity through site-specific installation, experimental basketry, traditional weaving and papermaking. Sally’s work examines our relationship to our environment and the effects we have on the balances in the natural ecosystem through the symbolic manipulation of the hand within her textile craft. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally; including at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, Marietta, GA; Florence County Museum, Florence, SC; Kyoto Shibori Museum, Kyoto, Japan; Center for Craft, Asheville, NC; Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Schweinfurth Art Center, Auburn, NY; Living Arts Tulsa and 108|Contemporary, Tulsa, OK. Sally is a recipient of the 2025-2026 Artist Creative Fund, a $10k grant provided to 20 artists living and working in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ### Beloved Realms by Carly Treece ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Carly-Treece-Image-235x300.jpg)Carly Treece Carly Treece (she/her) is a Citizen of Mvskoke Nation and of Cherokee ancestry. She is multidisciplinary artist and curator residing on the Mvskoke Nation. With a multimedia approach that centers around oil and cold wax, her work focuses on abstract paintings that capture the emotional and spiritual connection she shares with the land in Indian Territory. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/She-Listens-148x300.jpg)She Listens Beyond the aesthetic aspects of her work, Treece’s artistic practice serves a deeper purpose. Advocating for land and body sovereignty, she weaves these themes into her artwork, promoting the importance of these issues within Indigenous communities. By intertwining her artistic expression with her advocacy, Treece seeks to inspire dialogue and bring attention to the critical matters of land and body sovereignty. ### Across Generations by Jessica Moore Harjo, PhD and Theodore “Ted” Moore **Across Generations by Jessica Moore Harjo, PhD and Theodore “Ted” Moore was on view from November 12, 2024 to December 22, 2024** ## ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Image5_JHarjo-1-scaled.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Image5_JHarjo-1-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1.-Yellow-Horse.-Prints-available-in-11-x-14-inches-size-1-1.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1.-Yellow-Horse.-Prints-available-in-11-x-14-inches-size-1-1.jpg) **Jessica Moore Harjo, PhD Biography** Jessica Moore Harjo, Ph.D., Weomepe, Otoe-Missouria, Osage, Pawnee, Sac & Fox, is an interdisciplinary artist, graphic designer, and entrepreneur. Dr. Harjo received her Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Oklahoma State University, and her Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Design from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Harjo’s art explores relationships between the digital and traditional art worlds, and the interactions between colors, emotion, materials, shape, and space. More recent, her digital art has shifted to include intersections of textiles, wearable art, public art, and architecture. Dr. Harjo’s most prominent artwork is a permanent art installation titled “People of the Great Sky, Constellations of the Land” (2023), a 65’ sculpture that spans the ceiling in the entrance of the Oklahoma State Capitol. Dr. Harjo is a business owner, has taught Graphic Design and Visual Arts courses, and is an advocate for digital art pathways in the fine art world. **Jessica Moore Harjo, PhD Artist Statement** As an interdisciplinary artist and designer, my work explores new relationships between the digital and traditional art worlds. My approach to art and design is unique, post-traditional, and grounded in cultural symbolism. I love to explore new materials and technology, including the laser cutter, and incorporating laser cut pieces into my work. Throughout my portfolio of work, you find applications of traditional ribbonwork, florals, appliqué, elements of nature and other harmonious and symmetric forms mixed with atmospheric color palettes. Over the past few years my digital artwork has shifted to include intersections of textiles, wearable art, sculpture, and architecture. I have found that my passion is navigating the possibilities, challenges, and complexities of meshing these worlds together and advocating for the role of the digital art in the fine arts world. **Theodore “Ted” Moore Biography and Artist Statement** Ted has been involved with his Native traditions and culture throughout his lifetime. As an artist, he paints to remember his ancestors and to leave a mark for understanding our Native culture and traditions, for being equal to all peoples as a Native American, and to emphasize the importance of being included and belonging within our larger diverse society. As an educator, he teaches his students about art and native history in relation to the dominant society. As a professor at Bacone College and Pawnee Nation College, and as a K-12 art teacher, Ted taught his students about how native art depicts throughout history the events that happened to different tribes and peoples, and their interactions with the French, Spanish and African peoples who came on to indigenous lands and stayed. Part of his curriculum include show the different peoples fought each other and how they have worked together to live inharmony as best as they can on current and former Indian lands. Native art reflects this by showing conflict and by showing beauty in nature and life. An example is his painting of the three native dancers in silhouette who represent today’s ethnic mix against a background of red, white and blue, all dancing in harmony together as one people. Diversity occurred upon the arrival of non-Indians, and their influences are felt every day in Indian Country. Ted’s art being submitted today shows the influence of settlement by the French and Spanish on the Great Plains areas of his tribal ancestry. For example, they brought ribbons and bead, metal tools and needles, horses, guns and fabrics. The native peoples incorporated these items into their lifestyles and created beautiful floral and geometric beadwork and ribbon applique that reflect their particular tribal locations, such as woodland or plains styles. These items were sewn onto fabric and instruments currently used in traditional dances. Paints were used to decorate horses, tepees, shields, drums, clothing and themselves. You can see this when you look at Ted’s paintings of horses, ribbons, dancers, and nature. Equity, inclusion and belonging are always a goal for Native Peoples. It is a work in progress that is occurring as Native art is shared among the general public. Ted’s art has been shown at universities, corporations, casinos and other public places, and it provides an educational opportunity for including all peoples in teaching and learning about Native American lifestyles and history. His art paintings of “Eloska” and “First Son” teach about Osage dances. His floral and geometric applique painting depict the use of ribbons often used on clothing or blankets. His art is also sometimes abstract and provides each person the chance to see whatever they wish to see when they view it. An example is his painting called “Yellow Horse” or “Fancy Horse” where you might see underground tunnels, or oil reserves, or water, or just an interesting background. His indigenous background is Otoe-Missouria (enrolled), Osage, Pawnee, Sac Fox and Potawatomi. ### A Clingy Little Thing by Ace Stiles A Clingy Little Thing by Ace Stiles was exhibited at Phillips Theological Seminary from September 16 to November 1, 2024. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Hand-Me-Downs-IV-scaled.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Hand-Me-Downs-IV-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/YarnHouses-scaled.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/YarnHouses-scaled.jpg) **Artist Biography** Ace Stiles was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now 20 years old, Ace has taken his lifelong passion for the arts to the next level. With three years of a college art degree under his belt, Ace is well on his way to a future in the arts. Alongside his visual art, Ace is a heartful singer songwriter with a love of lyricism and song, as well as an emerging actor with a background in theatre. He is a proud trans, gay man. After coming out at 14 he has lived a beautifully queer young life. A loving cat dad and collector of Knick knacks. **Artist Statement** Ace Stiles is an abstract painter and sculpture artist. He takes inspiration from the idea of home and the desire for contentment. Using bright colours and a variety of materials such as yarn and metal , he has created a dual sided exhibition with one wall showing the idyllic hope for the future and one showing the inner turmoil inside of one’s head. The disposition between the vibrant outer shell and the deeper message behind them creates a striking presentation on the reality of life. Ace Stiles continues to create bigger and better work as time goes on. ### Something New, Black Birds (2121) by Halim A. Flowers Something New, Black Birds (2121) by Halim A. Flowers was exhibited at Phillips Theological Seminary from April 29, 2024 to July 11, 2024. Halim A. Flowers is represented by [Nicole Longnecker Gallery](http://longneckergallery.com). ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Picture14-e1711034794993.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Picture14-e1711034794993.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Halim_571-Copy-scaled.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Halim_571-Copy-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Picture15-e1711035087913.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Picture15-e1711035087913.jpg) **About the Exhibition** Upon returning to his studio from his trip to Tulsa this year, and after deep meditation, prayer, and fasting, Flowers was guided by his intuitive spirit to allow a visual language to flow through him that would imagine what the city of Tulsa – in particular its Greenwood area – would look like in the year of 2121, two hundred years after the historic fatal events. “In order to not repeat the past, we must use our collective imagination capital now, in order to alchemize a more loving and genuinely equitable future,” Flowers wrote. “The human family fails collectively, for its lack of vision. Therefore, I have initiated a success for the city holistically, by creating a unique visual language aesthetic, for its people to have the audacity to love and dream together across generic divisive constructs. “Soul planes dropping bombs of love, mass graves resurrecting in joy, and the five civilized vibes are just a few of the visual poetries that will be illustrated in this collection. I believe that love is the vaccine to cure the spiritual hearts from the illness of indifference. It is through this vision and prayer that this body of work can bring the city of Tulsa together in radical love that will transcend all superficial barriers that serve to fracture the strong and resilient people of this industrious city.” “We are honored to work with Phillips Theological Seminary on the Tulsa Race Massacre Lecture Series through art.” said gallery owner Nicole Longnecker. “The choice of Halim Flowers for this important solo exhibit was driven by the clear message in his work to bring communities together and illuminate topics that generate societal connections through love.” **Artist Biography** Halim A. Flowers (b. 1980, Washington, DC) is an activist working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including painting, sound, fashion, and performance. At age 16, he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. At 38, after 22 years behind bars, he was released after successfully petitioning for resentencing. Art was Halim’s road to resilience and redemption. While in prison, Halim became a memoirist and poet with an irrepressible drive to make meaning out of darkness. Liberated through self-expression, he wrote and published 11 non-fiction works about the causes and consequences of the American prison system. He mentored incarcerated youths through D.C.’s Young Men Emerging program and took courses at Georgetown University through its Prisons and Justice Initiative. Halim’s experiences were captured in the Emmy award-winning documentary, Thug Life In DC. It’s powerful evidence of the persistence of human creativity in the most inhumane of circumstances. He refused to be rendered invisible. In the aftermath of his incarceration, Halim became a husband and a father. It was his wife, Lauren McKinney, who encouraged him to pick up a paintbrush. Halim has created a spectrum of colorful, politically charged paintings to reclaim the individuality and agency that gets broken down in carceral spaces. He keeps an aura of kindness and positivity, choosing to send a message of love even when the subject is serious. Halim’s work has been exhibited at the MoMA PS1 and the National Arts Club in New York City. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including Halcyon Arts Lab and Echoing Green fellowships. He is a sought-after speaker and has been featured on panels at universities and conferences around the country. In 2022 he launched his own streetwear clothing brand, debuted at New York Fashion Week and released his first album of rap music called “*Ultracrepidarian.*“ Halim Flowers’ body of work is a visceral, visual embodiment about the ambition of racial justice, prison reform, financial literacy, and transcending adversity suggesting a sense of renewal, positivity and hope. ### Veins of Oklahoma Veins of Oklahoma by Taylor Painter-Wolfe was exhibited at Phillips Theological Seminary from January 24, 2024 to April 5, 2024. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/North-Canadian-scaled.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/North-Canadian-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Arkansas-2-scaled.jpeg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Arkansas-2-scaled.jpeg) **Artist Biography** Taylor Painter-Wolfe is a fiber artist and art teacher from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She majored in fiber art at the Kansas City Art Institute where she first learned how to make and dye felted wool. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003 and later attended The University of Washington where she earned a Master of Education in early childhood special education. In 2011, she returned to Tulsa where she has taught special education, preschool, and art in Tulsa Public Schools. Taylor now divides her time between making and showing her own work and teaching art classes and workshops to children and adults in various galleries, arts organizations, and schools throughout Oklahoma. She creates abstract landscapes made of felted wool using many traditional fiber art techniques. Her work is inspired by aerial photographs, satellite images, and her own photography of natural environments. Some of Taylor’s most notable exhibitions and projects are “Don’t Look Down,” a 2017 solo exhibition at The Kansas City Artist Coalition, “Green Country Air,” a year-long installation at the Tulsa International Airport in 2018, she was chosen as the 2019 Holland Hall ARTworks artist, and as the designer and creator of the 2021 Winter Festival pin for The Philbrook Museum of Art. In 2022 she received a Tulsa Creates Together grant through Living Arts Tulsa and in 2023 she had an installation of her work up in The Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City and a solo show entitled, “Meander,” at Liggett Studios. Her work also appears regularly in group shows locally and regionally. **Artist Statement** My current work is focused in part on simplifying my compositions and experimenting with different dyeing and felting techniques. In making the felt for these pieces, my use of dye has become looser and more spontaneous, which creates interesting and unpredictable textures on the material. My aim is to emulate textures found in natural landscapes like those that can be seen on large swaths of land from a bird’s eye view as well as tiny areas of rich texture found on rocks and trees. Focusing on this element of the work allows for increased open space, making compositions more gestural and less crowded. By doing this, I hope to evoke feelings frequently experienced in open spaces in nature where visual perspective can often give way to spiritual and emotional insight. My latest pieces are inspired by satellite images of various rivers throughout Oklahoma. For me, rivers make for a very compelling compositional device with endless inspiration to be found in the way they wind through and carve up a landscape. With this work I have been experimenting with new techniques to evoke the feeling of moving water and differentiate the texture of the water from the texture of the land. The river is a visual reference taken from reality which then allows me to take more liberties in representing the surrounding landscape in an abstract way. Viewed from above, there are shapes and colors that are not naturally occurring, the land bares the fingerprint of human use whereas the river appears wilder and more untouched. In this work, I am exploring the tension between the natural form and beauty of the river and the stark geometry and patterns imprinted upon the land by humans. ~Taylor Painter-Wolfe ### Indigenous Visions: A Mvskoke Visual Narrative of Resilience ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0920Stomp20Dance20Leader.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0920Stomp20Dance20Leader.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0120Around20the20Fire-scaled.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0120Around20the20Fire-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0320Heleswv20Medicine.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0320Heleswv20Medicine.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0820Untitled.jpg](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/0820Untitled.jpg) *Indigenous Visions: A Mvskoke Visual Narrative of Self* was exhibited at Phillips Theological Seminary from November 6, 2023 to January 5, 2024. **Artist Biography** Artist Johnnie Diacon is Muscogee (Mvskoke), Thlopthlocco Tribal Town (Raprakko Etvlwa), and Deer Clan (Ecovlke) and has nearly 40 years of experience in fine art. He is a graduate of both Bacone College and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and currently lives on the Muscogee Reservation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Johnnie works in many different mediums; acrylic, oil, watercolors, 3D assemblages, and beadwork. He has created sequential art for graphic novels such as Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers Volume 1 and Chilocco Indian School: A Generational Story. His work is in various private and public collections around the globe and can also be seen in numerous publications, book covers, videos, and on the sets of FX’s Reservation Dogs. **Artist Statement** In the majority of my works I focus on my people, the Mvskoke, commonly referred to as Creek. I often depict my people as they are today in the 21st century, practicing our religious ceremonies as they have for thousands of years. Aside from dress, the ceremonies remain practically unchanged since the beginning when the Creator gave them to us. Our culture is a strong one that has endured many outside influences, many of which were quite brutal in their attempts to change or eliminate them. It is from this that I draw inspiration for my work. I try to depict my people in an honest and humble manner. For most non-Native people who have little to no experience with the Native People, and whose knowledge is based on Hollywood stereotypes as to what Indian culture is, I try to break this chain of misinformation. The lifeway of the Mvskoke is much different than, for example, the original people of the desert, plains, prairies, and coastal regions of this land. Our ceremonial dress, dances, and songs are not like the ones seen and heard at modern intertribal powwows, so images of the Mvskoke ceremonial ways do not always fit non-natives’ preconceived notions of what being “Indian” means. In my art I often attempt to break down cultural stereotypes by exploring the traditional stories and life ways of the Mvskoke and presenting them to the world in an artistic manner that translates in a way that is relevant and can be appreciated by both native and non-native alike. I hope this will nurture an understanding between cultures. ~Johnnie Diacon ### Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Man-With-Color-Spectrum-R-1-300x300.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Man-With-Prussian-Blue-and-Yellows-A-1-225x300.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Woman-With-Crimson-and-Yellows-1-197x300.jpg) *Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self* by Trace Logan was exhibited at Phillips Theological Seminary from August 21, 2023 to October 20, 2023. What does it mean to be seen? How do we express our true selves in a world that often expects us to fit into certain molds? How can art help us explore these questions and challenge our assumptions? These are some of the questions that inspire Trace Logan, a Philadelphia-born artist who currently lives in Oklahoma City. Trace works with various mediums, such as acrylic, digital art, photography, and collage, to create stunning abstract portraits that reveal the invisible narratives of self. He is also a proud member of the LGBTQ community and a passionate advocate for social justice. *Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self*, featured portraits of members of Trace’s community, mostly LGBTQ individuals, who have agreed to share their stories and perspectives through art. Trace uses abstraction to create a visual contrast between personal identity and public persona. He combines elements of texture, color, and movement with realistic facial features to create a dynamic and expressive representation of each subject. The result is a captivating and thought-provoking collection of artworks that invite viewers to reflect on their own identities and perceptions. **Artist Biography** Trace Logan was born and raised in Philadelphia but has lived in Oklahoma City for many years. A lifelong artist with an early education in Graphic Design and Commercial Art, Logan works in various mediums, including acrylic, digital art, photography, and collage. He became interested in abstraction ten years ago while taking an art class. Logan has shown artwork at the Equality Center in Tulsa, several Oklahoma City locations, and Alva at the Graceful Arts Center. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in counseling at Oklahoma State University and hopes to incorporate art into the therapy process. **Artist Statement** All art is a form of communication, but abstraction is art stripped down and simplified to its most basic elements. Essentially it is the alphabet of visual art, and just as nothing is communicated in writing without combinations of the 26 letters of the alphabet, nothing is expressed in art without color, line, shape, texture, space, rhythm, harmony, contrast, and balance. Abstraction avoids the contamination of culturally loaded objects. This project combines my interests in sociology and psychology, my personal beliefs and perspective, and art by merging portraits of members of my community with elements of abstraction such as texture, color, and movement. I have, informally, called the artwork ghosted portraits because of the sections that are not filled in, which represent the aspects of others that are unknown or unseen. But that is only part of the story. These paintings are a visual representation of the contrast between personal identity and public persona. How we identify and what we believe about ourselves may not be how others perceive us. Those misperceptions may be harmful, beneficial, or inconsequential, but the area where personal identity collides with public perception can be rife with highly nuanced, multi-layered conflict. I prefer my conflicts to be in contrasting colors. What elements are visible (public identity) vs. obscured (private identity) and how to tell both stories is what drives my art practice. ~Trace Logan ### The Language of Our Souls: The Visual Poetry of Harvey Johnson ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Harvey-Johnson-Daughter-of-the-Eternal-Light-2-237x300.jpg) Phillips Theological Seminary is presented the 2023 Race Massacre Lectureship and Art Exhibition featuring the art of Harvey Johnson on its Tulsa, Okla. campus, April 25-May 18 from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. with an opening reception April 23 from 5–9 p.m.. The show also featured works by [John Biggers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Biggers), [Delita Martin](https://www.artsy.net/artist/delita-martin), and [Kermit Oliver](https://kermitoliver.com/about). Johnson came to Houston from Port Arthur to study art at Texas Southern University under world- renowned artist, sculptor, and teacher, John Biggers, who founded the school’s art program in 1949. Johnson completed his undergraduate degree at TSU and went on to get his MFA at Washington State University. He returned two years later to teach art at TSU for 34 years before retiring in 2007. [Click here to watch a video of Harvey Johnson speaking about his work.](https://youtu.be/wUU5n4YM8Ko) **Artist Statement** **“Walk Together Children”** Dedicated to all young people and the journey – they *must* endure for the survival of this planet. I am a seed from a mother and father of the Southern soil of Texas and a child of African roots. As I emerged from the oil fields of Port Arthur, Texas into the urban setting of Houston, Texas, I discovered how I fit into the rich Texas quilted pattern of cultural diversity. This diversity, this contrast of Native, African, Mexican, Caucasian, and Asian peoples have all helped to create a Texas “ aesthetic “ , and contributes to a rich vision for Texas posterity. My poetry speaks of African spirituals or what continues to be referred to as “Negro Spirituals.”1 A young African student at Key Middle School in Houston, Texas, stated that spirituals are “secret messages in song about God.” It is the most profound and sophisticated meaning of these songs I have ever read or heard. I feel African spirituals and nature have given us a complex meaning of the sacred laws governing the order of the universe in its ever evolving cycles of life and death and life. An example of this can be heard in the spiritual, “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” Spirituals and nature embraces healing and renewal. My poetry tries to express a continuous journey of healing – healing generated within me with the assistance of Spirit, African ancestors, a parental matriarch, and elders. They all provided access allowing for the discovery of personal identity, purpose and meaning of my existence as a part of what I call a triple “middle passage.” The first middle passage is the journey of an immaculate conception as we come into this life through the boat of heaven that is the sacred womb of all mothers. For months, our mothers of “The Father and The Son” navigate us in her holy sanctuary through the many fires of life as we finally emerge into the light. Life is not about safety however and some of us do not make it. I feel that some of us return to that unfrozen reality, the invisible. Our mother’s heartbeat to us, like the rhythmic beat of the drum, *is* the “Word,” the first communication to us of the articulation of language and civilization. The second middle passage echoes these words from a spiritual, “Ev’-ry-bo-dy talk-in’ ‘bout heab’n aint goin’ dere…” This speaks to the transatlantic slave trade and its ramifications to this present day, a holocaust of unmerciful human pillage and destruction. I hope my poetry expresses a compassion, which we all must have, for other people whose grief is just as deep about their holocaust. A great American author said, “History is not the past…history is the present.” And I will add that history is also the future. The third middle passage is about human transformation, not only ultimately from body to spirit literally but, transforming human and environmental abuse into positive spirituality and humaneness. I hope my poetry stimulate consciousness to awaken each of us to the purpose for which we came into this world or were born into this life. We live in an environment where myths about ourselves have become the norm, have become realities. These myths are used as a frame of reference for our very existence. We have become prisoners to a history of our own making. I feel that poetry encourages an awakening of our senses by expressing how the language of nature puts an end to all human myths and forces us back to reality. Earth, wind, fire, water, minerals, and animals speak to us, trying to bring us closer together. Nature forces us to see that many of our fears and insecurities come from the inner unsolved struggles we are having about ourselves, which many times we transfer to others. As I share my journey with you, I hope that you focus on your own journey. I feel good about the energy of our youth. They seem to be aware that jobs and careers do not definite success and the spirit of their being. “Your ability to see is always a delusion of what you see, and what you see, is usually a translation of your own limitation at seeing until you are taught how to see…it’s an introduction into that area of silence where meaning exist independently of human extortion and it is an introduction into that area of human experience where it is possible at least to reconstruct one’s history going beyond one’s birth into a timeless moment where one can see one’s self as much older as one look in order to be able to understand why one occurred in this particular time and what for.” –Malidoma Some’, African Shaman Poetry is one of many visionary expressions that can inspire, to help us stay in touch with the silent language of our souls in keeping with the rhythmic balance and harmony of nature as it moves toward a greater scheme of creation. You may wonder whether this is all there is to being here in this life. It *is* if this is the limitation of your thinking, feelings, and emotions. Nature is the key to teaching us about unlimited doorways connecting us to a cosmic conception and journey. Our young people have the opportunity to create new worlds of spiritual values which can define us as true human beings. In the spirit of the Negro Spiritual, let us all “Walk Together Children.” I don’t know anything else more important. **Harvey Johnson** 1 Poetry in this context refers to visual, musical, dance, literary, and theatric expressions that address the what, where, when, how, and why of human existence. It replaces the term “art” for a deeper meaning of the human journey. **Included Works** The Welcoming Table Harvey Johnson, 2021 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Walk Together Children Harvey Johnson, 2009 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Eulogy, 1921 (Tulsa) Harvey Johnson, 2022 Conte crayon on paper Elegy: 1883-Present Harvey Johnson, 2022 Conte crayon on paper Wash House—Morning Star Harvey Johnson, 2006—2010 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas The Greatest Good Harvey Johnson, 2000 Conte crayon on paper Mirror Mirror Delita Martin, 2020 Gelatin printing, conte, acrylic, hand stitching, fabric Daughter of the Eternal Light Harvey Johnson, 2003 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Do This in Remembrance of Me Harvey Johnson, 2010 Conte crayon on paper Humble Yo’self, De Bell Done Ring Harvey Johnson, 2011 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Walk with Me Delita Martin, 2016 Gelatin printing, conte, acrylic, hand stitching, fabric Three Kings (Gammadion) Harvey Johnson, 2014 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Our Grandmother John Biggers, 1992 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Disparity, Until the Morning Comes Harvey Johnson, 2011 Conte crayon on paper We Build Our Temples to Tomorrow Harvey Johnson, 2011 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Glory, Glory Harvey Johnson, 2000 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Blessed Are the Fruit of the Womb Harvey Johnson, 2019 Conte Crayon on paper A City Called Heaven (Upper Room) Harvey Johnson, 2016 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Wisdom Knot Harvey Johnson, 2007—2013 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas I See Mama Harvey Johnson, 2009 Conte crayon on paper Father and Son Series John Biggers, 1964 Ink on paper How I Got Over John Biggers, 1987 Acrylic and oil wash on canvas Burnt Church Kermit Oliver, 1965 Lacquer and Japanese oil glaze on wood Bloodline Delita Martin, 2023 Relief printing, decorative paper, hand stitching Sometimes My Blues Change Colors 1 of 5 V.E. Delita Martin, 2023 Relief printing, decorative paper, hand stitching My Sisters Keeper Delita Martin, 2023 Relief printing, decorative paper, hand stitching --- ### [Staff Directory](https://ptstulsa.edu/staff-directory/) **Published:** March 24, 2021 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Staff Directory You are viewing the staff directory organized by department. Please add @ptstulsa.edu to all email addresses provided after the listed phone numbers. If you are unable to locate the number you wish to call, please call our general line, 918.610.8303. # **Admissions & Student Services** Ulysses Allen Director of Recruitment and Admissions 918.270.6463 ulysses.allen Staci Higgins Administrative Assistant for Student Services and Program Assistant for the Doctor of Ministry 918.270.6464 staci.higgins Megan Lovins Manager of Student Services 918.270.6421 megan.lovins Devaunjue “Jay” Williams Program Manager for Recruitment & Admissions 918.270.6447 devaunjue.williams # **Advancement** Jenny Wynn Director of Advancement 918.270.6477 jenny.wynn Bryon McDaniel Database Specialist 918.270.6423 bryon.mcdaniel Malisa Pierce Assistant Vice President of Advancement 918.270.6409 malisa.pierce Tammy Ryan Executive Assistant to Advancement and Donor Relations Specialist 918.270.6404 tammy.ryan Tara Thompson Director of Alum Community 918.270.6433 tara.thompson # **Business Office** Karen McMillan Vice President of Finance & Administration 918.270.6402 karen.mcmillan Assistant Vice President for Finance 918.270.6406 Ann Nelson Director of Student Accounts 918.270.6468 anntonette.nelson Bill Sebeni Maintenance Manager 918.270.6422 bill.sebeni Slade Dodson Maintenance Assistant slade.dodson Tammye Jurena Executive Assistant Business Office 918.270.6406 tammye.jurena # **Centers at Phillips** Emma Francois Administrative Assistant to the Center for Ministry and Lay Training 918.270.6471 emma.francois Leslie LeSieur Senior Director of the Center for Ministry and Lay Training 918.270.6471 leslie.lesieur Teresa Spear Program Coordinator, CMLT 918.270.6471 teresa.spear Trista Soendker Nicholson Interim Director of the Center for Religion in Public Life trista.nicholson # **Communications** Kurt Gwartney Senior Director of Communications 918.270.6470 kurt.gwartney Matt Dean Online Media Specialist 918.270.6470 matt.dean Vanessa Carter Director of Marketing & Communications 918.270.6470 vanessa.carter # **Dean’s Office** Lisa Davison VP of Academic Affairs and Dean 918.270.6466 lisa.davison Sharon Russ Executive Assistant to Dean and Faculty 918.270.6466 sharon.russ Anne Carter Walker Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs 918.270.6457 anne.carter.walker Eric Gill Director of Theological Field Education 918.270.6410 eric.gill Jennie Wachowski-Estes Director of Spiritual Life and Chaplain 918.270.6455 j.w.estes Todd Mantock Financial Aid Officer 918.270.6451 todd.mantock Virginia Thompson Registrar 918.270.6412 virginia.thompson Chris Whetstine Director of Instructional Design chris.whetstine # **Bedford House and Events Krystal Grizzle Director of Events & Hospitality 918.270.6453 krystal.grizzle # **Hospitality/Security Gina Robertson Front Desk, Hospitality, Campus Security & Safety Officer 918.270.6400 gina.robertson Danny Melton Campus Safety Specialist 918.270.6482 danny.melton # **Information Technology** Hunter Dallas Institutional Technology Analyst robert.dallas Zach Mussett Senior Director of Institutional Technology 918.270.6436 zach.mussett James Solecki Senior Institutional Technology Analyst robert.dallas # **Library** Circulation Desk 918.270.6437 ptslibrary@ptstulsa.edu Sandy Shapoval Dean of the Library and Research Services 918.270.6459 sandy.shapoval Katherine Casey Assistant Dean of the Library and Instruction Librarian 918.270.6432 katherine.casey Lucy Franklin Coordinator of Cataloging and Technical Services 918.270.6430 lucy.franklin Avery Phillips Reserves, Electronic Resources, and Journals Librarian 918.270.6427 avery.phillips Phillipa Rosman Special Collections and Archivist Librarian 918.270.6488 phillipa.rosman # **People & Culture** Randon Young Manager of People & Culture 918.270-6424 randon.young # **President’s Office** Doug Powe President 918.610.8303 douglas.powe Ashley Gibson Executive Assistant to the President 918.270.6405 ashley.gibson Holly Becker Vice President of Operations 918.270.6446 holly.becker --- ### [Courses](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/courses/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Course Schedules ## Master’s/DMin Course Enrollment Materials — Summer 2025 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Summer-2025-FINAL-Course-Listing-03042025.pdf) ## Course Enrollment Materials — Summer / Fall 2026 REVISED 4/23/26 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/FINAL-Summer-Fall-2026-Course-Enrollment-Materials-REV-03232026.pdf) ## DMin Course Enrollment Materials — October 2025 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DMIN-Course-Schedule-Fall-2025.pdf) ## Master’s Course Enrollment Materials — Spring 2025 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/FINAL-Spring-2025-Course-Enrollment-Materials-10112024.pdf) ## Course Schedule for Master’s Degrees — Fall 2023 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/FALL-2023-FINAL-REV-Course-Schedule-08102023.pdf) ## Course Schedule for DMIN Session – October 2023 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/FALL-2023-DMIN-Course-Schedule-05232023.pdf) --- ### [Seminary Scholars](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/scholars/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Seminary Scholars Program The Phillips Seminary Scholars Program awards eight annual full tuition scholarships, plus an annual living stipend of $10,500-$21,000 to select applicants. Awardees must be enrolled full-time in a master’s level degree program at Phillips Theological Seminary. Awards are only available to new, incoming students at Phillips. Seminary Scholars is more than just financial support. Phillips provides a network of hospitality, formation and belonging for our Scholars, which includes community formation and professional development opportunities. Seminary Scholars have access to mentors to ensure their success. **Applications will open soon for Phillips’ 2027/2028 Seminary Scholars! Visit this page for the most up-to-date information.** ### Seminary Scholars Categories - **Christian Church (DOC) Scholarships:** Two scholarships are available for Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) students applying to the Master of Divinity or Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture programs. - **Baptist Scholarship:** One scholarship is available to a Baptist student applying to the Master of Divinity or Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture program. - **United Church of Christ Scholarship:** One scholarship is available to a United Church of Christ student applying to the Master of Divinity or Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture program. - **Methodist Scholarship:** One scholarship is available to a student from any Methodist denomination applying to the Master of Divinity or Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture program. - **Seminary Scholarships:** Three scholarships are available to any student who is applying to any master’s level degree program. ### Eligibility and Application - Must be admitted on or before **February 1, 2027** to a Phillips master’s level degree program, starting classes in Fall 2027. - Minimum GPA of 3.5 on undergraduate or most recent graduate transcripts, submitted with application for admission. - Letter from a local church pastor or campus minister affirming active membership in a congregation related to the student’s denominational affiliation. - Two essays, up to 750-words each (double-spaced) addressing the following. On your essay, please include your name, and indicate for which of the five scholarship options above–DOC, Baptist, UCC, Methodist, Seminary Scholarship–you are applying. - Describe how your previous academic coursework or another body of scholarly work has influenced your thinking on a contemporary event or social issue. Please include standard acknowledgements and citations of your sources (MLA, Turabian, etc.). - How might you contribute to the Seminary Scholars cohort? Address the requirements below. How will your distinct interests contribute to the Seminary Scholars program? Submit letter and essays by email to with “\[Your Name\], Seminary Scholars Application” in the subject line. ### Requirements - Funding availability - **Master of Divinity** receive four years of funding. MDiv recipients must complete a minimum of 21 credit hours per academic year. - **Master of Arts (Social Justice)** receive two years of funding, and must complete a minimum of 21 credit hours per academic year. - **Master of Theological Studies** and **Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture** receive three years of funding, and must complete a minimum of 18 credit hours per academic year. - Seminary Scholars must maintain a 3.5 GPA throughout the duration of their scholarship funding. - To receive the full $21,000 annual stipend, Seminary Scholars must reside in Tulsa County during the duration of their academic program. Scholars in the Master of Divinity program who do not choose to reside in Tulsa County are eligible for a $10,500 annual stipend. - Seminary Scholars participate in community formation activities during each semester of funding. - Seminary Scholars represent Phillips at local and national seminary recruitment events. *Should a Seminary Scholar’s cumulative semester GPA fall below a 3.5, the student will have one probationary academic semester to return their GPA to 3.5. Seminary Scholars desiring to transfer academic credits from another institution are limited to the transfer of 18 credit hours for the MDiv, 12 hours for the MTS and MAMC, and 9 hours for the MA(SJ). Seminary Scholars changing toward the MDiv degree following matriculation will receive funding for the award years stated on their scholarship agreement.* ### Timeline - 2027 Seminary Scholars Application Deadline: February 1, 2027. - Invitations Extended to Scholarship Finalists: on or before February 24, 2027. - Seminary Scholars Interview Weekend: March 14-16, 2027. - Award winners will be notified: March 22, 2027. ## Contact Us Do you want to learn more? Request information from us, and our team will get back to you ASAP. [ Click Here to Request Information ](https://ptstulsa.jenzabarcloud.com/webiqent.cfm) ### Request Information - Name\* - Email\* - Phone\* - Preferred Method of Contact:Preferred Method of Contact: EmailText MessagePhone Call - What Would You Like to be Contacted About?\*What Would You Like to be Contacted About? - Inquiry - Campus Visit - Both - Please List Your Inquiry:\* - Please select the semester you are inquiring about:\*SpringFallN/A - Please select the year you wish to attend:\*20232024N/A - What is Your Preferred Campus Visit Date?\*Preferred Campus Visit Date: I would like to be contacted to schedule a campus visit - Untitled\*Tuesday, August 24 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, September 21 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, October 12Tuesday, October 19Tuesday, November 9 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, December 7 (Community Lunch)Friday, August 20 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, October 29 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, November 12 (Student Senate Lunch) - How Did You Hear About Phillips? [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[View Additional Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) --- ### [Lectures](https://ptstulsa.edu/lectures/) **Published:** February 24, 2022 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # The Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship at Phillips Theological Seminary # [Click](https://www.youtube.com/live/pPM-yoW5eRk?si=jM7olzQWqcAr3bmI) to watch the lecture live on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/live/pPM-yoW5eRk?si=jM7olzQWqcAr3bmI). ### Statement of Purpose The Tulsa Race Massacre, May 31-June 1, 1921, has been identified as the worst “race riot” (riot is a misnomer) in the history of the United States. The community of Greenwood, known across America as “Black Wall Street,” was one of the most affluent African American communities in America. It was a self-determined all-Black community within Tulsa’s city limits. Famed for having all the markers of any thriving metropolis—businesses, entertainment, professionals, health services, hotels, home ownership, and proud people—the Greenwood District was a shining example of African Americans living in prosperity. The City of Tulsa, OK, settled in 1828 by the Creek Indians in what was Indian Territory, grew from being tribal land with a trading post to railroad stop for the cattle industry to urbanization during Reconstruction and an oil town prior to statehood. Confederate culture blended with Indian life, and an ideology of freedom mingled with self-determination, Tulsa became a land of opportunity in Black and white and a prominent example of living “separate” combined with the social intolerance that exemplified social “inequality.” Separate but equal was the law of the land, but separate and unequal was the unwritten law of the white Tulsan heart. The event that precipitated the massacre began with a failed lynching that, in actuality, resulted in an entire cultural center being destroyed. Popular descriptions of the massacre often misrepresent the context of the Greenwood District and the details of the violence. A white mob attacked Greenwood and as many of three hundred people were killed. Nearly every significant structure within the community was destroyed. Before Pearl Harbor was bombed by a Japanese aerial assault in 1941, Black Wall Street was bombed by a white Tulsan aerial assault in 1921. After Indian internment camps but before Japanese internment camps, African Americans who survived the assault in Tulsa were placed in a concentration camp like contraband during the Civil War. The history of the massacre continues to reverberate throughout Tulsa and America. This lectureship commemorates the race massacre, suggests the lessons the history offers, and interprets the historical legacies that must be confronted. Looking back on the prominence of Black Wall Street, the role of faith within the community should not be underestimated. Within the approximately 40 city blocks that constituted Greenwood, there were 13 churches, which meant at least one church existed every three blocks. Socialized within an America that held the belief that prosperity was a sign of God’s blessing, and inheriting an African spirituality that held there is no separation between the sacred and the secular, the residents of Greenwood no doubt believed their success was God ordained. Just as religion is a synthetic feature of African cultures, religion and spirituality were the glue that help the people of the decimated Greenwood to survive. Engaging Greenwood’s prosperity as evidence of faith, and conceiving the devastation as the destruction of the household of faith, shifts the gaze from the aesthetics of inanimate buildings to the stories of human lives. The traumatic end of Greenwood is the story of how easily the Image of God can be distorted and destroyed as well as the power of resilience and resistance. # 2026 Tulsa Race Massacre Lecture Monday, April 27, 2026 ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/speakerhghlt2.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/speakerhghlt2.png) Phillips presents Tulsa Race Massacre lecture by Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown titled “Indelible Injury, Forced Forgiveness, and Redefined Reconciliation.” ### Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown The Rev. Dr. **Teresa L. Fry Brown** is the Bandy Professor of Preaching, a chaired professorship created in 1986 with a gift from B. Jackson Bandy that is considered by many to be the country’s premier chair in homiletics. Fry Brown has taught at Candler since 1994, and in 2010, she became the first African American woman to attain the rank of full professor. She also served as the director of Candler’s[ Black Church Studies program](https://candler.emory.edu/academic-programs/denominational-and-special-interest-programs/black-church-studies/) until 2015. Fry Brown’s research interests include homiletics, womanism, womanist ethics, socio-cultural transformation, and African diaspora history focusing on African American spiritual values. In addition to five monographs and four books, she has written articles and chapters for over a dozen more, including *Delivering the Sermon: Voice, Body and Animation in Proclamation* (Fortress Press, 2008); *Can A Sister Get a Little Help: Advice and Encouragement for Black Women in Ministry* (Pilgrim Press, 2008); and *Weary Throats and New Song: Black Women Proclaiming God’s Word* (Abingdon Press, 2003). A former speech pathologist, Fry Brown is ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and currently serves as the denomination’s historiographer, executive director of research and scholarship, and editor of the *AME Review*. She currently serves as the vice chair of the AME General Officer’s Council, and convened the inaugural AME Scholar’s Convocation in 2018. She is a member of several scholarly guilds, including the Society for the Study of Black Religion; the Academy of Homiletics, where she currently serves as second vice president; and the American Academy of Religion, where she is the co-chair on the Womanist Approaches to Society and Religion group. In 2014, Candler students chose Fry Brown as “Faculty Person of the Year.” Credit: Emory: Candler School of Theology Website [Register Here](https://events.ptstulsa.edu/event/TulsaRaceMassacreLectureship/home) Prior to the lecture, there will be an opening reception for Anthony Suber’s art exhibit. Read more about past exhibition here: [Art Exhibits](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/) #### **5:30 — Reception and art opening** #### **6:45 — Lecture** ##### The event takes place at Phillips Theological Seminary at 901 N. Mingo Road, Tulsa, OK 74116. [**DIRECTIONS**](https://goo.gl/maps/iPJMjzv1xX62) For more information, email . # Bishop Jeffrey Nathaniel Leath Brings the 2023 Tulsa Race Massacre Lecture April 24 with Reception at 5:30 p.m. and Lecture at 6:45 p.m. ## Watch the [livestream](https://youtube.com/live/lVFZ3jvO3Yo?feature=share) of the lecture on YouTube: [CLICK to Watch](https://youtube.com/live/lVFZ3jvO3Yo?feature=share) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Leath-with-Robe-1024x1536-2-200x300.jpg)Bishop of Ecumenical & Urban Affairs Jeffrey Nathaniel Leath will deliver a lecture titled “The Destruction of Black Wall Street and the Burden of Invisibility” for the 2023 Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship at Phillips Theological Seminary. The Rt. Reverend Leath was elected and consecrated the 128th Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in July 2008 in St. Louis and has been assigned to serve in the 13th Episcopal District in Kentucky and Tennessee. He previously served the 19th Episcopal District in South Africa. Leath is a child of the parsonage. He was born in Huntington, New York and has lived in Norwalk, Connecticut and Inwood, New York as his father served in those places. He is a graduate of Yale College, Yale Divinity School (Master of Divinity) and United Theological Seminary (Dayton, Ohio) – Doctor of Ministry. His doctoral dissertation focused on the class leader system in the A.M.E. Church. The bishop has served churches in New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware. His final pastoral charge was at Mother Bethel Church where he served for 14 years as the 51st pastor. Before his assignment to the Thirteenth Episcopal District (Kentucky and Tennessee), her served the 19th Episcopal District (Republic of South Africa). Leath is the husband of Susan J. Leath, MD, the Leaths have three children: (the Rev. Dr.) Jennifer, Victoria, and Jeffrey, II. Brother Leath is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and he is a 33rd Degree Prince Hall Mason. He is a member of Mt. Pisgah Lodge, #32; Montgomery Chapter, #44 and Martin Luther King, Jr. Consistory, #86. ## The Language of Our Souls: The Visual Poetry of Harvey Johnson Phillips Theological Seminary is pleased to present the 2023 Race Massacre Lectureship and Art Exhibition featuring the art of Harvey Johnson on its Tulsa, Okla. campus, April 25–30. The show also features works by John Biggers, Delita Martin, and Kermit Oliver. [ Learn More ](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/) --- Phillips Theological Seminary invites the community to join in a conversation on the theme of “America Loves Indians… Especially at Thanksgiving: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Vine Deloria, Jr.’s *God Is Red.”* The Nov. 7 program will be offered via YouTube and in-person at 6:45 p.m. In-person attendees are invited to a reception beginning at 5:30 p.m. at Phillips, 901 N. Mingo Rd. in Tulsa. There is no charge for the event, but registration is requested and appreciated. **[CLICK TO REGISTER](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/5zswgypycn/index.html)** “One might typically think of this as a book panel, but I am preferring to describe the evening as a community conversation,” said Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Lee H. Butler, Jr. “Just as Columbus Day has been reshaped into Indigenous Peoples Day, I am hoping to have a conversation about Deloria’s book to also bring attention to the importance of reshaping Thanksgiving in the American consciousness.” Speakers scheduled for the program include Dr. “Tink” Tinker, Dr. Lisa Dellinger, the Rev. Chebon Kernell and Vanessa Adams-Harris. The in-person reception features music, food, good conversation and art. For additional information, contact the Academic Affairs office by [email](mailto:sharon.russ@ptstulsa.edu?subject=America%20Loves%20Indians%20Event%20Question) or by calling 918-270-6466. # Inaugural Tulsa Race Massacre Annual Lectureship ## YouTube Live Link Clicking the button “Click to Watch” will send you to the YouTube stream for this event. The stream will begin at 6:35 p.m. Central. The program starts at 6:45 p.m. Central. The program booklet for the event is below. [ Click to Watch ](https://youtu.be/xdRAm4qr_hU) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Suffocation-Nation-by-Awesome-Jeremy-218x300.png)Phillips Theological Seminary announces the inaugural lecturer for the Tulsa Race Massacre Annual Lectureship will be the Rev. Dr. Angela Sims, president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. She is the author of the book, *Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror*. The book “chronicles the history and aftermath of lynching in America. By rooting her work in oral histories, (she) gives voice to the memories of African American elders who remember lynching not only as individual acts but as a culture of violence, domination, and fear,” says the book’s back cover. This lectureship commemorates the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The Greenwood District of Tulsa, also known as Black Wall Street, developed within an America that held the belief that prosperity was a sign of God’s blessings. Whereas the all-Black residents of Greenwood, who inherited an African spirituality, held the belief there is no separation between the sacred and the secular, they no doubt believed their success was God ordained. Just as religion is a synthetic feature of African cultures, religion and spirituality were the glue that helped the people of the decimated Greenwood to survive. Engaging Greenwood’s prosperity as evidence of faith, and conceiving the devastation as the destruction of the household of faith, this annual lecture shifts the gaze from the aesthetics of inanimate buildings to the stories of human lives. The traumatic end of Greenwood is the story of how easily the Image of God can be distorted and destroyed as well as the power of resilience and resistance. Each year, we will invite a noted scholar to suggest the lessons the history offers and interpret the inherited legacies that must be confronted. --- ### [Phillips Alums](https://ptstulsa.edu/phillips-alums/) **Published:** July 7, 2021 **Author:** Malisa Pierce **Content:** # Phillips Alums ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thumbnail_Tara-Thompson.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thumbnail_Tara-Thompson.jpg) # Welcome! Welcome to the Phillips Theological Alum Association! My name is Tara Thompson, Phillips Class of 2010, and I’m thrilled to be serving as the Director of Alum Community. For the past 20 years I have served congregations in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas in various pastoral roles. My time as a student here at Phillips, were some of the most informative years in not only my ministry, but in my life. I am grateful for the opportunity to get reacquainted with alums, meet other alums and students; and to help build a bridge between alums and Phillips. I hope to connect with you while I’m out on the road, or at various events here at Phillips, to hear how we can walk alongside you in your various ministries. You are welcome to send your thoughts to me regarding your hopes as an Alum to my email: . This is such an exciting time within the life of the Seminary as we go where faith leads us into the future, and I am grateful to be on this journey with each of you. Again, Welcome! *Tara L. Thompson, MDiv (2010)* The Phillips Theological Seminary Alum Association exists to promote understanding of, pride in and support for our alma mater and its identity and mission: ***Identity statement:*** *Phillips Theological Seminary offers theological education dedicated to learning the way of Jesus in order to cultivate vital congregations, communities, conversations, and the public good.* ***Mission statement:*** *The seminary’s mission is to learn and teach how to be: attentive to God; responsible biblical and theological interpreters; faithful individuals, congregations, and communities acting with God to transform the world.* ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/hooding-photo.png](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/hooding-photo.png) ## Update Your Information It is important to us to keep in touch with you, our Alumni/ae. You can update your information such as address, phone number, email, ordination date, and ministry setting. Help us keep you informed of everything happening at Phillips Seminary by updating your information. [ Update Here ](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/wrlkc7ldsj/index.html) ### Ways of Connection - **Affinity Groups**: Choose a group that fits you. You will find groups for your region, graduation year, ministry setting, identity, and interests. Currently we have the following affinity groups available with plans to continue to grow the list: - New Alum Group: If you are a new alum this is a great place to connect with those with whom you recently graduated. - Chaplain Group: **COMING SOON!** A monthly alum Chaplain Group was started to provide peer support, educational support, and occasional guest speakers. - **Mighty Networks**: The Mighty Networks is the new platform that Phillips is using to connect with alums and to connect alums with each other. We are excited to use this platform for affinity groups, webinars, and educational opportunities. Join [Phillips Seminary Connect](https://connect.ptstulsa.edu/sign_in) (connect.ptstulsa.edu) - **Chapel**: You can connect to our chapels on our YouTube channel, [Phillips Seminary](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPzts0KvrWWSeGVZcyJWVSu6Dy). You may join us live or watch chapel after the live event. You will find other videos from events on the [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/PhillipsSeminary/about). - **Phillips Communities**: **COMING SOON!** Phillips Communities will be a group in some geographic areas that will bring together students and alums to connect and support each other. The Phillips Communities will get together once or twice a year for dinner, happy hour or similar event. There will be an alumni coordinator in each area. If you are interested in being a coordinator in your area, please contact [Tara Thompson](mailto:tara.thompson@ptstulsa.edu) to get more information. - **Eblast:** A monthly email from the Advancement office sharing exciting happenings around Phillips! - **Facebook**: Alumni/ae are invited to connect with us on our [Official Alum Facebook Page.](https://www.facebook.com/groups/364809876909687) ### Ways of Learning - **Center for Ministry and Lay Training**: CMLT provides year-round educational opportunities for you and your congregants. CMLT is a great place to provide extra training for the leaders in your church and to supplement your own education at a low cost. Each class occurs on-line for 8 weeks. [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/center-for-ministry-and-lay-training/) to see current available classes, learn more about CMLT, and register for a class. - **Center for Religion and Public Life**: CRPL provides a podcast, blog and other resources to the public. To learn more about the programs, activities, and learning opportunities provided by the CRPL [click here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/). - **Audit**: Every semester particular classes are designated as available to auditors. This is a great way to keep up with new theories and practices of ministry without entering a degree program. - **Remind & Renew**: Each winter Phillips hosts Remind & Renew, a two-day conference for alumni/ae, laity, and ministers. For more information about Remind & Renew and the upcoming conference theme, [click here](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/remind-renew/). - **Library Usage**: All Phillips graduates are automatically given alumni/ae status with the library. Alumni/ae retain all prior privileges when on campus. Remote privileges vary by license agreements with our vendors. Learn about more library privileges available to alumni/ae here. You may also access all of your benefits on the [library website](https://ptstulsa.edu/library/). - Other educational opportunities to look for: - Webinars - Clergy Circles ### Ways of Giving - **Volunteer Opportunities** - Phillips Encouragement Program (PEP): **COMING SOON!** PEP is an encouragement program pairing alums with students to encourage them through their Phillips career. At a minimum, the alumni/ae are expected to send encouraging notes (mail or email) to the student each semester and pray for them as they prepare for them. How the encouragement relationship grows will depend on the needs of the student as long as the interaction stays within the boundaries of the program protocols. If you would like to be a PEP volunteer, please contact [Tara Thompson](mailto:tara.thompson@ptstulsa.edu). - Recruiting: We are all recruiters for Phillips. As an alum, you are one of the most important recruiters because the majority of students are referred to Phillips by an alum. If you would like information about referring potential students to Phillips or have questions for the Phillips recruiter, contact [Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu). - **Give a Gift to Phillips**: You may give a gift by mail or online. You may visit the “[Ways to Give](https://ptstulsa.edu/giving/ways-to-give/)” page of the Advancement section on the website to learn more about supporting Phillips through your monetary gifts. - **iFundPhillips**: iFP is the annual fall campaign to connect with our alumni/ae and raise funds to support student services. More information is available on the [iFundPhillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/ifundphillips/) page on the Phillips web-site. - **Sustaining Donor Club**: As an alum, monthly giving is a great way to support your alma mater. The monthly giving program, Sustaining Donor Club, allows Phillips to budget and count on a gift each month that will help support the students, innovation, and the monthly needs of the seminary. To become a Sustaining Donor, contact Tammy Ryan. - **Emerging Vision:** Phillips Theological Seminary is creating a new “place of belonging” called Bedford House on our Tulsa, Okla. campus near historic Route 66 to support students, wherever they may reside, as they build the kind of relationships and have the conversations that form good ministers and theological leaders. To learn more about Bedford House and the Emerging Vision, click [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/emerging-vision/) ### Ways of Outreach - **Current Assemblies Attending**: Phillips wants to meet you at your assembly! Look for opportunities to connect with other Phillips alums, staff, and/or faculty at the DOC, UCC, UU, and other assemblies. - **Mighty Networks**: Join other alums on our new networking site. The site contains affinity groups, educational opportunities, and is a great way to stay up to date with activities at Phillips. [Phillips Seminary Connect](https://connect.ptstulsa.edu/sign_in) (connect.ptstulsa.edu) - [**Update Form**](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/wrlkc7ldsj/index.html): We want to stay in touch with you and your ministry. Please complete this form if you have an address, phone or ministry setting change. - **Sign up for the monthly ENews**: If you do not currently receive the monthly ENews from Phillips, please send your name and email address to with ENEWS in the subject line or complete the form at the bottom of the Alumni/ae page. - **Tell us your story**: We want to stay in touch but also want to know your story. Do you have an interesting ministry story to tell or a life changing seminary experience to share? Submit your story [here](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/es5h95clex/index.html). ### Ways of Leadership - The Board of Directors of the Alum Association has responsibility for the affairs of the Association and assisting the Association to fulfill its purpose. - List of Board Members - The Rev. Kay Korpics (2018), *President* - The Rev. Brandon Proffitt (2022), *Vice President* - The Rev. Dr. Josh Bell (2017, 2018, 2024) - The Rev. Andrea Clark Chambers (2010) - The Rev. Natalie Dixon Crewell (2008) - The Rev. Kara Farrow (2018) - The Rev. Matthew Franks (2009) - The Rev. Paul Ellis Jackson (2017) - The Rev. Travis Smith McKee (2014) - The Rev. Dr. Nancy Niero (2023) - Linda Tucker (2019) - The Rev. Darren Williams (2019) - The Rev. Randy Williams (1979) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Photo-of-Rev.-Kelley-Becker.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Photo-of-Rev.-Kelley-Becker.jpg)**The Rev. Kelley Becker** ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Robin-McGonigle-Headshot.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Robin-McGonigle-Headshot.png)**The Rev. Dr. Robin McGonigle** ### Frank H. Marshall Award for Ministerial Excellence The Marshall Award recognizes graduates of Phillips Theological Seminary, Phillips Graduate Seminary, The Graduate Seminary of Phillips University, or the College of the Bible whose service to God, the Church and the human Community has been faithful and exemplary. The Alum Association is currently in the process of accepting applications for Marshall Award nominees. Please complete the nomination form if you would like to nominate a Phillips Alum for the distinguished award. You may request a nominations form from [Tammy Ryan](mailto:tammy.ryan@ptstulsa.edu). **Distinguished Alum Award** **(2001 – 2008)** January-01 Jack Allen Oliver January-02 Spencer Austin Stanley Warfield January-03 Jerry Perryman Paul Ehly January-04 John Henry Cain Marvin Nelson January-05 Robert Elliott George Young July-05 Sharon Watkins January-06 Robert Gartman Robin Meyers July-06 Gary Cox January-07 David Wilson Orval Holt January-08 Honored all previous alumni/ae for Centennial **Frank H. Marshall Award for Ministerial Excellence** **(2009 – Present)** January-09 O. Eugene Moore Alan Lobaugh January-10 Leslie Penrose Eugene Frazier January-11 Ron Nofziger Bill Reece January-13 Phil Snider Archie Lawrence January-14 Todd Adams Jesse Jackson January-15 Skipped Nominations for lack of nominees January-16 Sheri Curry January-17 Melinda Foster John Wolfersberger January-18 Mike Hardgrove January-19 David Hockensmith Paul Krueger January-20 Gene Spillman, Jr. Myrna Jones January-21 Bill Inglish Maribeth Westerfield January 22 Anna Holloway, Virzola Law, and Don Pittman, Honorary Posthumous January 23 Renee Bridwell Mark Pumphrey January 24 Bob Barrett Noel Gray January 25. Chris Moore Faith Wambugu ### 2026 Frank H. Marshall Award Recipients **The Reverend Kelley Becker** Rev. Kelley Becker holds an A.A. from Heartland Community College, Normal, Illinois, and an MDiv. from Phillips Theological Seminary (2014). Kelley served First Presbyterian Church in Normal, Illinois, as the Director of Children and Youth Ministries and First Christian Church in Bloomington, Illinois, as the associate minister before her call to Disciples Christian Church in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in January 2017. While in Bartlesville, Kelley has served on numerous non-profit boards, including Family Promise, Oklahomans for Equality-Bartlesville, Ray of Hope Advocacy Center, and the PTS Alum Association Board. In 2018, she led Disciples Christian Church through the discernment process of becoming an Open and Affirming congregation. Disciples Christian Church remains the only Christian congregation in Bartlesville that fully welcomes everyone. Kelley has served the Oklahoma Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) by serving on the Commission on Clergy, the Regional Board and Executive Committee, and counseling and directing church camp. She currently serves as the Northeast Area Moderator. For 19 years, Kelley has been married to John who is an exercise physiologist at Oklahoma Heart Institute in Tulsa. They have two sons (Christopher and Andrew), two grandsons (Kane and Bair), and another grandchild on the way. Kelley and John have two labrador retrievers, Porter and Scout. The Beckers enjoy long distance road biking, traveling, and anything dog related. **The Reverend Doctor Robin McGonigle** For more than four decades, Rev. Dr. Robin McGonigle has devoted her life to parish ministry, community leadership, and interfaith collaboration. Over the span of 40+ years, she has served five congregations—serving one of them twice—leaving a lasting legacy of pastoral care, thoughtful leadership, and progressive theological insight. Deeply committed to social justice, Robin has served on numerous community boards focused on homelessness, LGBTQ+ inclusion, combating bigotry and racism in schools and workplaces, supporting women, and addressing the needs of people living in poverty. A respected voice in contemporary biblical scholarship, Robin is the incoming President of the Westar Institute, the organization best known as the home of the Jesus Seminar. She also serves on the Editorial Board of Westar’s scholarly magazine, The Fourth R, helping shape accessible, research-based conversations about Christian origins and modern faith. Interfaith bridge-building has been a defining theme of her ministry. In an act of hospitality, Robin welcomed a local Islamic community to house its new school within their Christian church for six years. Alongside her parish responsibilities, Robin has contributed to higher education as an Adjunct Professor for two universities, where she has taught, mentored, and inspired the next generation of theological leaders. Her commitment to supporting emerging clergy—especially women—has been a hallmark of her vocation. Across every chapter of her ministry, Robin has embodied a thoughtful, justice-oriented, and relational approach to leadership. Her career stands as a testament to the power of inclusive faith, intellectual integrity, courageous engagement in the public square, and a deep and abiding belief in the capacity of communities—religious and otherwise—to transform lives. Robin is currently the Sr. Minister of Riverside Christian Church in Wichita, KS. ## Tell Us Your Story The Alum Office wants to know about your ministry journey. Do you have a unique journey to share? Let us know what your ministry journey has been like. You can share it here. [ Click ](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/es5h95clex/index.html) **Contact Us** - Alum Events and Questions – [Tara Thompson](mailto:tara.thompson@ptstulsa.edu) or 918-270-6433 - Audit a Class – [Ulysses Allen](ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) 918-270-6463 or [ask admissions](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/) - Give a Gift to Phillips – You may give [online](https://ptstulsa.edu/giving/ways-to-give/) or by mail (901 N. Mingo Rd, Tulsa, OK 74116). - Library Queries – [Phillips Circulation Desk](mailto:ptslibrary@ptstulsa.edu) or (918) 270-6437 - Planned Giving – [Terry Ewing](mailto:terry.ewing@ptstulsa.edu) 918-270-6478 - Refer a Student – [Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) 918-270-6463 - [Transcript](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/transcripts/) - [Update Contact Information](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/wrlkc7ldsj/index.html) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thumbnail_Alumni-Pic-2.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/thumbnail_Alumni-Pic-2.png) ## ENews Signup Name(Required) First Name Last Name Email(Required) Enter Email Confirm Email Consent(Required) I agree to receive email updates from Phillips Theological Seminary. --- ### [Test Page for Unity](https://ptstulsa.edu/test-page-for-unity/) **Published:** March 13, 2026 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** --- ### [Town & Country Leadership Project](https://ptstulsa.edu/centers-and-programs/towncountry/) **Published:** March 6, 2026 **Author:** Holly Becker **Content:** ###### Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to strengthening rural and small congregations across the Midwest and Southwest through innovative leadership development, practical resources, and sustained community support. ***This program is generously supported by $1 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. as part of the Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative.*** # 1. Leadership Cohorts - 2-year-long learning communities with 7 diverse churches per cohort - Teams of pastors and lay leaders from each congregation - Year 1: 3 gatherings: 1 in-person at Phillips, 2 virtual sessions - Year 2: Monthly mentorship from dedicated guides - $5,000 mini-grants for ministry-enhancing projects # 2. Certificates & Classes - Targeted online certificates addressing practical needs - Non-degree classes on technology, worship streaming, facility maintenance - Flexible access: live and on-demand - Navigating congregational dynamics - Affordable pricing for rural contexts # 3. MDiv Enhancement & Alum Support - New or reimagined elective courses for MDiv students - Regional workshops for Phillips alums - Facilitated continuing education - Connection opportunities across geographical regions - Ongoing professional development # Program Impact & Reach **Breaking Isolation –** Connects rural leaders across states and denominations, creating networks of mutual support and shared innovation. **Contextual Training –** Equips leaders to honor local concerns while maintaining broader social justice commitments. **Practical Skills –** Addresses real needs like technology integration, financial creativity, and navigating political polarization. **Sustainable Leadership –** Builds pathways from non-degree certificates to full-degree programs, expanding the pipeline of trained leaders. # Nominations are Open If you are interested in the Town & Country Leadership Project, please talk with the appropriate judicatory to nominate you for the first cohort. Judicatories can contact Holly Becker, VP of Operations, for more information. ## Learn More or Make a Cohort Nomination Holly Becker Vice President of Operations holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu 918-270-6446 901 N. Mingo Tulsa, OK 74116 [ Click to Email Holly ](mailto:holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu) --- ### [Business Office Training](https://ptstulsa.edu/business-office-training/) **Published:** March 9, 2026 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** --- ### [Educational Effectiveness](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/educational-effectiveness/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Educational Effectiveness Dear Reader: The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) requires us, as a DOE-approved institution to publish a statement regarding how we assess our educational outcomes. ### Statement of Educational Effectiveness for PTS In order to assess the overall effectiveness of our educational programs and contribute to a culture of improvement, the faculty and staff of Phillips Theological Seminary utilize statistical information derived from several different sources, including: - Graduation rates compiled by the registrar - Graduating Student Questionnaires - Ministerial appointment rates ### Graduation Rates Here are the graduation rates for our degree programs according to a 10-year review, from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2025. Master of Divinity (MDiv), 81-hour program: Our MDiv students took 4.9 years on average to complete the degree. 228 students enrolled. 48 students were still enrolled. 180 students were no longer enrolled: 97 (54%) graduated with the MDiv degree. 14 (6%) transferred to another Phillips degree program. 69 (32%) left before completing the degree. Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC), 48-hour program: Our MAMC students took 3.8 years on average to complete the degree. 39 students enrolled. 5 students were still enrolled. 34 students were no longer enrolled. 17 (50%) graduated with the MAMC degree. 5 (21%) transferred to another Phillips degree program. 12 (35%) left before completing the degree. Master of Theological Studies (MTS), 48-hour program: Our MTS students took 3.7 years on average to complete the degree. 43 students enrolled. 10 students were still enrolled. 45 students were no longer enrolled: 24 (54%) graduated with the MTS degree. 2 (4%) transferred to another Phillips degree program. 19 (42%) left before completing the degree. Master of Arts (Social Justice), 39-hour program: Our MA(SJ) students took 3.2 years on average to complete the degree. 32 students enrolled. 5 students were still enrolled. 43 students were no longer enrolled: 18 (42%) graduated with the MA(SJ) degree. 4 (14%) transferred to another Phillips degree program. 21 (49%) left before completing the degree. Doctor of Ministry, 30-hour program: Our DMin students took 7.0 years on average to complete the degree. 133 students enrolled. 51 students were still enrolled. 52 students were no longer enrolled: 42 (81%) graduated with the DMin degree. 10 (19%) left before completing the degree. ### Graduating Student Questionnaire Evaluations The Graduating Student Questionnaire, distributed by the Commission on Accreditation of the Association of Theological Schools in the U.S. and Canada, gives graduates an opportunity to rank their educational experience according to a 5-point Likert scale: 1 (strongly disagree) 2 (disagree) 3 (neutral) 4 (agree) 5 (strongly agree) Aggregated responses to several questions regarding student satisfaction with Phillips, from surveys taken from 2018 to 2025, include the following responses: I have been satisfied with my academic experience in the MDiv program at Phillips. 2018-2019: 4.1 2019-2020: 4.4 2020-2021: 4.8 2021-2022: N/A 2022-2023: 4.0 2023-2024: 4.7 2024-2025: 4.7 Faculty members were supportive and understanding. 2018-2019: 4.6 2019-2020: 4.8 2020-2021: 4.9 2021-2022: N/A 2022-2023: 4.3 2023-2024: 4.8 2024-2025: 4.7 I have grown spiritually 2018-2019: 4.6 2019-2020: 4.2 2020-2021: 4.9 2021-2022: N/A 2022-2023: 4.1 2023-2024: 4.4 2024-2025: 4.4 I have been able to integrate the theology and practice of ministry. 2018-2019: 4.4 2019-2020: 4.6 2020-2021: 4.8 2021-2022: N/A 2022-2023: 4.6 2023-2024: 4.8 2024-2025: 4.9 If I had to do it over, I would still have come here. 2018-2019: 4.5 2019-2020: 4.6 2020-2021: 4.9 2021-2022: N/A 2022-2023: 3.8 2023-2024: 4.5 2024-2025: 4.8 ### Ministerial Appointment Rates Phillips Theological Seminary strives to provide the educational component and credentials for the denominations that send students to this school. In keeping with the polity of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the ecumenically-minded Protestant denomination with which the theological school is affiliated, Phillips Theological Seminary does not “place” graduates in positions of ministerial service. Rather, denominations have the right and responsibility to determine the appropriate qualifications for ordained and licensed ministry, to access the fitness for ministry of individual candidates, and to credential persons for ministerial leadership. Phillips graduates, historically, often serve in ministry while attending seminary; in addition, high placement rates characterize most graduation classes. Thus, the following chart shows, over the last six years, the percentages of graduating Phillips seniors who had been offered a position by the time of their graduation: MDiv Students 2018-2019 2019-2020 – 88% 2020-2021 – 88% 2021-2022 – N/A 2022-2023 – 50% 2023-2024 – 78% 2024-2025 – 67% Non-MDiv Students 2019-2020 – 100% 2020-2021 – 75% 2021-2022 – N/A 2022-2023 – 90% 2023-2024 – 88% 2024-2025 – 78% [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Bedford House](https://ptstulsa.edu/bedfordhouse/) **Published:** May 14, 2024 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Bedford House Built for Students. Designed for Community. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Image-9-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Image-9-scaled.jpg) Bedford House at Phillips Theological Seminary was built for students to develop the relationships and engage in the conversations that form exceptional ministers and theological leaders. Beyond our student community, Bedford House serves as a vibrant hub for meaningful gatherings of all kinds. This welcoming space brings people together for celebrations, retreats, and important conversations. Here, your community can share meals, exchange ideas, and build lasting relationships around shared values. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Image-9-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Image-9-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04474.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04474.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04497.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04497.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04483.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04483.jpg) Our guest rooms offer a peaceful retreat designed with your comfort in mind. Each room features an en suite bathroom, climate control, and thoughtful amenities that allow you to rest well and work productively. Whether you’re staying for a weekend retreat or an extended visit, you’ll find a welcoming space that feels like a home away from home. Single king and double queen accommodations are available to suit your needs. “Bedford House enhances our ability to create an environment focused on deep learning, faithful leadership, and global impact.” ![Rev. F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IMG_4506-scaled.jpeg) Rev. F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD *President* [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04964.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC04964.jpg) There are many vibrant and wonderful spaces at Bedford House for study, meetings, and renewal. Pittman Hall is beautifully appointed and accommodates up to 160 guests at round tables or 220 in theater-style seating, making it ideal for organizational gatherings, conferences, and special celebrations. The hall features state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment with large screens, a customizable stage, and a professional lectern. With neutral color palettes and sophisticated décor, Pittman Hall provides the perfect canvas to complement any design vision or theme you envision. Included with your rental are 20 60″ round tables, 12 6′ rectangular tables and 240 chairs to be placed at your direction. Features of Bedford House include: - 25 hotel-quality rooms, each with an en suite bathroom. - 2 extended-stay apartments with kitchenettes for visiting scholars and other guests. - Space where guests may prepare their own meals and snacks. - Dining area to create opportunities for students to gather and share meals in groups. - Comfortable, informal gathering spaces for groups of guests to step away from their rooms for downtime. - Meeting rooms for groups to study or collaborate on coursework, also available for outside groups to use. - Conference center meeting rooms, large and small. - Additional offices for Phillips staff. - Fitness room with exercise equipment for use by guests, students, and faculty/staff. - Outdoor spaces, including an ADA-accessible labyrinth and garden. - An art gallery with works representing artists from diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. - Welcome Desk to serve as the check-in point for guests. - High-speed internet throughout the building. ## Download the Brochure Download the Bedford House brochure for more information about the facility and for pricing. [ Click to Download ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Bedford-House-Brochure.pdf) ## Contact Contact us to experience Bedford House on the Phillips Theological Seminary campus, just off historic Route 66 in Tulsa, Okla. [ Click Here to Connect ](mailto:krystal.grizzle@ptstulsa.edu) --- ### [Resources](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli-resources/) **Published:** January 7, 2020 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Resources The Religion in Public Life Initiative amplifies and encourages religious practices intended to cultivate a more just and hospitable society. Below are resources to exemplify our mission. ### Noteworthy Articles [Thought-provoking articles framing religion in modern public life.](https://ptstulsa.edu/noteworthy-articles/) ### Reliable Research [Sources of some of the best data available on religion in the United States.](https://ptstulsa.edu/reliable-research/) ### Inspiring Speeches [Curated speeches from various periods in American history which use religious imagery and/or values to frame meaning in national life.](https://ptstulsa.edu/inspiring-speeches/) ### Faith and Public Issues in Oklahoma [A list of organizations that work on causes aligning with the values of the RPLI.](https://ptstulsa.edu/faith-and-public-issues-in-oklahoma/) ### The Christian Right Watch [Coverage on the movement known as the Christian Right.](https://ptstulsa.edu/the-christian-right-watch/) ### InterReligious Understanding [A program with the goal of educating and enlightening people for life and work in an increasingly diverse community.](https://ptstulsa.edu/interreligious-understanding/) --- ### [Meet the Director](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Published:** June 10, 2020 **Author:** Center for Religion in Public Life **Content:** # Meet the Director ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Trista-Soendker-Nicholson-1024x768.jpg)The Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson Phillips Theological Seminary welcomes the Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson as interim executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life. Soendker Nicholson, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and PhD candidate at Wesley House Cambridge (UK), brings a deep background in public theology, ministry, and advocacy to this role. She has served as a pastor for several congregations in the Missouri Annual Conference and teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Saint Paul School of Theology. Her teaching includes courses in Wesleyan Theology and History, Preaching, and Hebrew Scriptures. Soendker Nicholson’s ongoing doctoral research, “More Power, Less Glory: An Analysis of Martin E. Marty’s Writing on Christian Nationalism and Fundamentalism in the Wesleyan Movement,” explores intersections of faith, politics, and public life. She anticipates the awarding of her PhD in 2026. “Trista’s deep commitment in connecting theology with the pressing issues of our public life makes her an ideal leader for this next chapter of the Center for Religion in Public Life,” said President F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD. “Her experience as both a pastor and public theologian will help Phillips continue to equip faith leaders for deep learning, faithful leadership and global impact.” Before entering ordained ministry, Soendker Nicholson worked on Capitol Hill for U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Ike Skelton, gaining firsthand experience in the legislative process and advocacy work. She later served as a nonprofit advocate and has continued to integrate those skills into her ministry. Her volunteer leadership with Missouri Faith Voices and Missouri Jobs With Justice reflects a long-standing commitment to social justice and faith-based organizing in the community. The Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary serves as a hub for progressive engagement, equipping leaders and communities to respond faithfully to public issues through scholarship, dialogue, and advocacy. The executive director develops and leads this work by teaching courses on religion and public life, fostering partnerships with faith-based and civic organizations, and expanding the center’s effect through public events, research and collaborative initiatives. “I am honored to join Phillips in this work,” said Soendker Nicholson. “The Center for Religion in Public Life embodies the best of what theological education can offer. It’s a place where faith and public responsibility meet for the good of all. I look forward to partnering with others to advance this mission in congregations and the community.” Soendker Nicholson succeeds the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, founding director of the Center, who has served Phillips in a variety of leadership roles, including as president. --- ### [Black Church Traditions](https://ptstulsa.edu/black-church-traditions/) **Published:** August 7, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life Phillips Theological Seminary offers a concentration in Black Church Traditions for students interested in enhancing their degree or certificate program. Students will study issues directly concerning Black clergy, clergy serving in majority Black faith contexts, as well as those working with or alongside communities concerned with the effects of race, justice, and faith in people of African descent in the context of the U.S. This concentration is available through the Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program (BCTAF) program at Phillips and complements a student’s coursework at the seminary. **Black Church Traditions Concentration Goals** Upon completing the program emphasis in Black Church Traditions students will be able to: - Demonstrate an appreciation for the histories and diversities of Black Church Traditions - Identify and reflect on key issues in the development and practice of African American religiosity and faith-life - Identify substantive roles of Black Church traditions and African American faith across both religious and political contexts - Articulate how the study of Black Church traditions and African American faith-life can enhance their own ministerial, vocational, and/or intellectual formation - Use central themes, history, practices, and/or traditions to contextualize, integrate, and translate general and/or broad topics of study within the intellectual, theological, and or discursive practices of study of Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IMG_1473.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IMG_1473.png) ## Regular Faculty for BCTAF [![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/BCTAF-regular-faculty-e1706728053789.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/BCTAF-regular-faculty-e1706728053789.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/faculty-directory/) **The program consists of three phases: Declaration, Courses, and Integrations.** ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Chelsea-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Chelsea-scaled.jpg) The **Declaration phase** is when the student officially declares their intention to pursue a concentration in Black Church Traditions as part of their academic program. This phase can be completed at any point during a student’s time at Phillips. During the **Courses phase**, students successfully complete the course work portion of the program concentration. The BCTAF at Phillips Theological Seminary offers its foundations course, FDC 800, while also designating several courses across the curriculum as in-program electives. Currently, 12 hours are needed to complete the Courses phase. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Walking-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Walking-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Embrace-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Embrace-scaled.jpg) The **Integration phase** of the concentration helps students articulate and demonstrate how their courses relate to broader theological, intellectual and degree/diploma program goals. Students complete the Integrations phase in consultation with Phillips’ committee on BCTAF. # Events Black History & African American Heritage Month returns to Phillips Theological Seminary for 2026! We are excited to announce our programming throughout February, including our weekly worship series and a lecture to conclude the month. Our worship series guest speakers are as follows: • Tuesday, February 3 at 11 a.m. – Rev. Nicole McDonald, PhD • Tuesday, February 10 at 11 a.m. – Rev. Rodney Sadler Jr., PhD • Tuesday, February 17 at 11 a.m. – Rev. Brian Bantum, PhD • Tuesday, February 24 at 11 a.m. – Rev. Angela Parker, PhD Additionally, we will host our 5th Annual Black Histories In Native (American) Lands Lecture, with keynote speaker Carla D. Pratt, J.D and respondent Alaina Roberts, PhD, on Friday, February 27. Scan the QR code to access our “Black Church Traditions and Faith Life” YouTube page and learn more about Phillips programming at ptstulsa.edu/events ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/622371958_1387370320067349_8121824080876077720_n-240x300.jpg) ### YouTube Playlist --- ### [Academic Resources](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/academic-resources/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Academic Resources Phillips Theological Seminary provides multiple resources for current and prospective students to succeed in academic life. ### Catalog and Handbooks - [Academic Handbook 2025-2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025-2026-Academic-Handbook-FINAL-09262025.pdf) - [Phillips Catalog 2025-2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025-2026-PTS-CATALOG-FINAL-REV-01202026.pdf) - [Phillips Student Handbook 2025-2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Student-Handbook-2025-2026-FINAL-081525.pdf) - [DMin Handbook/Project Guidelines 2025-2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/DMIN-2025-2026-Handbook-and-Project-Guidelines-FINAL-10012025.pdf) - [Theological Field Education Handbook 2025-2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025-2026-Theological-Field-Education-Handbook.pdf) ### Disability Resources Phillips Theological Seminary accords equal rights and privileges to all members of the Seminary community. In the administration of its policies and procedures related to admissions, financial aid, academic programs, and hiring, the Seminary does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. --- Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to providing equal access to its programs of graduate professional education for all qualified students with learning, physical, medical, or psychological disabilities. [Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/centers-offices/civil-rights-center/statutes/section-504-rehabilitation-act-of-1973)and the [Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990](https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/ada/) prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Accordingly, the seminary aims to provide reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with a disability to ensure their access and participation in Seminary programs. **Forms:** - [Policies and Procedures for Students with Disabilities](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ADA-Accommodation-Policies-Procedures-2024-2025-FILLABLE.pdf) - [ADA Grievance Procedure](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ADA-Grievance-Procedure-2024-2025.pdf) --- For more information regarding appropriate documentation and reasonable accommodation, please contact [the Associate Dean](mailto://anne.carter.walker@ptstulsa.edu). ### Theological Field Education Resources & Forms - [Application to Theological Field Education](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/i9kugbcoef/index.html?1646406781354) - [TFE Ministry Site Agreement](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/qzu8usstc9/index.html) - [TFE Professional Ethics Agreement](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/efbpu2tics/index.html?1646423693295) - [TFE Mentor Report](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/4j2xesevw7/index.html?1659038155520) - [TFE Mentor Modules](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Fall-2024-MENTOR-MODULES.pdf) ADA Handbook [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/FINAL-edition-3-Disabilities-Policies-and-Procedures-edited-8-4-2020.pdf) --- ### [Bedford House Donor](https://ptstulsa.edu/emerging-vision/bedford/) **Published:** January 7, 2026 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** ## Become a Part of Bedford House You can help grow Bedford House as a place of belonging with a commemorative leaf to recognize an important person or organization in your life. [ Donate for Leaf ](#) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/red-sm-1680x1680.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/yellow-lg-1-1680x1680.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/red-lg-1-1680x1680.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/purple-sm-1680x1680.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/blue-sm-1680x1680.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/blue-lrg-1680x1680.jpg) [](#) [](#) [](#) [](#) [](#) [](#) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/leaf-examples-1024x576.png) A beautiful leaf-inspired art installation will be featured in the Upper Level Commons of Bedford House, created from tribute leaves purchased by our generous supporters. Two leaf sizes are available, and you may personalize each with a printed name or message with the following guidelines for text: - **6” Leaf — $100** Up to **2 lines**, with **20 characters per line** - **9” Leaf — $250** Up to **3 lines**, with **24 characters per line.** An additional option is available for organizations or businesses wanting to use a logo: - **9” Leaf with Logo Only — $500** Your tribute leaf will become a lasting part of this meaningful artwork, celebrating support, community, and this unique place of belonging. If you would like to make a donation for your leaf, please fill out the giving form below. Include your leaf message text in that section of the form following the maximum character guidelines. For questions or more information, please contact Malisa Pierce at malisa.pierce@ptstulsa.edu or by calling 918-270-6409. --- ### [President's Greeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/presidents-greeting/) **Published:** December 1, 2025 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # President’s Greeting ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Web-2025-Christmas-card-non-donors.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Web-2025-Christmas-card-non-donors.png) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/doug-powe-trml-2025-300x289.jpg) Welcome to Phillips Theological Seminary! I just completed my first year and I am more convinced than ever that Phillips is a special and unique place. It is a place where those who have experienced marginalization or hurt can find authentic belonging. It is a place where those who are curious and called about what is next can begin their journey. The Phillips community has several opportunities for you to find your place of authentic belonging. It may be as part of a group staying in our newly opened Bedford House, a one-of-a-kind facility for students, denominational groups, church groups or church affiliate groups. It may be by dipping your toe in the theological waters by taking or auditing a class. It may be in one of our four main lectures that you can participate in virtually or in person. It may be connecting with the work of one of our Centers that impacts congregational and general communities. We look forward to journeying with you as you find your place of belonging. This is going to be another incredible year at Phillips. I look forward to connecting with you as we continue to shine a light on what is possible for those seeking to make a loving impact in the worldBlessings, F. Douglas Powe Jr. President, Phillips Theological Seminary ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/doug-powe-trml-2025-300x289.jpg) Welcome to Phillips Theological Seminary! I just completed my first year and I’m more convinced than ever that Phillips is a special and unique place. It is a place where those who have experienced marginalization or hurt can find authentic belonging. It is a place where those who are curious about what is next can begin their journey. The Phillips community has several opportunities for you to find your place of authentic belonging. It may be as part of a group staying in our newly opened Bedford House, a one-of-a-kind facility for students, denominational groups, church groups or church affiliated groups. It may be by dipping your toe in the theological waters by taking or auditing a class. It may be in one of our four main public lectures that you can participate in online or in person. It may be connecting with the work of one of our Centers that affects congregational and general communities. We look forward to journeying with you as you find your place of belonging. This is going to be another incredible year at Phillips. I look forward to connecting with you as we continue to shine a light on what is possible for those seeking to make a loving impact in the world. Blessings, F. Douglas Powe Jr. --- ### [Devotionals](https://ptstulsa.edu/devotionals/) **Published:** March 8, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** Please find Phillips Theological Seminary’s most recent devotionals below. Phillips provides devotionals as an ongoing public outreach. # Devotionals 2025 Advent Devotional # Lent 2024: Growing into an Easter Morning Words for these Days As you prepare for Lent and Easter this year let me offer a word, a word for each of these weeks. Place the word for the week before you. Keep it in your thoughts. I have offered some of my thoughts related to the word of the week. Write down your thoughts. Return to it as you sit resting, or waiting, or involved in an activity. Let this word become a companion. Repeat the blessing as a guide for your day. Allow these words to grow into a new meaning. And as they grow, may you grow into an Easter Morning that is fresh and new. [**CLICK FOR PDF FILE**](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lent-2024-Devotional-images.pdf) Terry Ewing, *Vice President of Advancement* [Download PDF](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lent-2024-Devotional-images.pdf) [![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Ash-Wednesday-2024.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Ash-Wednesday-2024.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lent-2024-Devotional-images.pdf) [Listen on Acast](https://shows.acast.com/advent-devotional) [Download the PDF](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/2025-Phillips-Advent-Devotional.pdf) # 2023 Advent Devotional Please freely share with others. [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztv5u_xqpdl-t9_2bnWxPVcM) # 2023 Weekly Lenten Devotionals ### Easter Sunday This year for the Lenten devotions, the scriptures that will be guiding our devotions and reflections be from *The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of The Bible Throughout the Year* by Ashley M. Wilcox. Each week the Lenten devotion will include a scripture reference, a reflection, a challenge or question for the week and a short prayer. We pray that through these devotions you see the Divine clearer in yourself and others during this Lenten season. **EASTER SUNDAY** **Scripture Mark 16:1-8** Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome had been following Jesus — taking care of him and the disciples in Galilee, according to Wilcox. They were more than just a part of the crowd but part of Jesus inner circle. They knew Jesus, heard Jesus’ teachings, saw Jesus crucified, stayed with Jesus until he was placed in the tomb (unlike the disciples), they were now going to take care of him in death as they had while he was alive. Grief and devastation already consuming them along with fear from their choice to follow the charismatic, life-giving leader that was crucified by the state for disrupting the Empire’s control. The women were holding onto the grief, devastation and fear as they stepped up to the tomb to prepare Jesus body after death. Only to be greeted with more fear and more devastation — a bone crushing, will crushing amount — Jesus’ body was gone and there was a strange man in the tomb. The man, the angel, informed them of Jesus’ risen state and his movement to Galilee. Now the women have “terror and amazement” to add to their grief and devastation. Terror overriding their grief and, according to Mark, they are speechless, unable to act on the strange man’s request to tell the disciples what had happened to Jesus’ body and where Jesus was going. As Christians, we have centuries of tradition, theology and doctrine telling us what the resurrected Christ and the empty tomb mean for our lives. We don’t come across this empty tomb with fear, devastation, and maybe even doubt. Our eyes, our ears aren’t surprised by this empty tomb and the risen, missing Jesus. CHALLENGE: Look at and experience the empty tomb of Jesus with fresh eyes. Is it a literal or metaphorical experience for you? How does it affect you emotionally and spiritually? What does it mean for your faith? How does it shape what you believe about Jesus? Take time to sit with your thoughts, feelings and beliefs this Easter. PRAYER: God of the Empty Tomb, may we experience the life and death and raising of Jesus in a new way… understanding it in a way that brings change to our lives and rolls away another stone to a dead area of our lives that awaits renewal. Amen. ### Week Six This year for the Lenten devotions, the scriptures that will be guiding our devotions and reflections be from *The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of The Bible Throughout the Year* by Ashley M. Wilcox. Each week the Lenten devotion will include a scripture reference, a reflection, a challenge or question for the week and a short prayer. We pray that through these devotions you see the Divine clearer in yourself and others during this Lenten season. **SIXTH SUNDAY IN LENT** **Scripture—**Matthew 27:11-23 There are two people in this passage that realize an innocent man is about to be crucified. There is a third person that knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that an innocent man is about to be crucified, but he also knows that is his fate — Jesus. The first two, Pilate and his wife, realize what is happening. Pilate through a dream, and the wife during the progression of the trial and of course her warning. Pilate is trying to get out of this tragic situation and find a way to get Jesus out of it too. In the scene in particular, Pilate is trying so hard to let Jesus go free. The passage begins, as Wilcox points out, with a bit of hope that Jesus may go free and won’t be crucified. His freedom is not meant to be. The crowd is relentless in their call for Jesus to be crucified. **CHALLENGE:** Close your eyes and put yourself in this scene. Imagine yourself in the place of each person in the scene. Next to Jesus. In Pilate’s position. The wife. The swayed crowd. The chief priests and elders who are swaying the crowd. What is your experience with each player in the scene? What is the motivation of each player in the scene? Can you understand their motivation? Can you identify the motivation for their actions? How do these experiences ground and shape your own movement into the Easter week? **PRAYER:** God of All – May we be able to see through other’s eyes and understand their motivations to more easily extend them grace as you have extended us much needed grace every day. May we be present with Jesus in the next week and all those who surrounded him. Amen. ### Week Five **FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT** **Scripture Luke 8:1-15** This parable of the seeds and the soil is not only a lesson in hearing, holding onto and taking in the Word of God, but a lesson for life. This is a parable that can be applied to many areas of your life where advice is given and perhaps change may or may not be desired. Healing and helpful messages cross our paths everyday through books, people, sermons, and all kinds of situations. At the time, we may or may not be ready to accept what we hear. It may fall on inattentive ears — on rocky ground or we may accept what we hear and change forever. We may only read one chapter in a book but go back months or even years later to read the rest of the book when we are ready to receive the message and carry it with us, let it change us and embody the message. The words land on good soil at different times. People living with a substance use disorder come to mind when I think of soil not being ready. They may hear the truth for freedom over and over and that seed of freedom from addiction gets trampled, falls on the rocky soil, gets choked out by thorns and maybe the seed of freedom falls on the uninhabitable soil. Each hearing or desire for freedom may loosen the soil just a bit. The seed may fall in one of those spots, and then, by grace, the person’s soil is ready to accept their freedom. The seed sprouts, and the lifegiving message becomes the roots for future growth. No soil has to remain unchanged. It can shift from rocky soil to soil that supports life. Unfortunately, it can also be soil that you think is healthy but doesn’t end up holding onto the seed. As Wilcox points out, “Probably the disciples think that they are in the final category but, in fact, when the time of testing comes, they scatter! …In the end, it is the women who embody the good soil, holding the word of God in their hearts and bearing fruit ‘with patient endurance.’” **Challenge:** Be honest with yourself, how prepared is your soil for a truth, a word, that God will send you that may change your life? Can you take action to be more receptive to hearing God’s truth? What can you do to remove the rocks, thorns, and make clear the path for the seed to fall and to be received? **Prayer:** God of all Seeds of Change, may we have strength and insight to do the work to have good soil to accept your words of change. May we hear and receive your words of change no matter how they are delivered. Amen. ### Week Four This year for the Lenten devotions, the scriptures that will be guiding devotions and reflections come from *The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of The Bible Throughout the Year* by Ashley M. Wilcox. Each week the Lenten devotion will include a scripture reference, a reflection, a challenge or question and a short prayer. We pray that through these devotions you see the Divine clearer in yourself and others during this season of Lent. **FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT** John 11:17-35 Can you imagine believing that Jesus can heal your bother, sending word to Jesus that your bother is sick. Jesus doesn’t come immediately. You feel anxious waiting and confused about the hold up. You keep waiting, nursing your brother but Jesus doesn’t get to your family in time. Your brother dies. Your anxiety and confusion turns to anger. You don’t understand why Jesus didn’t get there on time. Then your anger becomes devastation and heartbreak. Stoic Martha, weeping Mary, they both were feeling the same way — betrayed. Why didn’t you get here in time to heal our brother? They never thought that Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life was an option. Healing was their only hope, they thought. But their only hope became their minimal hope. Jesus gave them a hope they never knew existed — life after death for Lazarus. A family restored. There is hope. Mourn and cry and get angry and do all the things you know to do and wait with hope for the restoration that Jesus brings. The restoration that comes in a way that you will not expect. **CHALLENGE:** As you prepare for Easter and reflect during Lent, decide to bring new hope to a situation in your life that you have deemed hopeless. Who or what is your dead Lazarus? (A damaging addiction, mending a broken relationship, feeling whole again after a divorce, healing after a traumatic medical incident, getting free from debt). **PRAYER:** God of Restoring Hope, help us to see our lives in a new light of your presence and know that our answers are not always the only solutions to our Lazarus problems. May we wait patiently or impatiently, but may we wait knowing You have a solution that will be revealed, but it may take a stone being rolled away to be able to see it. May we believe that there could be a hope we don’t even know exists. Amen. ### Week Three This year for the Lenten devotions, the scriptures that will be guiding devotions and reflections come from *The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of The Bible Throughout the Year* by Ashley M. Wilcox. Each week the Lenten devotion will include a scripture reference, a reflection, a challenge or question and a short prayer. We pray that through these devotions you see the Divine clearer in yourself and others during this season of Lent. **THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT** John 4:7-15 There is so much going on in this scripture and so many issues that pastors and teachers focus on when they preach and teach from this passage. I appreciate the subtle issues that Wilcox reminds us of — Jesus was the foreigner in this situation and they both bring not only their own history and personhoods, but Jesus and the Woman at the well bring all their ancestral histories with them to the well — to the conversation — to the interaction. Their first impressions are based on what they already know about their ancestral history. Good and bad and indifferent. We do this every day. We make assumptions about the people we meet based on what we think we may know about their history. Even more importantly, we come to each interaction with our own histories, our sadness and rejection from our “five husbands.” And we make our own assumptions about how the other person will accept or reject us and react to them accordingly. Can we come to the wells in our lives and throw those assumptions about ourselves and others into the well and start fresh? Or are the assumptions an important place to start the conversation and prove our ability to extend grace to each other? We can look beyond the assumptions while still honoring the history and experiences that have made us. Jesus knew the ancestral history and personal history of the Woman at the well and didn’t ignore it. He knew that she was worth the “Living Water” and offered it to her. He knew who she was and the difficult life she had — none of which would squelch the Divine inside of her. Jesus came to this earth for us — Divinity in us by His actions. **CHALLENGE:** This week be aware of what history you bring to interactions with people and what assumptions may cloud your ability to see the Divine in others. Take a few seconds to remind yourself of the presence of the Divine in each person you meet. AND remind yourself daily of the Divine in YOU. **PRAYER:** Divine Among Us, May we be aware of our own history that we bring to interactions each day and remember that others bring their histories too. May we put our assumptions aside and see the Divine in each other. Allow this to be a reminder that Jesus is with us in our histories and in our present offers us healing, soothing Living Water from the well. Amen. ### Week Two This year for the Lenten devotions, the scriptures that will be guiding devotions and reflections come from *The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of The Bible Throughout the Year* by Ashley M. Wilcox. Each week the Lenten devotion will include a scripture reference, a reflection, a challenge or question and a short prayer. We pray that through these devotions you see the Divine clearer in yourself and others during this season of Lent. **SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT** Mark 12:38-44 In today’s scripture, Jesus watches a widow give all she has at the temple. What good would it have done for the widow to give more than she had? That’s an absurd question — if she only had two coins, she could only give two coins. The same is true for us emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially — if we give more than we have then we put ourselves in the negative and are no good to anyone. So why do we always expect ourselves to give more than we can or give as much at the next person? There are seasons in our lives when we can give more and others when we can give less. This is true financially as demonstrated by the widow, but this is also true in other areas of our lives. Sometimes we can give of ourselves to help at church, in the community, be an advocate and a caregiver for loved ones. Sometimes we only have enough mental, physical, and emotional energy and strength to teach our Sunday school class and raise our children. The widow’s coins were all she had to give and she gave it all. When we give what we are able with thoughtfulness, care, and dedication, it is always enough for God. How do you gauge what you can give financially emotionally, mentally, physically? Did you have a system to check in with yourself before you give to beyond depletion? For Ash Wednesday, you were challenged to let go of something that you use to numb yourself — to escape. With that numbing practice removed, is there more time and energy in your life to give to others or to yourself? Is there more time to spend in reflection and preparation for Lent? When you have an opportunity to give and you have control over what you give, reflect on the widow — she had no choice but to only give what she had. Only give what you have. **CHALLENGE:** In order to prepare, be aware, and not give more than you have, take time this week to do a quick inventory of your life. Are there areas where you give too much and need to cut back? Is there an area where you feel you can give more but haven’t been because you’ve been using that time to numb out? Decide to take one small step to give what you can in an area — by giving more or less — and stay in balance. Use these changes as a way to prepare for Lent. **PRAYER:** Giving God may You help us recognize when we only have ‘two coins’ to give and not force ourselves to find a way to give more. May we remember that what we have to give is enough. May our ways of finding balance be a way of preparing during this time of Lent. Amen. ### Week One This year for the Lenten devotions, the scriptures that will be guiding devotions and reflections come from *The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of The Bible Throughout the Year* by Ashley M. Wilcox. Each week the Lenten devotion will include a scripture reference, a reflection, a challenge or question and a short prayer. We pray that through these devotions you see the Divine clearer in yourself and others during this season of Lent. **FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT** Matthew 4:1-11 It’s hard to fast from power. Fasting from food or drink is much easier, even though our lives depend on those things. Our world is mesmerized by power. We find leaders of nations large and small, rich and poor, grabbing and keeping as much power as they can. We see people gravitate to the powerful for what they can do for them or in the hopes that they will gain some of that power for their own use. Power can derail the mission and vision of a people, a nation, a faithful group of believers, a family. The example of Jesus in this scripture is a reminder that staying focused on the mission and vision is important especially when provoked to use power for one’s own needs. The temptation to deploy power in a situation is hard to resist. Power helps us get what we need. It keeps us safe, or at least we think it does. It’s something we spend years achieving. In the wilderness, thirsty, tired and hungry, we are more likely to use our power in ways that benefit ourselves rather than in support of loving God and our neighbors. Our “power over” nature dominates our “power with” efforts when we feel threatened or challenged. The temptation to demonstrate just how powerful we are often comes out of a sense of entitlement. Rather than show the power of God when tempted, Jesus declined and stayed focused on the life and work ahead of him, to continue to love, heal and teach. **CHALLENGE:** Pay attention this week to where you are using your power. Ask yourself what vision that power supports. **PRAYER:** Divine love and power, help me to lean into the vision Jesus offers to us. May I see your way more clearly even as my own power dims my view. Amen. ### Ash Wednesday This year for the Lenten devotions, the scriptures that will be guiding devotions and reflections come from *The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of The Bible Throughout the Year* by Ashley M. Wilcox. Each week the Lenten devotion will include a scripture reference, a reflection, a challenge or question and a short prayer. We pray that through these devotions you see the Divine clearer in yourself and others during this season of Lent. **ASH WEDNESDAY** Matthew 25:1-13 In the scripture for today, Matthew describes bridesmaids waiting for a bridegroom. Half of the bridesmaids fall asleep while waiting, the other half keep watch with lamps full of oil. As Wilcox points out, this is a story about keeping the faith and less about who is in and who is out of heaven. And ‘keeping the faith’ seems to be presented as ‘being prepared’ — having oil in your lamp and ready to follow the bridegroom. The sleeping bridesmaids aren’t doing something wrong necessarily, but they weren’t doing what they needed to be doing in that moment. Another way to interpret the ‘asleep’ bridesmaids these days is ‘numbing out.’ Many of us are numbing out in our waiting and preparing, we aren’t asleep, but we aren’t doing what needs to be done either. OR we simply aren’t engaged in our own lives. We are so tired or overwhelmed with the turmoil in the world around us. Let’s face it, life is full of waiting. Dealing with the feelings of anticipation or disappointment can be too much sometimes. So whether we are asleep or sleepwalking (numbing out) through addiction or our phones or TV or whatever it may be, it seems easier than dealing with the reality of facing the emotions of waiting or engaging in living these days. We can still miss it all when we are numb to the world around us and miss the presence of Jesus among us. We must ‘wake up,’ let go of what numbs us and be a part of the waiting. Be a part of the getting prepared and engaging in the world. Today as ashes are put on your forehead and words are spoken over you, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” — you are still alive! Live, prepare, engage, don’t numb! CHALLENGE: Is there something you use to numb, to escape from reality? Let go of that ‘something’ during Lent and see what your emotions, your world, and your waiting tells you. PRAYER: Oh God of Patience, who always waits for your children, in this season of preparing may our eyes be open to the ways in which we numb to avoid the pain and boredom of waiting, the frustration of preparing, and the difficult realizations of preparing ourselves for your presence. May the ways we numb turn to ways of engagement and preparing during this time of Lent. Amen. # 2022 Advent Devotional Please share this Advent devotional with others. # 2021 Advent Devotional Please feel free to download, share, and print our 2021 Advent Devotional. [Click for PDF Advent Devotional](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Advent-2021-Clean.pdf) You may also listen to a daily podcast on your favorite podcast player, including [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-advent-devotional/id1537170523), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/7nx7Rj96XBBsnt0mfj21U9), [Stitcher](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/daily-advent-devotional), [Google Podcasts](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmN2RlYTE5YjlkMGQ4MDkxMzkzMTg5Yg) and [Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0851436a-fedc-4981-8d29-5e634cadef8d/Daily-Advent-Devotional). [![Creative Commons License](https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/4.0/88x31.png)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). # 2021 Lenten Devotional ***Lent 2021: Prayers for Hope and Resurrection*** Written by Terry Ewing, Vice President of Advancement [**DOWNLOAD PDF FILE**](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Lent-2021-Devotional-Prayers.pdf) **Prayers for Hope and Resurrection** As you consider Lent and Easter this year we offer a prayer for each week. Read the prayer each morning. Carry it with you through the day to read at lunch, or during a break or resting. During this year we have experienced much. We have all learned what is important and what to discard. We have learned what to value. As these prayers become a familiar piece of each day you will become more comfortable with this practice. May you discover and receive much from these *Prayers for Hope and Resurrection* ***Ash Wednesday,* February 17** Holy One, place my hands upon the Gates that I might throw them open, welcoming the Arrival of Hope into my life. May muscle and bone, heart and head, soul and spirit be awakened to the journey ahead. The barriers are removed! In Christ’s Name, Amen. **February 21 – 27** Dear Friend, pretending is not mending. I am empty and without form, the day seems lost between what I know and what I will do. Lift my head up, Lord. Whisper strength into my heart. Clear the grey from this day and bring blazing light into my home. These are my prayers, Amen. **February 28 – March 6** Heart of Grace, in this week of mixed blessings and feelings, I am looking for what can heal me. I am looking for what can turn my mind. O God, lift my heart and spirit—it is time and I need it so. Let me find Life, once more. In this Name, who walks here now, Amen. **March 7 – 13** Dearest Companion and Friend, I find myself in the middle of nowhere, winding around nothing and I search for a hand, a place to stand, somewhere safe. Touch me with the glimmering possibility of Hope. Take me, Lord, to the end of this Holy Week. These are my prayers, Amen. **March 14 – 20** Holy and Gracious One, I hear the shadows talking in gloomy mutterings of despair, as the Lord’s Peace here among us, was stolen and snatched away. In silence and quiet meditation, keep our hearts aimed toward what is ahead. Absent but not abandoned. Fearful but not forgotten. Lingering but not lost. I raise my hands into this night, seeking your soothing grasp. Amen. **March 21 – 27** Most Loving God, who has heard of such love? Jesus, whose hands offered justice and mercy—pierced. Jesus, whose footsteps crossed lines of suspicion and hatred—pierced. Jesus, whose bowed head gathered all in love—pierced and broken. O God, may my life be as dear to me as it is to Christ. May such love be the net cast upon us all, binding each one to the other. May it be so. Amen. **March 28 – April 3** Faithful Guide and Holy Friend, these hours seem empty. These minutes, scattered. We are the assorted and jumbled followers. It is here, with these, I wait. Waiting for what might be next. Praying for what might be next. O God, may this waiting reveal the coming restoration. May this waiting brightly proclaim the Day of Hope and Resurrection. In this Name, these are my prayers, Amen. ***Easter Sunday*, April 4** Wondrous God, Risen Lord, Creating Spirit—Good News! What was bound, has been released. What has been in shadows, now has seen the Light. Fear is ignored and forgets its place. The Promise is fulfilled, each heart is drenched in mercy, each life is forgiven, restored, and brought new into this day. Justice runs free, and I will not stop it. Love is raised beyond limits, and I will not doubt it. Hope is on the rise, and I will not forget it. Thank you, O God, thank you, for today ALL is new. These are my prayers, In Christ’s Name, Amen. ## Advent 2020 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Advent-2020-FINAL.pdf) ### Resources for the Pandemic ### Words of Prayer for Days of Solitude and Healing Words of Prayer for Days of Solitude and Healing** *Creating a Habit of Prayer* ***Introduction*** Our days are often days of community and comfort, of sparkling conversations with friends and family and the rich harvest of the day. These are days of physical anxiety, misgivings regarding health and struggles of the spirit. Phillips Theological Seminary would like to offer you these *Words of Prayer for Days of Solitude and Healing* as a resource for your own sustained care, connectedness and spiritual discovery. Best used, these little prayers, when repeated on a regular basis, can begin to set a framework within your day. And there within that framework, a Habit of Prayer can be encouraged or begin. Try creating a space, your own worship center, that you visit during these times of the day. Gather and bring a variety of items to your worship center. These items may be photos, souvenirs, or anything that connects what is occurring in your life with your spirit. Visit your worship center when you are anxious about your health of mind, body or spirit. Visit when you feel alone and isolated. Visit when you worry about friends and family. Visit those times when you need strength and a sustaining hope. ***On Rising*** Dear God, thank you for the rest of night. I rise now eager for the promise, care and wonder of this day. ***With Coffee or Breakfast*** Open my eyes, Lord, open my heart and open my waking spirit for this day. ***During Mid-Morning*** (**inhale**) May your Peace, O God (**exhale**) fill my heart. (Repeat several times.) ***With Lunch*** By this meal we are fed, by this meal we are nourished and restored, within this meal we are bound, one to another wherever we may be and with your work, Gracious One, in this place or another, may it be so. ***During Mid-Afternoon*** In this brief moment, Gentle Friend, lift my weary arms, sweep my fading spirit with your grace-filled breeze and bring new strength into my life. ***With Dinner or Early Evening*** Gracious Lord, the bread is broken and the cup is poured, the day has past and we gather, we receive each one and bless each life, and may our thanks fill the sky. ***At Evening’s Rest*** Dear God, now I rest, now I sleep. Now, I set aside my fear and I release each worry of the Day. Now I rest, I trust, and I remember your love for us all. Amen. --- **Other Occasion for Prayer** ***A Time of Happiness or Joy*** Beloved and Holy Friend, may I remember this bright and happy day, may the joy in this moment spill out from my heart and may grace and mercy be my gift for all I meet. ***When I Worry or I Fear*** Merciful God, my worries I give to you. My fears I give to you. Remove them from me to a place beyond my living. Take my shaking hand, leading me to your peace. ***Seeking Advice, Wisdom or Direction*** Sacred Companion, direct my thoughts toward what is whole, what is just, and along paths of compassion, may your steady grace be my compass and my guide. *—Written by Terry Ewing, Vice President for Advancement* ### Writings from the Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison, PhD, Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible Click the links for each title to view the PDF files. [A Psalm for a Time of Fear](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/A-Psalm-for-a-Time-of-Fear.pdf) (borrowing words and inspiration from Psalm 46 and Micah 6:8) [A Word of Hope and Trust in Anxious Times](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/A-Word-of-Hope-Comfort.pdf) (inspired by Isaiah 40:1-11) [There will be Hope](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/there-will-be-hope.pdf) (inspired by Ezekiel 37:1-14) ### Lenten 2020: Steps Toward an Easter Morning ### Introduction As you consider Lent and Easter this year we offer a prayer for each week. Try this: Read the prayer each morning. Carry it with you through the day to read at lunch, or during a break or resting. Wrap yourself in these thoughts as your wardrobe, your garment for the day. Allow this new garment to change your day. Write down your thoughts. Return to these thoughts at the day’s end. Through consistent use you will become more comfortable with this practice and you will find yourself on *Steps toward an Easter Morning*. ([Click to download PDF](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Lenten-Prayers-2020.pdf)) —Terry Ewing, Vice President of Advancement, Author of Prayers ### Ash Wednesday, Feb. 26 My Sweet Lord, I break into this new day, claiming the Hope of Good Beginnings. Sounds of Life, Sounds of Joy, Sounds of Praise reach my ears though an open door. My head turns from night to day. My head turns from fear to freedom. My face is lit by the Holy Promise. My face is turned toward this One who comes. Alleluia breaks, crashing upon my rocky shore! Alleluia rings in fullness ‘round my empty world! Alleluia tips the balance and raises peace! Alleluia cuts a path ‘cross every limit! Alleluia arrives this day! Thank God! Amen. ### Week 1, March 1-7 Most Loving God, the sleepless hours crumble away and I spend precious minutes listening to the sound of footsteps stumbling along unnamed roads. These sounds do not restore. These sounds do not renew. These sounds do not redeem. O God, I recognize these sounds, as mine. I see the imprint of these faltering steps, as mine. Pick me up, Lord! Turn my eyes, Lord! O Lord, lean in upon my ear and whisper, “This is the way.” Hear my prayer, Amen. ### Week 2, March 8-14 Most Loving God, I try once more. I am breathing deep on a breathless day, in the morning sun, Dear Friend. Today, I cannot hide myself from your world of wonder and blessing. Torn away from the dirty rags I have called shelter, a swirling chorus is all around, singing “Forgiveness!” into my heart, chanting “Wonder!” into my head and proclaiming “Hope!” upon my spirit. Loving God, as this One passes by, so I follow and I try once more. By His Name, Amen. ### Week 3, March 15-21 Holy Companion, once more a gracious hand reaches across what is broken, pressing a balm deep into my aching spirit and offering a comfort I have missed so much. In the middle of these sacred weeks, in the middle of this Way unfolding before us, in the middle of my jumbled words may I be drawn closer, may I find a turn on my twisting road toward a wholeness I never knew. Here in the middle of Life, O God. Amen. ### Week 4, March 22-28 Holy and Gracious One, deep in the darkness, deep among the clatter and rattle of passing days, deeper still within my fearful heart, the Good News Song seems to be sailing away to other ears, drifting down a faraway hall to those who can still hear. O God, does the wonder of these days, these Holy Days simply fade? Do we turn ‘round and ‘round, marking time without thought? If a darkness falls upon us this day, it is the heavy curtain of our own misgivings, a darkness draped across our lives. Only Love will tear it aside. We hold our breath, O God, until that time. Amen. ### Week 5, March 29-April 4 Gracious Friend, in this silent place, holding still and holding close, among silent others, with silent dreams and silent words, praying in this silent place: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, forgive me. Christ, forgive me. O God, may your Peace fill my heart, once more.” Hear now, our Amen. ### Easter Sunday, April 12 Gracious God, Gentle Lord, Fresh Spirit of this Bright Day, I have been discovered! I can no longer hide. When self-doubt has robbed me of strength, on THIS Day I am restored. When those shadowy ghosts of past mistake and misstep heap a fog upon my view, on THIS Day I am renewed. When all that is, all that was, each moment, each beat, every loss, every joy, the brokenness, the wastefulness, the smallest bit of emptiness and the greatest portion of regret—when all this life is woven and bound together, Beloved Friend, on THIS Day I am raised above. Rising up, dusted off and shined up new, I am re-made! In the Name of the One who found us all, on this day of Risen Hope and Risen Life. Alleluia Amen! ## Advent 2019 [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/advent-2019/) ### Lenten Devotional 2019 ### Introduction These Lenten devotions will focus on some of the psalms included as readings for the season of Lent in the Revised Common Lectionary (Psalms 51, 91, 27, 32, 119, and 31). Before engaging the Psalms, a basic understanding of these ancient prayers is needed. The name of this collection of prayers, “Psalms,” comes from the Septuagint’s (LXX) Greek title*, psalmoi*, suggesting songs sung with musical instruments for accompaniment. In the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew title is *tehillim*, meaning “praises.” As we will see, this concept that all prayer was a way of praising God is key to understanding the Psalms. Even angry laments are a means of praising the Divine, but I will say more about that in another devotional. The Psalter is often referred to as the “hymnbook of the second Temple,” reflecting the belief that the Book of Psalms got its final shape in the period of rebuilding the Temple under the leadership of Zerubbabel (circa 520-515 BCE). However, we are basically ignorant about the date of composition for most of these psalms (except maybe Psalm 137, which could not have been written prior to the Babylonian exile, circa 586 BCE). It is possible that some were actually composed in the pre-exilic period of David and Solomon (10th century) or even earlier. In fact, some of these prayers are probably very ancient. The Psalter is unique among the books of the Hebrew Bible because it is the only one that contains nothing but prayers. While other books contain prayers, they are usually set within the context of a narrative. The Psalms is a collection of prayers that must stand on their own, without any supporting story. We see examples of psalms being reused (used for the first time) in other parts of the Hebrew Bible, as in the parallel between 2 Sam 22 and Psalm 18. The Book of Psalms is the most frequently encountered biblical text among the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls and fragments of scrolls reveal that the communities behind the texts knew of most of the 150 canonical psalms, but we also find other psalms that were not ultimately canonized. These are intermingled with the canonical psalms, and the order varies. This implies that the fixed order, editing, of the Psalter was still in flux as late as the 1st or 2nd centuries CE. The Book of Psalms is of great importance for the church because of its influence on hymns, theology, worship, understandings of God, and prayer. Obviously, some shape of the Psalter was known and important for Jesus and his followers, as it was for the early Christian community. The Psalms also provides a rich resource of prayer and worship materials for today. It reflects the gamut of human emotions and experiences. *By* Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison *Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible* ### Week 1 **A Reflection on [Psalm 51](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=418824168)** By: Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison There are 60 laments in the Psalter, prayers describing a world that seems to be spinning out of control. These prayers of “disorientation”[\[1\]](#_ftn1) expressed the concerns and needs of an individual/community experiencing suffering and feeling that God could (should) do something to make the situation better. There are more laments in the Book of Psalms than any other identifiable form (even Hymns of Praise). Given the human experience, which is often filled with pain and uncertainty, this statistic is not surprising. What is intriguing is that the Hebrew title of this biblical book (*tehillim*) translates as “Praises.” Those who preserved this collection of ancient petitions gifted us with some very important wisdom: there is nothing we can’t say in conversation with God, and all types of prayer are acts of praising God, even if we are not sure that God is listening. In Psalm 51, the psalmist has done something wrong and has experienced the “crush” (v 8b) of guilt and the pain of God’s disappointment (v 4b), and the request is for God’s “mercy” and forgiveness (v 1). This psalm follows the usual pattern for an “Individual Lament”: Address to God (v 1); Complaint/Confession (vv 3-5); Confession of Trust (v 6); Petition (vv 7-11); Words of Assurance (v 12); and Vow of Praise (vv 13-15). The only exception is the occurrence of a Petition in vv 1b-2. It is not unusual for laments to rearrange the different parts of the structure, and we might explain this aberration as being due to the effusive emotions of a person who is desperate for God’s forgiveness. Psalm 51 seems to be an appropriate psalm for the 1st week of Lent, a season marked by many Christians as a time for self-examination and confession of transgressions. Psalm 51 offers the opportunity to reflect about the need to recognize and confess sins. However, the psalm also reminds us that God forgives, even before we recognize and name our wrongdoings. Laments, like Psalm 51, also provide a ritual way for us to move from “disorientation” to “reorientation”, even if nothing about our situation noticeably changes; it comes as a result of being “heard” by the Divine. [\[1\]](#_ftnref1) The term, “disorientation”, is borrowed from Walter Brueggemann. He uses this as a category to classify the psalms, along with “orientation” and “new orientation,” in his book, *The Message of the Psalms* (Fortress, 1985). ### Week 1 Scripture: Psalm 51 ## Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgement. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, 19 then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt-offerings and whole burnt-offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. ### Week 2 **A Reflection on [Psalm 27](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=418824313)** By: Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison Psalm 27 is a “mixed-type psalm.” It contains both a “Thanksgiving Psalm” (vv 1-6) and a “Lament” (vv 7-14). The first three verses of Psalm 27 are a powerful statement of confidence and trust. The key theme is “fear” and how the psalmist’s relationship with the LORD empowers her/him not to be afraid. These words could be spoken either in a public context as a “testimony” to the protection of the LORD, or they could be words that the psalmist says to her/himself as a mantra of assurance, before facing a challenge or before moving into the next phase of the prayer, which describes the psalmist’s desire to be in the “house of the LORD” (v 4b), which in this context refers to the Temple. In the Temple, the psalmist finds “shelter” and protection (v 5). From that high place, the psalmist can focus on worshiping the LORD (v 6). Having established a sense of safety and proclaimed a desire to be in the LORD’s presence, the psalmist is ready to move into the lament portion of the psalm. Suddenly, the confidence and comfort of the psalmist turns into a sense of being abandoned by the LORD (vv 7-9). The worries about the psalmist’s “enemies” (v 11) have not really gone away, but seem to have been hovering in the shadows of her/his mind. Or, perhaps new “adversaries” (v 12a) have emerged, slandering the psalmist and carrying a threat of violence (v 12b). After a desperate plea for God’s protection, the psalm concludes with more words of assurance. The psalmist proclaims (either privately or to others) that there will be better days ahead (v 13). The LORD’s salvation will come, but it will arrive in God’s own time. “Courage” and patience are required in the meantime (v14). Psalm 27 reads like an emotional roller coaster ride, with hills of confidence and drops of doubt all done at a confusing and chaotic speed. In this way, Psalm 27 is a microcosm of the entire Psalter. Within these 150 prayers, we find the full gamut of human experiences (e.g., joy, sadness, fear, trust, etc.). Just as scholars like it better when a biblical text fits into a predictable pattern, we want life to do the same. When the text or our life defy our desire for organization, we are forced to find new ways to interpret both the biblical material and our experiences. Fresh patterns emerge, and a fuller comprehension of the world develops. Yet, through it all, we can affirm the words of psalmist, “Wait for the LORD and be strong; let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (v 14) ### Week 2 Scripture: Psalm 27 ## Triumphant Song of Confidence Of David. 1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh— my adversaries and foes— they shall stumble and fall. 3 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident. 4 One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. 5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock. 6 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord. 7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me! 8 ‘Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, do I seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation! 10 If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up. 11 Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. 12 Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence. 13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! ### Week 3 **A Reflection on [Psalm 32](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=418824384)** By: Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison This psalm is a “hymn of thanksgiving” that contains the responses of the psalmist to an experience of God’s salvation. Having endured a time of suffering, about which no specifics are given, this person understands that experience as a time of self-revelation. In the midst of “wasting away” and “groaning” (v 3), the psalmist identified some aspect of her/his life that was incongruent with God’s will and asked God for forgiveness. No longer burdened with a sense of guilt, the psalmist was able to acknowledge the healing grace of God. A “hymn of thanksgiving,” like Psalm 32, may have been preceded by a “lament.” This earlier prayer cried out to God in hopes of being healed or saved. An important part of a lament is a promise made by the one praying that, if God answers the person’s prayer, they will sing God’s praises to all who will listen. In Psalm 32, the psalmist perhaps is keeping just such a promise by encouraging all who find themselves in times of trouble to “offer prayer” to God, with the assurance that God will answer their prayers as well. All who call upon the name of the LORD will find a “hiding place” and will enjoy protection from whatever threatens them. A change of speaker occurs in vv 8-9; now God makes assurances to the psalmist (and all the faithful). Among the chaos of life, God promises to “instruct”, “teach”, and provide individualized “counsel” for those who will take advantage of such opportunities. The Divine also offers a warning about the kind of behavior that leads to right relationship with God, but this is provided in the negative: “Do not be like a horse or a mule.” These two animals are used to represent stupidity and stubbornness, obstacles that may prevent a person from receiving the Divine’s education. In the concluding verses, the psalmist again speaks, but this time the message is less personal and more of a general statement about the nature of the Divine. The psalmist declares that the lives of the faithful are easier than the lives of the wicked; one enjoys the LORD’s “steadfast love” and the other knows only “torment.” The claims of Psalm 32 have to be handled with great care. The assertion that one’s suffering is caused by unrecognized sin is theologically troubling and dangerous. However, there may be a possibility to discuss how difficult experiences sometimes provide an opportunity for self-reflection and the recognition of aspects of one’s life that could be changed. In fact, the temptation to see illness, or other problems, as a divine punishment can be very harmful, but if we accept ourselves for who God created us to be, it is possible to know wholeness, regardless of how the current situation is resolved. That is a reason to tell others about the “steadfast love” of God. How do our words and actions proclaim the “steadfast love” of the Divine? ### Week 3 Scripture: Psalm 32 ## The Joy of Forgiveness Of David. A Maskil. 1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. *Selah* 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. *Selah* 6 Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. 7 You are a hiding-place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. *Selah* 8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. 10 Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. 11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. ### Week 4 **A Reflection on [Psalm 119](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=418824434)** By: Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison The longest psalm of the Psalter, Psalm 119 often gets overlooked by those seeking a resource either for their own devotions or for public worship. At 176 verses, this prayer is a bit daunting and certainly does not lend itself to a call to worship or other liturgical use, amidst the other parts of a typical worship service. Yet, Psalm 119 is an incredible testament to poetic skill and dedication. What is lost in most English translations is the fact that it is an alphabetic acrostic poem with 22 stanzas of eight lines, within each stanza all eight lines begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In English, this would be the equivalent of eight lines beginning with “A,” eight lines beginning with “B,” and so forth. The visual effect of the original Hebrew text is impressive, but the intricacies of Psalm 119 do not end there. All but two verses of the psalm contain either the word, “torah” (teaching), or one of seven synonyms for that word (e.g., ordinance, statute, etc.). Based on the acrostic form, most scholars have identified Psalm 119 as a “Wisdom Psalm.” In my opinion, this psalm defies any typical “type” or label; it is a psalm of a different type. The beauty of Psalm 119 is how the psalmist has skillfully utilized the alphabet and the synonyms to create a prayer that celebrates God as the one who teaches humanity the way to live a righteous life. The opening eight verses are a good example of the poetic artistry of Psalm 119. The stanza opens with a declaration that happiness comes to those who follow God’s “torah”, a word that is often translated as “law” in English (especially Christian) bibles, but this is a very biased rendering. In Hebrew, the word “torah” has the broader sense of “teaching,” which at times includes the legal materials of the Hebrew Bible. Today, Psalm 119 might be seen as a rigid and legalistic text with no contemporary application. Christians could see its focus on, and celebration of, the “law” as being irrelevant to their faith. However, with some corrective translation, broadening the definition of “torah” to include “teaching,” readers should be able to better appreciate the psalm. We still need God to “teach” us the right way to live, to guide us in making good choices and caring for our neighbors. Perhaps in our chaotic world, full of technological and medical advances moving faster than our comprehension, the orderliness of Psalm 119 can provide a welcome stability. Its structure resembles a routine (e.g., diet, exercise, spiritual discipline, etc.) that can help us find our center (God?) and live in ways that are consistent with God’s teaching. ### Week 4 Scripture: Psalm 119 ## The Glories of God’s Law 1 Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. 2 Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart, 3 who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways. 4 You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. 5 O that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! 6 Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. 7 I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous ordinances. 8 I will observe your statutes; do not utterly forsake me. 9 How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word. 10 With my whole heart I seek you; do not let me stray from your commandments. 11 I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you. 12 Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes. 13 With my lips I declare all the ordinances of your mouth. 14 I delight in the way of your decrees as much as in all riches. 15 I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my eyes on your ways. 16 I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. 17 Deal bountifully with your servant, so that I may live and observe your word. 18 Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. 19 I live as an alien in the land; do not hide your commandments from me. 20 My soul is consumed with longing for your ordinances at all times. 21 You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments; 22 take away from me their scorn and contempt, for I have kept your decrees. 23 Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. 24 Your decrees are my delight, they are my counsellors. 25 My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to your word. 26 When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes. 27 Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works. 28 My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word. 29 Put false ways far from me; and graciously teach me your law. 30 I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your ordinances before me. 31 I cling to your decrees, O Lord; let me not be put to shame. 32 I run the way of your commandments, for you enlarge my understanding. 33 Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will observe it to the end. 34 Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. 35 Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. 36 Turn my heart to your decrees, and not to selfish gain. 37 Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; give me life in your ways. 38 Confirm to your servant your promise, which is for those who fear you. 39 Turn away the disgrace that I dread, for your ordinances are good. 40 See, I have longed for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life. 41 Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise. 42 Then I shall have an answer for those who taunt me, for I trust in your word. 43 Do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your ordinances. 44 I will keep your law continually, for ever and ever. 45 I shall walk at liberty, for I have sought your precepts. 46 I will also speak of your decrees before kings, and shall not be put to shame; 47 I find my delight in your commandments, because I love them. 48 I revere your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes. 49 Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. 50 This is my comfort in my distress, that your promise gives me life. 51 The arrogant utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. 52 When I think of your ordinances from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. 53 Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, those who forsake your law. 54 Your statutes have been my songs wherever I make my home. 55 I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law. 56 This blessing has fallen to me, for I have kept your precepts. 57 The Lord is my portion; I promise to keep your words. 58 I implore your favour with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. 59 When I think of your ways, I turn my feet to your decrees; 60 I hurry and do not delay to keep your commandments. 61 Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law. 62 At midnight I rise to praise you, because of your righteous ordinances. 63 I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts. 64 The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love; teach me your statutes. 65 You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word. 66 Teach me good judgement and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments. 67 Before I was humbled I went astray, but now I keep your word. 68 You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. 69 The arrogant smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts. 70 Their hearts are fat and gross, but I delight in your law. 71 It is good for me that I was humbled, so that I might learn your statutes. 72 The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. 73 Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. 74 Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word. 75 I know, O Lord, that your judgements are right, and that in faithfulness you have humbled me. 76 Let your steadfast love become my comfort according to your promise to your servant. 77 Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight. 78 Let the arrogant be put to shame, because they have subverted me with guile; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts. 79 Let those who fear you turn to me, so that they may know your decrees. 80 May my heart be blameless in your statutes, so that I may not be put to shame. 81 My soul languishes for your salvation; I hope in your word. 82 My eyes fail with watching for your promise; I ask, ‘When will you comfort me?’ 83 For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten your statutes. 84 How long must your servant endure? When will you judge those who persecute me? 85 The arrogant have dug pitfalls for me; they flout your law. 86 All your commandments are enduring; I am persecuted without cause; help me! 87 They have almost made an end of me on earth; but I have not forsaken your precepts. 88 In your steadfast love spare my life, so that I may keep the decrees of your mouth. 89 The Lord exists for ever; your word is firmly fixed in heaven. 90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. 91 By your appointment they stand today, for all things are your servants. 92 If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my misery. 93 I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. 94 I am yours; save me, for I have sought your precepts. 95 The wicked lie in wait to destroy me, but I consider your decrees. 96 I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad. 97 Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all day long. 98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is always with me. 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your decrees are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. 101 I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. 102 I do not turn away from your ordinances, for you have taught me. 103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104 Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. 105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. 106 I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to observe your righteous ordinances. 107 I am severely afflicted; give me life, O Lord, according to your word. 108 Accept my offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me your ordinances. 109 I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. 110 The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts. 111 Your decrees are my heritage for ever; they are the joy of my heart. 112 I incline my heart to perform your statutes for ever, to the end. 113 I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. 114 You are my hiding-place and my shield; I hope in your word. 115 Go away from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God. 116 Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope. 117 Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually. 118 You spurn all who go astray from your statutes; for their cunning is in vain. 119 All the wicked of the earth you count as dross; therefore I love your decrees. 120 My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgements. 121 I have done what is just and right; do not leave me to my oppressors. 122 Guarantee your servant’s well-being; do not let the godless oppress me. 123 My eyes fail from watching for your salvation, and for the fulfilment of your righteous promise. 124 Deal with your servant according to your steadfast love, and teach me your statutes. 125 I am your servant; give me understanding, so that I may know your decrees. 126 It is time for the Lord to act, for your law has been broken. 127 Truly I love your commandments more than gold, more than fine gold. 128 Truly I direct my steps by all your precepts; I hate every false way. 129 Your decrees are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. 130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. 131 With open mouth I pant, because I long for your commandments. 132 Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your custom towards those who love your name. 133 Keep my steps steady according to your promise, and never let iniquity have dominion over me. 134 Redeem me from human oppression, that I may keep your precepts. 135 Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes. 136 My eyes shed streams of tears because your law is not kept. 137 You are righteous, O Lord, and your judgements are right. 138 You have appointed your decrees in righteousness and in all faithfulness. 139 My zeal consumes me because my foes forget your words. 140 Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. 141 I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. 142 Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is the truth. 143 Trouble and anguish have come upon me, but your commandments are my delight. 144 Your decrees are righteous for ever; give me understanding that I may live. 145 With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O Lord. I will keep your statutes. 146 I cry to you; save me, that I may observe your decrees. 147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I put my hope in your words. 148 My eyes are awake before each watch of the night, that I may meditate on your promise. 149 In your steadfast love hear my voice; O Lord, in your justice preserve my life. 150 Those who persecute me with evil purpose draw near; they are far from your law. 151 Yet you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true. 152 Long ago I learned from your decrees that you have established them for ever. 153 Look on my misery and rescue me, for I do not forget your law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise. 155 Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. 156 Great is your mercy, O Lord; give me life according to your justice. 157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, yet I do not swerve from your decrees. 158 I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands. 159 Consider how I love your precepts; preserve my life according to your steadfast love. 160 The sum of your word is truth; and every one of your righteous ordinances endures for ever. 161 Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. 162 I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. 163 I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. 164 Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous ordinances. 165 Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble. 166 I hope for your salvation, O Lord, and I fulfil your commandments. 167 My soul keeps your decrees; I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep your precepts and decrees, for all my ways are before you. 169 Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word. 170 Let my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your promise. 171 My lips will pour forth praise, because you teach me your statutes. 172 My tongue will sing of your promise, for all your commandments are right. 173 Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. 174 I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. 175 Let me live that I may praise you, and let your ordinances help me. 176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek out your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. ### Week 5 **A Reflection on [Psalm 31](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=418824579)** By: Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison Psalm 31 is a fairly long individual lament, and like most laments, Psalm 31 opens with a call for God’s attention and action, interwoven with assertions of trust (vv 1-2). The psalmist describes God with powerful images of strength and security (vv 3-4): “rock,” “fortress,” and “refuge.” Expressing a sense of being hunted and trapped, the psalmist prays to be delivered from the “net” lying in wait for her/him (v 4). With no other options, this sufferer places her/his life in God’s “hand” (v 5). This ultimate expression of trust may also be understood as a sign of resignation. Having no power to overcome the current situation, the psalmist desperately hopes that God can. The psalmist professes that their entire being is reliant on God. After describing the situation that predicates the prayer of lament (vv 6-18), the closing section of Psalm 31 (vv 19-24) returns to the strong statements of trust in God and in God’s ability to make things right, to tame the “chaos” of the psalmist’s experience. The imagery found in vv 1-5 appears once again. Those who “take refuge” in God will benefit from God’s abundant grace (v 19). Divine “shelter” is provided for the faithful and keeps them safe from those who would do them harm (v 20). A testimony to God’s “steadfast love” is provided in vv 21-22. We are left to wonder if this last section was added later, after the psalmist experienced rescue from her/his suffering (v 22). The psalm concludes with words of encouragement to the faithful congregation; “love the LORD… Be strong… take courage… all you who wait for the LORD” (vv 23-24). These verses also seem like a late addition, perhaps when this individual lament was adapted for liturgical use. This person’s experience of God’s “salvation” could be used as a lesson about faith and an encouragement for the gathered community in a time of distress. How do we name the chaos of our lives paired with an assurance of Divine presence in all situations? ### Week 5 Scripture: Psalm 31 ## Prayer and Praise for Deliverance from Enemies To the leader. A Psalm of David. 1 In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me. 2 Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. 3 You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me, 4 take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge. 5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. 6 You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord. 7 I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have taken heed of my adversities, 8 and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place. 9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. 10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. 11 I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbours, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. 12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. 13 For I hear the whispering of many— terror all around!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. 14 But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ 15 My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. 16 Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love. 17 Do not let me be put to shame, O Lord, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol. 18 Let the lying lips be stilled that speak insolently against the righteous with pride and contempt. 19 O how abundant is your goodness that you have laid up for those who fear you, and accomplished for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of everyone! 20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots; you hold them safe under your shelter from contentious tongues. 21 Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege. 22 I had said in my alarm, ‘I am driven far from your sight.’ But you heard my supplications when I cried out to you for help. 23 Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily. 24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. --- ### [Remind & Renew](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/remind-renew/) **Published:** January 2, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # 2026 Remind & Renew In Our Image: Rethinking Accessibility & Hospitality for All ## Remind & Renew Jan. 14–15, 2026 Join us for our annual Remind & Renew event as we explore what it means to create truly welcoming and accessible faith communities. Keynote speaker the Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund—author of the “Blessed” series on mental health, neurodiversity, and faith—will guide us in reimagining hospitality that honors the full dignity and worth of every person. Mark your calendar. Full schedule and workshop details coming soon. [ Learn More ](https://events.ptstulsa.edu/event/remindandrenew/home) .pheedloop-iframe { overflow: auto; position: relative; height: 600px; width: 100%; }.pheedloop-iframe iframe { border: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; top: 0; width: 100%; } ![https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/rr_logo_small-692x471.png](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/rr_logo_small-692x471.png) ## In Our Image: Rethinking Accessibility and Hospitality for All **January 14–15, 2026 | 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.** Join us for our annual Remind and Renew event as we explore what it means to create truly welcoming and accessible faith communities. Keynote speaker **Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund**—author of the “Blessed” series on mental health, neurodiversity, and faith—will guide us in reimagining hospitality that honors the full dignity and worth of every person. This hybrid event features keynote lectures, worship, faculty book discussions, and opportunities for continuing education and connection with colleagues in ministry. **Mark your calendar. Full schedule and registration opening soon.** # ***Seeking Wisdom and Understanding in Troubling Times*** ## **Schedule Overview** - Wednesday, January 15 - 1–6:30 p.m. - Thursday, January 16 - 9 a.m.–4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Advancement Award Dinner - Friday, January 17 - 9–4:30 p.m. *View the detailed schedule below.* ## **Speakers** **The Rev. Lisa Wilson Davison, PhD** ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Davison_Lisa-2-tu.png](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Davison_Lisa-2-tu.png) The Rev. Lisa Wilson Davison, PhD will lead two plenary sessions on seeking wisdom and understanding in the Hebrew Bible during these troubled times. With a love of the Hebrew Bible and a passion for teaching, Dr. Lisa W. Davison fulfills her ordination vows through theological education both in the seminary and faith communities. Before being named Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean, she served as Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs. She joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary in 2010 as the Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible and Formation Director for Disciples students. Her research interests have focused on interpreting the texts of the Hebrew Bible in ways that are respectful of both Judaism and Christianity, seeking to correct the continuing supersessionist readings that have been a part of early church traditions and continue even today. In addition, Dr. Davison has a special interest in reclaiming and recentering the female characters in the Hebrew Bible. Before joining the faculty at Phillips Theological Seminary, Dr. Davison served as the Professor of Religious Studies at Lynchburg College (2009-2010), Professor of the First Testament at Lexington Theological Seminary (1996-2009), and Chaplain at Culver Stockton College (1995-1996). **Rita Nakashima Brock, PhD, and the Rev. Dr. Susan Diamond** Drs. Brock and Diamond will lead a plenary session and a plenary workshop on surviving moral distress and moral injury. Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph.D., was born in Japan and raised in a Buddhist family for six years before being moved to the U.S. and being raised in the U.S. military. She is the first Asian American woman to earn a doctorate in theology and has been Senior Vice President for Moral Injury Recovery Programs at Volunteers of America since 2017 The Rev. Dr. Susan Ward Diamond is the Lead Pastor of Florence Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Florence, Kentucky, where she has served since 2015. Dr. Diamond received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Christian University, a Master of Divinity degree from Brite Divinity School, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. In 2021, Dr. Diamond and Dr. Brock collaborated on a pastoral study grant funded by the Louisville Institute entitled *Moral Injury: A Catalyst for Reform*. Following the study period, they have continued their work together to offer strategies to faith communities for providing support and healing for those suffering from moral distress and moral injury. In 2023, they launched the podcast *[Soul Repair: After Moral Injury](https://www.voa.org/soul-repair-podcast/),* which is targeted for clergy and faith leaders*.* Through her church and community work, she has trained and facilitated numerous Talking Circles for Soul Repair. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/soul-repair-1024x1024-2-272x300.png) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/headshot-2022-waseem-B.jpeg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/headshot-2022-waseem-B.jpeg)![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Diamond-headshot2-e1733519325580.jpeg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Diamond-headshot2-e1733519325580.jpeg) Click for Agenda [Special Hotel Rates](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Phillips-Special-Hotel-Rates.pdf) ### Detailed Schedule ### Wednesday, January 15 - 8:30 a.m. – Registration opens - 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Alumni/ae Board Meeting - 1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. – Welcome and centering - 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. –Plenary Session – Lisa Davison - 3:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. – BREAK - 3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. – Artist Talk - 4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Worship with no speaker - 4:30 p.m. – President’s reception and art opening ### Thursday, January 16 - 8:30 a.m. – Registration opens - 9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Welcome and centering - 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Plenary Session – Lisa Davison - 11:00 a.m. – Lunch and social time - 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Book discussions - 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. – Plenary Session – Rita Brock and Susan Diamond - 3:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. – BREAK - 3:45 p.m. – 4:45 p.m. – Worship with Jesse Jackson - 5:30 p.m. – Advancement Award Dinner at Harvard Avenue Christian Church – 5502 S. Harvard Ave, Tulsa OK ### Friday, January 17 - 8:30 a.m. – Registration opens - 9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Welcome and centering - 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Plenary Workshop – Rita Brock and Susan Diamond - 11:00 – Lunch and social time - 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – Faculty panel - 2:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. – BREAK - 2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. – Worship with Robin Meyers - 3:45 p.m. – Dean’s closing dessert reception ### Special Rates at our Partner Hotels for Remind & Renew Participants Residence Inn, Downtown Tulsa 202 W. 5th St, Tulsa OK **Call Direct to Book**: 918-895-8700 Ask for “Phillips Group Rate” Rate for King Studio Suite is $132/night, complimentary breakfast and parking Hampton Inn & Suites, Central Tulsa 3418 S. 79th E. Ave., Tulsa OK Rate for Standard King or Queen is $86/night, free breakfast, parking, and WiFi Book through this [**LINK**](https://www.hilton.com/en/book/reservation/deeplink/?ctyhocn=TULCEHX&groupCode=CHHRAR&arrivaldate=2025-01-15&departuredate=2025-01-17&cid=OM,WW,HILTONLINK,EN,DirectLink&fromId=HILTONLINKDIRECT) ### Event Code of Conduct Welcome to Phillips Theological Seminary. Whether you are using the library or attending an educational program, the Seminary is committed to providing a learning space for all participants, and we need your cooperation in doing so. Phillips is first and foremost an educational institution; creating and maintaining an environment conducive to learning is essential. A harassment free environment allows each Seminary guest to learn without fear of being accosted for who they are. The Seminary has taken care to write policies to frame spaces for harassment-free learning. See the anti-discrimination statements, the trustees’ statement on Engaged Diversity, inclusive language, Title IX/Sexual Harassment Prevention, and ADA. The seminary is a member of the Disciples Alliance Q, which advocates for the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons in the life of the church. In addition, the Seminary is seeking to build a deeper capacity to communicate across cultures through utilizing the Intercultural Development Inventory. A harassment-free space is achieved when guests treat others with respect and refrain from inappropriate speech, touch, or actions that ignore, dismiss, demean, or denigrate the equal and full humanity of another. Guests should expect harassment-free treatment from Phillips employees and students. Seminary guests should seek to be aware not only of their intent in interacting with others but also of the impact/reception of their actions. In your interactions with others (whether other guests, students, or employees), please understand yourself to be in a public, professional context rather than a personal space, and keep your comments and actions appropriate for that public, professional space within the framework created by the Seminary’s policies. If you judge that you have been on the receiving end of an inappropriate action, please deal with the situation by addressing the action personally, by bringing the situation to the attention of Seminary personnel (starting with the event organizer, during a program), or both. The Seminary employee in charge of the event or the space (e.g., the library) is authorized to address situations. Actions may range from speaking to or admonishing the offending party, to dismissal from the event (without refund), to a prohibition from using the library or attending programs at the Seminary. If a guest makes a complaint about an employee or a student, that complaint will be investigated according to the policies in the Employee or the Student Handbook. --- ### [Safety & Compliance](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/safety-compliance/) **Published:** January 4, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Safety Reporting and Compliance Data / Annual Security Report While numerous efforts are made by campus safety and security to advise and assist students, faculty, and staff of personal and campus safety measures, safety is ultimately each person’s responsibility. The cooperation and involvement of everyone in the Phillips community enhances each person’s safety. Please be aware and report suspicious activity immediately. Suspicious activities can refer to incidents, events, individuals or circumstances that seem unusual or out of place. ### Report a Crime - Dial **911** for emergencies requiring immediate assistance. - Suspicious persons or unusual incidents should be reported immediately to Campus Safety and Security by dialing 918.698.3598. - Crimes can be reported anonymously at [**ptstulsa.integrareport.com**](https://ptstulsa.integrareport.com/) **or 1.833.792.1180 (toll free)**. ### Phillips Crime Statistics (Clery Report) When compared to colleges, universities, and local communities of similar size, Phillips’ crime statistics are extremely low. A detailed **[Clery Act Statistical Summary](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Phillips-Crime-Stats-2022-2024-clery.pdf)** report is updated annually. The statistics reflect: - **Phillips**: Crimes that were reported to the Phillips Campus Security and which occurred on property owned and controlled by the Seminary within the same reasonable contiguous area. - **Police Department**: Crimes that were reported to the city police departments having jurisdiction on all public property, including thoroughfares, streets, sidewalks, and parking facilities, that are adjacent to and accessible from the campus. **PLEASE NOTE**: Crime reported to campus security authorities are not always reported to, or verified as having occurred, by Campus Security or city police. The numbers contained in this category also may duplicate crimes concurrently reported to the Campus Security or city police. City police statistics are provided by the City of Tulsa, which have jurisdiction around our campus, and are not independently verified by the Seminary. Information concerning registered sex offenders may be obtained through the Tulsa Police Department at 918.596.9222 or via the [**Oklahoma Department of Corrections**](http://www.doc.state.ok.us/offenders/offenders.htm)**.** ### Campus Safety and Security Resources **Campus Resource** Title**Office Location****Telephone Number** **email address**Holly BeckerTitle IX CoordinatorRoom 41918.270.6446holly.becker@ptstulsa.eduGina RobertsonCampus Security & Safety OfficerReception918.852.4930gina.robertson@ptstulsa.eduDanny MeltonCampus Safety Specialistafter 5 pm Reception918.852.4930danny.melton@ptstulsa.edu ### Student Complaint Form (SARA Oklahoma State Regents) This [complaint form](https://www.okhighered.org/resources/Student-Complaint-Form/Default.aspx) applies to the following: - A student who attends a degree-granting institution that has a physical presence in the state of Oklahoma and/or - A student who attends an institution that 1) has its principal or campus or central administrative unit domiciled in Oklahoma and 2) is participating in the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA). Students attending a public or private (not-for-profit or for-profit) institution should pursue concerns directly with the institution according to its dispute resolution or complaints policy. Dispute resolution or complaints policies are usually published in the institution’s catalog or student handbook and/or posted on the institution’s webpage. (Copied from the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Student Complaints page [LINK](https://www.okhighered.org/current-college-students/complaints.shtml)) Students attending PTS through SARA who feel that PTS has not satisfactorily addressed their complaint may contact the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education here: [SARA Student Complaints](https://okhighered.org/admin-fac/sara/#sara-complaints "https://okhighered.org/admin-fac/sara/#sara-complaints"). More information about SARA student complaints can be found on the NC-SARA website here: [NC-SARA Student Complaints](https://www.nc-sara.org/student-complaints "https://www.nc-sara.org/student-complaints"). ### Addiction and Substance Abuse Resources Alcoholics Anonymous Northeast Central Service Office 24 Hr Hotline: 918-627-2224 Site: www.aaneok.org Sexaholics Anonymous 866-424-8777 12 & 12 Inc. Alcoholism Treatment Program 6333 East Skelly Drive Tulsa, OK 74135 918-664-4224 Toll: 1-800-680-8979 http://www.12and12.org Brookhaven Hospital 201 S. Garnett Road Tulsa, OK 74128 Toll: 1-888-298-7673 http://www.brookhavenhospital.com/ Alcohol & Drug Rehab Tulsa Drug Addiction Treatment Center 10321 E. 47th Pl Tulsa, OK 74146 918-921-7148 Open 24 Hours Palmer Drug Abuse Program Drug Addiction Treatment Center 711 S. Sheridan Road Tulsa, OK 74112 918-832-7763 http://www.palmer-tulsa.org/ Drug Alcohol Rehab Center Tulsa 7633 E. 63rd Pl #300 Tulsa, OK 74133 918-770-8043 http://www.tulsadrugtreatmentcenters.c om/ Oklahoma Hotline Number for Gambling Anonymous 855-2CALLGA (855-222-5542) Great Start Addiction Treatment Drug Addiction Treatment Center Tulsa, OK Toll: 1-888-300-8315 http://fastaddictiontreatmentresults.com / Most Insurances Accepted Open 24 hours Keetoowah Cherokee Counseling 2727 E. 15th Street Tulsa, OK 74135 918-835-3012 How to Foundation Drug Rehab 5649 S. Garnett Road Tulsa, OK 74146 918-256-5739 Tulsa Women and Children 2442 Mohawk Blvd. Tulsa, OK 74110 918-430-0975 Indian Health Care Resource Center of Tulsa 550 S. Peoria Avenue Tulsa, OK 74120 918-588-1900 http://www.ihcrc.org/ Open 10:00 am – 7:00 pm ### Compliance with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act [HEERF CARES Act Reporting](https://ptstulsa.edu/200722-heerf-cares-act-reporting-2/) - [Report for Fall 2021](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/210930-HEERF-CARES-Act-Reporting.pdf) - [Report for Spring 2021](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/210813-HEERF-CARES-Act-Reporting.pdf) Quarterly Budget and Expenditure Reporting under CARES Act - [Quarter Ended 211231](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/02560200_HEERF_Q42021_011322.pdf) - [Quarter Ended 210930 Section A1](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/02560200_HEERF_Q32021_101021.pdf) - [Quarter Ended 210930 Section A3](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/02560200_HEERF_Q32021_100721.pdf) - [Quarter Ended 210630](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/HEERF-063021-quarterly-reporting-Institutional-form-for-website.pdf) - [Quarter Ended 210331](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/heerf-quarterly-reporting-v131-033121.pdf) - [Quarter Ended 200930](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/heerf-quarterly-reporting-v131-093020-quarter-end.pdf) --- ### [Adjunct and Affiliate Faculty](https://ptstulsa.edu/adjunct-and-affiliate-faculty/) **Published:** September 9, 2024 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Adjunct and Affiliate Faculty All affiliate, adjunct, and emeriti faculty may be contacted through the Assistant to the Dean and Faculty, [Sharon Russ. All Center for Ministry and Lay Training faculty may be contacted through the Director of CMLT, ](mailto:sharon.russ@ptstulsa.edu)[Leslie LeSieur](mailto:leslie.lesieur@ptstulsa.edu)[.](mailto:sharon.russ@ptstulsa.edu) # Affiliate Faculty Ray Owens Affiliate Instructor Social Ethics and Black Church Studies Anne Carter Walker Affiliate Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Vocational Formation # Emeriti Faculty Ellen Blue Visiting Professor History of Christianity and United Methodist Studies Marilyn (Mady) Fraser Assistant Professor of Spirituality, Chaplain Emerita Harold Hatt Professor of Theology and Philosophy Emeritus John M. Imbler Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Disciples Studies Executive Vice President Emeritus Gary E. Peluso-Verdend Associate Professor of Practical Theology President Emeritus Brandon Scott Professor of New Testament Emeritus Richard Ward Fred B. Craddock Professor of Homiletics and Worship Emeritus --- ### [Ministry Enrichment](https://ptstulsa.edu/events/ministryenrichment/) **Published:** August 26, 2018 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Ministry Enrichment Continuing Education and Learning ## **Ministry is demanding work.** ## **It requires continual renewal.** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/empty_pews_3203684a-300x187.jpeg) Ministers, chaplains, and other leaders are often pulled in many directions while caring for others, yet they also need space to grow, reflect, and be nourished. Phillips Theological Seminary’s Ministry Enrichment Continuing Education Unit (CEU) Program is designed to meet that need by offering structured, affordable opportunities for ongoing learning. This program allows you to earn continuing education credits and deepen your practice of ministry alongside peers who are also committed to faithful service in a complex world. Phillips provides a CEU certificate upon completion. **Registration & Fees:** - $75 per event - $200 for all four events (if enrolled by December 31, 2025) ## Each Ministry Experience combines: ✔ Faculty-selected pre-reading that grounds you in key themes ✔ Attendance at a timely, thought-provoking public event on an important social topic ✔ A guided post-event discussion with seminary faculty to connect insights directly to your ministry context. ## **2026 Ministry Enrichment Events** REMIND & RENEW** Featuring keynote speaker Rev. Dr. Sarah Lund *In Our Image: Rethinking Accessibility and Hospitality for All* ***EVENT: Wednesday, January 14, 2026*** Keynote Lectures: 9:45 am & 1:30 pm (in person and online) ***FOLLOW UP: Monday, January 26, 2026*** Faculty discussion at 6:30 pm (Zoom), led by Rev. Dr. Annie Lockhart-Gilroy, Associate Professor of Christian Education and Practical Theology and Director of the Doctor of Ministry program *CEU Note:* CEU enrollment covers keynotes only. Upgrade for $75 to attend the full conference. Already registered for R&R? Add CEU for $25. **TULSA RACE MASSACRE LECTURESHIP** Featuring keynote speaker Rev. Dr. Teresa Fry Brown ***EVENT: Monday, April 27, 2026*** Opening reception at 5:30 pm and lecture at 6:30 pm (in person and online) ***FOLLOW UP: Monday, May 4, 2026*** Faculty discussion at 6:30 pm (Zoom), led by Dr. Arthur Carter, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Director of Black Church Studies and African American Faith-Life, and Director of Formation for Baptist Students **PRIDE@PHILLIPS** Keynote speaker announcement coming soon! *Another transformative voice. Another vital conversation.* ***EVENT: Tuesday, October 13, 2026*** Opening reception at 5:30 pm and lecture at 6:30 pm (in person and online) ***FOLLOW UP: Monday, October 26, 2026*** Faculty Discussion at 6:30 pm (Zoom), led by a Phillips faculty member to be announced **INDIGENOUS NORTH AMERICAN HERITAGE EVENT** Featuring Patrick B. Reyes, PhD, and additional participants to be announced *Gathering wisdom, sharing stories. Conversation topic to be revealed* ***EVENT: Tuesday, November 3, 2026*** Opening reception at 5:30 pm and lecture at 6:30 pm (in person and online) ***FOLLOW UP: Tuesday, November 17, 2026*** Faculty Discussion: at 6:30 pm (Zoom) led by a Phillips faculty member to be announced --- ### [Board of Trustees Directory](https://ptstulsa.edu/board-of-trustees-directory/) **Published:** March 24, 2021 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Board of Trustees Directory All Board of Trustees members may be contacted through the Board Secretary, [Ashley Gibson](mailto:ashley.gibson@ptstulsa.edu). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Renee-Bridwell.jpg)### Renee Bridwell ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Jeff-Champeau.jpg)### Jeff Champeau ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Pam-Holt.jpg)### Pam Holt ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Sally-Kelley.jpg)### Sally Kelley ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Ron-Nofziger.jpg)### Ron Nofziger ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Minna-Zelch.jpg)### Minna Zelch ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Larry-Brown.jpg)### Larry Brown ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Ruth-Ann-Fate.jpg)### Ruth Ann Fate ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Myrna-Jones.jpg)### Myrna Jones ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Claire-Meredith.jpg)### Claire Meredith ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Dan-Woods.jpg)### Dan Woods Not pictured: Moises Echeverria Steve Lalli Chrys D. Lemon Marla Mayberry Jocelyn Payne Ulysses Washington Kyle V. Maxwell Lynnwood R. Moore, Jr. ## **Trustees of the Board** **Chair of the Board** Claire Meredith, Wichita, Kansas Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) **Vice-Chair of the Board** Steven Fate, Tulsa, Oklahoma Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) **Secretary of the Board** Sally Kelley, Tulsa, Oklahoma United Church of Christ Todd Adams, Indianapolis, Indiana Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Jacqueline Blue, Sumter, South Carolina Baptist Larry Brown, Chickasha, Oklahoma Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Connie Dietz, Wichita, Kansas Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Marcia Hagee, Waxahachie, Texas Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Myrna Jones, Tulsa, Oklahoma Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Chebon Kernell, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma United Methodist Kelly Kirby, Tulsa, Oklahoma Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Ron Nofziger, Tulsa, Oklahoma Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Tom Stanley, Topeka, Kansas Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Dawn Weaks, Odessa, Texas Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Karen Webster Parks, Atlanta, Georgia United Methodist Minna Zelch, Chagrin Falls, Ohio Unitarian Universalist **Alum Representative to the Board** Travis Smith McKee, Wichita, Kansas Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) **Faculty Representative to the Board** Annie Lockhart-Gilroy, Tulsa, Oklahoma United Methodist **Staff Representative to the Board** Katherine Casey, Tulsa, Oklahoma **Student Representative to the Board** Alysha Petry, Washington, Missouri United Church of Christ ### **Trustees Emerita/us** Ruth Ann Fate, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Member Emerita Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Kyle V. Maxwell, Yukon, Oklahoma, Member Emeritus Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Lynnwood R. Moore, Jr., Tulsa, Oklahoma, Chair Emeritus United Methodist Church Dan Woods, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Member Emeritus Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) --- ### [F. Douglas Powe Jr.](https://ptstulsa.edu/doug-powe/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # F. Douglas Powe Jr. President and Mouzon Biggs, Jr. Professor of Methodist Studies ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/doug-powe-trml-2025-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/doug-powe-trml-2025-scaled.jpg) The Rev. F. Douglas Powe Jr., PhD is President of Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Okla., where he leads the seminary in its work toward deep learning, faithful leadership and global impact. An ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, Dr. Powe is a respected scholar, teacher, and author whose work explores congregational vitality, urban ministry, and innovative approaches to evangelism. Before leading Phillips, he served as Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership and James C. Logan Professor of Evangelism at Wesley Theological Seminary. His books include *Sustaining While Disrupting*, *The Adept Church*, and *Transforming Evangelism*. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, and Emory’s Graduate Division of Religion, Dr. Powe is widely sought after for his insights on faith, leadership, and the changing ministry environment. **[Click for CV](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Douglas-Powe-CV.pdf)** --- ### [Programs of Study Copy](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-11/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 81 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-ministry-culture/) ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificate Program For those who hold a baccalaureate degree, the school offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program (requiring 15-16 semester hours of work). Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Lisa Barnett](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-barnett-2/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Lisa Barnett **Content:** # Lisa Barnett Associate Professor of American Religious History and Director of Formation for Disciples Students ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Barnett_Lisa-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Barnett_Lisa-scaled.jpg) Dr. Lisa Barnett is an Associate Professor of American Religious History at Phillips Theological Seminary. She did her PhD work in the history department at Texas Christian University, focusing on U.S. history since 1877 and specifically American Indian history and American religious history. She has two Master’s degrees from Brite Divinity School—a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology degree in History. She is also an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Dr. Barnett currently serves as a trustee for the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, oversees the Isaac Errett student history paper competition, and is the co-moderator of the Center for Indigenous Ministries (DOC). Dr. Barnett was the 2012 winner of the Isaac Errett Award for History sponsored by the Stone-Campbell Journal and the Disciples Historical Society. Her paper was published in the Spring 2013 edition of the Stone-Campbell Journal. She is also the author of two essays in the book on the history of Brite Divinity School published by TCU Press in 2011, and has a chapter included in *Border Policing: A History of Enforcement and Evasion in North America* released by the University of Texas Press. She has a chapter on the Otoe Church of the First Born that will be included in *Religion in the North American West*, forthcoming with University of Nebraska Press and a chapter for another edited collection titled “Oklahoma Women Lead the Way into the KKK,” for *American West between the World Wars* forthcoming with the University of Oklahoma Press. Her book, *[Peyote Politics: The Making of the Native American Church, 1880-1937](https://www.oupress.com/9780806195384/peyote-politics/)*, with the University of Oklahoma Press was published in Spring 2025. [LINK TO NEW BOOK](https://www.amazon.com/Peyote-Politics-American-1880-1937-Directions/dp/080619538X) ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf) ### Education and CV PhD in U.S. History, Texas Christian University Master of Theology (ThM) in American Religious History, Brite Divinity School Master of Divinity, Brite Divinity School BA in Oral Communication Education, University of Central Oklahoma CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/241212-lisa-barnett-CV.pdf) --- ### [Giving](https://ptstulsa.edu/giving/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Giving to Phillips Your gift allows Phillips to empower students, faculty and alumni to follow where faith leads. Graduates start new churches; lead non-profit organizations around the world; study, write and publish; serve as elected officials and yes, minister too. Because of your gifts, our scholarship program provides financial aid ranging from 80 to 100 percent of tuition for every student. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/donate.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/donate.png)Make a One-Time Donation Donate now to give students the opportunity to join conversations that expose them to new ideas and deepen their commitment. [Donate Now](https://ptstulsa.edu/donate/?type=single) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/monthly.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/monthly.png)Make a Monthly Donation Help your investment grow over time and give students insights on how to minister in a changing world. [Support with a Pledge](https://ptstulsa.edu/donate/?type=monthly) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mail-icon.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mail-icon.png)Mail a Gift Prefer to mail us the gift? No problem, click here for details. [Mailing Address](https://goo.gl/maps/iPJMjzv1xX62) [Add to Library Collection](#) [Legacy Giving](#) [Give a Scholarship](#) [Support InterReligious Understanding](#) [Academic Resources](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/academic-resources/) [Denominational Formation](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/denominational-formation/) --- # More Ways to Give Help us educate ministers so they can transform communities around the world. There many ways to our support work. ### Annual Fund Campaign This fund allows us to offer scholarships to 100 percent of our students, to pay fair salaries and benefits, maintain the building and to keep our library collection up to date. ### iFundPhillips Campaign Donations to this campaign cover the cost of emergency assistance for a student in need, orientation, travel grants, counseling, scholarships and more. ### Giving in Honor of or in Memorial Give a gift in honor of, or in memory of someone special in your life. You select the fund that most closely reflects the person you are honoring. ### Endowments Ready to set up an endowment to support and grow Phillips in the future? We are grateful for the endowments that currently fund school operations and student scholarships. ### Churches Who Give Join the churches that are supporting our work to make the seminary more accessible to everyone. ### Support the Center for Ministry & Lay Training Program Our online Center for Ministry & Lay Training program is another way we reach out to the whole church. These online courses allow students to explore their call to ministry or to get a certificate in ministry. ### Support InterReligious Understanding Give to the program that explores religious diversity in our community. Students get an introduction to Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish and Native American practices. ### Support PhillipsFest Our annual concert for justice and hope. This is a community outreach, our opportunity to minister in this changing world. ### 501(c)3 Phillips Theological Seminary is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation in the state of Oklahoma. The seminary is committed to responsible, ethical stewardship of the funds entrusted to us. Each year we conduct an independent audit after the close of each fiscal year (July 1 – June 30). Our 990 is available on [Guidestar](https://www.guidestar.org). ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/donate-stats.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/donate-stats.png) --- ### [DMin](https://ptstulsa.edu/dmin/) **Published:** August 23, 2022 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # More Flexibility, More Options Now Available for DMin Students Leadership in Public Ministry and Social Transformation Now Open [ ![Portrait photo of Ulysses Allen smiling and wearing a suit and tie.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Allen_Ulysses-scaled.jpg)### Ulysses Allen Click to email Ulysses Allen to learn more about starting your Doctor of Ministry degree at Phillips Theological Seminary.](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) ![Sara Cunningham, founder of Free Mom Hugs and recipient of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, takes a selfie with the faculty and graduates after the 2024 Phillips Theological Ceremony commencement ceremony May 18, 2024.](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Grads_1501_Thmb.jpg) Your Doctor of Ministry degree is closer than ever with updates to the program at Phillips Theological Seminary. - Foundational courses offered in January, June and October - More seminary courses open to DMin students - Leadership in Public Ministry and Social Transformation specialization now open - Up to 14 credits can be taken online (depending on specialization). Some of these changes mean students can accelerate the time it takes to complete the program, though Phillips expects students to finish in three-to-six years. Cross listing courses means DMin participants will have access to a wider variety of classes to consider. This is especially valuable because of the number of new faculty members at Phillips. ### [**APPLY NOW**](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) The new [Leadership in Public Ministry and Social Transformation](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) specialization is an outgrowth of the growing interest in the social justice master’s degree at Phillips. This specialization is designed for practitioners from a variety of ministry contexts who are committed to public theology in diverse forms including: - community organizing - advocacy - nonprofit leadership - leading congregations to address justice issues within society. Email [Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) to learn more about this new specialization or any of our other DMin options: - [Black Church Traditions and Public Proclamation](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) - [Pastoral Leadership in Worship and Preaching](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) - [Improvisational Ministry Track](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) And, Phillips continues to offer financial aid to every person accepted into the DMin program. Phillips will continue to award **80 percent tuition assistance** to all students, along with **100 percent tuition assistance** to members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) or United Church of Christ along with underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. > At Phillips, we know there are many factors to consider when choosing a DMin program: faculty, community, affordability, and more. [Contact Ulysses Allen](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu) to learn just how close you can be to getting your Doctor of Ministry. You’re also always invited to visit us in Tulsa, Oklahoma. [Apply Today](#)[Schedule a Visit](#)[Request Info](#)[View Scholarships](#) --- ### [Phillips Store](https://ptstulsa.edu/store/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Welcome to the Phillips Online Store Get your logo wear and fun accessories. Thank you for shopping for your Phillips logo wear. Please let us know if there are items you’d like to see. [Email us](mailto:kurt.gwartney@ptstulsa.edu) with your recommendations and we’ll see if we can add it. --- ### [Submissions](https://ptstulsa.edu/submissions/) **Published:** June 15, 2023 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # Submissions Thank you for considering exhibiting your works at Phillips Theological Seminary. You’ll find additional details and links on submitting your works for consideration in the sections below. Click the “+” sign to open the area you’re interested in. [Contact us](mailto:holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu) if you need assistance in the submission process. Please read our **[Content Policy](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Art-Content-Policy-June-2023.pdf)** before submitting. # 2023 Exhibitions ### Summer – Belonging Exhibition 8/18/23 to 10/20/23 The Spring 2023 exhibition artist is already selected. The Summer 2024 call to artists will be posted soon, so please check back. ### Fall – Indigenous North Americans Exhibition 11/6/23 to 1/5/24 The Fall 2023 exhibition artist is already selected. The Fall 2024 call to artists will be posted soon, so please check back. # 2024 Exhibitions ### Winter – Remind & Renew Exhibition 1/24/24 to 4/5/24 The Winter 2024 exhibition is by invitation. The Winter 2025 call to artists is posted below. ### Spring – Tulsa Race Massacre Exhibition 4/22/24 to 7/14/24 The Spring 2024 exhibition artists are already selected. The Spring 2025 call to artists will be posted in early 2024, so please check back. ### Summer – Belonging Exhibition 8/20/24 to 10/18/24 The Summer 2024 exhibition artists are already selected. The Summer 2025 call to artists will be posted soon, so please check back. ### Fall – Indigenous North Americans Exhibition 11/12/24 to 12/20/24 **Call for Artists: Indigenous North Americans Exhibition** March 25, 2024 Phillips Theological Seminary invites local and regional artists to submit their artworks for a solo visual art exhibition, which will be on display on our campus at 901 N. Mingo, Tulsa, OK from 11/12/24 to 12/20/24. The topic is Indigenous Persons Heritage Month, celebrating the rich and diverse cultures of the Indigenous peoples of North America. We are seeking artists who explore current themes and issues through their work, showcasing the creative expressions of contemporary Indigenous artists. The opening reception will coincide with a public event and lecture on 11/12/24. The exhibition can include up to 20 works of 2-dimensional art, depending on size, and up to 5 works of 3-dimensional art, depending on size. Once an artist is selected, the exact works will be selected for the exhibition in partnership with the Phillips Theological Seminary team. Benefits** - Selected artist will receive a $500 honorarium and the opportunity to sell their artwork - Selected artist will have their artworks displayed in a prominent location on campus - Selected artist will have their artworks promoted through the seminary’s website, social media, and newsletter - Selected artist will have the opportunity to give an artist talk and interact with the seminary community Eligibility** - Artist must be at least 18 years old - Artist must be an active member of a tribe or indigenous community. - Artwork must follow the Phillips Theological Seminary content policy Submission Guidelines** - Artist must fill out [this form](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FR855CG) by 8/16/24 - Artist must upload a current resume or CV - Artist must provide an artist statement (max. 500 words) that explains how their artworks relate to the topic of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging - Artist must upload a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 images of their artworks with titles, dimensions, mediums, and year of creation - Artist must indicate if their artworks require any special installation or display needs Selection Process** - A jury panel of seminary faculty and staff will review all submissions and select one or more artist(s) for the exhibition - The selected artist(s) will be notified by 9/13/24 - The selected artist(s) will be responsible for delivering their artworks to the seminary by 11/4/24 and picking them up by 1/3/25 - The selected artist(s) will be expected to attend the opening reception on 11/12/24 and give an artist talk on a date to be determined Contact Information** For any questions or inquiries, please contact: Holly Becker Associate Vice President of Operations [holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu](mailto:Holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu) 918-270-6446 Apply Now** To apply for this opportunity, please fill out [this form](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FR855CG) and upload your required documents. The deadline for submission is 8/16/24. Download this call as a pdf document: [Call to Artists- Fall 2024](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Call-to-Artists-Fall-2024.pdf) # 2025 Exhibitions The 2025 artists and exhibitions have been selected. Please check back for opportunities in 2026. ### Winter – Remind & Renew Exhibition 1/15/25 to 4/4/25 **Call for Artists: Seeking Shalom: Wisdom & Understanding in a Turbulent World** March 25, 2024 Phillips Theological Seminary invites local and regional artists to submit their artworks for a solo visual art exhibition, which will be on display on our campus at 901 N. Mingo, Tulsa, OK from 1/15/2025-4/4/2025. The topic is confronting global turmoil with local impact, guided by the profound wisdom (*hokmah*) and understanding (*binah*) of the Hebrew Bible. We hope to emphasize transformative approaches toward a fullness of wholeness (Shalom) in a rapidly changing world, with insightful and actionable responses rooted in ancient, yet ever-relevant, teachings. We welcome diverse and imaginative expressions of the theme. The opening reception will coincide with Remind & Renew, the Seminary’s annual 3-day event for ministers and alumni. The exhibition can include up to 20 works of 2-dimensional art, depending on size, and up to 5 works of 3-dimensional art, depending on size. Once an artist is selected, the exact works will be selected for the exhibition in partnership with the Phillips Theological Seminary team. **Benefits** - Selected artist will receive a $500 honorarium and the opportunity to sell their artwork - Selected artist will have their artworks displayed in a prominent location on campus - Selected artist will have their artworks promoted through the seminary’s website, social media, and newsletter - Selected artist will have the opportunity to give an artist talk and interact with the seminary community Eligibility** - Artist must be at least 18 years old - Artwork must follow the Phillips Theological Seminary content policy Submission Guidelines** - Artist must fill out [this form](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FR7DMTY) by 10/18/24 - Artist must upload a current resume or CV - Artist must provide an artist statement (max. 500 words) that explains how their artworks relate to the topic of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging - Artist must upload a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 images of their artworks with titles, dimensions, mediums, and year of creation - Artist must indicate if their artworks require any special installation or display needs Selection Process** - A jury panel of seminary faculty and staff will review all submissions and select one or more artist(s) for the exhibition - The selected artist(s) will be notified by 11/15/24 - The selected artist(s) will be responsible for delivering their artworks to the seminary by 1/6/25 and picking them up by 4/11/25 - The selected artist(s) will be expected to attend the opening reception on 1/15/25 and give an artist talk on a date to be determined Contact Information** For any questions or inquiries, please contact: Holly Becker Associate Vice President of Operations [holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu](mailto:Holly.becker@ptstulsa.edu) 918-270-6446 Apply Now** To apply for this opportunity, please fill out [this form](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FR7DMTY) and upload your required documents. The deadline for submission is 10/18/24. Download this call as a pdf document: [Call to Artists- Winter 2025](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Call-to-Artists-Winter-2025.pdf) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/LooS-and-Lecture-3-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/LooS-and-Lecture-3-scaled.jpg) --- ### [SignUp](https://ptstulsa.edu/sign-up/) **Published:** March 15, 2024 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** Submit [ Click ](#) --- ### [Special Event](https://ptstulsa.edu/register/) **Published:** August 26, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Complimentary Registration Page Welcome to the complimentary registration page for Phillips Theological Seminary’s *Remind & Renew* event! As a valued partner and friend of our institution, we are delighted to offer you exclusive access to this annual gathering. Join us as we explore timely and thought-provoking topics with leading voices in theology, social justice, and community engagement. Your presence will help deepen the dialogue and inspire change within our shared mission. Register below to secure your place in this meaningful experience. Date: August 22, 2018 ### [Photo of the Month Contest!](https://ptstulsa.edu/announcement/photo-of-the-month-contest/ "Permalink to Photo of the Month Contest!") Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Viverra tellus in hac habitasse. Aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit. Et tortor at risus viverra. Adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in. Metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed. Placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus. Eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae. Porttitor massa id neque aliquam. L… [Read More](https://ptstulsa.edu/announcement/photo-of-the-month-contest/ "Permalink to Photo of the Month Contest!") Date: August 18, 2018 ### [Current Job Postings](https://ptstulsa.edu/announcement/current-job-postings/ "Permalink to Current Job Postings") Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Viverra tellus in hac habitasse. Aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit. Et tortor at risus viverra. Adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in. Metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed. Placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus. Eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae. Porttitor massa id neque aliquam. L… [Read More](https://ptstulsa.edu/announcement/current-job-postings/ "Permalink to Current Job Postings") ### Special Rates at our Partner Hotels for Remind & Renew Participants Residence Inn, Downtown Tulsa 202 W. 5th St, Tulsa OK **Call Direct to Book**: 918-895-8700 Ask for “Phillips Group Rate” Rate for King Studio Suite is $132/night, complimentary breakfast and parking Hampton Inn & Suites, Central Tulsa 3418 S. 79th E. Ave., Tulsa OK Rate for Standard King or Queen is $86/night, free breakfast, parking, and WiFi Book through this [**LINK**](https://www.hilton.com/en/book/reservation/deeplink/?ctyhocn=TULCEHX&groupCode=CHHRAR&arrivaldate=2025-01-15&departuredate=2025-01-17&cid=OM,WW,HILTONLINK,EN,DirectLink&fromId=HILTONLINKDIRECT) # Resources [Employee Handbook](https://ptstulsa.edu/employee/employee-handbook-fy-2018-2019-web/) [Faculty Handbook](https://ptstulsa.edu/employee/faculty-handbook/) [Board Meeting Dates](https://ptstulsa.edu/employee/board-meeting-dates-thru-2021/) [Bylaws of Phillips Theological Seminary](https://ptstulsa.edu/employee/revised-bylaws-may-2016-final/) [Supplier Diversity Policy](https://ptstulsa.edu/employee/supplier-diversity-policy-2016-web/) [Copyright Policy](https://ptstulsa.edu/employee/copyright-policy-2015-revision/) [Reliance Long Term Benefit Summary](#) [Reliance Short Term Benefit Summary](#) [Principle Life Insurance Summary](#) [ADP 401K Match Program](#) [Enrollment/Change Form](#) # FAQs ### How do I submit PTO/Sick Time Request? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. ### How do I participate in the 401K match program? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. ### Can I reorder Business Cards or change information? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. 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- Inquiry - Campus Visit - Both - Please List Your Inquiry:\* - Please select the semester you are inquiring about:\*SpringFallN/A - Please select the year you wish to attend:\*20232024N/A - What is Your Preferred Campus Visit Date?\*Preferred Campus Visit Date: I would like to be contacted to schedule a campus visit - Untitled\*Tuesday, August 24 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, September 21 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, October 12Tuesday, October 19Tuesday, November 9 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, December 7 (Community Lunch)Friday, August 20 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, October 29 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, November 12 (Student Senate Lunch) - How Did You Hear About Phillips? --- ### [Culture & Commitments](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/culture-commitments/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Our Culture and Commitments Phillips Theological Seminary is: - A graduate school that is open to clergy candidates, laity, and seekers with questions; - A knowledgeable, progressive faculty; - A diverse ecumenical community, affiliated with the [Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)](https://disciples.org/); - A place to explore what “the way of Jesus” means that is distinct in this part of the U.S; - Leaven in our geographical and social contexts, offering leadership education for biblically and theologically responsible, compassionate, justice-oriented Christian practice; - An educator of ministers serving in more than 20 denominations as chaplains, congregational leaders, justice advocates, ministry entrepreneurs, counselors, and more; - Home to an outstanding, hospitable library; - A series of vital conversations in which participants are often transformed. All right here in America’s heartland. **Identity statement:** Phillips Theological Seminary offers theological education dedicated to learning the way of Jesus in order to cultivate vital congregations, communities, conversations, and the public good. **Mission statement:** The seminary’s mission is to learn and teach how to be: attentive to God; responsible biblical and theological interpreters; faithful individuals, congregations, and communities acting with God to transform the world. ### Engaged Diversity Board of Trustees Commitment to Engaged Diversity The Board of Trustees of Phillips Theological Seminary believes that the Reign of God as announced by Jesus Christ is open to all people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, age, physical ability, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic class. This theological belief is the basis of the seminary’s non-discrimination statement, and it is also the basis for the seminary’s efforts to embrace and engage diverse persons in service of the mission of God, and specifically in service of the mission entrusted to this seminary. The Board of Trustees is committed to recruiting, educating, and engaging trustees, faculty, staff, and students with the range and depth of gifts, skills, and perspectives to move Phillips to become more of the community God calls the seminary to be. To this end, the Board will actively recruit a pool of candidates that reflects the diversity necessary for the ongoing work of the seminary, as well as to resource new strategic directions the Board may choose. Seminary’s Non-Discrimination Statement Phillips Theological Seminary accords equal rights and privileges to all members of the Seminary community. In the administration of its policies and procedures related to admissions, financial aid, academic programs, and hiring, the Seminary does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. Seminary’s Commitment to Disability Access Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to providing equal access to its programs of graduate professional education for all qualified students with learning, physical, medical, or psychological disabilities. [Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_504_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act)and the [Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act)prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Accordingly, the seminary aims to provide reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with a disability to ensure their access and participation in Seminary programs. For more information on Disability, please see [Academic Resources/Disability](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/academic-resources/) Seminary’s Commitment to Supplier Diversity Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to developing mutually beneficial relationships with small, minority-owned, women-owned, diversity based, disability-owned, disadvantaged, veteran owned and local business enterprises. The [Supplier Diversity Policy](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/culture-commitments/supplier-diversity-policy-2016/) is the seminary’s initiative to create opportunity for suppliers to market their products to the seminary and to encourage Phillips Theological Seminary to offer opportunities to such suppliers. ### Code of Conduct Welcome to Phillips Theological Seminary. Whether you are using the library or attending an educational program, the Seminary is committed to providing a learning space for all participants, and we need your cooperation in doing so. Phillips is first and foremost an educational institution; creating and maintaining an environment conducive to learning is essential. A harassment free environment allows each Seminary guest to learn without fear of being accosted for who they are. The Seminary has taken care to write policies to frame spaces for harassment-free learning. See the anti-discrimination statements, the trustees’ statement on Engaged Diversity, inclusive language, Title IX/Sexual Harassment Prevention, and ADA. The seminary is a member of the Disciples Alliance Q, which advocates for the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons in the life of the church. In addition, the Seminary is seeking to build a deeper capacity to communicate across cultures through utilizing the Intercultural Development Inventory. A harassment-free space is achieved when guests treat others with respect and refrain from inappropriate speech, touch, or actions that ignore, dismiss, demean, or denigrate the equal and full humanity of another. Guests should expect harassment-free treatment from Phillips employees and students. Seminary guests should seek to be aware not only of their intent in interacting with others but also of the impact/reception of their actions. In your interactions with others (whether other guests, students, or employees), please understand yourself to be in a public, professional context rather than a personal space, and keep your comments and actions appropriate for that public, professional space within the framework created by the Seminary’s policies. If you judge that you have been on the receiving end of an inappropriate action, please deal with the situation by addressing the action personally, by bringing the situation to the attention of Seminary personnel (starting with the event organizer, during a program), or both. The Seminary employee in charge of the event or the space (e.g., the library) is authorized to address situations. Actions may range from speaking to or admonishing the offending party, to dismissal from the event (without refund), to a prohibition from using the library or attending programs at the Seminary. If a guest makes a complaint about an employee or a student, that complaint will be investigated according to the policies in the Employee or the Student Handbook. A printable version of this policy is available [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Code-of-Conduct.pdf). --- ### [Re-Admission](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/re-admission/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Re-Admission If you are a former Phillips student who has not yet completed a degree program and has been out of school more than two semesters (but less than three years), an application for readmission is required. Contact Ulysses D. Allen, Director of Recruitment and Admissions at or 918.270.6463 to obtain information for readmission. If you have been out for more than three years, you must complete the full [application for admission](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/). [Download the Application for Readmission](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Readmission-Application-Form.pdf) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png) --- ### [Emerging Vision](https://ptstulsa.edu/emerging-vision/) **Published:** May 14, 2024 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # An Emerging Vision Bedford House Phillips Theological Seminary is creating a new “place of belonging” called Bedford House on our Tulsa, Okla. campus near historic Route 66 to support students, wherever they may reside, as they build the kind of relationships and have the conversations that form good ministers and theological leaders. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Lodge-3.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Lodge-3.png) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Lodge-6.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Lodge-6.png) To provide gathering space, offer short-term lodging, and extend greater hospitality to students and guests, the Bedford House at Phillips will be a new structure on the current campus. The building will create a physical space to embody Phillips’ concern for all people and our intention to cultivate vital congregations, communities, conversations, and the public good. “What we hope to offer in this project, long term, is a place for shaping the missions of churches, just and compassionate nonprofit work, and vocation for theological leaders, not merely reacting to whatever happens in the next decade. That’s the vision.” ![Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg) Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman *President Emerita* [](#) [](#) ## Giving This campaign is still going. You’re invited to invest and participate in Emerging Vision. Your support will help us in our work to offer a place of belonging for all. [ Click Here to Donate ](https://ptstulsa.edu/donate/?type=single) ## Contact The Advancement Office in Phillips Theological Seminary is happy to answer questions and provide more information for the Emerging Vision Campaign. Click the link below or contact us at 918.270.6404. [ Click Here to Connect ](mailto:advancement@ptstulsa.edu) ## Our Vision Detailed Phillips has evaluated student interest in such a space, consulted with experts in the hospitality industry, and considered many possibilities for the use of the space beyond lodging. Features of Bedford House include: - 25 hotel-quality rooms, each with an en suite bathroom. - 2 extended-stay apartments with kitchenettes for visiting scholars and other guests. - Space where guests may prepare their own meals and snacks. - Dining area to create opportunities for students to gather and share meals in groups. - Comfortable, informal gathering spaces for groups of guests to step away from their rooms for downtime. - Meeting rooms for groups to study or collaborate on coursework, also available for outside groups to use. - Conference center meeting rooms, large and small. - Additional offices for Phillips staff. - Fitness room with exercise equipment for use by guests, students, and faculty/staff. - Outdoor spaces, including an ADA-accessible labyrinth and garden. - An art gallery with works representing artists from diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. - Welcome Desk to serve as the check-in point for guests. - High-speed internet throughout the building. Phillips engaged a team of professionals to design and build the new structure, including KKT Architects, Link Group Consulting, and Nabholz Construction. The budget for the project is $15 million. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/DSC00942-Enhanced-NR.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/DSC00942-Enhanced-NR.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Lodge-1.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Lodge-1.png) --- ### [Current Students](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Current Students Get quick access to everything you need at Phillips. [Single Sign-On](http://sso.ptstulsa.edu) [Courses](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/courses/) [Academic Resources](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/academic-resources/) [Denominational Formation](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/denominational-formation/) [Transcripts](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/transcripts/) [Financial Aid](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/financial-aid/) --- ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/apply.png](//www.ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/apply.png) --- ### [Prospective Students](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Prospective Students At Phillips, we are preparing pastoral leaders to minister in a changing world. The diversity of our student body and faculty challenges you in new ways, exposes you to new ideas and ultimately gives you a new understanding of your faith. At Phillips you will find a learning community that is innovative, creative, and academically vigorous. Join a community where everyone is expected to add to the conversation and have an opportunity learn from each other. Our top-notch [faculty](https://ptstulsa.edu/faculty-directory/) is ready to work with and mentor you. Come have conversations that matter and get the tools you need to transform your community. [Apply Now](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) [Programs of Study](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/) [Testimonials](https://ptstulsa.edu/testimonials/) [Phillips Online](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/phillips-online/) [Costs & Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) [Ask Admissions](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/) [Schedule a Campus Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/) --- --- ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PTS-BTN-Total-Students-Graphic-121120-e1607717581697.png) ## Our Code of Ethics The Phillps Theological Seminary Recruiting and Admissions Code of Ethics adheres to all recommendations for ethical conduct developed by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). [ Click Here to Learn More ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Recruitment-Admissions-Code-of-Ethics.docx) --- ### [Graduate Certificate Program](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-certificates/) **Published:** October 2, 2018 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Graduate Certificate Program For those who hold a baccalaureate degree, the school offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program (requiring 15-16 semester hours of work). Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. For more information on applying to Phillips’ Graduate Certificate program, contact [Ulysses D. Allen](mailto://ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu), Director of Recruitment and Admissions. ### Admission Requirements - Apply online today - Application fee is $25 - Bachelor’s degree with 2.5 GPA or higher - Cost is $140 per hour When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. --- ### [Arthur F. Carter, Jr. Ph.D.](https://ptstulsa.edu/afcarter/) **Published:** November 18, 2022 **Author:** Arthur Carter **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/acarter-faculty-photo-240x300.png) # **Arthur F. Carter, Jr., Ph.D.** Assistant Professor of New Testament Director, Black Church Traditions & African American Faith-Life and Director of Formation for Baptist Students --- Arthur F. Carter, Jr., Ph.D. joined Phillips Theological Seminary in 2018 as an Assistant Professor of New Testament. Carter also serves as the founding director of Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-life at Phillips. Trained in New Testament and early Christian literature (Ph.D., Vanderbilt 2016), his primary research foci are early Christian literature, approaches to biblical interpretation, and uses of biblical imagery in nineteenth century Black Atlantic discourses. Carter holds degrees from Wake Forest University (BA, Physics), Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (MDiv), and the University of Manchester, UK (MA with Distinction in Biblical Studies). He has previously served on faculties at American Baptist College, Vanderbilt University, and UNC Greensboro. A native of the Carolinas, Prof. Carter is licensed to Christian ministry within the Baptist faith-tradition. He currently resides in Tulsa Metropolitan area with his family. ### Education - ##### BA, Wake Forest University - ##### MDiv, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School - ##### MA, University of Manchester, UK - ##### MA, Vanderbilt University - ##### PhD, Vanderbilt University ### Teaching - #### Phillips Theological Seminary (Tulsa, OK) - #### University of North Carolina Greensboro - #### Vanderbilt Univrersity Undergraduate Department of Religious Studies (Nashville, TN) - #### American Baptist College (Nashville, TN) ### Research ### Publications ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/20220221_182941-scaled.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/20220221_182941-scaled.jpg) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Dendur-Augustus-Pedesi-Pihor-.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Dendur-Augustus-Pedesi-Pihor-.png) --- ### [Kathleen McCallie](https://ptstulsa.edu/kathleen-mccallie/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Kathleen McCallie Associate Professor of Ministerial Leadership and Ethics and Director of Formation for UCC Students ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0261.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0261.jpg) Before joining the faculty at Phillips, Kathleen McCallie served 26 years in pastoral ministry ordained in the United Church of Christ. In addition to her experience leading congregations, she worked as a denominational officer in the UCC, social activist, and community organizer in various justice-seeking movements while teaching government and ethics. Her research focuses on ethical issues, social and transnational justice movements, and intersections of church and governance. Her favorite classes to teach include travel immersion courses to Nicaragua, Israel/Palestine, and the US/Mexico border. McCallie is currently completing the second year of a three-year training and certification in spiritual direction. She loves nothing more than working to change systems and discussing theories of justice and metaphysics of morals. ### Education and CV - B.A., Oklahoma State University, 1981 - M.A., Oklahoma State University, 1984 - M.Div., Southern Methodist University, Perkins School of Theology, 1998 - Ph.D., Political Science, University of Oklahoma, 2006 - Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies, University of Oklahoma, 2021 CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CV_McCallie.2023.docx) --- ### [Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-davison/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Lisa Davison **Content:** # Rev Dr Lisa W Davison Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean and Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Lisa Davison](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/time.png) Lisa Davison [Email Dr. Davison](mailto:lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Davison_Lisa-2-scaled.jpeg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Davison_Lisa-2-scaled.jpeg) Rev. Dr. Lisa W. Davison is Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean and the Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, OK. A native of Radford, VA, Dr. Davison has a BA (Religion & Spanish) from Lynchburg College; an MDiv from Brite Divinity School (TCU), and an MA from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Davison received her Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Vanderbilt. She is ordained in the Christian Church (DOC) and has served congregations in Texas & Kentucky. Davison’s first book, Preaching the Women of the Bible, was published in June, 2006. Her other publications include: the commentary on the book of Job for The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, essays on the major prophets for The College Study Bible, an essay in Tabletalk, entries for the Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, a sermon in Those Preaching Women: A Multicultural Collection, commentaries for the New Proclamation Series, Year C, and the essays on “Ruth & Naomi” and “Bathsheba” for Just Women Bible Study. One of her sermons was selected for inclusion in The Living Pulpit: Sermons that Illustrate Preaching in the Stone-Campbell Movement 1968-2018. She also wrote 6 essays for The Preacher’s Bible Handbook, ed by Wes Allen (WJK). Dr. Davison’s lates book, *More Than a Womb: Childfree Women as Agents of the Holy*. Prior to joining the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary, Lisa was Professor of 1st Testament at Lexington Theological Seminary (1996-2009) and Professor of Religious Studies at Lynchburg College (2009-2010). Dr. Davison is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature. She is often invited to speak to local congregations and retreats on the topics: books in the Hebrew Bible, women in the bible, sexuality and the bible, and Christian use and misuse of the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Davison is married to the Rev. Michael Davison, and the two of them enjoy traveling (especially to tropical climates) and gourmet dining. ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=16) ### Education and CV PhD Vanderbilt University MA Vanderbilt University MDiv Brite Divinity School BA Lynchburg College CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/davison-cv-2019.pdf) --- ### [Nancy](https://ptstulsa.edu/nancy/) **Published:** July 25, 2024 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # The Retirement Party for Seminary President Nancy Claire Pittman We hope you join us to celebrate Nancy’s many contributions to Phillips Theological Seminary on Sunday, October 6, at 4:30 p.m. at 901 N. Mingo Road, Tulsa, OK. If you have any questions about this form or the event, please contact Ashley Gibson at . --- ### [Denominational Formation](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/denominational-formation/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Denominational Formation ***At Phillips Theological Seminary, ministerial formation goes hand-in-hand with ecumenical theological education.*** We could not fulfill our mission without strong church partnerships. Dozens of congregations provide teaching and learning contexts for students. Particular partnerships developed with the following enable us to educate church leaders who both know the mission and work of the ecumenical church as well as the traditions and practices of their own denominations: - [Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)](http://www.disciples.org/) - [United Methodist Church](http://www.umc.org/) - [United Church of Christ](http://www.ucc.org/) - [Presbyterian Church (USA)](http://www.pcusa.org/) - [Unitarian Universalist](http://www.uua.org/) - [Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma](http://www.cbfok.org/) In partnership with these denominations’ ordination committees, Phillips has identified formation directors. Each director is prepared to assist students regarding requirements for ordination, denominational history and polity, and denominational services and programs. Denomination ##### **Denomination** ##### **Formation Director** Christian Church (DOC)[](http://http//ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=118)[Lisa Barnett](mailto:lisa.davison@ptstulsa.edu)United Methodist Church[Dee Williamston](mailto:dee.williamston@ptstulsa.edu)United Church of Christ[Kathy McCallie](mailto:kathy.mccallie@ptstulsa.edu)Presbyterian Church[Todd Freeman](http://collegehilltulsa.org/our-pastor-2/)Unitarian Universalist[Randy Lewis](http://rlewis@allsoulschurch.org)Baptist Traditions[Arthur Carter](mailto:arthur.carter@ptstulsa.edu) ### Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) With Disciples regions, congregations, and the seminary working together, students are assured of receiving excellent preparation for ministerial service, both commissioned and ordained. Practical courses in ministry, including supervised field work, are coupled with a broad range of academic studies to ensure that graduates enjoy the fullest of educational experiences. Disciples ministerial formation complements the program of formal education by: - coordinating on-campus Disciples activities - providing required and elective denominational courses - connecting students with regional offices for services and support - assisting with the credentialing process in pursuit of ordination - helping navigate denominational systems - advising candidates on the Search and Call process for church-related employment - introducing students to denominational events and programs In addition, a variety of Disciples of Christ travel opportunities sponsored by the seminary and the church bring the history and the present of the denomination together in vital ways. For more information on the denomination and its mission visit the website of the [Christian Church](http://disciples.org/) (Disciples of Christ). ### United Methodist Church Phillips Theological Seminary [University Senate-approved seminary](http://www.gbhem.org/education/seminary/approved-seminaries) for training and forming United Methodist clergy. Students desiring elder’s orders are encouraged to seek the [MDiv degree](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/master-of-divinity-degree-mdiv/). Some students pursuing deacon’s orders meet their educational requirements with our [MAMC degree](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-ministry-culture/). A candidate’s chosen specialty and prior graduate-level study help determine how Phillips can best meet their educational needs. Students not seeking ordination are also welcome to consult with the Ministerial Formation Director for assistance. United Methodist ministerial formation complements regular Phillips course work and field supervision by: - providing required and elective denominational courses (UM History, UM Polity, UM Doctrine, Evangelism, etc.); - mentoring United Methodist students in their discernment of call, as well as their progress through ordination or certification; - hosting denominational visitors such as District Superintendents and Boards of Ordained Ministry representatives from various Annual Conferences; - communicating denominational information relevant to students and their ministries, including loan and scholarship opportunities (see the UMC bulletin board in the student commons); - supporting a sense of community among United Methodist students at Phillips; and - presenting United Methodist-related awards and recognitions to Phillips students. For specific information on [ordination requirements](http://www.gbhem.org/clergy/choosing-your-path/candidacy) or on [loans and scholarships](http://www.gbhem.org/loans-and-scholarships), please familiarize yourself with the website of the [General Board of Higher Education and Ministry](http://www.gbhem.org/). Visit the [United Methodist Church](http://www.umc.org/) for more information on the denomination and its mission. ### United Church of Christ In the [United Church of Christ](https://www.ucc.org/), we call ourselves the “comma people”, that is, we are the folks who say with Gracie Allen “Never place a period where God has placed a comma”. Those who come to Phillips Theological Seminary will find the resources here to develop a “comma” ministry, creating with our partner denominations a learning community that proclaims: “God is Still Speaking!” The denominational formation program that meets the needs of students preparing for ministry through the United Church of Christ helps students integrate the elements of their theological education with the requirements for ordination. We do so by: - Offering specific courses in the history and polity of the United Church of Christ - Providing counsel and guidance for students preparing for and moving through ordination or commissioning processes - Assistance in developing a profile for circulation within the United Church of Christ - Connecting students with their conference and/or associational committees that give oversight to ordination on behalf of local churches - Introducing students to visiting representatives from the denomination Phillips Theological Seminary is committed to the formation and development of a lively ecumenical community that prepares those who seek to walk the way of Jesus in the world! This is the mission of the United Church of Christ! Come join us! ### Presbyterian Church (USA) Within an ecumenical atmosphere, the seminary works in partnership with local congregations and five presbyteries to ensure that Presbyterian students are formed in the distinct ethos of the Reformed theological tradition. Inquirers and Candidates from the [Presbyterian Church (USA)](http://www.pcusa.org/) and the [Cumberland Presbyterian Church](http://www.cumberland.org/) have engaged in theological education at Phillips. Practical courses in ministry join a broad range of studies to provide the full range of educational experiences required by Presbyterian students, including the Greek and Hebrew languages. Reformed theology and Presbyterian polity are also offered as needed by students. A Presbyterian Advisory Council, composed of the executive presbyters and moderators of the Committees on Preparation for each presbytery served by the seminary, meets regularly on campus to address shared concerns and provide guidance to the formation program for Presbyterian students. Presbyterian ministerial formation at Phillips Theological Seminary complements formal education by: - providing required and elective denominational courses; - mentoring Presbyterian students in their discernment of call, as well as their progress through ordination or commissioning as lay pastors; - coordinating on-campus activities and providing a sense of community among Presbyterian students; - connecting students with regional offices for services and support; - communicating denominational information relevant to students and their ministries, including loan and scholarship opportunities. ### Unitarian Universalist Association Phillips Theological Seminary is located in the [Southern Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association](https://www.uua.org/southern). Our purpose is to grow and deepen the Unitarian Universalist community at the seminary and your time will be as meaningful and fruitful as possible. For many decades, Phillips has been a graduate alma mater to several Unitarian Universalist ministers, lay leaders, and others within the faith community pursuing religious-based vocations. If you are pursuing a degree, Phillips may be your sole destination to take your courses, or you may augment your studies with coursework taken at other seminaries. You may often apply Phillips courses to your degree work elsewhere. Courses in Unitarian Universalist History and Polity, as well as other courses of a broader nature, are taught at Phillips by UU clergy. Phillips has also worked with UU churches in the local community to provide educational opportunities and lectures. Activities include opportunities for gatherings and meetings with UU ministers during each semester, working in relationship to the UUA’s offices for seminarians or for any assistance you may need with your studies at Phillips, as well as participating in both Phililps activities and UU events. To pursue ministerial fellowship, please consult with the [Unitarian Universalist Association](http://www.uua.org/careers/ministers/becoming/index.shtml). Some local and nearby Unitarian Universalist congregations and resources: - [First Unitarian Church](https://www.1uc.org/): first Unitarian church in Oklahoma, formed in 1893 in Oklahoma City - [All Souls Unitarian Church](http://www.allsoulschurch.org/): first Unitarian church in Tulsa, founded in 1921. One of the largest congregations in the Association. - [Hope Unitarian Church](http://www.hopeuu.org/), Tulsa - [Church of the Restoration](https://www.facebook.com/COTRUUTULSA), Tulsa - [UU Church of Bartlesville](https://www.facebook.com/UUBville/) - [UU Church of Stillwater](https://sites.google.com/site/stillwaterunitarianchurch/) - [Channing UU Church](http://www.channinguuc.org/), Edmond - [UU Congregation of Tahlequah](http://www.uuct.org/) - [West Wind UU Congregation](https://www.westwinduuc.org/) - [UU Church of Lawton](http://www.uulawton.org/) - [UU Fellowship of Fayetteville](https://www.uufayetteville.org/), AR - [UU Church of Wichita](http://www.firstuu.net/), KS - [UU Church of Springfield](http://www.springfieldunitarians.org/), MO - [Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship](http://www.uuchristian.org/) (originally founded in Boston in 1945, now located in Tulsa area) --- ### [Academic Complaints](https://ptstulsa.edu/academic-complaints/) **Published:** June 15, 2022 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Academic Complaints A complaint may include any class-related concerns, problems, or disputes with a faculty member or student. The Seminary’s Office of Academic Affairs shall investigate every complaint brought by a student or faculty member. It is best if the complainant brings forward the complaint in a timely manner in order that it can be dealt with expeditiously and in accordance with Seminary policies. As soon as is practical after experiencing or learning of the precipitating event, the complainant should bring the complaint to the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean who will investigate and address the complaint. After investigation, a resolution will be offered. The complainant may accept the resolution or appeal the resolution to the President. If the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean is the subject of the complaint, the complainant should bring the complaint to the President. In the event a complaint is against the President, the complaint shall be lodged with the Chair of the Board of Trustees and the Chair of the Board’s Audit Committee. Either the two Board Officers or the Executive Committee shall deliberate regarding the complaint. Please note: a written statement of the complaint is always more helpful in the investigatory process. It should include documentary evidence to support the complaint and be directed to . ## Student Complaint Concerning Grade [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NC-SARA-Student-Complaint-Concerning-Grade.pdf) ## Appealing Results from a Complaint [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NC-SARA-Appeal-Process.pdf) ## NC-SARA and Distance Learning [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NC-SARA-and-Distance-Learning.pdf) ## Sexual Harassment Policy (Title IX) [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NC-SARA-Sexual-Harrassment-Policy-Title-IX.pdf) ## ADA Grievance Procedure [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ADA-Grievance-Procedure-2024-2025.pdf) --- ### [Staff Directory Alphabetical](https://ptstulsa.edu/staff-directory-alphabetical/) **Published:** March 24, 2021 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Staff Directory Alphabetical You are viewing the alphabetized staff directory. To view the staff directory organized by department, [click here](https://ptstulsa.edu/staff-directory/). Please add @ptstulsa.edu to all email addresses provided after the listed phone numbers. If you are unable to locate the number you wish to call, please call our general line, 918.610.8303. Ulysses Allen Recruiter 918.270.6463 ulysses.allen Katherine Casey Assistant Dean of the Library and Instruction Librarian 918.270.6432 katherine.casey Garry Cook IT Manager 918.270.6475 garry.cook Joseph Edwards Media Manager 918.270.6472 joseph.edwards Garrison Ethridge Educational Technologist/Institutional Support 918.270.6435 garrison.ethridge Terry Ewing Vice President of Advancement 918.270.6478 terry.ewing Emma Francois Administrative Assistant to the Center for Ministry and Lay Training 918.270.6471 emma.francois Lucy Franklin Coordinator of Cataloging and Technical Services 918.270.6430 lucy.franklin Torii Ransome Freeman Senior Director of Human Resources 918.270.6424 torii.freeman Ashley Gibson Executive Assistant to the President 918.270.6405 ashley.gibson Kurt Gwartney Senior Director of Communications 918.270.6470 kurt.gwartney Tammye Jurena Executive Assistant to Dean and Faculty 918.270.6466 tammye.jurena Leslie LeSieur Senior Director of the Center for Ministry and Lay Training 918.270.6471 leslie.lesieur Megan Lovins Administrative Assistant to Admissions and Student Services 918.270.6421 megan.lovins Todd Mantock Financial Aid Officer 918.270.6451 todd.mantock Bryon McDaniel Database Specialist 918.270.6423 bryon.mcdaniel Karen McMillan Vice President of Finance & Adminstration 918.270.6402 karen.mcmillan Danny Melton Campus Safety Specialist 918.270.6482 danny.melton Zach Mussett Technology Director 918.270.6436 zach.mussett Judith Nakibuuka Financial Accountant 918.270.6415 judith.nakibuuka Gary Peluso-Verdend Director of the Center for Religion in Public Life 918.270.6488 gary.peluso Malisa Pierce Senior Director of Stewardship and Alumnae/I Relations 918.270.6409 malisa.pierce Nancy Claire Pittman President 918.610.8303 nancy.pittman Gina Robertson Archivist and Special Collections Librarian 918.270.6488 phillipa.rosman Phillipa Rosman Front Desk, Hospitality, Campus Security & Safety Officer 918.270.6400 gina.robertson Sharon Russ Executive Assistant to Advancement and Donor Relations Specialist 918.270.6404 sharon.russ Bill Sebeni Maintenance Manager 918.270.6422 bill.sebeni Sandy Shapoval Dean of the Library and Research Services 918.270.6459 sandy.shapoval Alyssa Spradlin Director of Advancement 918.270.6404 alyssa.spradlin Virginia Thompson Registrar 918.270.6412 virginia.thompson Rachele Vaughan Library Assistant in Journals and Reserves 918.270.6431 rachele.vaughan Avery Welden Reserves and Access Services Librarian 918.270.6427 avery.welden Jenny Wynn Director of Advancement 918.270.6477 jenny.wynn Bursar and Financial Accountant 918.270.6468 --- ### [Special Student Status](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) **Published:** October 2, 2018 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. Contact [Ulysses D. Allen](mailto://ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu), Director of Recruitment and Admissions, for information on applying to Phillips as a Special Student. ### Admission Requirements - Qualified applicants for Special Student status must have a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a 2.7 GPA in undergraduate work, and a completed application including the following items: - Application form and $25 application fee (fee is waived if application is received by April 1) - Statement indicating why you want to take courses at Phillips - Official transcripts from any undergraduate school where you received a degree and from any graduate school where you have completed work for credit. Official transcripts are ones that have the official institution seal and are mailed directly from the institution, not by the applicant. For full admission, the undergraduate transcript must show the degree and date received. - Applicants for whom English is a second language must submit an official TOEFL score of at least 550 (paper-based), 213 (computer-based), or 80 on the iBT When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. --- ### [Apply Now](https://ptstulsa.edu/apply-now/) **Published:** June 11, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Apply Now Ready to apply? Great! The admissions team will be available to help you every step of the way. Our application process is totally online. Please contact [Ulysses D. Allen, Director of Recruitment and Admissions](mailto:ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu), 918-270-6463. Applications Deadlines October Fortnight (DMin) Early- April 1 Final- May 1 To apply, please click below: [Application](https://fs27.formsite.com/PtNxGa/PTSApplication/index.html) *Note: International students should initiate the application process at least 6 months prior to the intended date of enrollment, as additional requirements may apply. Please contact [Student Services](mailto:maryann.morris@ptstulsa.edu) for assistance.* ### Application Deadlines DEADLINE to apply for the **Fall Semester**: - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: April 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by April 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: May 1 DEADLINE to apply for the **Spring Semester**: - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: November 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by November 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: December 1 --- DEADLINE to apply for the Doctor of Ministry **June Fortnight**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: February 15 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by February 15 - Final Admissions Deadline: March 15 DEADLINE to apply for the Doctor of Ministry **January Fortnight**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: September 15 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by September 15 - Final Admissions Deadline: October 15 Contact [Dr. Kathy McCallie](mailto:kathy.mccallie@ptstulsa.edu) for more information about the DMin program. [Schedule a Visit](#)[Request Info](#)[View Scholarships](#) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Our History](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/our-history/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Our History ### 2012 Phillips Board of Trustees adopted new Identity and Mission statements. ### 2009 Phillips was approved to offer comprehensive distance education. ### 2003 901 North Mingo Road campus dedicated. The first classes were held on the new campus. ### 2002 The QuikTrip Corporation gifted the property at 901 North Mingo Road to Phillips; extensive renovations began. ### 1997 Phillips Board of Trustees voted to consolidate the seminary in Tulsa. ### 1995 The Board of Trustees changed the seminary’s name to Phillips Theological Seminary. ### 1987 The Graduate Seminary separated from the Phillips University and became Phillips Graduate Seminary. ### 1986 The Graduate Seminary began offering courses in Tulsa, utilizing facilities at The University of Tulsa and several congregations. ### Mid 50’s to Mid 70’s: The seminary’s student body diversifies to include multiple denominations and significant numbers of African-Americans, women, and change of career students. ### 1951 The Graduate Seminary of Phillips University was first accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. ### 1912 Phillips University name is adopted. ### 1907 The first classes were held at the College of the Bible of Oklahoma Christian University in Enid, Oklahoma on September 17, 1907. OCU was a small, influential institution of higher education affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). ### 1906 The Articles of Incorporation executed for the proposed “Oklahoma Christian University” on October 9, 1906 (Founders Day) --- ### [Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)](https://ptstulsa.edu/cpeprogram/) **Published:** February 21, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The Clinical Pastoral Education program is currently being updated. Please check back for updates as we work to develop this program. The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. ### Course Overview **First Semester CPE 500 Clinical Pastoral Education Level I** is an extended parish-based course intended to meet the standard requirement of a one-half unit of certified ACPE training. The design of the course is based on the action-reflection peer learning model of experiential education. Students will engage in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective spiritual caregiving skills. Through the use of verbatim case studies, didactic instruction, and individual/group supervision by a certified ACPE supervisor, progress toward specific Level I learning outcomes will be achieved and evaluated. Focus: Identifying personal myths, Vocational calling, System theories, Theological reflection. **Second Semester CPE 510 Clinical Pastoral Education Level I** is an extended parish-based course intended to meet the standard requirement of a one-half unit of certified ACPE training. Like CPE I, this course will engage students in the action-reflection model in order to gain deeper levels of self-awareness, ministry identity, and effective spiritual caregiving skills. Students will continue to reflect using verbatim case studies, didactic instruction, and peer-learning activities. Evaluation by the supervisor and students will assess progress toward completion of Level I CPE outcomes as defined in the current ACPE Standards manual. Prerequisites include successful completion of CPE 500. Focus: Pastoral leadership, Boundaries and the Limits of Care, Social theory and community organization, Skill development and pastoral interventions. ### Program Goals Through the use of clinical/ministry settings, reflection, and didactic instruction with individual and group supervision by a certified ACPE supervisor, progress towards specific learning outcomes will be achieved and evaluated. Phillips works with an external entity to offer CPE to students, and the seminary’s current relationship is with the [Sankofa CPE Center](https://www.sankofacpe.com/). Students who enroll in CPE through Phillips must also submit an application to Sankofa for admission to their CPE program. The seminary subsidizes a portion of the fees from Sankofa for taking CPE for all degree-seeking students. For more information, please contact Director of Theological Field Education, [Dr. Eric Gill](). [CPE ADMISSIONS PROCESS](https://ptstulsa.edu/post-1757/) Level I CPE addresses basic competencies and issues of pastoral reflection, pastoral formation, pastoral identity and functioning in one or more units of CPE. A CPE student must meet Level I CPE outcomes, as documented in the Supervisor’s evaluation, as a prerequisite for acceptance in Level II CPE. ### How to Apply Qualified applicants for the Clinical Pastoral Education program must have a Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum GPA of 2.7 or be over 40 years of age with 60 hours toward a Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum GPA of 2.7. Special Student application forms should either be currently on file in the Admissions Office or are to be completed and submitted to the Admissions Office in order to complete Admissions process. For more information, contact [Cortney Lemke](mailto://cortney.lemke@ptstulsa.edu), Director of Admissions. **Important Documents/Forms:** - Application for Clinical Pastoral Education – submit this documents to - [Sankofa CPE Clinical Placement Agreement](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Sankofa-CPE-Clinical-Placement-Agreement.pdf) --- ### [iFundPhillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/ifundphillips/) **Published:** August 25, 2020 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** # iFundPhillips The funds raised through iFundPhillips support student services through multiple programs. You can read below about the student services programs and the financial relief programs that are available to students. 100% of students benefit from at least one, if not multiple, programs during their journey as a student at Phillips. ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/donate.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/donate.png)Make a One-Time Donation Donate now to give students the opportunity to join conversations that expose them to new ideas and deepen their commitment. [Donate Now](https://ptstulsa.edu/ifpdonate/) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/monthly.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/monthly.png)Make a Monthly Donation Help your investment grow over time and give students insights on how to minister in a changing world. [Support with a Pledge](https://ptstulsa.edu/ifpdonate/) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mail-icon.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mail-icon.png)Mail a Gift Prefer to mail us the gift? No problem, mail it to us at: Phillips Theological Seminary 901 N. Mingo Rd. Tulsa, OK 74116 [Get Directions](https://goo.gl/maps/iPJMjzv1xX62) # Programs ### Spiritual Direction & Counseling Sometimes life happens and assistance is needed during the seminary journey. If students need assistance from someone outside their life situation, referrals can be made to pastoral counselors and spiritual directors. The seminary offers a subsidy to the student for these services. ### Student Orientation It is proven that students have a better seminary experience if they start their experience with Orientation. Phillips provides orientation in the fall and the spring. A gift of $250 will help pay for a student to attend a three-day orientation at the beginning of the fall semester. This helps to cover lodging and food. ### Emergency Financial Assistance Sometimes students just need a little help. Emergency Financial Assistance is available to help students in times of crisis. ### Student Lunches Students are offered an opportunity to stay on campus and build community during lunch. Students receive a free lunch every Tuesday of classes and during intensive courses. ### Student Scholarships & Tuition Aid 100% of students currently receive tuition aid scholarships. Additional gifts for scholarship assistance are always welcome. ### Travel Grants Because many students take classes from a distance, travel grants are an essential piece to the student assistance puzzle. Students can receive up to $500 in travel grants within an academic year. In the past, student services gave over $22,000 in an academic year. ### Immersion Course Every masters student is required to experience an Immersion trip. BorderLinks is one example of an immersion trip. The students partner with a non-profit organization that promotes study of issues on the border of Mexico and the United States. Gifts to iFP off-sets the costs of travel for this required course. # Callers Staff and students at Phillips may contact you in regards to fundraising. Typically you will receive calls from the following staff members in addition to current students: Gina Robertson Malisa Pierce Tammy Ryan ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/pts-13.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/pts-13.jpg) --- ### [Committing Faith In Public Podcast](https://ptstulsa.edu/committing-faith-in-public-podcast/) **Published:** June 1, 2020 **Author:** Center for Religion in Public Life **Content:** # Committing Faith in Public Podcast The Committing Faith in Public podcast is for people who want to be inspired by individuals and communities of faith doing good work in public. Our guests tell stories of their work to weave a more just, kind, and diversity-inclusive society. The podcast, originated by the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, is produced by the Phillips Seminary Center for Religion in Public Life. Gary is the former executive director of the Center and president emeritus of Phillips. Email the current show host, [Kurt Gwartney](mailto:kurt.gwartney@ptstulsa.edu), to let him know about someone in the community you’ve seen committing faith in public. Committing Faith in Public is available on all major podcasting outlets such as iTunes and Spotify. The entire catalog can be found below. [![https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1200px-Spotify_logo_without_text.svg-e1591040418195-240x240.png](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1200px-Spotify_logo_without_text.svg-e1591040418195-240x240.png)](https://open.spotify.com/show/6kSHBS4OXK1CDOJFh795UX)### [**Listen on Spotify**](https://open.spotify.com/show/6kSHBS4OXK1CDOJFh795UX) [![https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1019px-ITunes_logo.svg-e1591040452271-240x241.png](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1019px-ITunes_logo.svg-e1591040452271-240x241.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/committing-faith-in-public/id1514972526)### **[Listen on iTunes](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/committing-faith-in-public/id1514972526)** --- ### [The Lodge](https://ptstulsa.edu/the-lodge/) **Published:** June 27, 2023 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # The Lodge Phillips Theological Seminary is proud to be building short-term lodging for students and guests that will be built on the seminary campus. Informally referred to as The Lodge, the building provides a space where students can belong to one another and to the larger mission to which Phillips has contributed, teaching and learning the ways of Jesus for vital churches, communities and conversations. A “place of belonging” to support our students, all of them, in building the kind of relationships and having the quality of conversations that form good ministers and theological leaders. A place to support our expansion of theological education beyond the traditional audience comprised of students preparing for a profession. A place of belonging to share with like-mind groups who also have gifts to share with us and the world. We are fundamentally, still and always, a God-people who are called always to move into the future with faith in the Jesus we follow, with confidence that the Spirit will guide us, and with the hope that the Creator is still creating and asking us to join in. And that is our greatest resource. We hope that you will be excited about this new vision and project. ### Why is Phillips Theological Seminary building ‘The Lodge’? - **Creating a vibrant community:** Phillips has a long-standing commitment to community, and our students need connection now more than ever. Our new facility will provide short-term lodging for students and guests just south of our main building. Informally referred to as The Lodge, the building provides space where students can connect with one another and to the larger mission to which Phillips has contributed, teaching and learning the ways of Jesus for vital churches, communities and conversations. - **Inclusivity and support:** The lodge project prioritizes diversity and inclusion, with gender-neutral bathrooms, accessible rooms, and anti-discrimination policies. It aims to create a safe environment within a culture of respect, acceptance, and support for students from different backgrounds, identities, and orientations. - **Place of belonging:** The Lodge will be a “place of belonging” to support our students, all of them, in building the kind of relationships and having the quality of conversations that form good ministers and theological leaders. It will serve as a place to support expansion of theological education beyond the traditional audience comprised of students preparing for a profession. The Lodge will also be shared with like-mind groups who have gifts to share with us and the world. ### What does ‘The Lodge’ offer students? - **Comfortable and convenient accommodations:** The project includes 26 regular rooms and 2 suite-style rooms, all with private bathrooms and desks. Students will not need to worry about commuting or finding housing elsewhere, allowing more time to be attentive to God’s presence and guidance in their lives. - **Shared kitchen and lounge area:** Students will be able to cook their own meals, relax on the couch, or chat with others in the communal space. The Lodge is designed to help them feel at home and to make new friends. - **Conference/banquet room:** The Lodge will support events, workshops, and meetings in a large and versatile room that can seat more than 200 people. Students and others will come to learn from faculty, staff, and guest speakers who visit the lodge and share their expertise and experience in theology and ministry. - **Fitness room:** A well-equipped fitness room will help students care for their bodies as well as their spirits. - **Art gallery:** Works of local, regional, and national artists in The Lodge gallery will encourage discovery of new perspectives and expressions of faith through art. - **Labyrinth and courtyard:** The Lodge courtyard will let students and visitors connect with nature. A Chartres labyrinth will help students experience a sense of wholeness, balance, and harmony as they complete the full journey to the center of the labyrinth and back. - **30,000 square feet of space:** The spacious and modern design of the lodge provides plenty of room for students and guests to stay, study, and socialize. The Lodge environment is designed to support academic and personal growth. ### Why should a prospective student choose Phillips? - **Rigorous and relevant education:** Phillips’ academic program is rigorous and relevant, preparing students for a variety of ministry and community settings. Phillips’ faculty are renowned scholars and practitioners who are committed to helping students grow in their faith and ministries. - **Vibrant campus community:** Phillips has a vibrant campus community that provides students with opportunities to learn, grow, and connect with others. New projects are on the horizon, which will further enhance belonging and Phillips’ special connection with students and alums. - **Generous financial aid:** Phillips offers generous financial support to help students earn a quality theological education without burdensome debt. - **Diversity:** Phillips’ student body is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and theological perspective. Phillips is committed to justice initiatives and relational solidarity. We are committed to diversity, interculturality (e.g., Africana, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous American communities), and justice with attention to the social realities of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and queer expressions of the human experience. - **Location:** Phillips is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, just off historic Route 66. Tulsa is a vibrant city with a rich history and culture. The seminary is at the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek), Osage, and Cherokee Nations, and just minutes east of the Greenwood District, better known as Black Wall Street. Tulsa offers a unique and diverse context for personal growth and learning. --- ### [Request Information](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Ask Phillips ## Admissions Information If you are ready to apply to Phillips Theological Seminary, but still have a few questions, please reach out to our amazing Admissions Team. [ Ask Admissions ](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/ask-admissions/) ## General Information If you’re looking for other information about Phillips, click the Contact Us box on the right to send an email. We’ll get back to you very soon. [ Contact Us ](mailto:kurt.gwartney@ptstulsa.edu) If you are ready to apply to Phillips Theological Seminary, but still have a few questions, please reach out to our amazing Admissions Team. ### Request Information - Name\* - Email\* - Phone\* - Preferred Method of Contact:Preferred Method of Contact: EmailText MessagePhone Call - What Would You Like to be Contacted About?\*What Would You Like to be Contacted About? - Inquiry - Campus Visit - Both - Please List Your Inquiry:\* - Please select the semester you are inquiring about:\*SpringFallN/A - Please select the year you wish to attend:\*20232024N/A - What is Your Preferred Campus Visit Date?\*Preferred Campus Visit Date: I would like to be contacted to schedule a campus visit - Untitled\*Tuesday, August 24 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, September 21 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, October 12Tuesday, October 19Tuesday, November 9 (Community Lunch)Tuesday, December 7 (Community Lunch)Friday, August 20 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, October 29 (Student Senate Lunch)Friday, November 12 (Student Senate Lunch) - How Did You Hear About Phillips? [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) --- ### [About Us](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # About Phillips Phillips Theological Seminary is a graduate seminary, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). We are dedicated to learning the way of Jesus in order to cultivate vital congregations, communities, conversations and the public good. At our core, we are a community of teachers and learners seeking to be faithful to God through disciplined, reasoned and reflective study of scripture, religious tradition and human experience. Our primary purpose is to serve the church’s need for educated leaders – ordained and lay. Located in Tulsa, Okla., we offer a unique brand of theological education in this region of the country – welcoming all denominations. We also welcome students who are not pursuing ministerial degrees, but who want to explore and deepen their faith by taking specific courses in our curriculum. We have 25 trustees, 110 current students seeking graduate credit, 42 students who have recently taken courses for personal enrichment, approximately 1,700 living alumni, about 800 individuals and congregations that donate annually and a dedicated faculty (full-time, affiliate, and adjunct) and staff. [Our History](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/our-history/) [President’s Greeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/presidents-greeting/) [Employment](https://ptstulsa.edu/employment/) [Culture & Commitments](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/culture-commitments/) [Accreditation & Affiliations](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/accreditation-affiliations/) [Educational Effectiveness](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/educational-effectiveness/) [Financial Aid](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/financial-aid/) --- ### [Centers and Programs](https://ptstulsa.edu/centers-and-programs/) **Published:** March 22, 2023 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Centers and Programs Phillips Theological Seminary offers extended learning opportunities beyond our degree programs via several centers and programs below: [Center for Ministry and Lay Training](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/center-for-ministry-and-lay-training/) [Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/black-church-traditions/) [Center for Religion in Public Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) --- ### [Ways to Give](https://ptstulsa.edu/giving/ways-to-give/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Ways to Give To make a gift, use our new online giving page by clicking the “Donate” button below. [Donate](https://ptstulsa.edu/donate) For questions about your gift to Phillips Theological Seminary, please contact [Malisa Pierce](mailto:Malisa.Pierce@ptstulsa.edu). You may also call the advancement office at 918.270.6404. Phillips Theological Seminary is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation in the state of Oklahoma.\* The seminary is committed to responsible, ethical stewardship of the funds entrusted to us. - An independent audit is conducted after the close of each fiscal year (July 1 – June 30). - The seminary’s 990 is available on request, or you may find it on [Guidestar](http://www.guidestar.org/). - We affirm two standard ethical codes for fundraising professionals: - [The Donor Bill of Rights](http://www.afpnet.org/files/ContentDocuments/Donor_Bill_of_Rights.pdf) - [The Association of Fundraising Professionals Code of Ethics](http://www.afpnet.org/files/ContentDocuments/CodeofEthicsLong.pdf). --- \**IRS determination available upon request* The new online gift form is hosted on a highly secure server with the latest technology to offer safe connections. We are also employing CAPTCHA as an additional security measure. If you have questions about these technologies and the security of the site, contact [Kurt Gwartney](mailto:kurt.gwartney@ptstulsa.edu). --- ### [CRPL Courses](https://ptstulsa.edu/crpl-courses/) **Published:** March 25, 2022 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Courses --- # Mortality, Morality, and Friendship: What “The Good Place” Teaches about the Good Life A six-week, free online course offered through the Center for Religion in Public Life and Boston Avenue United Methodist Church Thursdays, April 21 – May 26, 2022. 7-8 p.m. Central time. To register, just send an email to . This class uses the comedy series, “The Good Place” (TGP), to teach several basic concepts about philosophical ethics. TGP, all 4 seasons of which are available on Netflix and Apple TV+, wrapped stories and problems of social ethics and morality inside of a hilarious comedy. The series follows four human beings following their deaths in a place they are initially led to believe is TGP. However (spoiler alert), it is not! The audience follows the relationships of these people, along with their good place architect (a demon in disguise as a good guy) and a being who knows everything that has happened in the universe, throughout the series. Along the way, the audience is taught ethics and given the opportunity to examine deep life questions. Indecisive professor of moral philosophy, Chidi, is the lead teacher. Eventually they all contribute lessons: selfish “I don’t owe anyone anything” Eleanor, impulsive “toss a Molotov cocktail” Jason, attention-obsessed “name dropping” Tahani, yearning-to-be human Michael, and everybody’s friend but “not a girl” and “not a robot” Janet. ### Course Info For the class, you’ll be invited to watch one or two episodes of TGP per session. Then on Thursday nights via Zoom, we’ll discuss topics, questions, and ideas presented or evoked by the episodes. Questions and topics will include: - What do we owe to each other? - What is the relationship between morality and happiness? - Mortality gives purpose to our lives. Morality gives guidance to find that purpose. - Can individuals and groups improve, morally? If so, what is required? - The basics of virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and consequentialism. - The necessity of friendship to the moral life. - How do we understand the relationship between a moral life and life on the other side of death? - How might Christian perspective be in conversation with the philosophies depicted in TGP? Class leader is Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, president emeritus and executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary. He is also a fan of TGP and the moral philosophies which inform the show. Caution: While this series includes a serious and vitally important subject, it is also a comedy. The characters utter many lines for laughs. Between Eleanor who turned down almost nothing for pleasure, Mindy who is bored silly in a neutral place, and demons who revel in torturing the vulnerabilities of the human body, body functions and sex are in the script frequently (not fully any episode but lines in nearly every episode). Also, no one can use “swear words” in The Good Place. But there are plenty of creative substitutions. So, if you tend to be offended by any of the above when utilized in a comedy show, you’ll have to hold your nose. Class schedule: Please watch the episodes on Netflix or Apple TV before the discussions. Discussions will be from 7-8p, central time. We’ll use Zoom. You’ll receive a link for the discussions prior to the first session. Before each session, you’ll also receive an email with a few opening questions. You are also invited to submit your questions and discussion topics to Gary PV anytime before the session begins. April 21 Season 1, episode 2 “Flying” Season 1, episode 6 “What we owe to each other” April 28 Season 2, episode 4 “Team cockroach” Season 2, episode 5 “The trolley problem” May 5 Season 3, episode 3 “The snowplow” Season 3, episode 4 “Jeremy Bearimy” May 12 Season 3, episode 7 “The worst possible use of free will” Season 3, episode 11 “Chidi sees the time knife” May 19 Season 4, episode 10 “You’ve changed, man” May 26 Season 4, episode 13 “Whenever you’re ready” To register, just send an email to . Recommended overviews of the show: Seasons 1-3: . Season 4 overview (no video compilation available): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Good\_Place\_(season\_4)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place_(season_4)). # Regenerating the Spirit of Democracy Regenerating the Spirit of Democracy is an online, free course offered by the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary, organized around the question: What can communities of faith and spiritually-grounded persons do to regenerate the spirit of democracy in the U.S.? If you seek a democratic spirituality that values equality and justice for all as much as freedom, then this course is for you. ### Course Info Democracy in the U.S. is under siege. Forty percent of the population does not vote. Voting districts are gerrymandered to make it possible for political minorities to rule. The concept of facts has taken a beating. Scientists and other experts are besieged. The quality of conversation and argument is woefully low. The courts are highly politicized. Author after author argues democracy is being undermined, often through seemingly democratic means. Our founding myths are unraveling, and what will replace them is at the center of the new uncivil war. The claim of equality for all persons has always been more of a hope, or a disappointment, or an outright fiction rather than a reality. In today’s era of reckoning, more Americans are seeing that the grounding stories white people have told about the U.S. need serious correction, if there is to be a nation at all. And white Christianity has, in the words of one author, been the pole holding up the tent of white supremacy. As the U.S. becomes a no-majority nation, with new challenges and new opportunities, white Christian Nationalism grows more and more detrimental to the democracy the nation needs. Democracy in the U.S. needs a new heart, a new spirit. For we who reject white Christian Nationalism: what can people of faith and people with deep spiritual/moral convictions do to regenerate democracy in the U.S.? This online, free course is for adults who reject the wall-building spirituality of Christian Nationalism. It is for those who seek a democratic spirituality that values equality as much as freedom, a spirituality that will foster the moral emotions necessary for the world’s first successful experiment in becoming a vibrant multicultural democracy, with liberty and justice for all. The five sessions are: Paying attention to the spirit of democracy What is democracy and why is it in trouble The spiritualities of capitalism, the Christian Right, and democracy Evidences of a healthy democracy What can people of faith, of spirituality, and/or of moral depth do to regenerate the spirit of democracy in the U.S.? Each session will feature a presentation by Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life. In addition, Dr. Peluso-Verdend recorded interviews with four leading authors on the question of this course: Robert P. Jones, Jack Jenkins, Kelly Brown Douglas, and Diana Butler Bass. Please email the Center, crpl@ptstulsa.edu, to indicate your interest in the course. Dr. Peluso-Verdend will email you when new content is posted, to solicit questions, and to remind you about the Thursday discussions. ### Course YouTube Playlist # Bursting Wineskins America’s myth is breaking. The deep story is unraveling. That mix of fact and fiction, the story Americans tell about who we have been, what we are, and where we are headed is dysfunctional. New wine is bursting the old wineskins. Some of us cheer the myth’s end. Others fight to preserve it. But, in our highly agitated and fearful culture, we wonder: what will replace it? ### Course Info For all of American history and myth-making, from the days of Spanish, English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese colonials until today, Christians have left fingerprints all over. For better and for worse, we have amended the soil of American culture for OUR sake, optimizing it for OUR growth. We have lent stories and symbols to the nation in hope of creating, to paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, a nation with the soul, if not the form, of a church. The results are decidedly mixed. What the nation most needs from Christians today is an honest appraisal of our own contributions to forming “a more perfect union,” confession of our complicity in arranging social hierarchies to benefit our interests, and our most expansive understandings of how to neighbor each other and live well on this relatively universe-rare biosphere. Elected officials in some states blunt legitimate criticism and debate in public schools regarding America’s story. They may prohibit the teaching about America’s original and ongoing sins. But Christian congregations are free from that outside interference. No one outside ourselves can stop us from looking in a full-length mirror. This class will provide a few angles of vision into that mirror. Each lecture/presentation will include stories and primary documents illustrating divergent ways Christians have tried to shape American culture and will raise the question, “What now?” A personal note from Gary Peluso-Verdend: I have spent all my adult life as a student of how Christianity functions in American public life. Although a far lesser percentage of Americans are affiliated with congregations today than they were when I graduated seminary in 1981, Christian churches still have the attention of a sizeable percentage of the population. Especially over the last 40 years, evangelical Christianity has been a loud, often effective, public voice for a particular American myth and way of being in the world. Not all evangelical Christians are aligned with America First Christian Nationalists. But their strength in the states that carry outsized weight in the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College has given them profound influence. From my point of view, that influence is a hindrance to the U.S. becoming a robust multicultural democracy and has wrapped Christianity in American nationalism, as well as white supremacy, to the detriment of Christianity and the nation. There is a deep anti-intellectual tradition in American Christianity, particularly in the heirs of 19th century evangelicalism, which very much includes my own United Methodist people. But there is another tradition in Christianity that values fearless scholarship, truth—found through conversation and argument-lost-rediscovered-repeat—, the experimental method of growing knowledge, and using every bit of the mind-body-spirit God has given each of us to contribute to more just and compassionate communities. I am committed to this latter tradition. I offer this class in service of a church that has something intelligent, true, and helpful to say. I believe there are intersections between the best of what Christianity offers and the best of what America promises—including defining what “best” means! The old wineskins are bursting. The time for new wineskins, a new story in which to live, is now. ### Course YouTube Playlist --- ### [InterReligious Understanding](https://ptstulsa.edu/interreligious-understanding/) **Published:** September 16, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # InterReligious Understanding In 2012, Phillips Theological Seminary launched an interreligious understanding program for adult learners. Courses were taught by religious leaders, laity, and scholars in Oklahoma who represented Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, and Native American traditions. From the beginning, the overarching goal of the program has been to educate and enlighten individuals for life and work in increasingly multicultural and religiously diverse communities. The program provides one modality for living out the command to love our neighbor: by applying the version of the golden rule that says to respect others as we would be respected. ### The Tanenbaum Foundation [A secular, non-sectarian nonprofit that promotes mutual respect with practical programs that bridge religious difference and combat prejudice in schools, workplaces, health care settings and areas of armed conflict.](http://www.tanenbaum.org) ### World Prayers [A unique website offering prayers from a variety of traditions worldwide.](https://www.worldprayers.org/index.html) Click the words around the perimeter of the homepage to access prayers for different occasions. Included prayers are ancient, contemporary, and drawn from many different religious and spiritual traditions. ### Canadian Council of Churches Interfaith Resources [A collection of interfaith resources from the Canadian Council of Churches.](https://ploughshares.ca/publications/worship-resources/interfaith-resources/) ### “Praying in Public” [A thoughtful article that makes helpful distinctions regarding praying in public gatherings. ](http://www.theinterfaithobserver.org/journal-articles/2013/10/15/praying-in-public.html) ### The Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice Resources [Follow the link on the page to an interfaith calendar of major holidays.](https://www.occjok.org/news_publications/) --- ### [Noteworthy Articles](https://ptstulsa.edu/noteworthy-articles/) **Published:** September 10, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Noteworthy Articles The following articles provide thoughtful ways of framing religion in public life in the U.S.: **[“Why Trump Reigns as King Cyrus”](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage)** *The month before the 2018 midterms, a thousand theaters screened “The Trump Prophecy,” a film that tells the story of Mark Taylor, a former firefighter who claims that God told him in 2011 that Donald Trump would be elected president.* **[“The Real Origins of the Religious Right”](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133)** *One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion.* [**“A New Americanism: Why a Nation Needs a National Story”**](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2019-02-05/new-americanism-nationalism-jill-lepore) *In 1986, the Pulitzer Prize–winning, bowtie-wearing Stanford historian Carl Degler delivered something other than the usual pipe-smoking, scotch-on-the-rocks, after-dinner disquisition that had plagued the evening program of the annual meeting of the American Historical Association for nearly all of its centurylong history.* [**“Of Course the Christian Right Supports Trump”**](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/trump-christian-right-values.html) *In 1958, the Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell, who would go on to found the Moral Majority, gave a sermon titled “Segregation or Integration: Which?”* **[“A Recent Local Controversy Reveals the Theocratic Heart of ‘Project Blitz’”](https://rewire.news/religion-dispatches/2019/06/24/a-recent-local-controversy-may-reveal-the-soft-theocracy-at-the-heart-of-project-blitz/)** *Much has happened since RD broke the story last year of Project Blitz—a stealth state legislative campaign of the Christian right that framed much of their agenda in terms of religious freedom.* **[“Politics as the New Religion for Progressive Democrats”](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/poll-shows-activism-highest-among-non-religious-democrats/572674/)** *The voters who are most amped for the 2018 elections look elite in nearly every way. They are Democrats, college-educated, and largely secular.* **[“Democrats Need to Talk About Their Faith”](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/2020-democrats-are-talking-about-religious-faith/592966/)** *Just over a year ago, before the frenzy of the midterm elections hit full swing, I traveled to Ohio to campaign with Senator Sherrod Brown, who was running for reelection. I told the crowds about the Sherrod I know from the weekly prayer breakfast he hosts in the Capitol, every Wednesday when the Senate is in session.* **[“Can Black Evangelicals Save the Whole](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/opinion/sunday/black-evangelicals-diversity.html?searchResultPosition=1)[ Movement?”](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/opinion/sunday/black-evangelicals-diversity.html?searchResultPosition=1)** *Not long ago, when Southern Baptists in Knox County, Tenn., invited Walter Strickland to speak at one of their meetings, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Mr. Strickland, a theology [professor](https://www.sebts.edu/academics/faculty/Strickland.aspx) at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., is one of the few African-American scholars teaching at a Southern Baptist seminary.* **[“A Brief History of Islam in America”](https://www.vox.com/2015/12/22/10645956/islam-in-america)** *Much of the debate in the US surrounding President Trump’s ban on immigrants and refugees has tended to assume that Muslim Americans are mostly migrants and that Islam is a relatively new phenomenon in America, along with questions about integration and assimilation.* [**“Jews in America: By the Numbers”** ](https://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/jews-america-numbers) *Anti-Semitic incidents in the past week have made headlines and added to a growing trend in 2017. Eleven Jewish community centers [were evacuated](http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/living/jcc-bomb-threats-anti-semitism/)Monday after receiving bomb threats, and [nearly 200 headstones](http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/up-to-headstones-damaged-at-jewish-cemetery-director-says/article_bafef56a-6ef2-5f90-a327-0ba7fa11e50b.html) in a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis were vandalized over the weekend.* [**“Religious Liberals Want to Change What It Means to Be a Christian Voter”** ](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/religious-liberals-want-to-change-what-it-means-to-be-a-christian-voter?fbclid=IwAR2pibVAX5DxgFNeYfrNSfq6MH1NUezt0IqxFT3SNy4sRWRkmV1wl0EvVww) *The meeting began with a prayer. Heads bowed and eyes closed. Then the members of “We Are Church Confessing,” a group of liberal faith leaders and activists from greater Des Moines, got to work.* [**“Grassroots Progressive Christianity: A Quiet Revolution”**](http://cil-de.org/documents/Grassroots%2019-3.pdf) *In Chicago a Tony Award–winning piano player improvises a jazz tune while some thirty church members dance and another hundred sing . . . in Phoenix a congregation can hardly wait for new scholarship on who Jesus was as a first‐century Galilean . . . in Boston the United Methodist bishop, a woman, appointed a pastor to the new church formed explicitly to affirm the full participation of gays and lesbians . . .* [**“The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity”** ](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/evangelical-christians-face-deepening-crisis/593353/?fbclid=IwAR2GE8AkHJoRZ0yXCKKRJGKUPCkIMs__8UvljEv0urmjpMSNbGBwCdRwR6Y) *Last week, Ralph Reed, the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s founder and chairman, told the group, “There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump. No one!”* --- ### [Reliable Research](https://ptstulsa.edu/reliable-research/) **Published:** August 7, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Reliable Research The following sources of information provide the best data available on American religion: ### Pew Research Center [The Pew survey (2014) is the most comprehensive, authoritative survey on the American religious landscape. They provide robust search tools that allow you to cut the data many different ways—by state, demographics, beliefs and practices, and social and political views.](https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/) ### Barna [Barna’s categories differ substantially from Pew’s. Whereas Pew uses mostly self-reporting labels, Barna is skewed to a grid based on their understanding of orthodox Christianity. They use a narrow definition of “evangelical” and include liberal/progressive Christians with “notional Christians.”](https://www.barna.com/research/got-spiritual-political-profiles-america/) ### The National Congregations Study [The National Congregations Study (2012 data; report released in 2015) is a comprehensive study of what religious congregations in the U.S. actually do. Data collection began in 1998 and researchers are tracking congregational trends over time. In addition to the 2015 report, you can manipulate the data yourself with the tools they provide.](http://www.soc.duke.edu/natcong/) ### The Hartford Institute for Religion Research [The Hartford Institute for Religion Research has created an excellent portal page](http://hirr.hartsem.edu/) for religion research with links to numerous good studies, e.g., a database of U.S. megachurches (worshipping at least 2,000 persons per week) and studies on U.S. mosques. ### The Public Religion Research Institute [Public Religion Research Institute conducts studies and provides e-news daily](https://www.prri.org/) regarding the intersection of religion, culture, and politics. The CEO is Robert Jones, who authored [The End of White Christian America.](https://www.amazon.com/End-White-Christian-America/dp/1501122320/ref=sr_1_2?crid=KYMPPLATSS0Q&keywords=the+end+of+white+christian+america+by+robert+p.+jones&qid=1562854510&s=gateway&sprefix=the+end+of+white%2Caps%2C198&sr=8-2) --- ### [The Christian Right Watch](https://ptstulsa.edu/the-christian-right-watch/) **Published:** September 13, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # The Christian Right Watch The Christian Right is a politically partisan expression of Christianity in public life, as well as an effort of conservative partisan politics to use religion to engage voters. One religiously-intense expression of the Christian Right is Christian Nationalism or Dominionism: the belief that the United States was founded to be, is culturally, and must be governed as a Christian nation privileging the Christian religion over all others. In addition, Christians should rule over every “dominion” of public and private life (e.g., law, family, media, business). ### Samantha Bee Coverage The following videos produced by culture critic Samantha Bee do an outstanding job of telling the story of what led to the Christian Right’s development and its work over the last 50 years. **Content Warning:** some of the language in the following videos is crude; the videos have a TV-MA rating for language. The two parts together take less than 20 minutes: ### PBS Series: “God in America” PBS published a six-part series on the development of the Christian Right from a historical viewpoint, [“God in America.”](https://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/view/) ### Blitz Watch [Project Blitz](https://www.blitzwatch.org/about) is the religious cousin of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization which creates templates of conservative legislation marketed to state legislatures. Project Blitz, associated with the Congressional Prayer Caucus, works through prayer caucuses in state legislatures for causes such as publicly-funded private school vouchers, keeping references to God in public schools and buildings, and discriminating against LBGTQ persons. The 2018-2019 playbook can be found [here](https://www.au.org/sites/default/files/2019-01/Project%20Blitz%20Playbook%202018-19.pdf). State-by-state legislation can be tracked [here](https://www.blitzwatch.org/project-blitz-legislation-tracker). ### Right Wing Watch [Right Wing Watch](http://www.rightwingwatch.org/) staffers scan Christian Right TV shows and websites to glean clips and excerpts that would not otherwise be known to those who do not frequent those sources. --- ### [Showcase](https://ptstulsa.edu/showcase/) **Published:** April 12, 2021 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** ## Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-life Arts Showcase Sacred Commemoration for the Centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre --- Phillips Theological Seminary Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life thanks all the artists who submitted their works as part of a sacred commemoration for the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Members of the Black Christian Traditions and African American Faith-Life committee will serve as judges for the showcase and award a $500 best in show honor and up to $1,500 in combined prizes. Judging criteria was based on interpretation of the topic, originality, technique and composition. The works will be featured in a video shared across social media and the seminary’s website, ptstulsa.edu/art. ### “This is Greenwood” by Dr. Sharri Coleman ### “Suffocation Nation” by Awesome Jeremy ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/93837F83-A02A-4454-B6A1-67D41AA699D4-scaled.jpeg) ### “Change for 100” by Phetote Mshairi **Change for 100 by Phetote Mshairi** A century is merely a scintilla of eternity and centennials are poignant remember-whens that invoke roller coasters of sensational sentiments. But what happens when the Centennial has passed, and it’s no longer in vogue to help Black folk? How do we free the Spirits of Greenwood still beckoning to be released from the sunken place as they climb stairs to nowhere wondering: “where oh where did our legacies go?” Does anyone have change for a hundred? I said…Does anyone here have the kind of gumption and change that could transform 35 square blocks of possibilities nestled on sacred Native land, into an Ebony oasis, despite the desolation of discrimination and the ubiquitous *caw* and claws of Jim Crow laws? Can you break a hundred? I mean do you have the mettle to break generational curses conjured and regurgitated by learned behavior exacerbated by adopting massa’s verbal abuse and having the nerve to call the n-word a “term of endearment”? Are you humble enough to hear that you need change? When someone tells you to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”, do you have the gumption, plans, and resources to produce the kind of change that could mass produce miraculous boots that walk on slaughters? Do you have the resilience of your Ancestors who carried sons and daughters through Motherlands and cotton fields; from sharecropping, to sharing profits in an Ebony oasis called the Greenwood District? After centuries of slavery and years of Jim Crow, African Americans were told to pull themselves up by the bootstraps; so, they reached down deep into the ash and mire with determination and desire; they grasp the straps and they PULLED! They defied the gravity of depravity and elevated above envy, *isms*, and calamities. We will change the “stairs to nowhere” to somewhere when we follow the example of our forefathers and mothers and *be* change that we need. ~Phetote Mshairi oet, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Fellow ============================== ### “Still Rising” by Jennifer Solis ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/FC33E3F2-1EA4-47F9-B818-3DA739C4614A-scaled.jpeg)![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/F18579CB-8F24-4CBE-8A00-0AC225D9197C-scaled.jpeg)![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/85417BCD-263C-4D47-B9FE-EF48CA7B2B60-scaled.jpeg) ### “Black Wall Street: A Modernized Revolution” by Dawn Tree ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/aintnatural2-1.png) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Black-Millions.png) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/diamond-scaled.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/koolkladklan.jpg) ### “Prayed for Me” by Johnnie C. Watkins, Jr. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Prayed-For-Me-SATB-01.png) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Prayed-For-Me-SATB-02.png) ### “Dig Deeper” by Written Quincey and Liza Villarreal --- # Phillips Theological Seminary in conjunction with Arts Organizations from around the Country Present the World Premiere of “They Still Want to Kill Us” On May 25, 2021 at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern, a group of arts institutions across the nation premiered the short film “They Still Want To Kill Us,” an aria by composer and activist **Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)**, performed by mezzo-soprano **J’Nai Bridges**, and directed by filmmaker **Yoram Savion**, to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. It speaks truth to what transpired in 1921 at the Tulsa Race Massacre, an atrocity all but deleted from history until recently. The work is being premiered to mark one year since the murder of George Floyd: a commentary on our progress this last century on the issue of race and America’s treatment of Black life. “They Still Want to Kill Us” will premiere on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/SOZOARTISTS) and [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/sozoartists); beginning May 26 it will stream for free at [ptstulsa.edu/art](https://ptstulsa.edu/art/) until July 31. Phillips Theological Seminary supported the creation of this work. > [WATCH THE PERFORMANCE](https://youtu.be/1Sij2TQ4G4I) > > [READ FULL NEWS RELEASE](https://ptstulsa.edu/2021/05/24/they-still-want-to-kill-us-2/) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-Still-Want-to-Kill-Us-Art.png) ## Submission Form Be sure to follow the submission guidelines. [ Click Here ](http://bit.ly/CentennialArts) --- # Categories ### 2D or 3D Artwork - Submit several photos of the work from at least 4 different angles - Signature must be visible in photo of work - Two Age Categories: 16 and under, or over 17 ### Spoken Word - May be submitted as an audio or video - Piece must be recited from memory - Two Age Categories: 16 and under, or over 17 ### Original Music - Length: 2-5 minutes long - May be submitted as audio or video - Two Age Categories: 16 and under, or over 17 ### Computer-generated Visual Art - Must be exported as PNG for still images or H.264 formats for video - Two Age Categories: 16 and under, or over 17 Email artshowcase@ptstulsa.edu or call 918.610.8303 for more information. --- ### [Nancy Claire Pittman](https://ptstulsa.edu/nancy-claire-pittman/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Nancy Pittman **Content:** # Nancy Claire Pittman President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg) Born on the high plains of Texas, Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman’s earliest images of God were shaped by the vastness of the great North American prairie, limited only by shimmering sunrises and dazzling sunsets. And her earliest encounters of Christian community took place in the sprawling structures of First Christian Church, Amarillo, and the intimate Ceta Glen Christian Camp located in a finger of Palo Duro Canyon. She embraced in these places the wideness of God’s mercy and the unity of abiding friendship in Jesus. Her faith commitments were further formed and informed through her work in the Religion Studies and Psychology departments of Texas Christian University where she earned a BA, and at Brite Divinity School where she was awarded an MDiv. Having known a sense of call to ministry since childhood, she was ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest on April 1, 1984. She has served as a minister in several churches across Texas or Oklahoma and preached or lectured as a guest speaker in numerous congregations and regional and national events. The centrality of the Bible for Christian life and faith that Disciples have claimed since their founding led Dr. Pittman to earn a PhD in New Testament Studies at Southern Methodist University in 1996. Her dissertation explored images of Jesus the Christ in the Book of Revelation as clues for the demands made upon the followers of Jesus for the first readers of that wondrously strange writing. Her first faculty position was at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, a school related to the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. There she and her husband, Dr. Don A. Pittman, served together for six and a half years as mission partners sent by Global Ministries of the Christian Church (DoC). Dr. Pittman joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary as the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program in 2005. In that position and then later as dean (2013-2018) she has explored the intersection of practical ministry with intelligent and learned theological and biblical reflection. At the seminary she teaches “Capstones in Theological Leadership” as an invitation to graduating students to live at that intersection throughout their vocational lives. She also continues to be challenged by images of faithful and faithless community in the New Testament, understandings of ministerial leadership in the 21st century, and our own contemporary ecclesiolatries—idolatries of church and church forms. Currently, Dr. Pittman is President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In her spare time, she laughs with her family, reads novels, and embroiders flowers. ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=30) ### Education and CV B.A., Psychology and Religious Studies, Texas Christian University M.Div., Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University Ph.D., New Testament, Southern Methodist University CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/N-Pittman-Vita-10.18.doc) ### Photos and Media --- ### [Lisa Dellinger](https://ptstulsa.edu/nancy-claire-pittman-copy-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Nancy Claire Pittman President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg) Born on the high plains of Texas, Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman’s earliest images of God were shaped by the vastness of the great North American prairie, limited only by shimmering sunrises and dazzling sunsets. And her earliest encounters of Christian community took place in the sprawling structures of First Christian Church, Amarillo, and the intimate Ceta Glen Christian Camp located in a finger of Palo Duro Canyon. She embraced in these places the wideness of God’s mercy and the unity of abiding friendship in Jesus. Her faith commitments were further formed and informed through her work in the Religion Studies and Psychology departments of Texas Christian University where she earned a BA, and at Brite Divinity School where she was awarded an MDiv. Having known a sense of call to ministry since childhood, she was ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest on April 1, 1984. She has served as a minister in several churches across Texas or Oklahoma and preached or lectured as a guest speaker in numerous congregations and regional and national events. The centrality of the Bible for Christian life and faith that Disciples have claimed since their founding led Dr. Pittman to earn a PhD in New Testament Studies at Southern Methodist University in 1996. Her dissertation explored images of Jesus the Christ in the Book of Revelation as clues for the demands made upon the followers of Jesus for the first readers of that wondrously strange writing. Her first faculty position was at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, a school related to the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. There she and her husband, Dr. Don A. Pittman, served together for six and a half years as mission partners sent by Global Ministries of the Christian Church (DoC). Dr. Pittman joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary as the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program in 2005. In that position and then later as dean (2013-2018) she has explored the intersection of practical ministry with intelligent and learned theological and biblical reflection. At the seminary she teaches “Capstones in Theological Leadership” as an invitation to graduating students to live at that intersection throughout their vocational lives. She also continues to be challenged by images of faithful and faithless community in the New Testament, understandings of ministerial leadership in the 21st century, and our own contemporary ecclesiolatries—idolatries of church and church forms. Currently, Dr. Pittman is President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In her spare time, she laughs with her family, reads novels, and embroiders flowers. ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=30) ### Education and CV B.A., Psychology and Religious Studies, Texas Christian University M.Div., Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University Ph.D., New Testament, Southern Methodist University CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/N-Pittman-Vita-10.18.doc) ### Photos and Media --- ### [Allie Utley](https://ptstulsa.edu/nancy-claire-pittman-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Nancy Claire Pittman President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg) Born on the high plains of Texas, Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman’s earliest images of God were shaped by the vastness of the great North American prairie, limited only by shimmering sunrises and dazzling sunsets. And her earliest encounters of Christian community took place in the sprawling structures of First Christian Church, Amarillo, and the intimate Ceta Glen Christian Camp located in a finger of Palo Duro Canyon. She embraced in these places the wideness of God’s mercy and the unity of abiding friendship in Jesus. Her faith commitments were further formed and informed through her work in the Religion Studies and Psychology departments of Texas Christian University where she earned a BA, and at Brite Divinity School where she was awarded an MDiv. Having known a sense of call to ministry since childhood, she was ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest on April 1, 1984. She has served as a minister in several churches across Texas or Oklahoma and preached or lectured as a guest speaker in numerous congregations and regional and national events. The centrality of the Bible for Christian life and faith that Disciples have claimed since their founding led Dr. Pittman to earn a PhD in New Testament Studies at Southern Methodist University in 1996. Her dissertation explored images of Jesus the Christ in the Book of Revelation as clues for the demands made upon the followers of Jesus for the first readers of that wondrously strange writing. Her first faculty position was at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, a school related to the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. There she and her husband, Dr. Don A. Pittman, served together for six and a half years as mission partners sent by Global Ministries of the Christian Church (DoC). Dr. Pittman joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary as the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program in 2005. In that position and then later as dean (2013-2018) she has explored the intersection of practical ministry with intelligent and learned theological and biblical reflection. At the seminary she teaches “Capstones in Theological Leadership” as an invitation to graduating students to live at that intersection throughout their vocational lives. She also continues to be challenged by images of faithful and faithless community in the New Testament, understandings of ministerial leadership in the 21st century, and our own contemporary ecclesiolatries—idolatries of church and church forms. Currently, Dr. Pittman is President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In her spare time, she laughs with her family, reads novels, and embroiders flowers. ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=30) ### Education and CV B.A., Psychology and Religious Studies, Texas Christian University M.Div., Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University Ph.D., New Testament, Southern Methodist University CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/N-Pittman-Vita-10.18.doc) ### Photos and Media --- ### [Briana Wong](https://ptstulsa.edu/nancy-claire-pittman-copy-copy/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Nancy Claire Pittman President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg) Born on the high plains of Texas, Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman’s earliest images of God were shaped by the vastness of the great North American prairie, limited only by shimmering sunrises and dazzling sunsets. And her earliest encounters of Christian community took place in the sprawling structures of First Christian Church, Amarillo, and the intimate Ceta Glen Christian Camp located in a finger of Palo Duro Canyon. She embraced in these places the wideness of God’s mercy and the unity of abiding friendship in Jesus. Her faith commitments were further formed and informed through her work in the Religion Studies and Psychology departments of Texas Christian University where she earned a BA, and at Brite Divinity School where she was awarded an MDiv. Having known a sense of call to ministry since childhood, she was ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest on April 1, 1984. She has served as a minister in several churches across Texas or Oklahoma and preached or lectured as a guest speaker in numerous congregations and regional and national events. The centrality of the Bible for Christian life and faith that Disciples have claimed since their founding led Dr. Pittman to earn a PhD in New Testament Studies at Southern Methodist University in 1996. Her dissertation explored images of Jesus the Christ in the Book of Revelation as clues for the demands made upon the followers of Jesus for the first readers of that wondrously strange writing. Her first faculty position was at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, a school related to the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. There she and her husband, Dr. Don A. Pittman, served together for six and a half years as mission partners sent by Global Ministries of the Christian Church (DoC). Dr. Pittman joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary as the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program in 2005. In that position and then later as dean (2013-2018) she has explored the intersection of practical ministry with intelligent and learned theological and biblical reflection. At the seminary she teaches “Capstones in Theological Leadership” as an invitation to graduating students to live at that intersection throughout their vocational lives. She also continues to be challenged by images of faithful and faithless community in the New Testament, understandings of ministerial leadership in the 21st century, and our own contemporary ecclesiolatries—idolatries of church and church forms. Currently, Dr. Pittman is President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In her spare time, she laughs with her family, reads novels, and embroiders flowers. ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=30) ### Education and CV B.A., Psychology and Religious Studies, Texas Christian University M.Div., Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University Ph.D., New Testament, Southern Methodist University CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/N-Pittman-Vita-10.18.doc) ### Photos and Media --- ### [Chelsea Yarborough](https://ptstulsa.edu/nancy-claire-pittman-copy/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Nancy Claire Pittman President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Nancy-Photo.jpg) Born on the high plains of Texas, Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman’s earliest images of God were shaped by the vastness of the great North American prairie, limited only by shimmering sunrises and dazzling sunsets. And her earliest encounters of Christian community took place in the sprawling structures of First Christian Church, Amarillo, and the intimate Ceta Glen Christian Camp located in a finger of Palo Duro Canyon. She embraced in these places the wideness of God’s mercy and the unity of abiding friendship in Jesus. Her faith commitments were further formed and informed through her work in the Religion Studies and Psychology departments of Texas Christian University where she earned a BA, and at Brite Divinity School where she was awarded an MDiv. Having known a sense of call to ministry since childhood, she was ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest on April 1, 1984. She has served as a minister in several churches across Texas or Oklahoma and preached or lectured as a guest speaker in numerous congregations and regional and national events. The centrality of the Bible for Christian life and faith that Disciples have claimed since their founding led Dr. Pittman to earn a PhD in New Testament Studies at Southern Methodist University in 1996. Her dissertation explored images of Jesus the Christ in the Book of Revelation as clues for the demands made upon the followers of Jesus for the first readers of that wondrously strange writing. Her first faculty position was at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, a school related to the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. There she and her husband, Dr. Don A. Pittman, served together for six and a half years as mission partners sent by Global Ministries of the Christian Church (DoC). Dr. Pittman joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary as the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program in 2005. In that position and then later as dean (2013-2018) she has explored the intersection of practical ministry with intelligent and learned theological and biblical reflection. At the seminary she teaches “Capstones in Theological Leadership” as an invitation to graduating students to live at that intersection throughout their vocational lives. She also continues to be challenged by images of faithful and faithless community in the New Testament, understandings of ministerial leadership in the 21st century, and our own contemporary ecclesiolatries—idolatries of church and church forms. Currently, Dr. Pittman is President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In her spare time, she laughs with her family, reads novels, and embroiders flowers. ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=30) ### Education and CV B.A., Psychology and Religious Studies, Texas Christian University M.Div., Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University Ph.D., New Testament, Southern Methodist University CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/N-Pittman-Vita-10.18.doc) ### Photos and Media --- ### [Warren Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/warren-carter-2/) **Published:** October 2, 2019 **Author:** Warren Carter **Content:** # Warren Carter LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament ### What is your current research and writing project? Placeholder. ![Warren Carter](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/plugins/unyson/framework/static/img/no-image.png) Warren Carter [Email Dr. Carter](mailto:warren.carter@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0202.jpg](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0202.jpg) Dr. Warren Carter is the LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament at Phillips Seminary in Tulsa OK. From 2007-2019, he was Professor of New Testament at Brite Divinity School, TCU, Fort Worth TX. Four times he has been voted the Clark Faculty excellence award by Brite students. In 2014 he was awarded the John Gammie Distinguished Scholar award by the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies. Before going to Brite, he was Pherigo Professor of New Testament at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City MO. A native of New Zealand, he is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington (BA: BA(Honors) First Class), the Melbourne College of Divinity (Bachelor of Divinity; Masters of Theology) and Princeton Theological Seminary NJ (PhD in New Testament Studies). ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=10) ### Education and CV PhD Princeton Theological Seminary ThM Melbourne College of Divinity BD Melbourne College of Divinity BA University of Wellington **CV:** [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/PTS-Carter-CV.pdf) ### Photos and Media --- ### [Faith and Public Issues in Oklahoma](https://ptstulsa.edu/faith-and-public-issues-in-oklahoma/) **Published:** August 7, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Faith and Public Issues in Oklahoma The following organizations work on causes aligned with the values of the Religion in Public Life Initiative at Phillips Seminary. ## ACTION Tulsa A faith-based community organization in Tulsa, focusing on criminal justice, education, immigration, mental health, and student loan debt. [ More Info ](https://actiontulsa.nationbuilder.com/) ## Interfaith Power and Light An organization focused on the environment and climate change, as well as a religious response to climate change as faithful stewards. [ More Info ](http://ok-ipl.org/) ## Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice A state-wide organization working to eliminate bias, bigotry, and racism in Oklahoma. The organization is dedicated to achieving respect and understanding for all through education and dialogue. [ More Info ](https://www.occjok.org/) ## Oklahoma Conference of Churches A state-wide organization comprised of regional judicatories and about a dozen individual congregations. [ More Info ](https://www.okchurches.org/) ## Oklahoma Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice A religious state-wide coalition focusing on activism regarding reproductive choice. The coalition emphasizes women’s right to reproductive freedom. [ More Info ](https://www.roefund.org/) ## Pastors for Oklahoma Kids A state-wide organization focusing on advocacy and support of the public school system in Oklahoma. [ More Info ](https://www.pastorsforoklahomakids.com/) ## VOICE A faith-based community organization in Oklahoma City, focusing on economic justice, education, and restorative justice. [ More Info ](https://www.voiceokc.org) --- ### [Heritage](https://ptstulsa.edu/heritage/) **Published:** September 2, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** # Black Histories in Native (American) Lands ### Black Histories in Native (American) Lands with Dr. Nakia Parker # Black History and African American Heritage Month Worship Series [![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Black-History-and-African-American-Heritage-Month-1080-Ad-Final.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Black-History-and-African-American-Heritage-Month-1080-Ad-Final.jpg)](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztsgxX1NhSbwPbLE-If2FpIL) > The Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life program at Phillips Seminary offers this series of services and sermons for the month of February. # Sessions 2022 ### Worship with Rev. Dr. Jennifer Leath ### Worship with Rev. Dr. Melva Sampson ### Worship with Rev. Dr. Jeremy Williams ### Worship with Rev. Dr. Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder # Sessions 2021 ### Worship with the Rev. Valerie Bridgeman, PhD ### Worship with the Rev. Stephanie Crumpton, ThD ### Worship with the Rev. Marvin McMickle, DMin, PhD ### Worship with the Rev. Alton Pollard, PhD # Coming Soon [![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Black-History-and-African-American-Heritage-Month-1080-Ad-Final.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Black-History-and-African-American-Heritage-Month-1080-Ad-Final.png)](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztsgxX1NhSbwPbLE-If2FpIL) --- ### [Lee Butler](https://ptstulsa.edu/lee-butler/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Lee H. Butler, Jr. Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean William Tabbernee Professor of the History of Religions and Africana Pastoral Theology ### Why did you decide to become a professor? Placeholder. ![Susanna Southard](//www.ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Susanna Southard [Email Susanna](mailto:susanna.southard@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Butler.png](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Butler.png) Born in Central Pennsylvania, Dr. Lee H. Butler, Jr. arrives in Oklahoma following the leading of God’s Spirit. His identity has been formed by being a lifelong Baptist, a student athlete from junior high school through college, and a first generation beneficiary of the Post-Civil and Human Rights struggle in the United States. Dr. Butler received his PhD in 1994 from Drew University in Psychology and Religion and a MPhil in 1992. He also holds a MTh from Princeton Theological Seminary in Pastoral Theology, a MDiv from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Theological Seminary) with a concentration in Pastoral Care and Counseling, an a BA from Bucknell University in Religion. He comes to Phillips from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) where he was the Distinguished Service Professor of Theology and Psychology. He was the first African American to achieve the rank of tenured full professor at CTS. He was also the founding director of the Center for the Study of Black Faith and Life at CTS. Through the work of the Center, he established the C. Shelby Rooks Lectureship as a tribute to the first African American to become president of a predominantly European American seminary and hosted the first Womanists-Womanist Collaborators Conference in theological education at CTS. He is an active publishing scholar and member of multiple professional organizations. He is a past president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Pastoral Theology, the Institute for Signifying Scriptures, Society for Process Consulting and the Association of Black Psychologists. He was licensed to preach the Gospel in 1977 and became an ordained minister of the American Baptist Churches/USA in 1988. He has an ecumenical spirit and is active in his local congregation as preacher and teacher. ### Education and CV PhD Drew University MPHIL Drew University MTh Princeton Theological Seminary MDiv Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary BA Bucknell University CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Butler-Admin-CV-21_Lee-Butler.pdf) --- ### [Bursting Wineskins](https://ptstulsa.edu/crpl-fall-2021-course/) **Published:** September 3, 2021 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Bursting Wineskins Time for American Christians to Seek a New Story ***A fall 2021 free, online, public course from the Center for Religion in Public Life.** Email your interest to crpl@ptstulsa.edu.* Taught by Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, Center Director and Seminary President Emeritus. America’s myth is breaking. The deep story is unraveling. That mix of fact and fiction, the story Americans tell about who we have been, what we are, and where we are headed is dysfunctional. New wine is bursting the old wineskins. Some of us cheer the myth’s end. Others fight to preserve it. But, in our highly agitated and fearful culture, we wonder: what will replace it? For all of American history and myth-making, from the days of Spanish, English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese colonials until today, Christians have left fingerprints all over. For better and for worse, we have amended the soil of American culture for OUR sake, optimizing it for OUR growth. We have lent stories and symbols to the nation in hope of creating, to paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, a nation with the soul, if not the form, of a church. The results are decidedly mixed. What the nation most needs from Christians today is an honest appraisal of our own contributions to forming “a more perfect union,” confession of our complicity in arranging social hierarchies to benefit our interests, and our most expansive understandings of how to neighbor each other and live well on this relatively universe-rare biosphere. Elected officials in some states blunt legitimate criticism and debate in public schools regarding America’s story. They may prohibit the teaching about America’s original and ongoing sins. But Christian congregations are free from that outside interference. No one outside ourselves can stop us from looking in a full-length mirror. This class will provide a few angles of vision into that mirror. Each lecture/presentation will include stories and primary documents illustrating divergent ways Christians have tried to shape American culture and will raise the question, “What now?” **A personal note from Gary Peluso-Verdend**: I have spent all my adult life as a student of how Christianity functions in American public life. Although a far lesser percentage of Americans are affiliated with congregations today than they were when I graduated seminary in 1981, Christian churches still have the attention of a sizeable percentage of the population. Especially over the last 40 years, evangelical Christianity has been a loud, often effective, public voice for a particular American myth and way of being in the world. Not all evangelical Christians are aligned with America First Christian Nationalists. But their strength in the states that carry outsized weight in the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College has given them profound influence. From my point of view, that influence is a hindrance to the U.S. becoming a robust multicultural democracy and has wrapped Christianity in American nationalism, as well as white supremacy, to the detriment of Christianity and the nation. There is a deep anti-intellectual tradition in American Christianity, particularly in the heirs of 19th century evangelicalism, which very much includes my own United Methodist people. But there is another tradition in Christianity that values fearless scholarship, truth—found through conversation and argument-lost-rediscovered-repeat—, the experimental method of growing knowledge, and using every bit of the mind-body-spirit God has given each of us to contribute to more just and compassionate communities. I am committed to this latter tradition. I offer this class in service of a church that has something intelligent, true, and helpful to say. I believe there are intersections between the best of what Christianity offers and the best of what America promises—including defining what “best” means! The old wineskins are bursting. The time for new wineskins, a new story in which to live, is now. --- **Register your interest by emailing** [**crpl@ptstulsa.edu**](mailto:crpl@ptstulsa.edu)**.** Six sessions, with primary document reading and lecture viewable from Monday-Thursday and live discussions at 7p – 8p central time on Zoom. Thursday sessions on October 7, 14, 21, and November 4, 11, and 18. Lecture will be available on the Phillips Seminary YouTube page the Monday preceding each discussion. ### Week of October 4: The End of the Myth Introduction to the class, highlighting the distinction between myth and history and naming numerous forces contributing the reality that the U.S. cannot move forward using the old wineskins—a container that depended heavily on a particular set of biblical stories and images. ### Week of October 11: How to pay attention to the matrix of religion and politics The American experiment of separating church and state also depends on how the relationship between religion and politics is interpreted. Religion and political agendas play together—for better and for worse—in the cultural construction of stories, ideas and practices of belonging and exclusion, moral hierarchies, and solving problems. ### Week of October 18: Conflicting Energies: Conquest and Friendship There is a long tradition in colonial history and Christianity that nothing—individuals, peoples, land—is useful to God until it is conquered and cultivated. In the U.S., this theological disposition is aligned with conversion-oriented Christianity, technological domination of land, and the conquest of indigenous persons. ### Week of November 1: Conflicting Energies: Preserving and Challenging Hierarchies Religion can be conservative or revolutionary. In American history, expressions of Christianity have backed white colorism (with white at the “pure” end of the scale), male over female, capital over laborers, conqueror over conquered, heteronormativity over all. And, some expressions of Christianity have championed ecclesial and social revolts against these hierarchies. ### Week of November 8: Conflicting Energies: Righteous Violence and Social Repair There is a strong affinity in American culture between socially conservative Christianity, support for using military force, and punishing wrongdoing (including how “wrongdoing” is defined). Christians also have argued for the public value of peace, restorative justice, confession, repentance, penance, atonement, forgiveness, and reconciliation. ### Week of November 15: Toward a Better Myth What might religions in general, and Christianity specifically, contribute toward a more perfect union, dedicated to the proposition of equality that has not yet been fulfilled? Can biblical teachings regarding measuring justice by how a society treats the poor be invoked without also opening the gates to everything that accompanies “chosen nation,” “conquest,” “exercise dominion,” and identifying international organizations such as the UN and the World Council of Churches with the anti-Christ? If there is going to be a United States in the future, someone(s), from somewhere, is going to propose a myth of origins and destiny that will resonate with and move people to act. Let’s give it a try. --- ### [iFundPhillips Donate](https://ptstulsa.edu/ifpdonate/) **Published:** December 5, 2018 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** ### Gift Giver Information --- --- ### [Donate](https://ptstulsa.edu/donate/) **Published:** December 5, 2018 **Author:** anderj37 **Content:** ### Gift Giver Information --- --- ### [Registrar Forms and Transcripts](https://ptstulsa.edu/current-students/transcripts/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Registrar Forms and Transcripts Below are links to our transcript request page and other forms available from the registrar’s office, including releasing information for a reference letter. Completed, dated, and signed forms may be returned to the registrar’s office via scanned email attachment to [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu), or via facsimile to 918.610.8404, or via regular mail to Phillips Theological Seminary, Attention Registrar, 901 North Mingo Road, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74116. Questions regarding these forms should be directed to [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu) or at 918.270.6412. ## Transcript Requests For questions about your transcript, contact [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu), registrar, at 918.270.6412 or by regular mail to Phillips Theological Seminary, Attention Registrar, 901 North Mingo Road, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 74116. ## Transcript Request Phillips Seminary provides transcripts through a service called Parchment. Clicking the button below will take you to the Phillips Parchment page where you can request your official transcript. If you have questions about your transcript, please contact the seminary registrar’s office at 918.270.6412. [ Click Here ](https://www.parchment.com/u/registration/36918175/account) ## Release of Information—Letters of Recommendation If you wish to submit a Request for a Letter of Recommendation via email or mail, please use the following information. Completed, dated, and signed forms may be returned via scanned email attachment to [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu), via facsimile to 918.610.8404, or by regular mail to Phillips Theological Seminary, Attention Registrar, 901 North Mingo Road, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 74116. ## Release of Information—Letters of Recommendation [ Click Here ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Information-release-_Rev_-060205-Fillable.pdf) ### Transcript Request Below is the link to the form to request an official transcript from Phillips Theological Seminary. Transcripts are $5.00 each. Credit card payments may be processed by including the appropriate information on this form, or by online payment at [Student Account Payment](https://ptstulsa.edu/StudentAccountPayment). Please note in the comment section that payment is for a transcript request. Completed, dated, and signed forms may be returned via scanned email attachment to [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu), via facsimile to 918.610.8404, or by regular mail to Phillips Theological Seminary, Attention Registrar, 901 North Mingo Road, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 74116. Questions should be directed to the registrar at [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu) or 918.270.6412. [Transcript Request Form](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/PTS_Official_Transcript_2018.pdf) ### Request for Release of Information – Letter of Recommendation Below is the link to the form to request the release of information regarding letters of recommendation. Completed, dated, and signed forms may be returned via scanned email attachment to [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu), via facsimile to 918.610.8404, or by regular mail to Phillips Theological Seminary, Attention Registrar, 901 North Mingo Road, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 74116. Questions should be directed to the registrar at [Virginia Thompson](mailto:virginia.thompson@ptstulsa.edu) or 918.270.6412. [Release of Information – Letters of Recommendation](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Information-release-_Rev_-060205.pdf) --- ### [Directories](https://ptstulsa.edu/directories/) **Published:** March 24, 2021 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Directories [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/DSC_0406.jpg)### Faculty Directory](https://ptstulsa.edu/faculty-directory/) [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/16.jpg)### Staff Directory](https://ptstulsa.edu/staff-directory/) [ ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/pts-car.jpg)### Board of Trustees Directory](https://ptstulsa.edu/board-of-trustees-directory/) --- ### [Non-Degree Credit Programs](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/) **Published:** October 1, 2018 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit Phillips Theological Seminary offers options for those interested in earning academic credits without pursuing a degree. The following options grant academic credit (Please check with our admissions department and your primary institution to verify if credits are transferable). [Special Student Status](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) [Graduate Certificate Program](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. --- ### [Non-Credit Programs](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/) **Published:** October 1, 2018 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Non-Credit Earning Programs Phillips Theological Seminary offers options for everyone to learn, regardless of your educational background. The following options do not grant academic credits for classes, but students will retain access to the highest quality teaching Phillips Theological Seminary has to offer. [Center for Ministry and Lay Training](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/center-for-ministry-and-lay-training/) [Audit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 9](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-9/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 8](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-8/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 7](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-7/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 6](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-6/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 5](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-5/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 4](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-4/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 3](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-3/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The 38 semester-hour Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the 32 semester-hour DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-2/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 10](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-10/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) ### Request Information - Name\* - Email\* - Phone\* - Preferred Method of Contact:Preferred Method of Contact: EmailText MessagePhone Call - What Would You Like to be Contacted About?\*What Would You Like to be Contacted About? - Inquiry - Campus Visit - Both - Please List Your Inquiry:\* - What is Your Preferred Campus Visit Date?\*Preferred Campus Visit Date: I would like to be contacted to schedule a campus visit - How Did You Hear About Phillips? --- ### [Programs of Study Copy 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Programs of Study Copy](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study-copy-12/) **Published:** April 25, 2019 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Programs of Study Phillips Theological Seminary offers several options for your future in ministry. Choose one of the options below to learn more about our various programs. ## Degree Programs ### Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) The 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity program is the basic graduate professional degree program in the seminary and is designed to provide a foundational academic preparation for an educated ministry. The MDiv program is designed to prepare leaders equipped to create, sustain and nurture vital communities that are following the way of Jesus. Learn More ### Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) The 48 semester-hour Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the 82 semester-hour Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the MAMC degree, like the MDiv, requires Supervised Ministry and is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested. Learn More ### Master of Social Justice Degree (MASJ) The Master of Arts (Social Justice) degree program gives students an opportunity to reflect on social justice as a central concern of contemporary Christian theologies. This program should interest many students, but in particular those who want to prepare for or continue to work within non-profit organizations that address justice issues in society, some of which are connected with churches or religious organizations; and those who have retired from professional life and are seeking ways to enhance their Sunday School education and to discover direction for a renewed sense of service and outreach to larger communities. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/ma-social-justice/) ### Master of Theological Studies (MTS) The purpose of the 48 semester-hour Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree program is to develop broad theological understandings for general education purposes. The MTS degree program has two distinct tracks; General Theological Studies, and Pre-doctoral Theological Studies. Learn More ### Doctor of Ministry (DMin) Graduates of the DMin program will be prepared to exercise advanced skills in church and society issues including abilities to: - Articulate an understanding of social change as a function of pastoral leadership that is grounded in theological and biblical reflection and responsive to the history of Christianity particularly as it is reflected in student’s own denominational heritage; - Identify and address cultural issues surrounding race, gender, economic and cultural globalization, and interfaith relations from a theological/biblical standpoint; and - Develop strategies for community engagement and change around particular issues of common concern. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/doctor-of-ministry/) ### Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) The PHS/Phillips Clinical Pastoral Education LEVEL I is an extended parish/community based course intended to meet the standard requirements for one unit of certified ACPE approved training. The course design engages students in critical reflection in order to gain greater self-awareness, ministerial identity, and effective ministry skills. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/clinical-pastoral-education-cpe/) ## Non-Credit Programs ### Ministry Training Program – Certificate in Pastoral Ministry As an MTP student, you’ll not only learn from our top-notch faculty, but you’ll also build a network of others engaged in ministry. The Ministry Training Program is not designed for those who want to do ministry the way it’s always been done. If you want to make a difference in this changing world, we’ll help you push beyond your comfort zone. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/ministry-training-program/) ### Audit Program Phillips Theological Seminary offers classes for no academic credit through an audit program. A limited number of auditors may be permitted in some courses, depending on course size and type. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs/audit/) ## Non-Degree Programs for Academic Credit ### Special Student Status Special Student status is granted to applicants in order to take classes for credit to transfer to another institution, to complete denominational requirements, to get a feel for seminary, or for personal enhancement. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas-copy/) ### Graduate Certificates Phillips offers a for-credit, graded Graduate Certificate program for those who hold a baccalaureate degree. This program requires 15-16 semester hours of work. Upon completion of the required hours, students will receive a Phillips Theological Seminary Certificate. Please note that the Graduate Certificate program does not entail earning a degree. A student may pursue a Graduate Certificate independent of or in conjunction with one of the Master’s degrees offered by Phillips Theological Seminary. The Graduate Certificate can be completed 100% online and all hours are transferable into a degree program. [Learn More](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/non-credit-programs-2/graduate-diplomas/) [Apply Today](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/)[Schedule a Visit](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/schedule-a-campus-visit/)[Request Info](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/request-information/)[View Scholarships](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/costs-scholarships/) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [One From Many](https://ptstulsa.edu/one-from-many/) **Published:** January 10, 2020 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # One From Many One from Many is an interfaith service of hope for America’s future, presented by the [Center for Religion in Public Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and by the [Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice](https://www.occjok.org). The event welcomes people of spiritual and moral conviction who want to work side by side to ensure the U.S. motto E Pluribus Unum (One from Many), the Golden Rule, and the universal values of compassion and justice are more evident in American life. Each event will be a 45-minute service of encouragement and challenge. Participants will have the opportunity enjoy performances and readings, and reflect with Tulsa’s interfaith community leaders. One from Many is free and open to the public. For more information [contact](mailto:crpl@ptstulsa.edu) [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](mailto:gary.peluso@ptstulsa.edu), Director of the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips. Did you know that the [first image paired with the phrase E Pluribus Unum was a bouquet of flowers](https://greatseal.com/mottoes/unumflowers.html)? ## One from Many – February 2 Registration through Eventbrite [ Register Here ](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/one-from-many-interfaith-service-of-hope-for-americas-future-tickets-88718335931?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=escb&utm-source=cp&utm-term=listing&fbclid=IwAR2KKz-Z0u3vcTZfsnqZH7p4lilDpNWbDszzbCl_45ZexPMjYLVIQ91R18U) --- ### [Democracy](https://ptstulsa.edu/democracy/) **Published:** September 2, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** # Democracy > ***Regenerating the Spirit of Democracy is an online, free course offered by the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary, organized around the question:* What can communities of faith and spiritually-grounded persons do to regenerate the spirit of democracy in the U.S.? *If you seek a democratic spirituality that values equality and justice for all as much as freedom, then this 5-week course is for you. The course begins October 5th. Class materials published on YouTube Mondays, October 5 through November 2. Class discussions via Facebook on Thursdays, October 8 through November 5, 7 p.m.*** Democracy in the U.S. is under siege. Forty percent of the population does not vote. Voting districts are gerrymandered to make it possible for political minorities to rule. The concept of facts has taken a beating. Scientists and other experts are besieged. The quality of conversation and argument is woefully low. The courts are highly politicized. Author after author argues democracy is being undermined, often through seemingly democratic means. Our founding myths are unraveling, and what will replace them is at the center of the new uncivil war. The claim of equality for all persons has always been more of a hope, or a disappointment, or an outright fiction rather than a reality. In today’s era of reckoning, more Americans are seeing that the grounding stories white people have told about the U.S. need serious correction, if there is to be a nation at all. And white Christianity has, in the words of one author, been the pole holding up the tent of white supremacy. As the U.S. becomes a no-majority nation, with new challenges and new opportunities, white Christian Nationalism grows more and more detrimental to the democracy the nation needs. Democracy in the U.S. needs a new heart, a new spirit. For we who reject white Christian Nationalism: what can people of faith and people with deep spiritual/moral convictions do to regenerate democracy in the U.S.? This online, free course is for adults who reject the wall-building spirituality of Christian Nationalism. It is for those who seek a democratic spirituality that values equality as much as freedom, a spirituality that will foster the moral emotions necessary for the world’s first successful experiment in becoming a vibrant multicultural democracy, with liberty and justice for all. The five sessions are: - Paying attention to the spirit of democracy - What is democracy and why is it in trouble - The spiritualities of capitalism, the Christian Right, and democracy - Evidences of a healthy democracy - What can people of faith, of spirituality, and/or of moral depth do to regenerate the spirit of democracy in the U.S.? Each session will feature a presentation by [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend, executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). In addition, Dr. Peluso-Verdend recorded interviews with four leading authors on the question of this course: [Robert P. Jones](https://www.prri.org/staff/robert-p-jones-ph-d/), [Jack Jenkins](http://www.jackjenkins.me/), [Kelly Brown Douglas](https://utsnyc.edu/faculty/kelly-brown-douglas-82-88/), and [Diana Butler Bass](http://dianabutlerbass.com/). Please email the Center, , to indicate your interest in the course. Dr. Peluso-Verdend will email you when new content is posted, to solicit questions, and to remind you about the Thursday discussions. # Sessions ### Session 1: Paying attention to the spirit of democracy The necessary but conflicted relationship between culture, democracy, and religion is explored through the analogy between culture and soil: what is the quality of the soil and which “crops” are we trying to grow? ### Session 2: What is democracy and why is it in trouble There is not one kind of democracy. Democracy can be liberal or illiberal, an element of a large republic and of small consensus-seeking communities. Democracy in the U.S. has been profoundly shaped by original inequalities, especially slavery, the exclusion of women, and the decimation and dehumanizing of indigenous peoples. Unresolved conflicts about the importance of liberty, often without reference to personal or corporate responsibility, as compared to equality continue to shape public debates. ### Session 3: The spiritualities of capitalism, the Christian Right, and democracy Every social expression of economics, religion, and politics is carried along by one or more narratives and has affinities with one understanding of “human nature.” In the U.S., three of today’s dominant narratives that influence each other are generated by capitalism, the Christian Right, and democracy. Sorting the narratives offers clues to why achieving a more just and equal society is so difficult. ### Session 4: Evidences of a healthy democracy Most of us imagine a gap between “what is” and “what ought to be” in a properly functioning democratic republic. One way of naming the gap is to imagine the virtues and practices one expects to find in a healthy democracy. ### Session 5: What can people of faith, of spirituality, and/or of moral depth do to regenerate the spirit of democracy in the U.S.? The content of this session may change depending on the presidential election, and I may delay releasing material until Wednesday following the election. But, it is also the case that some of the problems with U.S. democracy have been growing for over 40 years, and some go back to the founding of the nation. Looking ahead to a no-majority nation in the 2040s, what can traditional religions, spiritual practices, and public moral claims contribute to regenerating the soil of American democracy and grow the virtues and practices necessary for the nation we ought to be? --- ### [RSS Feeds](https://ptstulsa.edu/rss-feeds/) **Published:** March 10, 2020 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # RSS Feeds Phillips Theological Seminary is happy to offer RSS feeds for our blogs across the site. Click on the buttons below to be redirected to RSS URLs. Copy the URL into your preferred RSS reader. Your RSS reader may be able to detect these URLs automatically. # Center for Religion in Public Life Feeds [News Digest](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/news-digest/feed/)[Committing Faith in Public Podcast](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/podcast/feed/)[Blog](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/blog-posts/feed/) --- ### [Tour Phillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/tour-phillips/) **Published:** February 27, 2020 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Campus Virtual Tour Take a look at Phillips Theological Seminary’s Cadieux Building in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our facility offers significant space for learning, gathering, and reflecting. Click the links below to view 360 images of individual areas. [Main Entrance/Lobby](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010039.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Library Circulation Desk](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010041.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Donna and Dave Killen Student Commons](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010047.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [QuikTrip Commons](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010043.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Classroom 304](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010048.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Student Senate Room](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010046.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Chapel](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010038.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Library Stacks and Reading Room](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010042.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [H.A. and Mary K. Chapman Commons](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010040.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Classroom 305](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010049.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) [Classroom 302](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/R0010045.jpg?height=315px&segments=100&rings=100&hide_link=0&autoload=0&anim_after=2000&anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_speed=2rpm&vertical_anim_target=0&navbar=1&overlay_img=&overlay_position=bottom+left&min_fov=30&max_fov=90&zoom_level=0&long=0&lat=0&tilt_up_max=90&tilt_down_max=90&min_long=0&max_long=360&reverse_anim=1&xmp=1&smooth_user_moves=1&scroll_to_zoom=1&zoom_speed=1&eyes_offset=5&full_width=default&full_height=default&cropped_width=default&cropped_height=default&cropped_x=default&cropped_y=default&horizontal_fov=360&vertical_fov=180) --- ### [Susanna Southard](https://ptstulsa.edu/susanna-southard-2/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Susanna Southard **Content:** # Susanna Southard Interim Director of Supervised Ministry, Chaplain, and Instructor in Ministry Studies ### Why did you decide to become a professor? Placeholder. ![Susanna Southard](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Susanna Southard [Email Susanna](mailto:susanna.southard@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0237-2-e1574183788895.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DSC_0237-2-e1574183788895.jpg) Originally from Kansas, the Rev. Susanna Weslie Southard remains an ordained elder in the Great Plains Conference of the United Methodist Church. In 2007 she moved to Tulsa, OK and joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary, where her current titles are Interim Director of Supervised Year in Ministry, Chaplain, and Instructor in Ministry Studies. Susanna holds a Bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, an MDiv from Perkins School of Theology at SMU and an MA in passing from Vanderbilt University, where she studied Hebrew Bible. Her roles at Phillips have shifted over the years as needed. In addition to leading our Supervised Year in Ministry (field education) Program and overseeing the seminary’s worship life, Susanna currently teaches introductory practice of ministry courses and theological reflection groups. Susanna loves the church and feels passionate about helping others discover and appreciate the rich resources available through the Hebrew Bible for undergirding Christian faith and action. Therefore, she regularly teaches Sunday School classes for Tulsa area churches. She takes a reader-oriented, feminist approach toward Hebrew narrative with a specialty in the Five Festival Scrolls associated with Jewish holidays: Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes. ### Selected Publications *Attentive to God* “Case by Case” series in *Christian Century* “The Citizens Forum on Integration: ‘Underground Methodist Response in New Orleans to the Brown Decision” ### Education and CV MDiv Perkins School of Theology, SMU MA Vanderbilt University BA Washington University, St. Louis CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CV-2018.pdf) ### Fun Fact Susanna is named after the mother of John & Charles Wesley. However, her father thought she would appreciate having a more feminine-looking middle name. So, instead of Susanna Wesley, she is Susanna Weslie. As far as she knows, she is the only one with that spelling of the name. --- ### [Annie A. Lockhart-Gilroy](https://ptstulsa.edu/annie-lockhart-gilroy/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Annie Lockhart-Gilroy **Content:** # Annie A. Lockhart-Gilroy Assistant Professor of Christian Education and Practical Theology ### What is you latest project? Placeholder. ![Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Phillips_seal.png) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy [Email Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](mailto:annie.lockhart.gilroy@ptstulsa.edu) [](#) [](#) ![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AL-G-picture.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AL-G-picture.jpg) Annie Lockhart-Gilroy is a womanist pedagogue and practical theologian who writes and teaches about emancipatory pedagogies and the spiritual formation of youth. Annie received her BA in English with a minor in Education and teaching certificate from Dickinson College. She taught, coached, and advised students for years before entering seminary with a goal of learning how to better nurture the spiritual need of adolescents. She received her M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary then worked with and directed a faith-based nonprofit before attaining her Ph.D. in Christian Education and Congregational Studies from Garrett-Evangelical Theological School. She publishes and speaks on various topics surrounding education and adolescent spirituality through blogs, articles, and scholarly publications. ### Bibliography [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Comprehensive-Faculty-Bibliography-2020.pdf#page=21) ### Education and CV PhD Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary MDiv Princeton Theological Seminary BA Dickinson College CV: [Click Here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Lockhart-Gilroy-basic-CV-most-updated.pdf) ### Photos and Media Listen to Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy’s interview on the Nothing Never Happens podcast. [Click Here](http://tinapippin.org/womanist/womanist-pedagogies-part-1/) ### Interesting Links and Articles A sampling of Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy’s blog posts can be found here: [Click Here](http://iym.ptsem.edu/author/alockhartgilroy/) --- ### [Advent 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/advent-2019/) **Published:** November 27, 2018 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Advent 2019 This 2019 Advent Devotional is our fourth time to offer this resource to you and the church. This Advent season, we pray this devotional speaks hope, peace, joy, and love into your life. We also pray it provides opportunities for you to be challenged in your faith journey and to see a scripture in a new light, while also helping you think about Jesus in different ways. May we approach this special season of the church with the vulnerability of a newborn baby. This Advent devotional for you and your congregation is just one of the ways Phillips serves to build and sustain a more educated church. Theological education is a lifelong journey and the Phillips community is grateful to make this journey alongside you. ![https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019-Cover-Aspect-Fixed-480x540.png](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019-Cover-Aspect-Fixed-480x540.png) ### Full Devotional [Advent 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019-Final-Draft.pdf) ### Week 1 [Day 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_04.pdf) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_05.pdf) [Day 3](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_06.pdf) [Day 4](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_07.pdf) [Day 5](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_08.pdf) [Day 6](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_09.pdf) [Day 7](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_10.pdf) ### Week 2 [Day 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_11.pdf) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_12.pdf) [Day 3](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_13.pdf) [Day 4](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_14.pdf) [Day 5](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_15.pdf) [Day 6](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_16.pdf) [Day 7](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_17.pdf) ### Week 3 [Day 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_18.pdf) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_19.pdf) [Day 3](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_20.pdf) [Day 4](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_21.pdf) [Day 5](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_22.pdf) [Day 6](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_23.pdf) [Day 7](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_24.pdf) ### Week 4 [Day 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_25.pdf) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_26.pdf) [Day 3](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Advent-2019_27.pdf) --- ### [Member](https://ptstulsa.edu/member/) **Published:** September 13, 2019 **Author:** anderj37 **Content:** --- ### [Our Faculty](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/our-faculty/) **Published:** June 11, 2019 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Our Faculty Phillips Theological Seminary is proud of its well-credentialed faculty with theologically and socially-progressive commitments. Our faculty is comprised of members from a variety of denominations and theological backgrounds. Click to discover our faculty members [ Our Faculty Members ](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/directories/?filter=faculty) --- ### [CPE Admissions Process](https://ptstulsa.edu/post-1757/) **Published:** January 14, 2019 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** # CPE Admissions Process Upon receipt of all paperwork and the applicable Application Fee, the CPE Supervisor will notify Applicant by phone or email within 48 business hours that the application has been received. Application for Clinical Pastoral Education The original application will be retained in a locked file cabinet in the CPE Supervisor’s office throughout the Admissions process. Copies of the application/essay/recommendation are read and reviewed by the CPE Supervisor and two (2) members of the Professional Advisory Board Group (PAG). All readers are bound by ACPE ethics or confidentiality and FERPA ethics of privacy. A face-to-face admission interview is scheduled for a date and time mutually available for the applicant, the CPE Supervisor, and at least one (1) member of the PAG who read the original application packet. The interview team will consult with each other prior to the interview. The team conducts a one-hour educational review with the applicant. CPE Supervisor will contact the Applicant by written letter within 15 business days of the interview regarding acceptance or denial into the program. If accepted, completion of the application and acceptance process requires that Applicant sign and return the Acceptance Letter by stated date. CPE students entering the program as either “Special Students” or “Certificate Students” must also complete the respective application form or have required application forms on file at Phillips. The seminary conducts background checks on all admission applications. The CPE student needs to sustain sufficient physical and emotional health. The student must demonstrate the capacity to consistently establish and maintain relationships at significant levels and be open to learning, change, and growth. The CPE student must demonstrate a capacity to manage moderate amounts of chaos and change which is a normal part of the CPE learning process. --- ### [Faculty Publications](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/faculty-publications/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Faculty Publications Some recently featured Phillips faculty publications include: - [In Case of Katrina: Reinventing the Church in Post-Katrina New Orleans by ](https://ptstulsa.edu/FeaturedFacultyPubBlue)Ellen Blue - [Voices in the Wilderness: Why Black Preaching Still Matters](https://www.amazon.com/Voices-Wilderness-Black-Preaching-Matters/dp/1498238971) by John Thomas, Jr. Below is a list of some of the most recent Phillips faculty publications. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ellensbook.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Case-Katrina-Ellen-Blue/dp/1498285007)*In Case of Katrina: Reinventing the Church in Post-Katrina New Orleans*by [Ellen Blue](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=30) 2016 Religion Dispatches’ [interview with Dr. Blue](http://religiondispatches.org/a-time-to-break-down-and-a-time-to-build-up-reinventing-ministry-in-post-katrina-new-orleans/) about *In Case of Katrina*. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sharon-book.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Alongside-Indian-Surrogate-Mothers/dp/1137542527)*Reading Mary Alongside Indian Surrogate Mothers: Violent Love, Oppressive Liberation, and Infancy Narratives (The Bible and Cultural Studies)*by [Sharon Jacob](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=352) **PTS Main Library New Books 232.91 J2275r 2015** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/brandonsbook.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Real-Paul-Recovering-Radical-Challenge/dp/1598151541)*The Real Paul: Recovering His Radical Challenge*by [(Bernard) Brandon Scott](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=41) **PTS Main Library Stacks 225.92 Sco834r 2015** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/userImages/Library/Fac%20Pubs/peter.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Divinanimality-Creaturely-Transdisciplinary-Theological-2014-09-15/dp/B01FKTR3FK)“Anzaldua’s Animal Abyss: Mestizaje and the Late Ancient Imagination,” in *Divinanimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology*by [Peter Anthony Mena](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=351), co-authored with An Yountae **PTS Main Library Stacks 202.4 D6421 2014** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/userImages/Library/Fac%20Pubs/bessler.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Scandalous-Jesus-Historic-Changed-Theology/dp/1598151223) *A Scandalous Jesus: How Three Historic Quests Changed Theology for the Better* by [Joseph A. Bessler](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=6) **PTS Main Library Stacks 232.908 B4642s 2013** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/userImages/Library/Fac%20Pubs/s_m_b.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Place-Spirit-Trinitarian-Theological-Morice-Brubaker/dp/B01K3L2XMS) *Place of the Spirit: Toward a Trinitarian Theology of Location*by [Sarah Morice Brubaker](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=100) **PTS Main Library Stacks: 231.044 M824p 2013** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/userImages/Library/Fac%20Pubs/sharp.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Misunderstanding-Stories-Postcolonial-Pastoral-Theology/dp/1610972260) *Misunderstanding Stories: Toward a Postcolonial Pastoral Theology*by [Melinda McGarrah Sharp](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=120) **PTS Main Library Stacks: 253.09 M171m 2013** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/userImages/Library/Fac%20Pubs/ward.jpg) on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Word-Life-Testament-Performing/dp/0802868851) *Bringing the Word to Life: Engaging the New Testament Through Performing It*by [Richard Ward](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=119) (with David Trobisch) **PTS Preaching Collection 225.6W216c 2013** [Comprehensive bibliography of Faculty publications](https://ptstulsa.edu/userPDFs/Library/FacultyPubs.NewBooks/Comprehensive%20Faculty%20Bibliography%202016.pdf) [![//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ellensbook.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ellensbook.jpg)](https://www.amazon.com/Case-Katrina-Ellen-Blue/dp/1498285007) *In Case of Katrina: Reinventing the Church in Post-Katrina New Orleans*by [Ellen Blue](https://ptstulsa.edu/DirectoryBios?ID=30) 2016 Religion Dispatches’ [interview with Dr. Blue](http://religiondispatches.org/a-time-to-break-down-and-a-time-to-build-up-reinventing-ministry-in-post-katrina-new-orleans/) about *In Case of Katrina*. --- ### [Edit Profile](https://ptstulsa.edu/edit-profile/) **Published:** December 13, 2018 **Author:** anderj37 **Content:** You must be logged in to edit your profile. --- ### [Log In](https://ptstulsa.edu/log-in/) **Published:** December 13, 2018 **Author:** anderj37 **Content:** Username or Email Password Remember Me --- ### [Contact Us](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Contact Us 901 N. Mingo Road Tulsa, OK 74116 Ph: 918-610-8303 Fx: 918-610-8404 Hours: M-F; 8 to 5 [Campus & Directions](https://goo.gl/maps/iPJMjzv1xX62) --- In addition, the building and library are open some weekday nights and weekends when classes are in session. To contact a specific person or office, please search the [contact directories](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/directories/). Weather-related closing information: 918.270.6467 --- - Name\* - Email\* - How did you hear about Phillips?\* --- ### [Advent 2018](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/advent-2018/) **Published:** November 27, 2018 **Author:** Joseph Edwards **Content:** # Advent 2018 This 2018 Advent Devotional is our third time to offer this resource to you and the church. This Advent season, we pray this devotional speaks hope, peace, joy, and love into your life. We also pray it provides opportunities for you to be challenged in your faith journey and to see a scripture in a new light, while also helping you think about Jesus in different ways. May we approach this special season of the church with the vulnerability of a newborn baby. This Advent devotional for you and your congregation is just one of the ways Phillips serves to build and sustain a more educated church. Theological education is a lifelong journey and the Phillips community is grateful to make this journey alongside you. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-Advent-Devotional-Cover-Image-web-247x300.png) ### Full Devotional [Advent 2018](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Advent-2018-Actual-Final.pdf) ### Week 1: Hope [Day 1](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EWav7Z7SxIpMt6HH4LF6HckBYer8Qy38Jrbg2otL9h5vjg?e=s2oVxT) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EepdtZJTpv9It-7Mc1IbQiwBqXVwVBhEEULJrdtzdF2V4w?e=CUbhd9) [Day 3](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EYSfXauLMmZLqIxeM-6bYTsB4ZLfYv8WwftjM9i_Lr9k8w?e=44CK34) [Day 4](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EWzpLAH9r2JPgC6P25a9_-MB9xKgbwnH8hdE1DC0wnT0qQ?e=ndyiG3) [Day 5](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EVBLOmCdLyBHjo-VmPDEBj0BWc-9ol_qs940_8Jczq9oWA?e=W6ANvo) [Day 6](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EbXQx2yR0ldFrqVJCBkX4A0BuEZ1t1JqzwpEYRdtwucSLQ?e=6h2flT) [Day 7](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EahnHu-bOKNNqD574sBfP6wB01OF50CvK3um-2b1QdLSXA?e=t5YklC) ### Week 2: Peace [Day 1](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EcJ_ztW-53dLtukLLxYQn9IBx0KJypqRPMIK8QDO4KOSzg?e=F8CvVV) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EexmjpXW48VDvWSUzU-l6ysBnNyCflzKOrodQDDswZcTdg?e=333F2d) [Day 3](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/Efj0_-9Lz2NEm7zyHGXG_g8BqR3p2kRfWNYXbbCEEDYbqQ?e=rVfLHW) [Day 4](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/ESz0rp_dzAhDommctJQim6sBQK6aE1yKKi4UtG61J68r0g?e=LHaTbw) [Day 5](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/Ed4HDLg9wW5IjIuqiLYP7V4BvXrt8YJyobgbYUIAXFUBeQ?e=UJin1T) [Day 6](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EcLzP1IDPLdDsU27AXOzf_MBDSXmgIqxv4NFhTZrHC4S2A?e=UHJvC9) [Day 7](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/Eeq4LvJ4bM5MgF_hHwnsslEBOZeImQOlCrS4c9o5QbFjnA?e=VG1Uiy) ### Week 3: Joy [Day 1](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/ETnnFwu1S_JInm5gdiDRotMB_yir_tEuuw4Sq3ZGOKMVng?e=YgFftT) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EUxelxsOuntFvddX05OMr-AB1XRpULEi1Nmd4Q6IHxAm_g?e=d22dJI) [Day 3](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EVXBVlUff5tEghoslQx1AtoBJD_wnUKymf4sYByfH6AObA?e=vY1SVF) [Day 4](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/ESJjyaiNUmhNvVGfXlKQYaUB7OgbpjpLq_dc5fxvCRJhbw?e=kiBHza) [Day 5](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/ESgJDph4p6FJnLZxwBjYdIgBBXY3PbImfM0lVrAp9k4nQw?e=5sOuAl) [Day 6](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EcJR9Na2IHRCuTpdwhouxx0BVeYpp1GW8FVtfrgGJsy1BQ?e=gQWycs) [Day 7](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EcCSdLPw6Y1LpWjVGzgrmh8BeUY55m2IDCnhNm7RY_5ilw?e=rxagnI) ### Week 4: Love [Day 1](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EYBA37QIpU5LjSqSUHfdZXYBXsrv_vIK2vNdAX50tpdBTg?e=gfx6U5) [Day 2](https://ptstulsa-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/joseph_edwards_ptstulsa_edu/EZYNNziHHA1OtwGPFvrrr5sBZlNXBaJ2ofLlLMKAEdQSgw?e=ow42ZE) --- ### [Directions](https://ptstulsa.edu/contact-us/directions/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Directions Phillips Seminary is located at 901 N Mingo Rd in Tulsa, Oklahoma, near the intersection of I-244 and U.S. Highway 169. --- ### [Special Student Copy](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/special-students-copy/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** # Master of Divinity Degree (MDIV) Qualified applicants for the Master of Divinity program must have a Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a 2.7 GPA in undergraduate work, and a completed application including the following items: ### Course Overview Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. ### Testimonials Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. [Apply Today](#)[Schedule a Visit](#)[Request Info](#)[View Scholarships](#) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [Audit Duplicate](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/programs-of-study/auditduplicate/) **Published:** July 16, 2018 **Author:** anderj37 **Content:** # Master of Divinity Degree (MDIV) Qualified applicants for the Master of Divinity program must have a Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a 2.7 GPA in undergraduate work, and a completed application including the following items: ### Course Overview Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. ### Testimonials Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. [Apply Today](#)[Schedule a Visit](#)[Request Info](#)[View Scholarships](#) When choosing a seminary, many factors matter: community, affordability, faculty, and more. Visiting will allow you to see the value PTS offers in these areas. Enjoy the experience by visiting us today. ![//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg](//ptstulsa.edu/~ptstulsa/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sub-1.jpg) --- ### [News & Events](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin --- ### [Your Membership](https://ptstulsa.edu/your-membership/) **Published:** August 26, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** \[subscription\_details\] --- ### [Update Billing Card](https://ptstulsa.edu/update-billing-card/) **Published:** August 26, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** \[rcp\_update\_card\] --- ### [Welcome](https://ptstulsa.edu/welcome/) **Published:** August 26, 2018 **Author:** ZiaAdmin **Content:** Welcome! This is your success page where members are redirected after completing their registration. --- ### [Employment Copy](https://ptstulsa.edu/employment-copy/) **Published:** July 12, 2018 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** # Employment ## Online Media Specialist Phillips Theological Seminary is seeking a part-time remote Online Media Specialist. This position will oversee everything that has to do with Phillips’ social media reputation. From advertisements that go on social media networks, to handling updates to the website, to preparing analytics reports, or maintaining accounts on social media sites, this position is key to the seminary’s online presence. The Online Media Specialist has primary responsibility for representing Phillips Theological Seminary through online platforms. There will be an expectation for this individual to collaborate with leadership and portray Phillips’ services on social media platforms to expand our brand, elevate our image, recruit students, and develop donors. Please email a cover letter expressing interest in the position, being as specific as you can, and detailing relevant professional experience, education, and training, along with a resume, including the names and contact information of at least three professional references to PhillipsHR@ptstulsa.edu. [ Click for PDF Job Description ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Online-Media-Specialist.pdf) ## Director of the Supervised Year in Ministry program Phillips Theological Seminary invites applications for a full-time staff position in theological field education as Director of the Supervised Year in Ministry program to begin July 1, 2021. Our Field Education program is a core curricular component of the MDiv degree. This position oversees all aspects of the Field Education program, as well as leading the seminary to develop robust curricular and pedagogic models to support the supervision and evaluation of students while they are engaged in contextual field education. This work is essential to theological formation and integration skills necessary for ministry and community leadership. Knowledge of contextual, immersive, experiential, and field-based models of theological inquiry essential. Competency in online teaching and learning is required. [ Click for PDF Job Description ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Director-of-the-Supervised-Year-in-Ministry-program.pdf) ## Administrative Assistant, Business Office The Business Office Administrative Assistant will support the Vice President of Finance and Administration by providing high quality and efficient administrative services. In addition to providing support to the Phillips Theological Seminary Business Office personnel and others, as needed. This position will adhere to its legal obligations by complying with Federal and State laws and regulations in addition to PTS policies and procedures. See full description for additional details. Please email a cover letter expressing interest in the position, being as specific as you can, and detailing relevant professional experience, education, and training, along with a resume, including the names and contact information of at least three professional references to PhillipsHR@ptstulsa.edu. For best visibility please denote Admin Asst – Business Office in the subject line. [ Click for PDF Job Description ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Administrative-Assistant-Business-Office.pdf) ## Administrative Assistant to Ministry Training Program (Columbia, MO) Mission of Position: The Administrative Assistant serves as the coordinator for the Office of the Ministry Training Program in Columbia, MO and shall provide organizational and administrative support to the Director and partner with the Director to enhance the seminary’s communication with, hospitality for, and services to the Ministry Training Program student body. [ Click for PDF Position Announcement ](https://ptstulsa.edu/administrative-assistant-mtp/) ## Faculty Position in History of Global Christianities Phillips Theological Seminary invites applications for a tenure or tenure-track faculty appointment, beginning July 1, 2021, in History of Global Christianities. [ Click for PDF Position Announcement ](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Global-Christianities-Faculty-Position.pdf) **History and Culture** Phillips Theological Seminary is a 110-year-old educational institution that offers theological education dedicated to learning the way of Jesus in order to cultivate vital communities, vital conversations, and the public good. The primary method of fulfilling that mission has been offering master’s level education for clergy candidates. A key challenge is expanding the Seminary’s educational offerings to include a wider range of professional and lay education programs. The Seminary offers four master’s degrees, one doctoral degree, as well as a Graduate Certificate. The physical campus is in northeast Tulsa. Students take courses at the Tulsa campus weekly, in weekend and in week-long concentrated courses, and online. Phillips’s 110 students come from 17 states and 17 denominations. Phillips is a progressive Christian graduate school—meaning we employ critical historical scholarship and spiritually-formed imaginations as we seek to understand what it means to follow Jesus’ way in the world today, emphasizing how Christians should contribute to the common good through working for peace and justice with compassion and intelligence. Some people call the seminary “liberal.” The seminary’s non-discrimination statement is broad-ranging and fairly indicates both the seminary’s values and the diversity of persons who work and study at the seminary. Read the seminary’s non-discrimination statement [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/culture-commitments/). --- [![Mosaic 2019 Top Inclusive Workplace](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2019-Mosaic-Bug_final-01-300x206.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/employment/2019-mosaic-bug_final-01/)![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-Mosaic-Bug.png)![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2017_MosaicInc_Badge.png)![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/MOSAIC-BADGE-TRANS.png) In 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016, the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s diversity business council, [Mosaic](http://www.mosaictulsa.com/), honored Phillips with its highest rating as an employer with an inclusive workplace culture. Read more about our commitment to diversity and inclusion [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/about-us/culture-commitments/). --- ## Events ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-66/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-65/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-64/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-586/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-585/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-584/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-583/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-582/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-581/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-580/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-579/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-578/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-577/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-576/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-575/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-574/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-573/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-572/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-571/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-570/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-569/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-568/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-567/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-566/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-565/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-564/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-563/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-562/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-561/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-560/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-559/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-558/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-63/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-62/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-61/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-60/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-59/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-557/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-556/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-555/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-554/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-553/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-549/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-548/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-547/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-546/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-545/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-58/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-57/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-56/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-55/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-54/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-53/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-52/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-544/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-543/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-542/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-541/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-540/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-539/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-538/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-537/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-51/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-50/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-536/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-535/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-49/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-534/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-533/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-48/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-532/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-531/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-530/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-529/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-528/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-527/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-526/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-47/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-46/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-525/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-524/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-523/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-522/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-521/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-520/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-519/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-518/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-517/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-516/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-515/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-514/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-513/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-512/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-511/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-510/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-509/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-508/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-507/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-506/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-505/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-504/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-503/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-502/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-501/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-500/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-499/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-498/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-497/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-496/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-495/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-494/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-493/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-492/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-491/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-490/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-45/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-44/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-43/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-42/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-489/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-488/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-487/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-486/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-485/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-460/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-484/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-483/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-482/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-481/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-480/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-479/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-478/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-477/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-476/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-475/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-474/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-473/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-472/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-471/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-470/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-469/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-468/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-467/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-466/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-465/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-464/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-463/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-462/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-461/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-459/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-458/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-457/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-456/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-455/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-454/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-453/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-452/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-451/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-450/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-449/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-448/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-447/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-446/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-445/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-444/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-443/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-442/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-441/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-440/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-439/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-438/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-437/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-436/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-41/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-40/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-39/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-435/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-434/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-38/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-37/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-36/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-35/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-33/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-34/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-32/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-31/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-30/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-29/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-28/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-433/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-432/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-431/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-430/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-429/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-428/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-427/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-426/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-425/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-424/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-423/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-422/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-421/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-420/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-419/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-418/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-417/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-416/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-415/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-414/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-413/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-412/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-411/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-410/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-409/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-408/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-407/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-404/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-362/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-361/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-27/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-360/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-26/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-25/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-24/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-23/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [First Day of Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/first-day-of-classes-8-copy-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master’s level 13-week on campus and online courses begin. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [New Student Orientation](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-orientation-8-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/martin-luther-king-jr-holiday-seminary-closed-4-copy-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Remind & Renew](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/remind-renew-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Tags:** Remind & Renew **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [DMin Session and J-Term Week 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/j-term-week-1-copy/) **Published:** September 25, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** January DMin session and Master level concentrated course week. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Enrollment for continuing Phillips students re-opens for Spring 2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/registration-reopens-for-spring-2023-copy-copy-3-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [New Year Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-year-holiday-seminary-closed-copy/) **Published:** May 21, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Winter Break (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/winter-break-seminary-closed-4-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life Celebration Dinner](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-church-traditions-and-african-american-faith-life-public-lecture-copy-copy/) **Published:** February 13, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information, contact Dr. Arthur Carter at arthur.carter@ptstulsa.edu. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Last Day of Fall Term Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/last-day-of-fall-term-classes-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Final Application Deadline for Spring 2026 - Master's](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/final-application-date-for-spring-2023-masters-copy-3-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Director of Recruitment and Admissions](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6463](tel:+19182706463) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Thanksgiving Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-holiday-seminary-closed-3-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Thanksgiving Recess](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-recess-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** No classes scheduled during this week! **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Indigenous North Americans History & Culture Event](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/indigenous-north-americans-history-culture-event/) **Published:** October 8, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [New Student Registration Opens for Spring 2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-registration-opens-for-spring-2023-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for Spring 2026 - Master's](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-spring-2023-masters-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Director of Recruitment and Admissions](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706463) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: November 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by November 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: December 1 **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Continuing Students Registration Opens for Spring 2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/continue-students-registration-opens-for-spring-2023-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Registration is open from: October 27-Nov. 7, 2025 Current students may register during this time for Spring 2026 classes. Students will need to work with their academic advisor to choose courses for their degree program. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-ii-6-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:00 pm. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [DMIN Final Application Deadline - January, 2026](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-final-application-deadline-3-copy-2-copy-2/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The last day for DMIN-level students to apply to begin their journey for January 2025. For more information, contact Ulysses Allen, Director of Recruitment and Admissions, at ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6463. **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [DMIN Session & Master's Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-copy-copy/) **Published:** April 15, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for January 2026 DMIN Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-january-2024-dmin-term-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Director of Admissions](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6463](tel:+19182706463) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) DEADLINE to apply for the Doctor of Ministry **January DMIN Session**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: September 15 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by September 15 - Final Admissions Deadline: October 15 **Event Categories:** Academics, Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Labor Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/labor-day-holiday-seminary-closed-4-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [First Day of Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/first-day-of-classes-7-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 18, 2021 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level 13-week on campus and online courses begin. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [New Student Orientation](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-orientation-9-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [A-Term Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/a-term-week-ii-4-copy/) **Published:** June 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. --- ### [A-Term Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/a-term-week-1-copy-copy/) **Published:** June 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Enrollment for Continuing Phillips Students Reopens for Fall 2025](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/enrollment-for-continuing-phillips-students-reopens-for-spring-2022-copy/) **Published:** June 7, 2021 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [Juneteenth Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/juneteenth-holiday-seminary-closed-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** June 8, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [DMin Project Course (via Zoom)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-project-course-via-zoom-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** June 8, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [DMIN Session & Master's Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-copy-2/) **Published:** April 15, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-10-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:00 pm. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Memorial Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/memorial-day-holiday-seminary-closed-5-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Commencement Ceremony](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/commencement-ceremony-2-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** We hope you will join us as we celebrate the accomplishment of our graduates. **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Last Day of Classes and Senior Banquet Copy](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/last-day-of-classes-and-senior-banquet-2-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Final Application Deadline -Master's/DMin Fall 2025](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-final-application-deadline-3-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The last day for Master’s and DMin students to apply to begin their journey for Fall 2025. For more information, contact Ulysses Allen, Director of Recruitment and Admissions, at ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6463. **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship Reception](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/tulsa-race-massacre-lectureship-reception-2-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/tulsa-race-massacre-lectureship-3-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information about this and other Phillips events, visit https://ptstulsa.edu/events/. **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Easter Monday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/easter-monday-seminary-closed-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 18, 2021 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Good Friday Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/good-friday-holiday-seminary-closed-4-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Spring Break/Holy Week Recess](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/spring-break-holy-week-recess-3-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** No classes scheduled during this time. **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [New Student Enrollment Begins for Summer/Fall 2025](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-enrollment-begins-for-summer-fall-2023-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** New Phillips Students may register for courses beginning April 14. Students will be contacted by the registrar who will introduce them to the enrollment process and assign them an adviser. **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for Fall 2025 - Master'](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-spring-2023-masters-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: April 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by April 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: May 1 **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Enrollment Begins for Summer/Fall 2025 for Continuing Students](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/continue-students-registration-opens-for-spring-2023-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Registration is open from: March 31 – April 11 Current students may register during this time for Summer/Fall 2025 classes. Students will need to work with their academic advisor to choose courses for their degree program. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-ii-6-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:00 pm. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-10-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:00 pm. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Ash Wednesday](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/ash-wednesday-2-copy-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** **Ash Wednesday** is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting. … **Ash Wednesday** derives its name from the placing of repentance **ashes** on the foreheads of participants to either the words “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or the dictum “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” **Event Categories:** Student Services --- ### [New Student Orientation](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-orientation-8-copy-2/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/martin-luther-king-jr-holiday-seminary-closed-4-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Remind and Renew](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/remind-and-renew-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [DMin Project Course (via Zoom)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-project-course-via-zoom-2-copy-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [DMin Session and J-Term Week 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/j-term-week-1/) **Published:** September 25, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** January DMin session and Master level concentrated course week. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Winter Break (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/winter-break-seminary-closed-4-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Indigenous North Americans History & Culture Event](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/native-american-heritage-month-consultation-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-22/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-21/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-20/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-406/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-405/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-403/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-402/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-401/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-400/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-399/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-398/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-18/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-19/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-397/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-396/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-395/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-394/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-393/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-392/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-391/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-390/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-17/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-16/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-15/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-389/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-388/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-387/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-386/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-385/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-384/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-383/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-382/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-381/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-380/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-379/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-378/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-377/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-376/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-14/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-13/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-12/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-11/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-375/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-374/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-373/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-372/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-371/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-370/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-369/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-368/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-367/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-366/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-365/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-364/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-363/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-359/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-358/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-357/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-356/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-355/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-354/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-353/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-10/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-9/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-8/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-352/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-351/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-350/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-349/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-348/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-347/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-346/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-7/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-345/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-344/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-343/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-338/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-6/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-5/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-333/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-328/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-323/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-319/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-314/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-service-5/) **Published:** August 13, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Join us for the Last Week of Classes Chapel Service with Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean, preaching. --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-service-4/) **Published:** August 13, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Join us for Chapel during Phillips’ Fall Concentrated Course Week / DMin Session. Interim President Rev. Gary W. Kidwell preaching. --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-service-3/) **Published:** August 13, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Join us as we worship with our on-campus Weekend Class community. Phil Armstrong of OCCJ, preaching. --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-service-2/) **Published:** August 13, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Join us for the First Week of Classes Chapel Service with President Nancy Claire Pittman preaching. --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-service/) **Published:** August 13, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Join us for New Student Orientation opening Chapel Service with Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean, preaching. --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-6/) **Published:** June 5, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-5/) **Published:** June 5, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-4/) **Published:** June 5, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-3/) **Published:** June 5, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-2-copy-copy/) **Published:** June 5, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-2-copy/) **Published:** June 5, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-2/) **Published:** June 5, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-15/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Join our Concentrated Course and DMin Session Students for Chapel at 11:30 am in Meinders Chapel followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon. **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Enrollment for continuing Phillips students re-opens for Spring 2025](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/registration-reopens-for-spring-2023-copy-copy-3/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [New Year Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-year-holiday-seminary-closed/) **Published:** May 21, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life Celebration Dinner](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-church-traditions-and-african-american-faith-life-public-lecture-copy/) **Published:** February 13, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information, contact Dr. Arthur Carter at arthur.carter@ptstulsa.edu. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Last Day of Fall Term Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/last-day-of-fall-term-classes-copy-2/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Final Application Date for Spring 2025 - Master's](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/final-application-date-for-spring-2023-masters-copy-3-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Director of Recruitment and Admissions](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6463](tel:+19182706463) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Thanksgiving Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-holiday-seminary-closed-3-copy-2/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Thanksgiving Recess](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-recess-copy-2/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** No classes scheduled during this week! **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [New Student Registration Opens for Spring 2025](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-registration-opens-for-spring-2023-copy-2/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Indigenous North Americans Reception](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/native-american-heritage-consultation-reception-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for Spring 2025 - Master's](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-spring-2023-masters-copy-2/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Director of Recruitment and Admissions](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706463) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: November 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by November 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: December 1 **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Enrollment begins for Spring 2025 Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/registration-reopens-for-spring-2023-copy-copy-2/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [DMIN Session & Master's Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-copy/) **Published:** April 15, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Masters Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-i-copy-copy-2/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Classes, Student Services --- ### [DMIN Final Application Deadline - January, 2025](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-final-application-deadline-3-copy-2/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The last day for DMIN-level students to apply to begin their journey for January 2025. For more information, contact Ulysses Allen, Director of Recruitment and Admissions, at ulysses.allen@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6463. **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for January 2025 DMIN Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-january-2024-dmin-term-copy-2/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Director of Admissions](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6463](tel:+19182706463) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) DEADLINE to apply for the Doctor of Ministry **January DMIN Session**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: September 15 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by September 15 - Final Admissions Deadline: October 15 **Event Categories:** Academics, Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Labor Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/labor-day-holiday-seminary-closed-4-copy/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [First Day of Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/first-day-of-classes-7-copy/) **Published:** August 18, 2021 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level 13-week on campus and online courses begin. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [New Student Orientation](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-orientation-9-copy/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [A-Term Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/a-term-week-1-copy/) **Published:** June 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Enrollment for continuing Phillips students re-opens for Fall 2024 Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/registration-reopens-for-spring-2023-copy-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Independence Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/independence-day-holiday-seminary-closed-2-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Independence Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/independence-day-holiday-seminary-closed-2-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Juneteenth Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/juneteenth-holiday-seminary-closed-copy-copy/) **Published:** June 8, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Immersion Course Week](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-i-copy-copy-copy-2/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Students will be traveling to Ferguson, MO. See Course enrollment materials for more information. **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [DMin Project Course (via Zoom)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-project-course-via-zoom-copy-copy/) **Published:** June 8, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Summer Term Begins (Master Students)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-term-begins-master-students-copy-2/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Summer Term Begins (Master Students)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-term-begins-master-students/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Summer Term Begins (Master Students)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-term-begins-master-students-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Awards Day](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/awards-day-3-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Please join us for a chapel services and awards presentation in Meinder’s Chapel. **Event Categories:** Student Services --- ### [Commencement Ceremony](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/commencement-ceremony-2-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** We hope you will join us as we celebrate the accomplishment of our graduates. Commencement will be held at 11:00 am on Saturday, May 18th at Metropolitan Baptist Church, 1228 W Apache St., Tulsa, OK 74127. [Map:](https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=643&q=metropolitan+baptist+church&cvid=f3956381c1c14c708829692524a57d07&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgYIARBFGDkyBggCEAAYQDIGCAMQABhAMgYIBBAAGEAyBggFEAAYQDIGCAYQABhAMgYIBxAAGEAyBggIEAAYQDIICAkQ6QcY_FXSAQg1NDI0ajBqMagCALACAA&FORM=ANNAB1&PC=DCTS) **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-342/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-341/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-340/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-339/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-337/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-336/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-335/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-334/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-332/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-331/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-330/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-329/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-327/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-326/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-325/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-324/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-322/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-321/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-320/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-318/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-317/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-316/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-315/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-313/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-312/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-311/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-310/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-4/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-3/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-6pm/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-309/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-308/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-307/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-303/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/tulsa-race-massacre-lectureship-3/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information about this and other Phillips events, visit https://ptstulsa.edu/events/. **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship Reception](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/tulsa-race-massacre-lectureship-reception-2/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-236/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [DMIN Session & Master's Concentrated Course Week](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week/) **Published:** April 15, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-306/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-305/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-304/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-302/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-301/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-300/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-299/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-298/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-297/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-296/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-295/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-294/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-293/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-292/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-291/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-290/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-289/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-288/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-287/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-286/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-285/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-284/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-283/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-282/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-281/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-280/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-279/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-278/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-277/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-276/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-275/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-274/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-273/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-272/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-271/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-270/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-269/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-268/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-267/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-266/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-265/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-264/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-263/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-262/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-261/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-260/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-259/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-258/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-257/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-256/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-255/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-254/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-253/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-252/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-251/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-250/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-249/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-248/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-247/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-246/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-245/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-244/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-243/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-242/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-241/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-240/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-239/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-238/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-237/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-235/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-49/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-48/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-47/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-46/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-45/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-44/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-42/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-41/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-40/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-39/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-38/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-37/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-36/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-35/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-34/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-234/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-233/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Black Histories in Native Lands Lecture](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-histories-in-native-lands-lecture/) **Published:** January 8, 2024 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Public Events --- ### ["God Talk" Film Screening Event](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/god-talk-film-screening-event/) **Published:** December 18, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Join us for a special film screening of the gOD-Talk documentary. This thought-provoking film explores the intersection of religion and culture in African American history, providing a deeper understanding of the role of faith in shaping the African American experience and its impact on our world today. Additional information will be added as it becomes available. --- ### [Chapel Service--BorderLinks Immersion Class Led](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-13/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Weekly Chapel Service – Fall 2023 BorderLinks Class Immersion course led by Dr. Kathy McCallie Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Native American Heritage Month](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-12/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Weekly Chapel Service – Native American Heritage Month Preaching: Rev. Judy Deere, Choctaw/Creek, Ordained Elder, Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference and Phillips DMin Student Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Native American Heritage Month](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-11/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Weekly Chapel Service – Native American Heritage Month Preaching: Rev. Dr. Eric J. Gill, Director of Theological Field Education and Interim Dean of Chapel, Phillips Theological Seminary Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [From Canvas to Conversation: Celebrate National Coming Out Day](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/from-canvas-to-conversation-celebrate-national-coming-out-day/) **Published:** October 4, 2023 **Author:** Holly Becker **Content:** Come join us for an exciting event, **From Canvas to Conversation: Celebrate National Coming Out Day**! We are thrilled to celebrate this special day in person at **Phillips Theological Seminary**. Get ready for an evening filled with art, a documentary video, dialogue, and connection. We begin with an artist’s reception with **Trace Logan**, discussing his work in the exhibition “Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self.” We’ll screen the amazing documentary, *Mama Bears*, about this organization that protects and loves LGBTQIA+ children. Phillips Seminary faculty and Sara Cunningham, founder of Free Mom Hugs, will discuss the video. And, we’ll have plenty of food, beverages, music and fun (and it’s all free to you). 5 p.m. – Artist’s Reception 6 p.m. – Screening of *Mama Bears* 7:30 p.m. – Panel Discussion 8 p.m. – Closing Reception Register in advance at this link: [Tickets | Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/from-canvas-to-conversation-celebrate-national-coming-out-day-tickets-723785270227?aff=oddtdtcreator&fbclid=IwAR0NOc3Ohhd855SRlLpdCfXLgsmuIlnQSUwJVDu3SU-Ceot1Sb9qcBMmJo0) --- ### [Indigenous Voices: Sacred Storytelling and Resistance Reception](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/native-american-heritage-consultation-reception/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Native American Heritage Month Celebration -](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/native-american-heritage-month-celebration/) **Published:** October 6, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Indigenous Voices: Sacred Storytelling and Resistance](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/native-american-heritage-month-consultation/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-12-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-11-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-10-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-9-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy-5-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:00 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Memorial Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/memorial-day-holiday-seminary-closed-5-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Board of Trustees Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/board-of-trustees-meeting-10-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information please contact Ashley Gibson in the President’s Office at 918-270-6405. **Event Categories:** Meetings, Trustees --- ### [Last Day of Classes and Senior Banquet](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/last-day-of-classes-and-senior-banquet-2-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Awards Day](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/awards-day-3-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Please join us for a brief chapel service and awards day. **Event Categories:** Student Services --- ### [Senior Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/senior-grades-due-4-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Spring 2024 grades for graduating seniors are due to the registrar. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Incomplete Request Deadline (Master's)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/incomplete-request-deadline-masters-4-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** An incomplete may be granted for extenuating circumstances, but the approval is not automatic and must be justified. Approval must be requested on required forms and granted prior to the announced deadline. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Final Application Date for Fall 2024 - Master's](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/final-application-date-for-spring-2023-masters-copy-3/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Master's Book Lists Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/masters-and-dmin-book-lists-due-copy-2/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty to submit book list for the June 2024 Summer Term (Master’s). --- ### [Enrollment Begins for Summer/Fall 2024 for Continuing Students](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/continue-students-registration-opens-for-spring-2023-copy-2/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Registration is open from: April 2-12, 2024 Current students may register during this time for Summer/Fall 2024 classes. Students will need to work with their academic advisor to choose courses for their degree program. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for Fall 2024 - Master's](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-spring-2023-masters-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: April 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by April 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: May 1 **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Easter Monday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/easter-monday-seminary-closed-copy/) **Published:** August 18, 2021 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Good Friday Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/good-friday-holiday-seminary-closed-4-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Spring Break/Holy Week Recess](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/spring-break-holy-week-recess-3-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** No classes scheduled during this time. **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Withdrawal Deadline](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/withdrawal-deadline-6-copy/) **Published:** August 18, 2021 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** All students, including auditors, who wish to withdraw from all of their seminary courses in a particular semester for which they are registered, must notify the registrar, in writing, explaining the reason for the withdrawal. Students must do the same to withdraw from the degree program in which they are enrolled. In these cases, they may be required to have an exit interview with the financial aid officer. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [DMIN Final Application Deadline - June, 2024](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-final-application-deadline-june-2024/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The last day for DMIN-level students to apply to begin their journey for June 2024. For more information, contact Cortney Lemke, Director of Admissions, at cortney.lemke@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6420. **Event Categories:** Admissions --- ### [Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-ii-6/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-10/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Booklist/Zoom Dates Due for June Term (DMIN)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/booklist-zoom-session-dates-due-dmin-june-term-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Board of Trustees Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/board-of-trustees-meeting-9-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information please contact Ashley Gibson, Executive Assistant to the President at 918-270-6405 or . **Event Categories:** Meetings, Trustees --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for June 2024 DMIN Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-january-2024-dmin-term-copy/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) DEADLINE to apply for the Doctor of Ministry **June 2024 Session**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: February 15 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by February 15 - Final Admissions Deadline: March 15 **Event Categories:** Academics, Admissions --- ### [Ash Wednesday](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/ash-wednesday-2-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** **Ash Wednesday** is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting. … **Ash Wednesday** derives its name from the placing of repentance **ashes** on the foreheads of participants to either the words “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or the dictum “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy-5-copy-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:00 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy-5-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:00 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy-5/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:00 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [First Day of Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/first-day-of-classes-8-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level 13-week on campus and online courses begin. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [New Student Orientation](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-orientation-8-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/martin-luther-king-jr-holiday-seminary-closed-3-copy/) **Published:** June 7, 2021 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [DMin Project Course (via Zoom)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-project-course-via-zoom-2-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [DMin Session and Master's J-Term Week 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/j-term-week-i-3-copy-2-copy-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Enrollment for continuing Phillips students re-opens for Spring 2024 Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/registration-reopens-for-spring-2023-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [DMin Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-student-grades-due-6-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** DMin October Session grades due. --- ### [Master Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/master-student-grades-due-8-copy-2/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Fall 2023 Master Student Grades due. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Winter Break (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/winter-break-seminary-closed-4-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-12pm-5pm/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Ghosted Portraits Art Exhibition by Trace Logan](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/ghosted-portraits-art-exhibition/) **Published:** August 31, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** **Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self** Open to the public Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The President’s Office of Phillips Theological Seminary is pleased to announce the next visual art exhibition at Phillips, *Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self* by Trace Logan. What does it mean to be seen? How do we express our true selves in a world that often expects us to fit into certain molds? How can art help us explore these questions and challenge our assumptions? These are some of the questions that inspire Trace Logan, a Philadelphia-born artist who currently lives in Oklahoma City. Trace works with various mediums, such as acrylic, digital art, photography, and collage, to create stunning abstract portraits that reveal the invisible narratives of self. He is also a proud member of the LGBTQ community and a passionate advocate for social justice. Trace’s latest project, *Ghosted Portraits: The Invisible Narratives of Self*, will be on display at the Chapman Commons from August 21, 2023, to October 20, 2023. It features portraits of members of Trace’s community, mostly LGBTQ individuals, who have agreed to share their stories and perspectives through art. Trace uses abstraction to create a visual contrast between personal identity and public persona. He combines elements of texture, color, and movement with realistic facial features to create a dynamic and expressive representation of each subject. The result is a captivating and thought-provoking collection of artworks that invites viewers to reflect on their own identities and perceptions. **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Masters Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-i-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [DMIN Session & Masters Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-i-copy-2/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/copy-copy-copy-2/) **Published:** December 17, 2020 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. --- ### [Withdrawal Deadline - Masters](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/withdrawal-deadline-masters-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** After the eight week of a 13-week Fall or Spring semester, or after 24 class contact hours of a concentrated course (in the Fall or Spring semester or in a January, August, Summer term), or a hybrid course in any term (keeping in mind that hybrid attendance may be online or on-campus) a course may be dropped with a grade of “WD” only for verified extenuating circumstances of a non-academic A written petition, explaining the extenuating circumstances, must be presented to the Academic Dean. If that petition is granted, a “WD” will appear on the transcript. If the petition is not granted, the Academic Dean will notify both the student and the course instructor of the decision. The course instructor will assess the student’s performance up to the date of the student’s request to withdraw, and a grade will be issued and will appear on the transcript. Student may appeal a negative decision by the Academic Dean to the Degree Programs Committee. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Continuing Students Registration Opens for Spring 2023](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/continue-students-registration-opens-for-spring-2023-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Registration is open from: October 17-28, 2022 Current students may register during this time for Spring 2023 classes. Students will need to work with their academic advisor to choose courses for their degree program. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [New Student Registration Opens for Spring 2023](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-registration-opens-for-spring-2023-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** New students will be contacted by the register to begin the registration process. **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Annual AAR/SBL Conference](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/annual-aar-sbl-conference-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion invite our fellow colleagues, publishers, and friends to Denver, CO this fall to **RECONNECT 2022, Annual Meetings, hosted by AAR & SBL.** This professional academic meeting will bring together professors and students, authors and publishers, religious leaders and interested laypersons, to the Colorado Convention Center and surrounding venues to meet engage with leading scholars and scholarship within the fields of religion, religious studies, research, and theology. Attendees will have access to more than 900 academic sessions and workshops. In addition, attendees will have access to the **Book Exhibit Hall** which features one of the world’s largest collections of books and digital resources for biblical study, as well as a vibrant networking space where attendees can present ideas to publishers, browse the latest publications, and connect with colleagues. https://na.eventscloud.com/ehome/666510/1168322/?&t=a25210c0587aa40fa89085b208b100f0 **Event Categories:** Academics, Meetings --- ### [Thanksgiving Recess](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-recess-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** No classes scheduled during this week! **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Thanksgiving Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-holiday-seminary-closed-3-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Final Application Date for Spring 2023 - Masters](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/final-application-date-for-spring-2023-masters-copy-2/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Final Application Date for Spring 2023 - Masters](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/final-application-date-for-spring-2023-masters-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Last Day of Fall Term Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/last-day-of-fall-term-classes-copy/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Constitution Day](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/constitution-day-copy/) **Published:** September 1, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Constitution Day – also called Citizenship Day is a U.S. federal government observance that honors the creation and adoption of the United States Constitution and all persons who have become U.S. citizens, through birth or [naturalization](https://www.thoughtco.com/test-for-us-citizenship-3321584). It is usually observed on September 17, the day in 1787 that the Constitution was signed by the delegates to the [Constitutional Convention](https://www.thoughtco.com/constitutional-convention-105426) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Independence Hall. On September 17, 1787, forty-two of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention held their final meeting. After four long, hot months of debates and [compromises](https://www.thoughtco.com/compromises-of-the-constitutional-convention-105428), like [The Great Compromise of 1787](https://www.thoughtco.com/great-compromise-of-1787-3322289), only one item of business occupied the agenda that day, to sign the Constitution of the United States of America. **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline DMin Spring 2023 Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-june-2023-early-bird-application-deadline-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Faculty Colloquium](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-colloquium-4-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meeting details and location to be announced. --- ### [DMIN Final Application Deadline](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-final-application-deadline-3-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The last day for DMIN-level students to apply to begin their journey for June 2023. For more information, contact Cortney Lemke, Director of Admissions, at cortney.lemke@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6420. **Event Categories:** Admissions --- ### [Final Application Date for Spring 2024 - Masters](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/final-application-date-for-spring-2023-masters/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Master's Book Lists Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/master-book-lists-due-2/) **Published:** June 7, 2021 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Faculty to submit book lists for the Spring 2024 term. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Thanksgiving Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-holiday-seminary-closed-3/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Thanksgiving Recess](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/thanksgiving-recess/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** No classes scheduled during this week! **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Faculty Colloquium](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-colloquium-4/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meeting details and location to be announced. --- ### [Annual AAR/SBL Conference](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/annual-aar-sbl-conference/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** The Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion invite our fellow colleagues, publishers, and friends to San Antonio this fall to the **2023 Annual Meetings, hosted by AAR & SBL.** This professional academic meeting will bring together professors and students, authors and publishers, religious leaders and interested laypersons, to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center and surrounding venues to meet engage with leading scholars and scholarship within the fields of religion, religious studies, research, and theology. Attendees will have access to more than 900 academic sessions and workshops. In addition, attendees will have access to the **Book Exhibit Hall** which features one of the world’s largest collections of books and digital resources for biblical study, as well as a vibrant networking space where attendees can present ideas to publishers, browse the latest publications, and connect with colleagues. https://na.eventscloud.com/ehome/735523/1208692/?&t=2bc040d737c1e46a8984cd737028fa3a **Event Categories:** Academics, Meetings --- ### [New Student Registration Opens for Spring 2024](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-registration-opens-for-spring-2023/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Event Categories:** Admissions, Student Services --- ### [Continuing Students Registration Opens for Spring 2024](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/continue-students-registration-opens-for-spring-2023/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Registration is open from: October 30-November 10, 2023 Current students may register during this time for Spring 2024 classes. Students will need to work with their academic advisor to choose courses for their degree program. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Withdrawal Deadline - Masters](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/withdrawal-deadline-masters/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** After the eighth week (9-24 class contact hours) of a 13-week Fall or Spring semester, or after 24 class contact hours of a concentrated course (in the Fall or Spring semester or in a January, August, Summer term), or a hybrid course in any term (keeping in mind that hybrid attendance may be online or on-campus) a course may be dropped with a grade of “WD” only for verified extenuating circumstances of a non-academic nature. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [DMIN Final Application Deadline - January, 2024](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-final-application-deadline-3/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The last day for DMIN-level students to apply to begin their journey for January 2024. For more information, contact Cortney Lemke, Director of Admissions, at cortney.lemke@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6420. **Event Categories:** Admissions --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline DMin Spring 2024 Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-june-2023-early-bird-application-deadline/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) - Early Admissions Discount Deadline: November 1 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by November 1 - Final Admissions Deadline: December 1 --- ### [Constitution Day](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/constitution-day/) **Published:** September 1, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Constitution Day – also called Citizenship Day is a U.S. federal government observance that honors the creation and adoption of the United States Constitution and all persons who have become U.S. citizens, through birth or [naturalization](https://www.thoughtco.com/test-for-us-citizenship-3321584). It is usually observed on September 17, the day in 1787 that the Constitution was signed by the delegates to the [Constitutional Convention](https://www.thoughtco.com/constitutional-convention-105426) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Independence Hall. On September 17, 1787, forty-two of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention held their final meeting. After four long, hot months of debates and [compromises](https://www.thoughtco.com/compromises-of-the-constitutional-convention-105428), like [The Great Compromise of 1787](https://www.thoughtco.com/great-compromise-of-1787-3322289), only one item of business occupied the agenda that day, to sign the Constitution of the United States of America. **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline for January 2024 DMIN Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-for-january-2024-dmin-term/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Our application process is totally online. Please contact the [Admissions Officer](mailto:admissions@ptstulsa.edu) at [918.270.6420](tel:+19182706420) if you have any questions. [Apply Now – Phillips Theological Seminary (ptstulsa.edu)](https://ptstulsa.edu/prospective-students/apply-now/) DEADLINE to apply for the Doctor of Ministry **January Fortnight**: - Early Admission Discount Deadline: September 15 - The $60 application fee is waived for those completing an application by September 15 - Final Admissions Deadline: October 15 **Event Categories:** Academics, Admissions --- ### [Monday Night Hangout](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/monday-night-hangout-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** September 6, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Weekly Student Online Gathering September 26, 2022 – Meet New Faculty with Dr. Briana Wong and Dr. Chelsea Yarborough The Zoom link is listed below and you will also need the passcode to join [https://ptstulsa.zoom.us/j/94456600149?pwd=bzQrd3pVWUpSQm9FS2ZGYllackRldz09](https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001Z7ZWWyNzImN_3B09QUe7x4TdwlH29FRb8UXw16d3HN8xbrUppxty9T9A34t-Ii0_HC0gtEelF-Ib1lJdyXvDJL_aTT7wzydO2FKxCtM8D7cjeWJYHeOhgfmE-3j09Lg6RBqreNhtVuFjgY0N3ShGNo5oD6FXkbjlIc34N_Gd3hQgqxdEYkhA5nY3R4Wny4k2W1s3BGgMhXLWhJpKtC0mHkemTpU3qDgw&c=4Y2P-rhtArBnG1WL4v2VzG783nEMwIiUp-vTOwdNBQ8cVMWeA6BEEw==&ch=NrcWB62A7ZiatnlnpqL26pSm6bLYAKg81sd8BlDxsQ-N6i6DcfBGmA==) See the weekly UPDATE email or contact Student Services to receive the passcode Hangout Zoom Link: (see the weekly UPDATE email for passcode) **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy-2/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy-3/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy-4/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Monday Night Hangout](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/monday-night-hangout-copy-copy-copy-2-copy-2/) **Published:** September 6, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Monthly Student Online Gathering October 30 – Town Hall with President Pittman and Interim Dean Davison Hangout Zoom Link: (see the weekly UPDATE email for passcode) **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Monday Night Hangout](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/monday-night-hangout-copy-copy-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** September 6, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Monthly Student Online Gathering August 28, 2023 – Semester Kick-Off with Interim Dean Davison and Student Services Hangout Zoom Link: (see the weekly UPDATE email for passcode) **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Monday Night Hangout](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/monday-night-hangout-copy-copy-copy-2-copy-3/) **Published:** September 6, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Monthly Student Online Gathering November 27- Digital Study Hall hosted by Student Services Hangout Zoom Link: (see the weekly UPDATE email for passcode) **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Board of Trustees Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/board-of-trustees-meeting-10-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information please contact Ashley Gibson in the President’s Office at 918-270-6405. **Event Categories:** Meetings, Trustees --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-2/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-3/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-4/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-5/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-6/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-7/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-8/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-9/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-10/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy-14/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Monday Night Hangout](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/monday-night-hangout-copy-copy-copy-2/) **Published:** September 6, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Monthly Student Online Gathering December 4- December Graduation Celebration with President Pittman Hangout Zoom Link: (see the weekly UPDATE email for passcode) **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Monday Night Hangout](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/monday-night-hangout-copy-copy/) **Published:** September 6, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Monthly Student Online Gathering September 25, 2023 – Digital Study Hall hosted by Student Services Hangout Zoom Link: (see the weekly UPDATE email for passcode) **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Board of Trustees Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/board-of-trustees-meeting-10/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information please contact Ashley Gibson in the President’s Office at 918-270-6405. **Event Categories:** Meetings, Trustees --- ### [DMin Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-student-grades-due-8/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Summer 2023 DMin Session student grades are due to the Registrar. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-19/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Fall Immersion Course Week](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-i-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [Masters Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-i-copy/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [DMIN Session & Masters Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-session-masters-concentrated-course-week-i/) **Published:** August 26, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [Last Day of Fall Term Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/last-day-of-fall-term-classes/) **Published:** August 29, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service--Join Us for Worship!](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-join-us-for-worship-copy/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Meinders Chapel at 11:30 am followed by a Community Meal in the Killen Commons at Noon --- ### [Labor Day Holiday (seminary closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/labor-day-holiday-seminary-closed-4/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [First Day of Fall Semester](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/first-day-of-fall-semester-2/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [New Student Orientation](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-orientation-9/) **Published:** August 22, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-232/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-231/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-230/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-229/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-228/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-227/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-226/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-225/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-224/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-223/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-222/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-221/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-220/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-219/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-218/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-217/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-216/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-215/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-214/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-213/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-212/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-211/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-210/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-209/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-208/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-207/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-206/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-205/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-204/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-203/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-202/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-201/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-200/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-199/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-198/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-197/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-196/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-195/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-194/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-193/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-192/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-191/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-190/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-33/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-32/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-31/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-30/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-29/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-28/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-27/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-26/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-25/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-189/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-188/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-187/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-186/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-185/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-184/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-183/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-182/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-181/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-180/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-179/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-178/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-177/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-176/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-175/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-174/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-173/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-172/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-171/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-24/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-23/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-22/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-13/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-12/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-170/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-169/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-168/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-167/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-166/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-165/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-161/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-160/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-159/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm-8/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm-7/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm-6/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm-5/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-164/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-163/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-162/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-158/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-157/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-156/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-155/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-154/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-copy-2/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-copy-2-copy-2/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/chapel/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-153/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-152/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-151/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-150/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-149/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-148/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-147/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-146/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-145/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-144/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-143/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-142/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-141/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-140/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-139/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-138/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-137/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-132/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-136/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-135/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-134/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-133/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-124/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm-4/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm-3/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-7pm/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-131/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-130/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-129/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-128/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-127-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Incomplete Request Deadline (DMIN)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/incomplete-request-deadline-dmin-5-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** An incomplete may be granted for extenuating circumstances, but the approval is not automatic and must be justified. Approval must be requested on required forms and granted prior to the announced deadline. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Master Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/master-student-grades-due-8-copy-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Summer term 2023 grades are due to the Registrar. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Master's / DMin Book Lists Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/masters-and-dmin-book-lists-due-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty to submit book list for the 2023 Fall Master’s Term and DMin Session. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Summer Coursework Deadline (Master Students](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-coursework-deadline-master-students-3-copy/) **Published:** June 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Juneteenth Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/juneteenth-holiday-seminary-closed-copy/) **Published:** June 8, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Master Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/master-student-grades-due-8-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Spring term 2023 grades are due to the Registrar. --- ### [DMin Project Course (via Zoom](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-project-course-via-zoom-copy/) **Published:** June 8, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [DMin Session](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-9-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The June 2023 DMin classes will be in session on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm. Course offerings may be viewed [HERE](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Summer-2023-FINAL-Course-Schedule-03102023.pdf). **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-9-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm. Course offerings may be viewed [HERE](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Summer-2023-FINAL-Course-Schedule-03102023.pdf). **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-9/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm. Course offerings may be viewed [HERE](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Summer-2023-FINAL-Course-Schedule-03102023.pdf). **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Concentrated Course Week I Copy](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-9-copy-2/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Courses will be held on campus Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5:30 pm. Course offerings may be viewed [HERE](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Summer-2023-FINAL-Course-Schedule-03102023.pdf). **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [Remind & Renew](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/remind-renew/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Tags:** Remind & Renew **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Independence Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/independence-day-holiday-seminary-closed-2/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-copy-copy-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-copy-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-copy-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-copy-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed-copy/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Summer Hours (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/summer-hours-seminary-closed/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Memorial Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/memorial-day-holiday-seminary-closed-5/) **Published:** May 23, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Phone Camera Lunch Lesson](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/lunch-camera/) **Published:** March 30, 2023 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Kurt Gwartney will offer advice on how to take good photos with the camera on your phone over lunch. Bring something to eat while you learn. **Event Categories:** Meetings --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-80/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-84/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Black History Month Hybrid Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-hybrid-service/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Hybrid Service: Meinder’s Chapel & Online Rev. Courtney Buggs, PhD, Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Christian Theological Seminary **Event Categories:** Academics, Chapel --- ### [Black History Month Hybrid Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-hybrid-service-copy-3/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Hybrid Service: Meinder’s Chapel & Online Rev. Luke Powery, PhD, Associate Professor of Homiletics & Dean of Chapel, Duke University **Event Categories:** Academics, Chapel --- ### [Black History Month Virtual Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-hybrid-service-copy-2/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Virtual Service: Online Rev. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Shaw University Divinity School **Event Categories:** Academics, Chapel --- ### [Black Church Traditions and African American Faith-Life Public Lecture](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-church-traditions-and-african-american-faith-life-public-lecture/) **Published:** February 13, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** BCTAF will conclude their Black History and African American Heritage Month celebration with an online public lecture by Christina Dickerson-Cousin, Assistant Professor of History at Quinnipiac University. She is the author of Black Indians & Freedmen: The African Methodist Episcopal Church & Indigenous Americans, 1816-1916. --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-2pm-5pm/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-530pm-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-530pm/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Black History Month Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-chapel-service/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Check back for times and speakers. **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Black History Month Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-chapel-service-copy-2/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Check back for times and speakers. **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Black History Month Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-chapel-service-copy/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Check back for times and speakers. **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Black History Month Chapel Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-chapel-service-copy-3/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Check back for times and speakers. **Event Categories:** Chapel --- ### [Memorial Day Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/memorial-day-holiday-seminary-closed-4/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Commencement Ceremony](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/commencement-ceremony-2/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** We hope you will join us as we celebrate the accomplishment of our graduates. Please check back for details on format and time of event. **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Last Day of Classes and Senior Banquet](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/last-day-of-classes-and-senior-banquet-2/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes --- ### [New Student Enrollment Begins for Summer/Fall 2023](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-enrollment-begins-for-summer-fall-2023/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** New Phillips Students may register for courses beginning April 11. Students will be contacted by the registrar who will introduce them to the enrollment process and assign them an adviser. **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [Awards Day](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/awards-day-3/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Please join us for a brief chapel service and awards day. **Event Categories:** Student Services --- ### [Senior Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/senior-grades-due-4/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Spring 2023 grades for graduating seniors are due to the registrar. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Incomplete Request Deadline (Master's)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/incomplete-request-deadline-masters-4/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** An incomplete may be granted for extenuating circumstances, but the approval is not automatic and must be justified. Approval must be requested on required forms and granted prior to the announced deadline. **Event Categories:** Academics --- ### [Final Application Deadline](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/final-application-deadline-3/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The last day for master-level and DMIN students to apply to begin their journey for Fall of 2023. For more information contact Cortney Lemke, Director of Admissions, at cortney.lemke@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6420. **Event Categories:** Academics, Student Services --- ### [Master's Book Lists Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/masters-and-dmin-book-lists-due/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty to submit book list for the June 2023 Summer Term. --- ### [Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/tulsa-race-massacre-lectureship-2/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Reception: 5:30 – 6:30 pm Lecture: 6:45 pm – 8:00 pm Keynote Speaker: Bishop Jeffrey Leath (Bishop of Ecumenical & Urban Affairs, African Methodist Episcopal Church) **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship Reception](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/tulsa-race-massacre-lectureship-reception/) **Published:** January 25, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Reception: 5:30 – 6:30 pm Lecture: 6:45 pm – 8:00 pm Keynote Speaker: Bishop Jeffrey Leath (Bishop of Ecumenical & Urban Affairs, African Methodist Episcopal Church) **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Early Bird Application Deadline](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/early-bird-application-deadline-3/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master-level students looking to begin their journey in the Fall of 2023 apply by April 1 to waive the application fee. For more information contact Cortney Lemke, Director of Admissions at cortney.lemke@ptstulsa.edu or call 918-270.6420. **Event Categories:** Academics, Admissions --- ### [Enrollment Begins for Summer and Fall 2023](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/enrollment-begins-for-summer-and-fall-2023/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Continuing Phillips students may register for the summer term beginning March 20 – 31. If you miss the enrollment period, you will be able to enroll for fall term classes beginning August 1. New Phillips students may register for classes beginning April 11. **Event Categories:** Classes --- ### [Incomplete Request Deadline (DMIN)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/incomplete-request-deadline-dmin-5/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** An incomplete may be granted for extenuating circumstances, but the approval is not automatic and must be justified. Approval must be requested on required forms and granted prior to the announced deadline. --- ### [Booklist/Zoom Dates Due for June Term (DMIN)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/booklist-zoom-session-dates-due-dmin-june-term/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Black History Month Hybrid Service](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/black-history-month-hybrid-service-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Hybrid Service: Meinder’s Chapel & Online James H. Hill, Jr., PhD, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, University of Oklahoma **Event Categories:** Academics, Chapel --- ### [Easter Monday Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/easter-monday-holiday-seminary-closed-3/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Good Friday Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/good-friday-holiday-seminary-closed-4/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Spring Break/Holy Week Recess](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/spring-break-holy-week-recess-3/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** No classes scheduled during this time. **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [Withdrawal Deadline](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/withdrawal-deadline-7/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** All students, including auditors, who wish to withdraw from all of their seminary courses in a particular semester for which they are registered, must notify the registrar, in writing, explaining the reason for the withdrawal. Students must do the same to withdraw from the degree program in which they are enrolled. In these cases, they may be required to have an exit interview with the financial aid officer. **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Student Services --- ### [Ash Wednesday](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/ash-wednesday-2/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** **Ash Wednesday** is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting. … **Ash Wednesday** derives its name from the placing of repentance **ashes** on the foreheads of participants to either the words “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or the dictum “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” **Event Categories:** Holidays/School Breaks --- ### [DMIN Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-student-grades-due-7/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** January 2023 DMIN grades are due to the registrar. --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-18-copy-2/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-18-copy/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-18-copy-3/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. (April meeting will be held early due to Holy Week Recess). --- ### [Faculty Senate Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/faculty-senate-meeting-18/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Faculty Senate meetings are held monthly on the first Wednesday of the month beginning at 9:30 am. (April meeting will be held early due to Holy Week Recess). --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-83/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-82/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-81/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-79/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-78/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-77/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-127/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-126/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-125/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-123/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-122/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-121/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-120/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-119/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-118/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-117/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-116/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-115/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-114/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-113/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-112/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-111/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-110/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-109/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-108/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-107/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-106/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-105/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-104/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-103/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-102/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-101/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-100/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-99/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-98/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-97/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-96/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-95/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-94/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-93/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-92/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-91/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-90/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-89/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-88/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-87/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-86/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-85/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-76/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-75/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-74/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-73/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-72/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-71/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-70/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-69/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-68/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-67/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-66/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-65/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-64/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-63/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-62/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-61/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-60/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-59/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-58/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-57/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-56/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-55/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-54/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-53/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-52/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-51/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-50/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-49/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-48/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-47/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-46/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-45/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-44/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-43/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-21/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-20/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-19/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-18/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-17/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-16/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-15/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-14/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-11-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-11/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-4-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-4/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-43-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-43/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-42-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-42-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-40/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-40-copy-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-42/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-40-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Concentrated Course Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-8-copy/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. --- ### [Concentrated Course Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/concentrated-course-week-i-8/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. --- ### [Board of Trustees Meeting](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/board-of-trustees-meeting-9/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** For more information please contact Ashley Gibson, Executive Assistant to the President at 918-270-6405 or . --- ### [First Day of Classes](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/first-day-of-classes-8/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level 13-week on campus and online courses begin. --- ### [J-Term Week I](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/j-term-week-i-3-copy-2-copy/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. --- ### [J-Term Week II](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/j-term-week-ii-4/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master level concentrated course week. --- ### [DMin Project Course (via Zoom)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-project-course-via-zoom-2/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [New Student Orientation](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/new-student-orientation-8/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday (Seminary Closed)](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/martin-luther-king-jr-holiday-seminary-closed-4/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Remind and Renew](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/remind-and-renew/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [DMin Fortnight](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-fortnight-8/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** The January 2023 DMIN classes will be in session the week of January 9-13. Classes will meet on campus with required synchronous sessions on several Thursday evenings from 7:00 – 9:15 pm CST --- ### [Enrollment for continuing Phillips students re-opens for Spring 2023 Term](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/registration-reopens-for-spring-2023/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [DMin Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/dmin-student-grades-due-6/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ --- ### [Master Student Grades Due](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/master-student-grades-due-8/) **Published:** November 3, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Master Student Grades Due --- ### [Library Hours 8-6:30](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-4-2/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-41/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-6:30](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-9-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Winter Talk](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/winter-talk/) **Published:** October 7, 2022 **Author:** Sharon Russ **Content:** Hosted by the Center for Indigenous Ministries (DOC). --- ### [Worship with Us](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/worship-with-us-25/) **Published:** September 12, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Chapel will be hosted by Student Services this week and will center around the theme of “Journey”—what does faith mean to us at different points on our respective journeys? We will also share a time of joys and concerns, great music, and fellowship over lunch after. All are welcome to attend Tuesday, September 13 at 11:30 a.m. Central in Meinder’s Chapel. Service will also be live-streamed using the link below. **Event Categories:** Chapel, Public Events --- ### [Join the Discussion - Dr. Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/join-the-discussion-dr-lisa-davison/) **Published:** September 12, 2022 **Author:** tammye.jurena@ptstulsa.edu **Content:** Join Dr. Lisa Davison and the Alumni Association on September 27 as she leads a discussion about her most recently published book, [***More Than a Womb: Childfree Women in the Hebrew Bible as Agents of the Holy***](https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001unsfoCeL42sP6X2WICMypgkmjXxkDfbGfZINE8NAzO_FgvvbmiLrydajxo6xs1ETKJ7QhXReeL-NqEdIlJaLeAKWyUNHYCcqU3RneqHzqeiSqMALbJzMR_p2zt3bb-vK65hlYxDzeZLyuJXOzeARnjTkdr0fLshxyV9jzA0w5af81W3tvfVdDUfSmA28CB_b&c=FJum_qNJLySf7gAzAGgQv5SLti3QpL_MnZCmrQ0-scnNJT1cAOIkAg==&ch=qgOwAYqtH4Lkn5zLY6gHmMr1-xmcLA4t4M9TsB68JQhjSYWDMHXfrg==)*.* The event will take place online on **September 27 from 6:30-8:00 p.m.** (Central). The discussion is free, but **please join our new** [**Phillips Connect**](https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001unsfoCeL42sP6X2WICMypgkmjXxkDfbGfZINE8NAzO_FgvvbmiLrycBMGTyhe7sD_-9YaxyBG62lf_p0WDdnAwy1YWbhck74PGTnFDQpUGXT3t1_nECCsUryZCH-JoNakAv2ZMx3NQej6lkUX_6RlcRL10Z3j01YJJWdhtes9G7TxxUJnllNSTRTcerMJP-v1sgH4fRihh8=&c=FJum_qNJLySf7gAzAGgQv5SLti3QpL_MnZCmrQ0-scnNJT1cAOIkAg==&ch=qgOwAYqtH4Lkn5zLY6gHmMr1-xmcLA4t4M9TsB68JQhjSYWDMHXfrg==) **platform and RSVP for the event (in the Book Club Channel).** **Event Categories:** Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-39-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-39-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-39/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-38-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-38-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-38/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-37-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-37/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-36/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-35-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-35-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-35/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-34-copy-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-34-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-34/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-33/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-32/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-31/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-30/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-29/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-28/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-27/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-26/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-25/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-24/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-23/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-22/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-21/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-20/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-19/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-6:30](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-10/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-6:30](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-9/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-6:30](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-8/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-6:30](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-630pm-7/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-18-copy/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-18/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-17/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-16/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-15/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-14/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-13/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ### [Library Hours 8-5](https://ptstulsa.edu/date/library-hours-8am-5pm-12/) **Published:** August 2, 2019 **Author:** Avery Welden **Content:** The Phillips Library serves an extensive community of library users. While the primary community includes students, faculty, and staff of the seminary, we are proud to include our alumni, retired, and former faculty as members, and invite all religious professionals to use our collection and services. You can also [search our catalog online](https://okstate-ptstulsa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01OKSTATESTILL_PHILLIPS:PHILLIPS). For other information, email the library staff at . **Event Categories:** Academics, Classes, Library, Public Events --- ## RPLI Posts ### [Is Education Dangerous?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/is-education-dangerous/) **Published:** August 13, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** The Trump Administration may think education is dangerous. While our students were immersed in the culture of D.C., the White House was announcing cuts to educational programs. Students interested in studies related to social work, early childhood education, the arts, and more will find it difficult to qualify for [federal loans ](https://www.wpr.org/news/trump-administration-cutting-federal-loans-for-low-paying-degrees)due to the future earning potential of those degrees. At the collegiate level, [educators](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/03/trump-admin-asks-colleges-to-sign-on-to-their-priorities-01022271) have been asked to reevaluate programs that relate to diversity and inclusion, and to restrict students’ ability to [protest on campus](https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/trumps-higher-education-crackdown-visa-revocations-dei-bans-lawsuits-and-funding-cuts). This is in addition to a push to eliminate positions of those who [teach critical history](https://www.highereddive.com/news/texas-am-fires-professor-after-viral-video-raising-free-speech-concerns/759774/) and other humanities, the bans on [transgender women in collegiate sports](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/heritage-foundation-womens-sports-title-ix-trans-athletes-discrimination-protections/), and a push to reduce [funding for research](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5983223-trump-administration-to-shift-rd-funding-from-academia-to-individual-scientists/). And schools are struggling to recruit and retain international students, with a 20 percent decline from 2025 to 2026. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Museum_of_African_American_History__Culture_-_Wide_Angle-1024x649-1.jpg)The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC (Creative Commons free to share and use.) This past week I had the opportunity to travel with a dozen Phillips seminarians, Dr. Arthur Carter and Dr. Eric Gill to Washington, D.C., as a part of the students’ immersion trip experience. While there, we visited Capitol Hill, learned from many denominational organizations engaged in advocacy work, visited churches engaged in meaningful ministries, and had a private tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Touring the Smithsonian stirred courteous and engaging questions and launched conversations that will last far beyond our trip. It was a powerful reminder of the power of education. Perhaps that’s why Trump [signed an executive order](https://www.npr.org/2026/07/27/nx-s1-5909223/smithsonian-museum-to-get-trump-ordered-warning-about-inaccurate-information) calling for signs to be placed outside of the museums — quality education equips, empowers and enlightens the mind. Education also breaks the [false narratives perpetuated ](https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/christian-nationalism)by Christian Nationalism and threatens those who maintain their power by proclaiming myths of who we are as a nation. As a former resident of the city, it was great to see it again through the eyes of our students and to learn alongside them. Our time together drove home the importance of learning both inside and outside the classroom. Our conversations brought together theology and practice in ways that were both affirmational and challenging. I pray that these students will be better theologians and better ministers because of our time in Washington. The benefits of education were evident, but is education also dangerous? Should we fear letting students do the type of integrative education that brings together the classroom and the reality of society? I don’t think so, and this past week has affirmed that we should encourage this type of learning. Immersions allow us to get out of the traditional classroom and out into spaces at the intersection of theory and praxis. Our time in Washington has reinforced the importance of these immersion trips and the importance of educational opportunities that continue to empower and equip. I give thanks to institutions like Phillips that continue to provide such education, and for donors who invest in our students. But our conversations with advocacy partners reminded me of our call to protest legislation and actions that harm others. Contact your representative or senator to let them know of the recent changes to the [Department of Education](https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/action-center/take-action/call-congress-stop-destruction-department-education) (the NEA makes it easy for you). Or join the [National Parents Union](https://nationalparentsunion.org/tell-congress-protect-the-department-of-education/) to get involved in protecting schools at the Federal and State level. Education is powerful, and for some, that makes it dangerous. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Churches and Life on the Breadline](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/churches-and-life-on-the-breadline/) **Published:** August 6, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** On this episode of “Faithful Disruption,” Trista’s guest is [Chris Shannahan](https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/chris-shannahan/), author of *[Life on the Breadline: Theology, Poverty and Politics in an Age of Austerity](https://www.wjkbooks.com/bookproduct/9780334063698-life-on-the-breadline/)*. He is an Associate Professor in Political Theology at Coventry University’s [Research Centre for Peace and Security](https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/organisations/research-centre-for-peace-and-security/) in Coventry, U.K. Chris served in a variety of teaching and ministry roles, including as a Methodist Minister in inner-city London and Birmingham and a community organizer. His grassroots experience provided the grounding for his research in urban theology, sociology of religion and diversity studies and the basis of his PhD, within which he developed the first critical analysis of urban theology in the UK. As always, you can reach Trista at the Center for Religion in Public Life by emailing: . **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [What We are Reading: Election Edition](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/election-reads/) **Published:** July 30, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/P9014772-300x225.jpg) It is exciting to read your thoughts on what we’ve been reading lately. It is good to engage in these important topics with you, and I hope that you will keep your book recommendations coming! As we move closer to the elections in November, some churches have reached out to me on how they can be involved in helping to ensure that everyone in their community has the opportunity to vote. Others, after listening to our recent [podcast on gerrymandering](https://substack.com/@crplatphillips/note/c-286194079 "https://substack.com/@crplatphillips/note/c-286194079"), have also asked how they can help protect the right to vote. And a recent press conference has stirred interest in our[ elections once again](https://electionlawblog.org/?p=157443&__readwiseLocation= "https://electionlawblog.org/?p=157443&__readwiseLocation="). So here is a special “What We are Reading: Election Edition!” Find your next reads about voting rights struggles of the past, analysis of what is happening now, and work we can do to protect the vote moving forward. Many of these readings link to further resources for reading, podcasts to listen to and videos to watch. These would be great conversation starters for[ Sunday School classes and small groups](https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow "https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow") wanting to take a deep dive into the ways that the church can be involved in voting rights! ### **Struggles of the Past** [Reconstruction & Jim Crow Eras](https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow "https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow"): The Vernon E. Jordan Law Library at Howard University pulls together resources that explain the impact of Jim Crow laws. Though the[ 15th Amendment](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/15th-amendment "https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/15th-amendment") granted the right for African American males to vote, the laws continued to[ disenfranchise and segregate. ](https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow "https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow")[With links to case law, primary sources, and podcasts, we can learn of the continued impact of these laws on voting rights today. Many of these resources are open-source, and would be easy to share with groups wanting to learn more.](https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow "https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow")[ ](https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow "https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow") [The Role of Religion in The Civil Rights Movement](https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/kf/rel_Bernard_Lafayette.pdf "https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/kf/rel_Bernard_Lafayette.pdf"): This paper, offered by[ Dr. Bernard LaFayette](https://eji.org/news/eji-remembers-dr-bernard-lafayette-jr-champion-of-nonviolent-action/ "https://eji.org/news/eji-remembers-dr-bernard-lafayette-jr-champion-of-nonviolent-action/"), professor and Civil Rights Advocate, highlights how religion influenced the movement for[ civil rights](https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/religion-and-black-power "https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/religion-and-black-power") and the[ right to vote](https://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/sclc.htm "https://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/sclc.htm"). This reading highlights the way that people of faith have put their religion into action and can be a helpful starting point for churches wanting to come together around civil issues today. His paper is an accessible way to get the conversation started in your community of faith. [American Women’s Suffrage: Voices From The Long Struggle for the Vote](https://www.loa.org/books/633-american-womens-suffrage-voices-from-the-long-struggle-for-the-vote-1776-1965/ "https://www.loa.org/books/633-american-womens-suffrage-voices-from-the-long-struggle-for-the-vote-1776-1965/"): This anthology shares the voices of those who fought for the 19th Amendment, and their tenacity to see through its ratification. Many of these stories are of those who not only shaped our civil lives but also transformed the Church as well. May their stories serve as inspiration as we continue to protect the right to vote. [Obstacles At Every Turn](https://vote.narf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/obstacles_at_every_turn.pdf "https://vote.narf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/obstacles_at_every_turn.pdf"): This report released by the Native American Voting Rights Project, details the[ political barriers](https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/voters/native-americans/ "https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/voters/native-americans/") faced by Indigenous people in the history of the United States. The report provides an analysis of disenfranchisement and the fight to pass the[ Voting Rights Act](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZUBzv0BtxU "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZUBzv0BtxU"). This resource can also help us understand the role of tribal[ self-governance](https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/resolutions-adopted-by-general-conference-charlotte/native-people-and-the-united-methodist-church-3321 "https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/resolutions-adopted-by-general-conference-charlotte/native-people-and-the-united-methodist-church-3321") and[ religious freedom.](https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-134/living-the-sacred-indigenous-peoples-and-religious-freedom/ "https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-134/living-the-sacred-indigenous-peoples-and-religious-freedom/") ### **What Can We Do Right Now?** [Your Vote, Your Voice](https://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/FINAL_DRAFT_2026_NCC_Voting_Matters_Toolkit_Version_1_1.pdf "https://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/FINAL_DRAFT_2026_NCC_Voting_Matters_Toolkit_Version_1_1.pdf"): The National Council of Churches has released an excellent resource to empower voters and churches by not only highlighting the Church’s role in the past but providing resources for today. In this guide, there are scriptures to guide worship, recommended steps for churches to take together, and a helpful conversation guide. This resource also reminds us of what is at stake in the upcoming midterms, and grounds us in our theological call to justice and equality. [Religious Organizations and Political Activity: A 2026 Election-Year Guide](https://www.holtzmanvogel.com/news-insights/religious-organizations-and-political-activity-a-2026-election-year-guide "https://www.holtzmanvogel.com/news-insights/religious-organizations-and-political-activity-a-2026-election-year-guide"): As Emma Olson Sharkey mentioned on our recent[ podcast](https://substack.com/@crplatphillips/note/c-286194079 "https://substack.com/@crplatphillips/note/c-286194079"), there has been some confusion about what activities congregations can and cannot engage in following recent changes to the IRS guidelines. Holtzman and Vogel have released a guide to provide clarity. As they write, “the Johnson Amendment still bars tax-exempt churches and religious organizations from supporting or opposing candidates for public office, and it remains in force for the November 3, 2026 election. Treasury and the IRS have signaled new guidance, but until it is issued, the current rules apply in full.” Check out their guide for further information on those current rules. [Navigator Research](https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Navigator-Update-07.21.2026.pdf "https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Navigator-Update-07.21.2026.pdf"): provides an analysis on the recent voting messaging on voter suppression. This research can help us know what to say to motivate others to vote and offers do’s and don’ts for how to address the current messaging coming out of Washington. ### **Laboring For A Better Future** [A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691257716/a-real-right-to-vote "https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691257716/a-real-right-to-vote"): After the midterms, there will still be work to do. Here are some resources on long-term work and conversations that we can have within our churches to advocate for the rights of all people. One of the safeguards that is needed is a constitutional amendment. For those wanting to learn more about protecting the right to vote, a recent release dives deeply into the need for a constitutional amendment to prevent disenfranchisement. In his book, author Richard L. Hansen writes that the path to an amendment is difficult, but we need protections in place to protect all voters. [Lies that Kill](https://www.brookings.edu/books/lies-that-kill/ "https://www.brookings.edu/books/lies-that-kill/"): If you are like me, you may be concerned that well-meaning people of faith continue to share misinformation. And with the increasing impact of AI, I fear it will be even more difficult to spot false stories moving forward. In this book, authors Elaine Kamarck and Darrell M. West provide helpful tools to help us discern what is real. I hope these resources empower individuals and communities to use our voices as we engage in our civic responsibilities. Reach out and let us know if there are additional ways that the Center can continue to support you in this important work. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Considering Church and State in the U.K. and U.S.](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/considering-church-and-state/) **Published:** July 23, 2026 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** On this episode of “Faithful Disruption: Religion in Public Life,” our host, Trista Soendker Nicholson, takes us to Cambridge, England for a conversation with Dr. Jonathan Chaplin. They discuss the unique differences and similarities surrounding issues of church and state in the United Kingdom and the United States. Jonathan is a specialist in Christian political theology and a fellow of Wesley House, Cambridge Theological Federation, where he works with the Centre for Faith in Public Life. He is also the author of Beyond Establishment: Resetting Church-State Relations in England published in 2022, and Faith in Democracy: Framing a Politics of Deep Diversity released in 2021. From 2006 to 2017, he was director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics in Cambridge, and from 1999 to 2006 he was associate professor of political theory at the Institute of Christian Studies (ICS) in Toronto. He held the Dooyeweerd Chair in Social and Political Philosophy at ICS from 2004 to 2006 and was visiting lecturer in Christian social and political thought at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 2007 to 2011. He is a research fellow of the Canadian Christian think-tank Cardus. He also wrote, Herman Dooyeweerd: Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society (2011). He has edited or co-edited nine other works and published many articles and book chapters in the field. As always, you can reach Trista at the Center for Religion in Public Life by emailing: . Stay updated by subscribing to our [Substack](https://substack.com/@crplatphillips?r=8mffv6&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/life-liberty-and-the-pursuit-of-happiness/) **Published:** July 16, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** What is the American Dream? For many of us, it symbolizes a country that offers opportunities to succeed regardless of our birth status. That all, regardless of our demographics, are afforded the rights spelled out in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And for generations, it came with the hope that the next generation would be better off than our generation. The [Statue of Liberty ](https://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm "https://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm")still stands as a symbol of not only the American Dream, but also the welcome of all. “[Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus"),” the poem on the base of the Statue proclaims, an affirmation of the American Dream by a United States poet, etched on a gift from France. A vision of what our country could be. On the country’s 250th anniversary I acknowledge that the country I love has not reached our highest ideals of liberty and justice [for all](https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2026/06/14/juneteenth-america-250-renew-fight-freedom-equality-opinion/90474233007/ "https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2026/06/14/juneteenth-america-250-renew-fight-freedom-equality-opinion/90474233007/"). Some recent survey research published by Navigator Research assures me that I am not [alone](https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Ameirca250-Toplines-6.1.2026.pdf "https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Ameirca250-Toplines-6.1.2026.pdf"). Navigator Research tracks the opinions on public policy and public opinion for topics that are top of mind for those living in the United States. They set out to do a snapshot of how we describe our nation as we approach our 250th. The survey asked questions about how we view our country now, and where we see our country moving in the next 250 years. This snapshot captures a moment in time between May 27-June 1, 2026, in which we find interesting data. This survey included over 2059 interviews across the political spectrum (38% Democrat, 23% Independent, 38% Republican) and includes helpful demographic breakdowns of respondents. Their findings capture both the hope and disappointment that many of us are holding together. It also suggests that we are much more aligned in our values than our current political discourse might lead us to believe. When asked to describe how they feel about “being an American,” the top words are ones that resonate with me; hopeful, proud, frustrated, and discouraged are at the top of the list ([June 2026](https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Ameirca250-Toplines-6.1.2026.pdf "https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Ameirca250-Toplines-6.1.2026.pdf")). And more than 60% of those surveyed agreed that you can still love the United States while questioning our leaders and speaking out when we get it wrong. The report shows that freedom is a large part of our identity, and that rights, independence, justice, and liberty are also key in our identification as a nation. Particularly interesting to me, given the current White House talking points, is that a majority of those polled value both [diversity and equality](https://navigatorresearch.org/the-state-of-our-union-message-guidance-on-america-at-250/ "https://navigatorresearch.org/the-state-of-our-union-message-guidance-on-america-at-250/"). A majority of those polled (58%) believe that we are at our best as a nation when we are caring for our neighbors; 56% believe this is reflected when we take care of the vulnerable. The report also shows the anxiety of those interviewed, as many indicate that they are worried about our future. This is especially true for younger respondents, with only 13% of Gen Z and Millennials believing the [American Dream is possible](https://navigatorresearch.org/defining-america-at-250/ "https://navigatorresearch.org/defining-america-at-250/"). Reading this data reminds me of Paul’s letters to churches. When [he wrote ](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203%3A28&version=NRSVUE "https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203%3A28&version=NRSVUE")there was no longer “Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female,” it wasn’t that the church had reached the fullness of living into the unity found in Christ. But he believed that it could be so through the power of the Spirit and the transformation of the people. There are hopes for what the church can be, and aspirations for a future not yet reached. Perhaps that is something to hold onto as we celebrate the nation on the 250th. Just as Paul loved the Church so much that he believed in that future promise, so those who love our nation can keep working for the fullness of those who hoped for [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. ](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript "https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript") The scriptural vision Paul spells out to the Galatians remains a challenge for Christians in the United States seeking to reclaim the American Dream. As we celebrate the 250th, we can recommit ourselves to working to be a country where all are welcomed, where all have a chance at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and a place where those rights are protected. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Book List for Your Summer Reading](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/summer-reading/) **Published:** June 30, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/baptizing-america-194x300.webp)](https://chalicepress.com/products/baptizing-america)I don’t know about you, but my summer reading list continues to grow. There have been some interesting books released recently related to faith and politics. In addition to the recommendation to read [*Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism*](https://chalicepress.com/products/baptizing-america) by Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood, my to- read pile has been filling up. If you are looking for a few reads to get you through the summer and geared up for the election season, here are a few that I have on my list: ##### [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/crooked-straight-198x300.webp)](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-crooked-places-made-straight-raphael-g-warnock/1148820044?ean=9798217058983)[*The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America*](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-crooked-places-made-straight-raphael-g-warnock/1148820044?ean=9798217058983) by Rapheal Warnock Warnock’s book is centered in Isaiah’s prophetic promise that God will make a way when a way seems impossible. As he unpacks this text, the Senator calls for citizens of the United States to live into our highest aspirations and values, trusting in God’s justice. His book centers on specific issues that we are facing today in our communal life and offers a prophetic vision as to how we can overcome seemingly overwhelming obstacles. ##### [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/christian-past-202x300.webp)](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-christian-past-that-wasnt-warren-throckmorton/1147552126?ean=9798889835820)[*The Christian Past That Wasn’t*](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-christian-past-that-wasnt-warren-throckmorton/1147552126?ean=9798889835820) by Warren Throckmorton Scholars that I respect recommended Throckmorton’s book that seeks to unpack the myths of the past. By unpacking a skewed view of history promoted by Christian Nationalist, he hopes that we will reclaim our history as it is shared by those without a nationalist bent. Perfect for reading as we approach the United States’ 250th birthday, Throckmorton’s book will perhaps provide us with enough information to be the life of the Fourth-of-July party as we debunk those myths in real time. (Caution: I am a public theologian who likes to bring up “fun facts” at social gatherings which might not be the best party advice and might not earn you the title of “life of the party.” For true party etiquette please check out [Emily Post](https://emilypost.com/)) ##### [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/staying-at-the-table-193x300.avif)](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/staying-at-the-table-terri-hord-owens/1146959617?ean=9780827212961)[*Staying at the Table*](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/staying-at-the-table-terri-hord-owens/1146959617?ean=9780827212961) by Terri Hord Owens Having heard her sermon at the commencement service, I was excited to add the Rev. Hord Owens’ book to my summer reading list. Her book invokes our prophetic imagination as we seek to offer love and unity to a world that is facing deep polarization. Challenging us to follow Christ, her words invited us to pull up a chair and stay at the table while listening to each other. Her book is not for passive listening, but rather a listening that isn’t afraid to confront injustice, challenge hypocrisy and to be the disciples that Christ calls us to be. ##### [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/conversation-matters-200x300.avif)](https://wipfandstock.com/9798385254767/the-conversation-matters-second-edition/)[*The Conversation Matters, 2nd ed.*](https://wipfandstock.com/9798385254767/the-conversation-matters-second-edition/) by Henry H Knight, III and Don E. Sailers Published last November, this second edition builds on the work originally published in 1999. Though written for an audience familiar with United Methodist Doctrine, the book also is a helpful resource for those seeking to engage in civil conversations while building authentic connection. Knight and Sailers bring a long look at topics that continue to impact our ecclesial and political life. This approach centers grace and relationship building in important conversations that call for deep engagement with one another. I loved the suggestions and engagement of the last recommended book list, and I hope that you will let me know what is on your list this summer. Please let me know if there is an interest in a virtual meet-up to discuss these books, what you are reading or books that you are interested in exploring! Let us continue to learn with one another! Email me at . **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Faith and the Gerrymander: Conversation with Emma Olson Sharkey](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/faith-and-the-gerrymander-conversation-with-emma-olson-sharkey/) **Published:** June 25, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** Emma Olson Sharkey visits with Faithful Disruption host Trista Soendker Nicholson about the way congressional and other voting districts are changing to increase political power for some and disenfranchise others. Sharkey is a partner at Elias Law Group. She focuses her practice on nonprofit tax and campaign finance law, and legal issues related to ballot measures. Emma advises clients participating in political and issue advocacy across the country, including progressive ballot measure campaigns, political campaigns, and nonprofit organizations. She helps clients understand the law, anticipate challenges, and mitigate legal risk. Emma is one of the nation’s leading ballot measure attorneys, counseling clients on how to effectively engage in measures across the country. She routinely defends clients engaged in ballot measure activity before state agencies and advises on ballot measure litigation strategy. She has served as outside counsel to progressive ballot measure efforts in more than 15 states, most recently focusing on campaigns that seek to protect the ballot measure process. Emma regularly speaks and writes about ballot measures, most recently in the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/us/politics/ballot-measures-midterms.html), the [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/08/truth-about-democrats-voting-strength/), [Salon](https://www.salon.com/2023/03/15/aim-to-weaken-ballot-measure-process-after-progressive-victories/), [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/ohio-banned-august-elections-gop-planned-one-help-preserve-abortion-ba-rcna85635), [Slate](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/10/new-evidence-ron-desantis-abortion-censorship-case.html), CBS News Radio, [The Hill](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4794335-conservative-attacks-direct-democracy/), [Democracy Docket](https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/the-ballot-measure-wars/), the [Columbia Journalism Review](https://www.cjr.org/feature/jonathan-choe-renegade-news-influencer-slash-journalist-maga-endorsed-fraud-proud-boys.php), [Pluribus](https://pluribusnews.com/news-and-events/republicans-manipulate-ballot-language-to-combat-progressive-measures/), and [Common Dreams](https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/12/04/republican-war-democracy-has-spread-ballot-measures?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1670216795). Her research has also been cited by [TIME Magazine](https://time.com/6303738/republicans-lessons-ohio-abortion-issue-1/). (from law firm page https://elias.law/bio/emma-olson-sharkey/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Advocacy Beyond Pride Month](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/pride/) **Published:** June 18, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIDE-marching-copy-1024x768.png)Phillips Theological Seminary employees and friends marching in a previous Tulsa Pride parade. Pride in Tulsa is now in October, as is the Pride@Phillips event. My family and I recently worshiped in a congregation that made an announcement about the upcoming Pride event in their community. They announced that all volunteer slots for their booth had been filled, but members of the congregation were still invited to walk in the parade, and to wear a shirt offering free hugs to those who needed them. This small congregation, with around 30 people in worship, had an overabundance of individuals who wanted those in the 2SLGBTQIA community to know that they were loved by God and loved by this congregation. It was beautiful to witness. I wish this Pride month was filled with only beauty and celebration. As an ally, I pray for affirmations and love. But, sadly, there has been an uptick of attacks of LGBTQ rights in the United States. The ACLU is tracking over [500 pieces of legislation ](https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2026 "https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2026")that seek to remove rights and protections. In Oklahoma, [43 bills](https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2026?state=OK "https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2026?state=OK") were introduced this past legislative session [seeking to restrict](https://tulsaflyer.org/2026/03/23/health/post/anti-trans-rhetoric-takes-mental-toll-tulsas-lgbtq-community/ "https://tulsaflyer.org/2026/03/23/health/post/anti-trans-rhetoric-takes-mental-toll-tulsas-lgbtq-community/") everything from medical access to restrictions for school districts trying to support students. It is a reminder that while some celebrate, others are seeking to remove the rights for which so many have fought. People of faith must continue to advocate for a better path forward.[ The Human Rights Campaign](https://www.hrc.org/ "https://www.hrc.org/") has shared ways to be an advocate for expanding rights and protections: 1. [Vote](https://www.hrc.org/resources/vote "https://www.hrc.org/resources/vote") for candidates who will support rights and protections! Make sure you are registered to vote, and vote in the primaries. Help ensure that others are registered to vote for the general election. 2. [Volunteer](https://www.hrc.org/get-involved/volunteer "https://www.hrc.org/get-involved/volunteer") to share your gifts locally and nationally. Check out [their calendar](https://www.hrc.org/events "https://www.hrc.org/events") of events for opportunities close to home. 3. Track [legislation](https://www.hrc.org/resources/federal-legislation-1 "https://www.hrc.org/resources/federal-legislation-1") and contact your elected officials. Follow the ACLU’s tracker for [state legislation](https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2026 "https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2026") as well. 4. [Continue to show up](https://www.hrc.org/campaigns/united-together-your-resources-your-rights-your-future "https://www.hrc.org/campaigns/united-together-your-resources-your-rights-your-future") and share love. Not just at Pride events in June, but throughout the year. May we continue to stand up for the rights of our siblings, children, parents, nieces, nephews, neighbors and friends. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [NTLWTR June: Not too Long, Worth the Read](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/ntlwtr-2026-june/) **Published:** June 2, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/NTLWTR-facebook-1024x538.png)There are lots of interesting things to read over the past several weeks. Here are a few highlights that are not too long and worth the read: - Pope Leo released his[ ](https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html "https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html")[*Magnifica Humanitas*](https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html "https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html")*,* which gave his theological insights on artificial intelligence, just war theory, our call to serve the common good, and protecting freedoms. The release received a lot of attention and has extensive media coverage. - In a recent[ ](https://www.ms.now/opinion/pope-leo-ai-warning-slavery "https://www.ms.now/opinion/pope-leo-ai-warning-slavery")[opinion piece](https://www.ms.now/opinion/pope-leo-ai-warning-slavery "https://www.ms.now/opinion/pope-leo-ai-warning-slavery"), Anthea Butler unpacked Pope Leo’s apology for the Catholic Church’s role in slavery. Her piece highlights the connections between his apology and artificial intelligence, calling for an end to dehumanization. - Lovett Weems called the church to reflect on Pope Leo’s discussion of[ ](https://lovettweems.substack.com/p/the-pope-was-careful-when-he-talked?utm_source=substack&publication_id=8053618&post_id=198576046&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=tch0o&triedRedirect=true "https://lovettweems.substack.com/p/the-pope-was-careful-when-he-talked?utm_source=substack&publication_id=8053618&post_id=198576046&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=tch0o&triedRedirect=true")[just war theory](https://lovettweems.substack.com/p/the-pope-was-careful-when-he-talked?utm_source=substack&publication_id=8053618&post_id=198576046&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=tch0o&triedRedirect=true "https://lovettweems.substack.com/p/the-pope-was-careful-when-he-talked?utm_source=substack&publication_id=8053618&post_id=198576046&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=tch0o&triedRedirect=true"), urging Christians to evaluate how we are speaking up on issues regarding war and peace. The article calls us to reflect upon our own views of pacifism and just war. - All of this attention points to Michael Woolf’s[ ](https://sightmagazine.com.au/sight-seeing/sight-seeing-pope-leo-xiv-is-having-a-big-unexpected-impact-on-protestants/ "https://sightmagazine.com.au/sight-seeing/sight-seeing-pope-leo-xiv-is-having-a-big-unexpected-impact-on-protestants/")[claim that protestants](https://sightmagazine.com.au/sight-seeing/sight-seeing-pope-leo-xiv-is-having-a-big-unexpected-impact-on-protestants/ "https://sightmagazine.com.au/sight-seeing/sight-seeing-pope-leo-xiv-is-having-a-big-unexpected-impact-on-protestants/") see Pope Leo’s influence as reaching beyond the Catholic Church. As he writes, many are looking for moral guidance and see the Pope’s messages as a needed call for social justice. - In news beyond the *Magnifica Humanitas*, Bob Smietana offers[ ](https://religionnews.com/2026/05/27/how-worship-music-became-the-soundtrack-of-todays-political-right/ "https://religionnews.com/2026/05/27/how-worship-music-became-the-soundtrack-of-todays-political-right/")[insights](https://religionnews.com/2026/05/27/how-worship-music-became-the-soundtrack-of-todays-political-right/ "https://religionnews.com/2026/05/27/how-worship-music-became-the-soundtrack-of-todays-political-right/") into the use of worship music at political rallies. His article cautions that the use of worship music asserts a theological claim that God is of a particular political persuasion. - Katherine Stewart also offers an[ ](https://newrepublic.com/article/210373/trump-america-250-corruption-authoritarianism "https://newrepublic.com/article/210373/trump-america-250-corruption-authoritarianism")[interesting discussion](https://newrepublic.com/article/210373/trump-america-250-corruption-authoritarianism "https://newrepublic.com/article/210373/trump-america-250-corruption-authoritarianism") of the planned[](https://freedom250.org/celebration/rededicate-250-a-national-jubilee-of-prayer-praise-and-thanksgiving "https://freedom250.org/celebration/rededicate-250-a-national-jubilee-of-prayer-praise-and-thanksgiving")[Rededicate 250](https://freedom250.org/celebration/rededicate-250-a-national-jubilee-of-prayer-praise-and-thanksgiving "https://freedom250.org/celebration/rededicate-250-a-national-jubilee-of-prayer-praise-and-thanksgiving") at the semi-quincentennial celebration in July. Her concerns include a warning of the authoritarian leanings of the gatherings and a historical analysis of the disconnect from revolutionary roots. - A[ ](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/05/27/what-political-issues-do-americans-hear-about-in-church/ "https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/05/27/what-political-issues-do-americans-hear-about-in-church/")[Pew Research survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/05/27/what-political-issues-do-americans-hear-about-in-church/ "https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/05/27/what-political-issues-do-americans-hear-about-in-church/") revealed what political issues clergy are talking about in worship, and what laity are hearing. The research went further to reveal that the religious background of the congregation influences how clergy are speaking up on these social issues. What have you been reading? Be sure to share your resources below as we continue to learn together. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [Mercy vs. Justice or Mercy with Justice](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/mercy-justice/) **Published:** May 26, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** Why do Christians struggle to love one another? Is it because we really do not take the gospel seriously? Is it that Christians themselves do not agree on what is meant by love? In either case, we are not modeling what we preach. Jesus teaches us how to love over and over again in the gospels. Jesus shares, if we love God, we demonstrate that love by loving one another. And yet we continue to get it wrong. How do we invite others to see the importance of loving each other, of engaging in actions of compassion and community building during a time when the culture seeks to divide us? How do we call others to reflect the love of Christ when the prevailing political rhetoric is fear and hatred of the other? How do we help disciples of Christ remember our call to love and serve the least, the lost and the last? At a United Methodist Gathering of the South Central Jurisdiction Church and Society conference, the Rev. William Lamar IV with [Metropolitan AME ](https://www.metropolitaname.org/) in Washington, DC, was explicit about a collective call to engage in acts of mercy and acts of justice. Mercy allows our hearts to break for one another, and justice compels us to do something about that heartbreak. By linking the two together, we work for our communities to reflect the love of Christ. I grew up in an era where [acts of mercy](https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/new-evangelization/jubilee-of-mercy/the-corporal-works-of-mercy) were pitted against [acts of justice](https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/what-is-justice/). This past week I was challenged to embrace the concept of aligning them to transform the world. Both are important, and both are needed. While these acts of mercy are meeting a direct need and not transforming systems, Lamar reminded us that they are opportunities to build community and share actions based in love. Both of which are in short supply today and needed in today’s world. Lamar stated that in the United States, the concept of justice is [based on punishment](https://bjs.ojp.gov/justice-system). This understanding shapes God into a divine being seeking vengeance, punishment and pain. To disrupt this cultural understanding, the church needs to tell the story of God that is revealed in the stories of Christ. Jesus reveals [God’s justice ](https://www.logos.com/grow/26-bible-verses-about-justice/)that is centered in healing, restoration, and uplifting the community. Our group then discussed our expectations that acts of justice would build on acts of mercy to uproot the systemic issues. After a lengthy discussion, Lamar also called us to reflect upon the fact that in the United States we have been used to organizing within systems that protected us, but in many cases we can no longer depend on those protections. As a result, we need to find creative and imaginative ministries that are acts of mercy combined with acts of justice. We need to embrace love, compassion and community building to address situations that call for a different type of organizing and strategizing. The church can be a place of safety built around love for one another. As we shared insights and tips, it was clear that Lamar’s call to us was spot on — we must engage in acts of mercy with justice as a centering component. We need to engage in practices that open us to each other’s pain and work together to find a new way forward. How can your ministries embrace acts of mercy with justice to help others live into our call to love one another? **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [A Life of Faithful Resistance and Change](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/a-life-of-faithful-resistance-and-change/) **Published:** May 21, 2026 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** The Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Phillips alum and longest serving pastor at East Sixth Street Christian Church in Oklahoma City, discusses his lifelong commitment to resistance and change. He also shares with host, the Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson, how this part of his ministry has evolved as he has faced several health concerns. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Booklist: Democracy and Christian Nationalism](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/booklist-democracy/) **Published:** April 30, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/trista-books-nationalism-819x1024.png)This past week allowed me the opportunity to lead a congregational workshop on faith, democracy, and Christian Nationalism. The group was very engaged and asked great questions about how they learn more about our political reality and how they could get involved. I offered a short list of books good for individual or small group engagement. I thought it might be helpful to share this list, hoping that other congregations will be willing to dive into this important conversation together. [Thou Shall Not Be A Jerk by Eugene Cho](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thou-shalt-not-be-a-jerk-eugene-cho/1133044030?ean=9780781411158 "https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thou-shalt-not-be-a-jerk-eugene-cho/1133044030?ean=9780781411158") Published in 2020, Cho’s book is an accessible read on topics that are still relevant today. This book is a great read for those who are just starting to think about the intersection of faith and politics. His tongue-in-cheek title offers insight into his approach, but the chapters are filled with conversation starters that remind us not to dehumanize those who are unlike us. A former congregation used Cho’s book for a sermon series and a small group discussion. It provided space for robust conversation among members who didn’t always agree but shared a common commitment to treating each other with grace and respect. [Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez ](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/jesus-and-john-wayne-kristin-kobes-du-mez/1133534052?ean=9781631499050 "https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/jesus-and-john-wayne-kristin-kobes-du-mez/1133534052?ean=9781631499050") Du Mez’s book dives into Christian nationalism, examining the pop culture influences that have shaped our understanding of God, Christ, and Scripture. She dives into how Christ has come to be associated with hyper masculinity, and how this image influences the Evangelical approach to public policy issues, and how we treat one another. This book was a great small-group read for congregation members who had started conversations around these topics, and Du Mez’s book helped guide them as they wrestled with deeper questions. It was also a good read for those who had deconstructed or were deconstructing their faith. [White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America by Anthea Butler ](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/white-evangelical-racism-second-edition-anthea-butler/1145250512?ean=9781469681511 "https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/white-evangelical-racism-second-edition-anthea-butler/1145250512?ean=9781469681511") Updated in 2024, Butler’s unpacking of the tie to white evangelicals and our current political climate is an insightful read into the issues we are facing today. Butler takes us into the world of Christian nationalism, evangelicalism, and their political backing of whiteness. This book would be a great read for congregations that have already done some work discussing racism and are willing to wrestle with the difficult truths of the current political climate. While I haven’t used Butler’s book in a congregational setting, I have recommended it to church friends to further our conversations. Butler’s writing calls us to confront aspects others may wish to erase from history books and offers insights that continue to demand our attention. [The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy by Phillip S. Gorski, Samuel L. Perry and Jemar Tisby (Forward) ](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-flag-and-the-cross-philip-s-gorski/1139997493?ean=9780197618684 "https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-flag-and-the-cross-philip-s-gorski/1139997493?ean=9780197618684") Starting with the events on January 6th, 2021, Gorski and Perry unpack the Christian nationalism trends that led up to the violence of that day. The book provides insights into how democracy is threatened by the actions of those supporting Christian nationalism, and how this framework contributes to authoritarianism. Gorski and Perry’s book is one I return to often as I engage in conversations about the anti-democratic behavior we are witnessing today. Though I have not used it in a congregational setting, it is a good conversation starter for those asking questions. [The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby and Lecrae Moore (Forward) ](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-color-of-compromise-jemar-tisby/1128138028?ean=9780310113607 "https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-color-of-compromise-jemar-tisby/1128138028?ean=9780310113607") In his book, Tisby calls the white church to task for our complacency in the promotion of racist violence and policies. He engages readers by peeling back the interwoven history of the church and the United States, and he uses sociological insights to help us understand how the past continues to shape our present. Tisby creates space for small groups to process how these compromises by white Christians have caused harm, and how we can use Scripture to reclaim our call to love and justice. Tisby allows us to unpack the connections between our political world and ecclesial practices while calling for a church committed to following the ways of Christ. Have any others to add to this list? Drop a comment below! Happy reading. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Art, Resistance, and Faith: A Conversation with Anthony Suber](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/suber/) **Published:** April 16, 2026 **Author:** Phillips Seminary News **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/suber-art-300x297.jpg)](https://www.longneckergallery.com/show/nicole-longnecker-gallery-speculative-liturgies---the-perpetual-bloom-of-greenwood)On this episode of our *Faithful Disruption* podcast, Trista Soendker-Nicholson talks with the artist Anthony Suber about the intersection of his art, resistance and faith. He is the featured artist for an exhibition opening April 27th at Phillips called, “Speculative Liturgies: The Perpetual B loom of Greenwood.” That is also the date for our annual Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship with Teresa L. Fry Brown. Special thanks to the [Nicole Longnecker Gallery](https://www.longneckergallery.com/show/nicole-longnecker-gallery-speculative-liturgies---the-perpetual-bloom-of-greenwood) for making our art exhibition possible @nicolelongneckergallery. [**Register**](http://events.ptstulsa.edu/) for the Tulsa Race Massacre Lectureship and the opening of Anthony’s art exhibition. You can also read Trista’s latest [blogs](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/blog-posts/). **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [What We're Reading: March Edition](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/what-were-reading-march-edition/) **Published:** March 26, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** March’s reading roundup is focusing on research of note. These studies bring interesting light to our conversations on democracy, the Trump Administration’s ICE policies and the impact of religion on moral decisions. You are invited to read, reflect and enter into the conversation as we process what we are learning (click on the article title to read). ### ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/PRRI-Mar-2026-Immigration-Fig_1-300x183.png)PPRI: [Immigration Enforcement, ICE, and Civil Liberties in the Second Trump Administration](https://prri.org/research/americans-views-on-immigration-enforcement-ice-and-civil-liberties-in-the-second-trump-administration/ "https://prri.org/research/americans-views-on-immigration-enforcement-ice-and-civil-liberties-in-the-second-trump-administration/") “Strong majorities of Christian nationalism Adherents (70%) and Sympathizers (60%) view Trump’s handling of immigration favorably. Only one in three Skeptics (32%) lean more favorable while Rejecters are overwhelmingly opposed: Just 8% express favorable views, while more than nine in ten view Trump’s handling of immigration unfavorably (91%).” ### Pew Research: [What Do Americans Consider Immoral ](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/19/what-do-americans-consider-immoral/ "https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/19/what-do-americans-consider-immoral/") “Overall, 47% of Americans see other Americans as morally good, while 53% say the morality and ethics of their fellow Americans are somewhat or very bad. (By contrast, in nearly all the other countries where we asked this question in 2025, more people view their fellow citizens as [morally and ethically good than as bad](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-country-survey-americans-especially-likely-to-view-fellow-citizens-as-morally-bad/ "https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-country-survey-americans-especially-likely-to-view-fellow-citizens-as-morally-bad/").)” ### Graphs about Religion: [The Confederate Flag Divides America — But Not How You’d Think](https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-confederate-flag-divides-america "https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-confederate-flag-divides-america") The data is crystal clear on this point: younger Americans are much more likely to say that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism compared to their older counterparts. In the full sample, just 39% of 18-29 year olds chose the “Southern Pride” option compared to about 60% of respondents who were 45 or older. So, there’s definitely a generational difference in this data. ### Bright Line Watch: [The Persistence of Diminished Democracy in a Second Trump Presidency](https://brightlinewatch.org/the-persistence-of-diminished-democracy-in-a-second-trump-presidency/ "https://brightlinewatch.org/the-persistence-of-diminished-democracy-in-a-second-trump-presidency/") “Expert ratings of U.S. democracy have largely stabilized at lower levels than any prior period since our data begin in 2017. During Donald Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s presidency, ratings among experts never fell below 60 or exceeded 70 on a 0–100 scale. However, they fell sharply in the first months of Trump’s second presidency, reaching a new low of 53 in April 2025. They remained statistically unchanged at 54 in September 2025 before increasing to 60 in the initial expert ratings collected in our December 2025–January 2026 survey. This rating, which exceeded previous forecasts, may have reflected the effective contestation of off-year elections in November 2025.” **Categories:** News Digest, Blog Posts --- ### [Join Isaiah's Palm Sunday Actions](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/palmsunday/) **Published:** March 12, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/PalmSundayDigitalEventFlyers-4-300x171.webp)During the season of[ Lent](https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-what-is-lent-and-why-does-it-last-forty-days "https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-what-is-lent-and-why-does-it-last-forty-days") we join with Christians around the world as we open ourselves to practices and disciplines that align us more fully with Christ. Like many, I found myself returning to the story of Jesus in the wilderness, and his forty days of[ fasting and temptation](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%204%3A1-11&version=NIV "https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%204%3A1-11&version=NIV"). One of the temptations that is laid before him is the power to rule over all of the kingdoms of the world. Resisting this temptation, he instead returns to call others to see that God’s kingdom has come near. The light has come in the midst of the darkness, and Jesus invites others to embrace the light of his kingdom. As Christ’s ministry unfolds, he reveals what his kingdom looks like. Remember the metaphor of the mustard seed that offers insight into God’s kingdom: From a mustard seed comes a tree large enough to protect all of the birds. Where yeast expands so that there is more than enough bread for all. A kingdom where something that was lost is found and celebrated. Another way we can understand Christ’s kingdom can be seen in the events of his entry into Jerusalem. As Matthew‘s gospel shares the story, Jesus enters on a donkey, with people spreading their cloaks and branches crying “Hosanna!” — Lord, save us. Following this entry into the city, he makes his way to the[ Temple to drive out](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2011&version=NIV "https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2011&version=NIV") those who were using their positions of power as a means to inflict injustices upon those coming to worship God. This demonstration reinforces that Christ’s kingdom is about justice, reconciliation and protecting the vulnerable. On this upcoming Palm Sunday, disciples of Christ have the opportunity to follow his example as we stand against injustice and oppression today. [Isaiah](https://www.isaiahmn.org/), a group long known for empowering those who are vulnerable to the political powers of this world, is calling for faith communities around the country to join them on the[ Palm Sunday Faith Actions](https://www.palmsunday2026.com/ "https://www.palmsunday2026.com/"). Isaiah invites faith communities from around the country to join them in celebrating Palm Sunday by following Christ’s example. Their invitation states, “on Palm Sunday, March 29th 2026, Christians across the country will stand up to the rise of authoritarianism and white Christian nationalism. We will stand against the politics of greed, cruelty, and oppression by continuing to show the country that our central commandments, to love God and love our neighbors, is our way forward.” Visit their **[website](https://www.palmsunday2026.com/)** to find ways you can be involved in your context, or work with your faith community to engage in actions that show our commitment to loving God and loving neighbor. Let us follow in the ways of Christ as we walk in his ways, standing up for the vulnerable, resisting injustice and engaging in actions that promote reconciliation. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [February: What We’re Reading](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/february-what-were-reading/) **Published:** February 26, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** **Editor’s Note:** *From time-to-time, Trista Soendker Nicholson, our interim executive director, will commend articles and stories that have attracted her attention. The list varies but we know that the time spent reading will provide valuable insight into the ways faith is practiced in public life. Move your mouse over the descriptions to find the links. Enjoy her list for February.* ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/xian-nationalist-beliefs-1024x898.png)Lots to read and listen to about the intersections of faith and politics. These readings offer a diversity of perspectives to continue our growth as public theologians. You are invited to read, reflect and enter into the conversation as we process what we are learning. - Russel Contreras for Axios: [Where Christian nationalism is most dominant in the U.S.](https://www.axios.com/2026/02/18/republicans-christian-nationalism-trump "https://www.axios.com/2026/02/18/republicans-christian-nationalism-trump") - Tom Schaller for Public Notice on [which Christians count](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/ice-persecutes-christians?r=dekp&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true "https://www.publicnotice.co/p/ice-persecutes-christians?r=dekp&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true") when politicians talk about anti-Christian persecution - Josephine Walker for Axios: [Clergy say Jesus’ teachings leave Christians no choice but to resist ICE](https://www.axios.com/2026/02/10/trump-immigration-faith-leaders-resist "https://www.axios.com/2026/02/10/trump-immigration-faith-leaders-resist") - Brian Kaylor, Baptist preacher and editor in chief of Word&Way, [writes](https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/the-room-where-a-bad-bill-happens "https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/the-room-where-a-bad-bill-happens") about his work to stop a Christian Nationalist bill in the Missouri legislature - Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan [says](https://www.ncronline.org/news/cardinal-dolan-vance-apologized-out-line-comments-about-us-bishops-and-immigration "https://www.ncronline.org/news/cardinal-dolan-vance-apologized-out-line-comments-about-us-bishops-and-immigration") Vice President JD Vance ‘apologized’ for ‘out of line’ comments about US bishops and immigration - Jordan Ritter Conn of The Ringer [does a deep dive](https://www.theringer.com/2026/02/19/national-affairs/minneapolis-resistance-network-ice-federal-agents-protests-alex-pretti-renee-good "https://www.theringer.com/2026/02/19/national-affairs/minneapolis-resistance-network-ice-federal-agents-protests-alex-pretti-renee-good") into the community-based resistance to federal immigration incursions in Minnesota, much of which is based in churches - Rabbi Shai Held [writes](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/opinion/immigrants-religion-bible-politics.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share "https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/opinion/immigrants-religion-bible-politics.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share") about “the Bible’s Greatest Moral Revolutions” for the New York Times. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Genesis of the Center for Religion in Public Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-genesis-of-the-center-for-religion-in-public-life/) **Published:** February 12, 2026 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** Join Trista Soendker Nicholson as she discusses the origins of the Center for Religion in Public LIfe with its founder, Gary Peluso-Verdend. You can also read Trista’s latest [blogs](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli_category/blog-posts/). [CLICK to LISTEN](https://embed.acast.com/5ec9354fd061ce348883c54a) **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Embracing Power for Transformational Change](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/power-for-change/) **Published:** February 17, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/IMG_171785-copy-1024x768.jpg)President F. Douglas Powe Jr. speaks to the Action Tulsa community group in the seminary’s Meinders Chapel. On Feb. 7, I had the opportunity to attend an engaging community organizing training hosted by [Action Tulsa](https://www.actiontulsa.org/who_we_are "https://www.actiontulsa.org/who_we_are"). Their team of trainers encouraged us to find ways that the organizations in Oklahoma, as well as around the country, could come together around faith-based organizing. At a time when the world needs people stepping up to challenge injustice, it is good to be in a room packed with people who are willing to do just that. Able Thompson, lead organizer with [Together Baton Rouge,](https://www.togetherbr.org/ "https://www.togetherbr.org/") sparked a fascinating conversation on how broad-based organizing must engage with power. What made the conversation so engaging was the struggle for participants to wrap their heads around a neutral definition of power. As Thompson shared, “power is the capacity and ability to act.” One of the interesting things that I noticed in a discussion about power is that people went straight to images of power that are about coercion and control. The dominant image of power that came to mind for many participants was a power that leads to corruption. With all of the things happening in the world right now. [Bayard Rustin reminds us](https://www.commentary.org/articles/bayard-rustin-2/from-protest-to-politics-the-future-of-the-civil-rights-movement/ "https://www.commentary.org/articles/bayard-rustin-2/from-protest-to-politics-the-future-of-the-civil-rights-movement/"), “there is a strong moralistic strain in the civil rights movement that would remind us that power corrupts, forgetting that the absence of power also corrupts.” To help people claim a framework of power, it may be helpful for our image of power to shift. Scripture gives us text after text of an important conversation about power. Especially in the example of the incarnation. Christ’s power, or [kenosis i](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kenosis "https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kenosis")n theological terminology, is a framework of power that is helpful to me as I think about my role in community organizing. The love that Christ displayed was grounded in love, grace, and service. He spoke to power, he fought injustice, and brought healing and restoration to both individuals and communities. Jesus invited his disciples to share in this power. As he was teaching and serving, he called his disciples to participate in these activities of service, reconciliation, and community building. And he promises that after he has physically left them, power will be given to them through the gift of the Spirit. This is an image of power that helps me wrap my head around the work of community organizing. It is not a power that corrupts or coerces; it is a power that transforms. It is a power grounded in love and grace, healing and hope. It is a power that connects us to Christ and to one another. This power calls us to be at work in fighting injustice and transforming the world. It is a definition of power that is needed right now, and we are invited to embrace it. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Phillips Seminary Stands in Solidarity with Minneapolis Protestors, Calls for Collective Stand to Affirm Beloved Community and Shared Humanity](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/ice/) **Published:** January 24, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ##### By Trista Soendker Nicholson, Interim Director Phillips Theological Seminary continues to stand in solidarity with the overwhelming show of support for beloved community in Minneapolis and calls for continued peaceful protests against government leaders and policies dehumanizing our neighbors throughout the country. The right to protest is Constitutionally protected, and Phillips supports nonviolent protests. The right to peacefully resist should be protected by our civil authorities, and community members who are standing up for the rights and humanity of our neighbors should never be attacked by their government. The actions of the Trump Administration threaten our communities and our rights to protest unjust government actions. The activities of ICE, including the detention of children, citizens and legal immigrants, have already tried to foster an “us vs. them” mentality. Recent actions have exacerbated these divisions, with government officials even demonizing the victims of violence as “domestic terrorists.” **[LINK](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/experts-question-noem-calling-good-a-domestic-terrorist-heres-what-the-term-means)** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/minneapolis-alums-768x1024.jpeg)Several of our Phillips Theological Seminary alums are in Minnesota putting their faith into action and also supporting our alum, Dan Adolphson, Associate Pastor of First Christian Church in Minneapolis. The photo shows our alums (left to right) Joshua Shawnee, Chris Moore, Kelley Becker and Dan Adolphson. Other alums we know who are or have been in Minneapolis taking part in protection and protests include: Michelle Scott-Huffman, David Wheeler, Lori Walke, Sherri Curry and Bob Barrett. Phillips also reaffirms the call for all of us to live into a vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s *Beloved Community*. This vision, commemorated earlier this week, includes standing up against injustice and seeking to create a community bound together by love. A first step of living into this vision together is to courageously stand for nonviolent resistance in the face of horrifically violent acts. We are grateful for the witness of our alums and students in Minneapolis supporting this work in the midst of personal risk. The King Center teaches the fundamental principles of nonviolent resistance, building on Dr. King’s work to forge beloved communities as we resist injustice. In a 1957 speech, “Birth of A New Nation,” Dr. King said, “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness.” **[LINK](https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/)** The Phillips community is invited to review the tenets of King’s philosophy as we continue to resist the policies of the Administration that seek to divide us from one another. The King Center offers resources to help us meet this historical moment and encourages us to reclaim the vision of the Beloved Community again today as we challenge systems of injustice. Engaging this work not only allows us to live into King’s vision of Beloved Community, but more importantly to follow Christ’s call. May we continue to resist situations of injustice and oppression as agents of Christ’s peace. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Introducing Trista Soendker Nicholson, Interim Director](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/introducing-trista-soendker-nicholson-interim-director/) **Published:** January 20, 2026 **Author:** Trista Soendker Nicholson **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Trista-Soendker-Nicholson-300x225.jpg)The Rev. Trista Soendker Nicholson Hi, I am Trista. I am delighted to be joining the team at Phillips Theological Seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. I am currently serving as the center’s interim director, and am completing my PhD work in public theology with Wesley House in Cambridge, UK. Prior to my work in academia, I served as pastor of United Methodist Churches in Missouri, and I also worked in public service and political roles in Washington, DC. I am excited to be engaging in this important work at Phillips. As I begin my tenure and continue the important work started by Gary Peluso-Verdend, I found myself re-reading some of his posts. Those posts continue to resonate as if they were written for today. In 2026, we continue to become what we attend to and we continue to face the tragic consequences of racism and dehumanization. We continue to face systems of oppression, violence, and injustice. On the outside of the [Greenwood Rising](https://www.greenwoodrising.org/) museum is a challenging quote by James Baldwin, “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” We cannot change the reality of today without facing (and owning) our past harms. This is true for both faith and politics. As a nation, we need to confront both the Church and our history.![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/baldwin-quote-wall-1024x577.jpeg) With everything that is unfolding around us, it can be difficult to step back and take the time for the longer view of history. How do you confront historical harm when the house is on fire right now? How do you challenge, in Gary’s words, [“the dominant American myth (deep, defining story),”](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/we-become-what-we-attend-to/) while people are being killed in the name of a White Christian Nationalist version of manifest destiny? Is it possible to do both? As a public theologian, I believe it is important to bring together various theological disciplines to confront what has happened in the past and to change the reality of today. We need to approach these issues as we evaluate the scriptures, as we wrestle with social ethics, and work on caring and listening to one another. These disciplines help us to confront the past in order to transform the reality of today. I believe that Phillips is in a unique position to engage this work of public theology. Alums are already engaging in these actions as they live out their calls to ministry. Faculty members bring their expertise into conversations with one another to help shape the public witness of the church. Congregations are engaged not only in serving their local communities but in seeking to be a part of the transformation of the wider world. Our location in the heart of the United States gives us a strategic advantage for bringing diverse voices together while remaining committed to being a progressive theological voice. With our new Bedford House, there are unlimited opportunities for training and political dialogue. The center’s work will provide resources to both pastors and laity to engage together in the work of public theology. This blog will seek stories of those who are engaged in this work, both confronting the wrongs of the past and highlighting those who are doing the work of dismantling systems of oppression and injustice right now. Sharing our stories provides hope and help in this vital work. We will share resources and best practices to help you as a public theologian, and we want to hear how you are helping to confront the past and to change the world today. I hope you will join us as we explore the ways God is calling us to use our gifts to engage in public theology. I look forward to connecting with you through this blog, our podcasts, public events, and in other ways over the coming months. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Early Judaism and the New Testament Troubling Misunderstandings](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/troubling/) **Published:** September 25, 2025 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** The relationship between Judaism and the New Testament has often been clouded by misinterpretation and bias. On the new episode of Committing Faith in Public, Phillips Theological Seminary President Doug Powe welcomes New Testament scholar and faculty member Dr. Warren Carter to discuss his new co-authored Baker Academic volume, *[Early Judaism and the New Testament: Troubling Misunderstandings](https://bakeracademic.com/p/Early-Judaism-and-the-New-Testament-Warren-Carter/637301).* ### **[![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/early-judaism-and-new-testament.png)](https://bakeracademic.com/p/Early-Judaism-and-the-New-Testament-Warren-Carter/637301)[BOOK LINK](https://bakeracademic.com/p/Early-Judaism-and-the-New-Testament-Warren-Carter/637301)** ### **AUTHOR INFORMATION** **Warren Carter** (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the author of many books, including *Seven Events That Shaped the New Testament World* and *The Roman Empire and the New Testament*. **Ariel Feldman** (PhD, University of Haifa, Israel) is the Rosalyn and Manny Rosenthal Professor of Jewish Studies at Brite Divinity School and Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, where he also directs the Jewish Studies program. He has published several books and articles, most of which deal with the literature of Early Judaism. **BOOK OVERVIEW (from the publisher)** The relationship between Early Judaism and the New Testament is a major issue in biblical studies, one that has impacted Jewish-Christian relations for centuries. This impact has often been negative due to troubling misconceptions of both the New Testament and Jewish writings contemporaneous with it. Misunderstandings have arisen from inaccurate information, religious traditions, and anti-Semitism. Warren Carter and Ariel Feldman address and correct these misconceptions by engaging with the New Testament and major writings from Early Judaism, including the Apocrypha, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as Philo and Josephus. The authors emphasize various interactions among these traditions for the purpose of better interpreting the New Testament and, importantly, avoiding anti-Jewish bias. This is an ideal supplemental textbook for students of the New Testament as well as interested clergy and laity. The text is straightforward and readable, and unlike other books on the topic, it does not assume prior knowledge of Early Judaism or of New Testament engagement with it. Each chapter recognizes troubling misunderstandings that people often have about the interactions between Early Judaism and the New Testament and includes discussion prompts. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Responses to Readers and Reminders Why There is a Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/responses-to-readers-and-reminders-why-there-is-a-center-for-religion-in-public-life-at-phillips/) **Published:** May 19, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![Paper in a typewriter with the word blog typed on it.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/blog-typewriter.jpg)Over the past two weeks, there have been more comments on my blog, or prompted by my blog, than normal. Some of those comments represent real conversation, a relative rarity on social media. Thank you! At the seminary, we appreciate conversations and relevant arguments. I am using this blog post to mash together my responses to some of what was written in response to my blogs. First, some general rules for our posts. As I said above, we at Phillips appreciate conversations and relevant arguments. You’ll note a breadth of responses made by readers, in terms of appreciation and critique. Page editors did not touch those posts. The page editors delete only posts that are completely off-topic, blatantly disrespectful of a person or group, or that are simply dismissive (“that’s bull;” “you’re stupid”). There were a few of those. Second, I am not the seminary. I’ve been employed at Phillips a total of 22 years, and I’ve held numerous positions, including president and now the executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life (a new initiative; see below). But my opinions are mine and not necessarily representative of the seminary. That said, both the seminary and I identify with and seek to strengthen progressive expressions of Protestant Christianity. There are plenty of schools and churches that identify with other expressions of Christianity, and relatively few progressively-oriented schools such as Phillips in the middle of the country. Third, the Center’s purpose is to identify and encourage more expressions of religion in public life that seek to foster a more just, hospitable, and compassionate nation. Thus, the purpose of our work puts the work at the intersections of religion, culture, and politics—paying close attention to the cultural soil from which both religion and politics emerge. Fourth, the separation of church and state is a different realm than the relationships between religion and politics. What makes these realms so interesting, conflicted, powerful, and alive (or deadly, as is sometimes the case) is that the lines between the realms are Swiss-cheesed and movable, which makes paying attention to the separation of church and state (no established religion; free exercise of religion, within limits) necessary and constant. Nations want/need founding myths and often desire the equivalent of sacred canopies (“this is God’s will”), and religions both provide and critique those myths and canopies. I strongly prefer that we religious folks view the political uses of religion with great suspicion—regardless of the administration. Fifth, and as a consequence of what I wrote in four: religion is an important and legitimate warrant for public moral stances. A politician using religion as a warrant for a moral stance is to be expected. But deliberation about moral issues will not be contained within any one religious tradition, or within religious traditions at all. Simply saying “My God expects…” is not a sufficient basis for agreements and legislation. Also, while it is expected and legit that politicians would derive moral standards from their religions, it is not acceptable (from my religious point of view) to cloak oneself in religion or, more likely, when one party or one party’s agenda is said to be “God’s will.” No politician or party should claim to be a magisterium (official teaching authority of a religion). Sixth, some readers objected to my inclusion of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in a list of places where racism shows up in America’s history. I included both documents because of Jefferson’s reference in the Declaration to “savages” who aligned with the King (in the latter part of the document, the part seldom read or referenced in public ceremonies) against the colonists and because of the Constitution’s original designation of enslaved persons as 3/5 of a person, thus de-valuing the personhood of enslaved persons even as the Southern states were awarded extra power to preserve slavery by their presence in the House and in the electoral college. Seventh, a general statement about America’s narratives. In reader comments, I’ve seen the following narratives implicated: American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, America is no worse than other nations. Here is how I see the current debate about America’s story as it intersects with religion. American exceptionalism has an imperial version and a Christian nation version: we are an empire meant to be the light for the world; we are a Christian nation as chosen as ancient Israel was chosen. These two narratives are separable, as some white nationalists are working the stories today (white nationalism without religion). But for much of our history, empire and Christian nationalism are twin engines powering the American train. Those who claim “we’re not worse than anyone else” may be correct, but then we have to give up the “exceptional” claim, which is often a cover for claiming “innocence.” In the wider conversations about America’s origin and destiny, there are some persons who see the American narrative as racist through and through and irredeemable. And there are some of us who see racism throughout but also hold fast to the promise and hope of a nation that can live into liberty and justice for all, in a land of opportunity, where descendants of enslaved persons, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and indigenous persons learn to live well with each other in a way that does provide hope in a world at war with its own diversity. How might America’s religions better contribute to that project? That is a question I’m trying to pursue through the Center’s work. Eighth and finally, for today: some of the blog’s readers believe God looks more favorably upon the current administration than the previous one. I could make guesses as to why one might think that. However, claims of God’s favor always deserve close scrutiny and careful statement, so I’m trying not to assume I know what the readers mean. From my point of view: Last week, as I was working on another project, I found numerous public documents written by religious leaders about state and federal budgets. Whether the budget is a church budget or a government budget, a budget is a moral document. What struck me about the public statements, some by Christians only, some including evangelical leaders, some multi-faith expressions, is they all start with judging the morality of a budget by how the poor and vulnerable are treated. The Buddha, the classical prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Mohammad, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other religious leaders taught of the first importance, in the eyes of God, of caring for the poor and vulnerable, the immigrant and the sick. That principle is fundamental to how I, too, judge the moral agenda of any administration. No administration is blameless when held against this principle, but some are due more judgment than others. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/One-From-Many-Text-with-Outline1-294x300.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-session-2/) **[The One from Many project is online until we can gather again. Be enriched and inspired in about 10 minutes!](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-session-2/)** --- Image Credit: Blog by [Nick Youngson](http://www.nyphotographic.com/) [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) [ImageCreator](http://www.imagecreator.co.uk/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [We Become What We Attend To](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/we-become-what-we-attend-to/) **Published:** January 24, 2023 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *NOTE: In this, my final blog for Phillips Theological Seminary (I retire on January 31 after 29.5 years in theological education and 24.5 at Phillips), I’ve tried to sum up the most important perspectives I’ve formed in the work I’ve been privileged to do for Phillips during the past 3.5 years. My overall calling in being involved in seminary education since 1993 has been the same of the blog: I hope that, when Christians speak on public issues, we have something thoughtful to say. With the blog, I hoped to bring a way of reasoning to a public broader than can attend a graduate seminary. To borrow and adapt a saying from another realm of culture: theology is too important to be left only to theologians. Thank you for reading and considering.* Culture is like soil. If you don’t like the results you’re getting from the soil of culture, look at both what we’re planting and how healthy or toxic the soil is. Racism is a bamboo rhizome in American culture. Its roots are everywhere, and the roots are intertwined with and sometimes nurtured by white Christianity. Both politics and religion live in and express culture. There is a significant overlap between them that cannot be divorced, unlike matters of church and state that can be separated. In the realms of politics and religion, adherents tell formational stories, define what it means to belong, express a moral order, and name what it would take to become the people we really ought to be. Those four cultural expressions are the overlap area in the Venn diagram of politics and religion. The dominant American myth (deep, defining story) is Manifest Destiny. That is comprised of appropriating God’s promises to ancient Israel for eastward-moving white people. Today, this myth is dying a death of a thousand cuts. The danger of living without a deep, defining story is that the nation doesn’t yet have an alternative in which peoples of many origins and ancestries can imagine a “we, the people.” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gpv-recording-in-his-office-small.png)Gary Peluso-Verdend records a lecture for one of the Center for Religion in Public Life’s online courses from his office at Phillips Theological Seminary. Telling American history and a defining myth requires articulating between the stories of those peoples brought here in captivity, of those peoples who lived and flourished here before the colonist-settlers, of those immigrants who in wave after wave were exploited, and of the colonist-settlers from various nations (not only England). Every religion has played one role or another in these stories. Each religious congregation should teach their people whole, unvarnished stories of their faith’s role in American history. This work is especially important in an era when government officials prohibit public schools from telling the whole of American history. Black American Christian theologies and Native America perspectives provide powerful, honest and hopeful alternatives to the dominant narrative. Christianity is as Christians do. A culture does not distinguish between “real” Christians and “false” Christians. “Real Christians don’t do that” is true from an internal perspective but meaningless to those on the receiving end of a Christian’s action. An act of kindness by one who claims to be a Christian and an act of hate by one who claims to be a Christian are both real Christian actions. E Pluribus Unum is a much better motto for the U.S. than the impossible national commitment to “In God We Trust.” The former is also a more worthy aspiration for America’s religions. Never claim spiritual authority for the state or secular jurisdiction for a religion. Civil discourse is a disciplined practice of conversing and arguing with those with whom one deeply disagrees but with whom one must find a way to live and work together. Civil discourse has nothing to do with suppressing voices or being nice. It is one among many methods of dealing with conflict. Religious institutions ought to teach civil discourse as a discipline necessary for community life. The Bible does not speak. The Bible must be read and interpreted. Interpreters ought to claim responsibility for their interpretations rather than deferring to “God said.” A claim made in public must be defensible in public by the human beings who interpret sacred texts. Western Christian theology over many centuries has been dominated by issues of authority and governance and how God acts in history. Western theologians, with exceptions and up until recent decades, have given too little attention to the inseverable relationship between the earth and humankind. Homo sapiens is a life form evolved from the earth rather than one that lives separately from “nature.” The greatest sin (broken relationship) the U.S. can and does commit, which has worldwide impact, is to act as if the earth is ours to do as we please. Perhaps this is also the greatest sin in which religious people are complicit as the planet becomes less habitable for human beings and for thousands of other species. Look at the skies and what humanity sees through telescopes. A 14-billion year old universe full of wonders, all of it connected in ways we are just beginning to fathom. With all we see, we are still the only world we know that sustains developed life, let alone having re-generated life at least four previous times. Our home is a rare, rare, rare place. Those of us who live in wealthier, consumer societies need to learn the practice of saying “enough”—to ourselves. In recent decades, I’ve read numerous theologians who claim it is essential to switch from an attitude of scarcity to an attitude of abundance. That is one valid perspective. But in an economy that produces more and more and more while many lifeforms on earth are choking on human garbage, it seems essential to apply the power of spiritual disciplines to say, “This is enough. I have enough.” We become what we attend to. --- [Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [A Message from Our Home](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/a-message-from-our-home/) **Published:** January 17, 2023 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *With apologies to the author of Job 38:4-30* When your species talks about history, your timeline is too short. Not unimportant but truncated. You’re too focused on yourselves. I need for you to change your timeline and how you see. You and I come from the same Source. Some 14 billion years ago, time and space, matter and antimatter, and energies beyond your powers of imagination exploded and expanded. The “stuff” of you and me began then and there. When some of the materials cooled into stars and planets, I was formed. Several billion years before you evolved, I was formed. No, I did not generate my own life, but I was made to generate life; and I have done so repeatedly, abundantly, with tremendous diversity. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Cosmic_Calendar.png)From me, and from all the beings that preceded you on sea and land, you were formed. I am your mother, the ground from which you draw food and water and air. I am your home from which you dig and cut and manufacture materials for your shelters. I am also your grave. And, by means of decomposers that are as necessary to ongoing life as are clean air and pure water, I will compost you. I have swallowed every past civilization into my ground, my jungles, my forests, my swamps, and my rivers, lakes, and oceans. And I will continue to do so. Do you have any clue how many billions and billions of times life has come from me? I’ve not only survived five catastrophes, such as an asteroid strike, that caused up to 90 percent of surface and ocean life to die. I’ve come back to generate more and different. I am a master of adapting. In your histories, you think of yourselves as all-important, the keystone species, as if everything on and in me was created for you. I need for you to think again. You may damage me by choking every waterway with islands of plastic you’ve foolishly created and stupidly dumped everywhere. You may fracture layers and layers of my crust, draw out your non-human ancestors’ remains to power your lives—at a rate that degrades my best habitats for your species. You may detonate nuclear weapons and cause the end of your own habitat. But I will live on. It may take hundreds of millions of years in the next cycle of life, but new life will succeed you. New species will be replace you. Remember, my timeline has mostly preceded you. It is likely also to succeed you. You cannot conquer me. I am not here for that and neither are you. Look at my history and see cycles rather than “progress.” What in my life moves in a straight line? I revolve. I circle a star. I tilt toward the sun and away. For me there are seasons, one succeeding another in cycles. My oceans rise and fall. Ice caps melt and grow. I have seen species come and go. I’ve seen your civilizations come and go. You think building taller buildings and bigger cities is progress. Yes, they mean you’ve tapped into different resources, drawn from me, than the mound builders of the middle Americas or Mayans who built great structures without metal tools. Different resources but not necessarily better resources. And your ancient ancestors (ancient by your standards, not by mine) did not leave me worse off for subsequent generations, as you have. Progress is a matter of perspective. Your ancestors were much smarter and more complex than you think. And they are gone, just as you will be some day. I am yours to use and enjoy. I am not yours to own. I am not yours to conquer. I am not yours to do as you wish. I am not your garbage dump. You are a part of me. Look at your brain cells, your blood vessels. Compare these with the veins of tree leaves, the patterns of a cluster of grapes, and the chains of microorganisms, roots, and fungi underground. Connections, connections, connection. One part reaching out to connect with another. We are all connected, built on the same patterns. Have you looked into space to see what a rare jewel I am? There are others like me in the universe, but we are, in cosmic terms, scattered. Please, change your timeline, see differently, alter your behavior, and don’t blow the extraordinary gift of life. --- [Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [They’ll Know We are Christians by Whom We Shame and How We Love](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/know-we-are-christians/) **Published:** January 11, 2023 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Early in my ministry, when the United Methodist Church’s arguments about the place of homosexuals among the clergy were a decade old, I recall there was a young queer person who sought ordination. She did not seem cut out to become a symbol. Whoever she was in her personal and private life soon became irrelevant. She was pulled into the vortex of loud, angry, public debate. In my annual conference (a regional expression of church comprised of all clergy and equal numbers of authorized laity), she became the face of the issue. I can’t image the pressure she felt. She committed suicide. When a person is stripped of their personhood to serve as the face of an issue, as either a champion or a target, we’ve moved onto swampy, moral muck. In “the great state of Oklahoma,” where our governor recently claimed his “spiritual authority” to claim every square inch of the space for Jesus, we have a long history of dehumanizing persons by category. Brutalizing Native persons in boarding schools and through schemes to defraud them of their land and mineral rights. Sundown towns to include Black domestic workers by day and to banish them at night. Today, public school teachers who simply want to tell the state’s and the nation’s full history or include all the students in their classrooms are targeted by legislators, the governor, and his secretary of education. And then there are the students. Most public schools in Tulsa and Oklahoma City are comprised of a majority of non-white students, many of which would not recognize whitewashed American or Oklahoma history as their history. And students who identify as queer are supposed to be told they are malformed. How well does anyone learn when subjected to pedagogies of shame and exclusion? How well does anyone learn when told not that they *have* a problem but that they *are* a problem? What words, which framework, what moral universe provides context and fuel for such dehumanization? You know the answer: Christianity. One might object that hating in the name of Jesus is not real Christianity. As I’ve argued previously, each Christian tradition has normative understandings of the tradition—who Christians are, Christianity should be, what Christians should do. And each tradition has a tradition for what persons formed in that tradition actually do. One might call this practical Christianity or functional Christianity. [![](https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/ir164_holy-hate_westboro-tiller-protest-112896171.jpg)](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/holy-hate-far-right’s-radicalization-religion)Well, when someone is on the receiving end of action by a Christian who is motivated by what that Christian understands as Christianity, the person receiving that action does not care about the distinction between normative and functional. For the recipient, that received action IS a Christian action. Therefore, those persons who kill abortion doctors in the name of Jesus, or stand with their signs and shout about hell on the sidelines of a Pride parade, or batter a girl in a boarding school for speaking her native language, or sell healing in exchange for a donation are all being who Christians are and doing what Christians do—from the perspective of those on the receiving end of their actions. This means Christianity is brutal because some Christians are brutal. Christianity is hateful because some Christians are hateful. Not only brutal and not only hateful but also brutal and hateful. A favorite song from my youth group and youth ministry days is *They’ll Know We are Christians by our Love*. One verse pledges “And we’ll guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.” I believe that verse provides a worthy public ethic for Christians, including those who hold office, legislate, and set context. Much better than they’ll know we are Christians by who we shame and exclude. --- [Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Public Faces of Religion to Watch in 2023](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-watch-in-2023/) **Published:** January 3, 2023 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gpv-2023-list.png)As the new calendar year dawns, pundits and journalists often review the top stories of the previous year or predict which will be the big stories of the new year. For such stories I trust the [Public Religion Research Institute](https://www.prri.org/), the [Religion News Service](https://religionnews.com/), and [The Christian Century](https://www.christiancentury.org/). I’m neither reviewing nor predicting. The following are simply religion-in-public matters to which I’ll be paying attention in the new year. In no particular order: - Will religious congregations across the theological spectrum become louder in ringing the alarm for the *urgency* of action to avert catastrophic climate change? Working to reverse the damage human actions have caused to the planet should be viewed as the issue that, if we don’t address it adequately, will worsen suffering for every living being and for the yet-to-be-born. Theologies of salvation, so often in Christian history pointing to the realm of life after death, could be re-purposed: rather than asking “Are you saved?”, we might ask, “What are you and your congregation doing to save all living things, born and yet-to-be-born, from ecological disaster?” Yes, I see the shifts in that language, including from God’s action to ours. In this matter, the shift is critical. - What role will religion-in-public play in the extended run-up to the 2024 elections? A minority of the population holds dearly to the narratives of white Christian nationalism, and then there is another cohort comprised of “influenced by” but not true believers. How about the rest of us? - Will local communities resist national polarizing narratives and form coalitions across the democracy-positive political spectrums? In my participation in [Braver Angels](https://braverangels.org/), I’ve met Oklahomans who are doing just that. For those of us who identify as socially and theologically progressive, we’ve listened—and should be listening—to scholars who have been scraping away colonizer plaster and whitewash and raising their voices for suppressed and oppressed communities. But, as William Barber and Liz Theoharis have shown in the Moral Mondays Movement and [Repairers of the Breech](https://www.breachrepairers.org/), complex coalitions of persons with crisscrossing identities and viewpoints are possible. Who is building such coalitions locally, and including religious communities? - For four decades, the Christian Right effectively chipped away at abortion access, including by claiming the moral high ground of being pro-life. But the state bans currently being enacted are being challenged on religious grounds. How will the debates about when life begins, what life means, and the relationships between the mother, the fetus, and local communities be influenced by the rest of us who are religious but not of the Christian Right? - Will public education, one of the truly great American ideas, in Southern and some Western states survive the push to give public tax dollars to parents for school vouchers or directly to religious schools? - Will in-person attendance in worshiping congregations increase in the post-crisis COVID world or will the pandemic become a permanently-open trapdoor under what had already been declining worship frequency? - The federal government’s COVID crisis response enabled religious organizations to apply for relief funds. Some congregations used a portion of those funds to upgrade their technology, especially their ability to connect with friends, seekers, and congregants who can’t or choose not to be in the building. Good! But, as we’ve learned in theological education in the shift to requiring internet-delivered technology for teaching: technology wears out and must be replaced. Trained people are needed to run the technology and problem-solve in real time. Equipment, software, and people represent expenses, substantial expenses. From where will those additional funds come? - The United Methodist Church, in its former incarnations, was once the exemplar of white mainline Protestantism throughout much of the nation. Some historians call the 1800s “the Methodist Century.” Thirty years ago, in an advising session, Martin Marty said to me: “Here’s my take. Methodists used to run the show. They don’t anymore. No one’s told them.” Magnify those comments today. As my beloved denomination is splintering, its cultural influence is now local only, except through some institutions of higher education. No one nationally is trembling, as they did when we split over slavery (and over who can tell a bishop what to do) in 1844, because congregations of The UMC are leaving. - Which directions will white Christianity move in regard to race, ethnicity, immigration and making the transition into a multi-cultural democracy? Surveys indicate nearly half of white mainline and Catholic congregations preferred the picture of the walled, white dominant U.S. proffered by the former president. It is also the case that predominantly white mainline congregations have [positively influenced cultural liberalization](https://www.amazon.com/Christianitys-American-Fate-Religion-Conservative/dp/0691233888/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3CD07S4P6RRUW&keywords=christianity+american+fate&qid=1670623479&sprefix=christianity+amer%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1). - Will Christians of any stripe be able to cut through the din of mutual condemnations and resist the politics of excommunication of those not sufficiently pure—political tactics that share much with the worst of religion? And can we offer a message and practices that sound and look like gospel, like good news, full of hope, joy, love, justice, repair, forgiveness, and—yes—reconciliation or, at least, conciliation? **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Linus, I Need to Hear "The Story" Again](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/linus-story-again/) **Published:** December 20, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Historian David Hollinger argues that liberal, ecumenical, old-mainline Christianity in the U.S. prepared a sizeable part of the population to shift toward more tolerant and accepting attitudes. He credits moderate-to-liberal Protestant Christianity for remarkable social changes in stances toward birth control, women’s roles, race relations, and acceptance of same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ persons. [Hollinger’s most recent book](https://www.amazon.com/Christianitys-American-Fate-Religion-Conservative/dp/0691233888/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UIM3S3UD4096&keywords=david+hollinger&qid=1671543850&sprefix=david+hollin%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-1), *Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became more Conservative and Society More Secular*, sits on my desk and awaits the holiday break. ([In his previous work](https://www.amazon.com/After-Cloven-Tongues-Fire-Protestant/dp/0691158428/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3UIM3S3UD4096&keywords=david+hollinger&qid=1671543892&sprefix=david+hollin%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-5), Hollinger argued the liberal Christianity’s mark on the culture is much broader and more positive than many leaders and critics assert and deserve more praise and fewer *mea culpas*.) If Hollinger is right, which at least for the moment I am going to assume he is, then I wonder how his insight might change what I’ve been thinking about Christmas. For much of my life, Christmas has been my favorite time of the year. The sounds of classical songs and carols, the smells of vermicelli and shrimp (Christmas Eve), the sight of little ones in darling outfits and lights everywhere, special evenings with family, and raising up the candles on Christmas Eve at the close of Silent Night—I do love these. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/linus-charlie-brown-christmas-300x200.jpeg)But increasingly, I identify with Charlie Brown searching for the meaning of the season. I’ve written previously about the strategic placement by the early Western church of Christmas on the calendar and the repeated attempts through history to stamp out the bacchanalian and violence-threatening traditions associated with the winter solstice (think “office Christmas party” before “Me-Too” and add a few holstered guns). [In the past year or two, I discovered the research](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/destructive-time-of-year/), conducted mostly outside the U.S., on Christmas being the worst season of the year for planetary destruction: carbon footprint, manufacture of plastic this and that, detritus burned-landfilled-dumped-in-oceans. The worst country for these practices? The U.S. It is true, Christmas has secular roots that have never been killed. And the way we celebrate Christmas in rich countries, most especially in the U.S., is awful for the planet. Should I succumb to Lucy’s pessimism: Christmas is run, not so much by an Eastern syndicate as she alleged, but by greed parading in the costume of beneficent St. Nick? But, if I employ Hollinger’s insight, is it possible that in the midst of the secular, commercial, capitalist profiteering of this season, there is yet a live spiritual root also? Consider: - Would financial giving to many causes be as generous as it is without the spirit of Christmas? - Would the oft-repeated story of Scrooge, the miserly and bitter rich person whose life was changed in a night (and who gave reparations for the rest of his life), be so popular if we did not have hope for change and redemption? - There is a tradition of Christmas ceasefires in battle zones. Perhaps killing “the enemy” while marking the birth of the Prince of Peace is too much cognitive dissonance for all but those whose humanity is most damaged. - All those secular Christmas movies (*Home Alone* and *It’s a Wonderful Life*) in which family reunification and the triumph of friendship and love are celebrated—would these themes draw us in again and again if the Spirit of Christmas were truly spent? - Why can Linus’ recitation, which I’ve watched nearly every one of the last 57 years, still move me to tears of awe and joy? One could counter that all the above represents Band-Aids bought or applied to wounds inflicted by the very persons, causes, and systems that caused the pain. Maybe. Tolerance is not acceptance. Charity is not justice. Withheld hate is not love. A ceasefire is not peace. One can love every minute of a Christmas Eve service and still be a jerk to relatives the following afternoon. But why continue to associate these virtues with the Christmas season? Maybe something of the real meaning of Christmas is alive within and underneath all the lights, glitter, and waste. And Linus is the prophet, appearing annually, to proclaim again the why to a forgetful world. Now, if we could just elevate the virtues and diminish the other stuff. --- [Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [We Belong to the Earth and Not Vice Versa](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/belong-to-the-earth/) **Published:** December 13, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/artemis-earth-300x169.png)Once again, a human-made object takes a picture of the earth from near the moon. Once again, everyone who sees the picture is reminded of how rare the earth is. As far as we can see, whether from a moon capsule or the Webb telescope, we’ve not yet seen another orb with blue seas and green lands. I’m convinced there are others out there and other sentient beings. For God would not be so stingy or stupid as to put all the cosmic eggs for sentient life in one basket. So, given what we know about how rare the earth is, why do the most technologically developed societies on this planet seem so intent on pushing the 5th extinction event in the planet’s 4.5 billion year history? One could point to the human disposition, at least in individual-oriented societies, to see everything as if we are the center of the universe; there is that powerful, false belief, yes. But, increasingly over the last several years, I’ve been convinced the distinction between nature and history is a fundamental flaw in thinking and living. That distinction is rooted in the belief that the human species is separate from nature. In this perspective, human beings take nature and improve on it, manipulate it, tame it, conquer it for our benefit. Examples are legion, from mineral and fossil fuel extraction to industrial monocultural agriculture (which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels) to wrapping nearly everything in near-eternal plastics. What if nature and history are not distinct realms? What if human beings are neither the unique pinnacle of God’s creation nor the species for whom this exceeding rare jewel of a planet exists? What if the earth is the most wondrous creation known to humankind rather than we ourselves? Consider with me. Life on earth has survived through four planetary extinction events. There have been millions of species, not only plants and animals but bacteria and viruses and spores. Mushrooms may be something other than plant or animal! Remember the line made famous by the Jurassic Park movies: life will find a way. The power in the earth to regenerate life and innovate is beyond comprehension. We once thought we were the only “intelligent life” on the planet (all jokes aside). But now we know that is bunk. Whales, dolphins, elephants, and octopi are just a few of creatures that apparently “feel” and “think” in ways we once thought were reserved for humans. Connections. Do trees talk to each other via the chains of microorganisms in the soil? Likely. Dung beetles navigate by the stars. Have you ever looked up at the tips of a tree branch after dropping its leaves in the fall, then looked at the bare ends of a cluster of grapes you just ate, and then glanced at the veins on the backs of your hands? Same pattern. Connections, obvious and yet to be discovered, are everywhere. Walk a ranch in western Oklahoma. Look at the abandoned buildings collapsing back into the earth. Stare down at the ground, strewn with sun-bleached disintegrating bones of animals who died on that spot. Call to mind what happens to our bodies when we die. As a funeral director once told me, no casket or vault ultimately prevents “nature” from having its way. Composting human remains is a “newer” practice in our Western world. But isn’t that fundamentally what the earth has been doing with all her children for all the small part of global history we’ve been around? The earth, and maybe a comet’s tail sweep or two, have been the source of all of life and the materials human beings use to fashion our lives. Again and again. The earth does not belong to us. We, the human species, belong to the earth. And the earth belongs to God. In the book of Genesis, Adamah (river mud) is the substance from which God made Adam and breathed into him the breath of life. Adam is Earth Man, Earthling. Adam and Eve are set in the garden to till and keep it. But in a few chapters after that beginning, they are doing hard labor, one son murders the other, cities are founded, human hubris grows, land is battled for, families fight bitterly and deceive often, a brother is sold into slavery—an action that brings grief, then relief, then enslavement to a whole people. Freedom from that enslavement came to be tightly tied to occupying a particular piece of land and a people’s history with that land. That land, most unfortunately, sits at the intersection of clashing real and wannabe empires—since the dawn of civilization. Early Christians took that freedom from enslavement to mean freedom from sin and death, which one could say was understood as freedom from being an Earthling, and the battle is against everyone who does not believe in Christianity’s singular truth. Regardless of whether or not these transmutations were a mistake in the early centuries of Christianity, they are unhelpful beliefs today for a planet in crisis. In Oklahoma, we love to sing the title song from the musical *Oklahoma,* “You know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand.” Perhaps the greatest challenge slapping the human species is living as if that line is true. --- [Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Government as the Church Militant is ALWAYS a Terrible Idea](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/church-militant-terrible-idea/) **Published:** December 6, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** A Prayer by the Oklahoma Governor, 2022, speaking in front of the state Capitol, > “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name of Jesus. Father, we can do nothing apart from you. We don’t battle against flesh and blood but against principalities and darkness. > > And Father, we just come against that, we just loose your will over our state right now in the name of Jesus. We just thank you and we claim Oklahoma for you as the authority that I have as governor and the spiritual authority and the physical authority that you give me. > > I claim Oklahoma for you that we will be a light to our country and to the world. We thank you that your will was done on Tuesday and Father, that you will have your way with our state, with our education system, with everything within the walls behind me. > > Lord, we pray that you will root out corruption and bring the right people into this building.” From [Pope Boniface VIII, CE 1302](http://media.bloomsbury.com/rep/files/primary-source-39-boniface-unam-sanctam.pdf), altered from papal supremacy to gubernatorial supremacy to fit the words of the Oklahoma Governor. > By the words of the gospel we are taught that the two swords, namely, the spiritual authority and the temporal, are in the power of the *state*. …Whoever denies that the spiritual sword is in the power of the *governor* does not properly understand the word of the Lord when He said: “Put up thy sword into the sheath” \[John, xviii. 11\]. Both swords, therefore, the spiritual and the temporal, are in the power of the *State*. The former is to be used by the *state*, the latter for the *state*… Moreover, it is necessary for one sword to be under the other, and *the spiritual authority to be subjected to the temporal*; for the apostle says, “For there is no power but of God: and the powers that be are ordained of God” \[Rom., xiii. 1\]. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hans_Bornemann_-_Zweischwerterlehre-198x300.jpg)The genius of the U.S. Constitution resides in the words of the preamble: “We the people…” Not “In the name of God, amen.” Despite about 200 attempts in history (including the 20th century) to shoehorn some version of God into the Constitution, the document remains without reference to deity. That, I will always assert, is a good thing. In philosophy, one distinguishes between theoretical reason and practical reason. Theoretical reason is about first principles. In classical philosophy, first principles are unchanging. A first principle is eternally true. Theology, as done by classical theologians, is a matter of discerning first principles and then using logic to derive sub-principles and rules of conduct. Practical reasoning is reasoning about things that could be other than what they are, about matters that are changeable, contingent. I am amongst those who argue that doing theology involves a lively argument between principles and practice rather than deduction alone. Politics is and must be seen as an exercise in practical reason rather than theoretical reason. That is not to say there are no principles in politics—er, ah, well, there should be principled politics! But politics, like public morality, involves matters that could be other than what they are, things that are changeable. But when politics becomes a matter of “therefores” derived from first principles, politics has entered very dangerous territory. Here’s a principle that was meant to safeguard abuses of power and the integrity of two different realms: neither religious leaders nor secular authorities ought to claim “both swords,” as Boniface VIII put it when he claimed both spiritual and temporary authority, with the power to delegate temporary authority to a regent. One cannot understand the rise of universities, secular law, capitalism, the Reformation, the development of nation states, democracy, or the United States Constitution per se without seeing the role that separation of powers played and plays. Or, should I say, without understanding the role that suspicion of unchecked power played and plays? *Bringing religious first principles to bear on politics imposes an order, in particular a moral order, on politics that transmutes politics from the realm of practical reason into the realm of theoretical reason*. Making that category mistake can and HAS led to persecution, second-class citizens, disenfranchisement, torture, war, and death. That category mistake makes enemies of God out of political opponents and heretics and apostates out of citizens who dissent from the dominant order. An elected governor cannot claim a state for Jesus and does not hold the sword of the spirit. And when a governor invokes the language of spiritual warfare in front of the Capitol, we all should see red flags waving. In Christianity, one sometimes hears the distinction between the church militant and the church triumphant. The former refers to the church on earth, the latter in heaven. Some Catholics have claimed the church militant term in a radical way: the church is FIGHTING for God and against the enemies of God. That rhetoric has a long, damage-strewn history in the church. And that rhetoric has a long, even-more-damage-strewn history in secular society. Evangelical Christians, who claim the martyrs Hus and Wycliffe as their own—two men who were pierced by those wielding the two swords—should be as outraged by hearing church militant language by the governor as the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Native American Church, and hosts of other Oklahomans–including many Christians–are by the claim to a power that is not his. --- [Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Misshapen by Deception](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/misshapen-by-deception/) **Published:** November 29, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Deception is hardly new. The serpent lied to Eve. Cain lied to God. Laban and Jacob deceived each other so badly they had to set up a cairn as a marker and reminder not to cross into each other’s path. One of the business practices the prophets condemned nearly three millennia ago was using fraudulent scales. Deception is not new, but we are in our day have nearly perfected it. And no one person can even comprehend all the ways our lives rest on lies. No wonder we feel anxious, suspicious, and fearful. Before you get out of bed, you’re lying on a mattress of some sort. Most newer mattresses are loaded with newer chemical compositions (thousands of them) which are untested, for the long term, regarding our health. For a third of our lives. But the mattresses are sold as wondrously healthy for our sleep. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/wonder-bread-300x207.jpeg)You go to the kitchen and prepare breakfast. You pour cereal, milk, and orange juice. Each is in a package that looks identical to the products you bought a few years ago. But “[shrinkflation](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/08/1103766334/shrinkflation-globally-manufacturers-shrink-package-sizes)” means you’ve paid more for less on everything. While eating breakfast, you scroll through the news and social media. While you try to read, ads for all sorts of, ah, “things that will make you and your life better,” constantly move about like a blower-driven noodle in front of a payday loan business. “Hey, look here!!” The ads make bold claims about how taking this supplement, wearing these clothes, driving this car, eating this superfood, doing this brain-teaser will make you happy, healthy, and wise. Right. And social media companies and feeds? Snakes in the garden, telling us what the human-created algorithm directs us to see. But what about everything else going on that the algorithm “decides” to leave out? And have you ever taken one of those quizzes on social media that might include a birthday, favorite childhood food or TV show, or what’s on your bucket list? All designed to capture information from us to sell our data and tailor ads designed to sell us what we are told—repeatedly—that we need. Food. Some years back chef Jaime Oliver produced a short-lived TV series focused on a town in West Virginia (*Food Revolution*) with among the highest rates of childhood obesity. In one classroom scene with elementary or middle school kids, he showed them baskets of garden-grown vegetables and tubers. He held up a potato. Most of the kids did not know what it was. The he held up a picture or package of fast-food French fries and all the kids recognized them immediately. All the kids knew were processed foods. While society’s inclination is to blame individuals for their lack of eating control, [recent research](https://www.insider.com/highly-processed-foods-are-addictive-like-tobacco-research-addiction-journal-2022-11) points to the success of processed food corporations designing products to lure us into their world, and keep us there. Processors have perfected the addictive ingredients and smells of their products, hitting the “[bliss point](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/16/459981099/how-the-food-industry-helps-engineer-our-cravings)” of the brain with precision. In a similar way to how a Disney resort invites you into their world and designs everything to keep you there, and many apps are designed to keep you within their app, [the business model of food processors is to keep us eating their food](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/books/review/hooked-michael-moss.html?searchResultPosition=1). But what if, as the new studies seem to confirm, the foods are inherently unhealthy? And, even so-called healthy foods are sold by showing us a picture of a great mound of it while a healthy serving is really a quarter cup, or the foods are sold as “fresh” but are grown in soil that passes toxic chemicals all through the food chain. Here’s the nature of the traps: unless one lives on a property that is self-contained, off the grid (and therefore not reading this blog), that produces or harnesses all your food and energy and raw materials, one cannot see and know all the ways we are being misled, with intentions that are designed in the interest of market share and profit rather than our well-being. I know. I know. There are excellent companies, for profit and non-profit businesses—such as houses of worship and local small businesses—that have integrity, that sell what they say they sell, that are honest and helpful. But my gosh, there are so many that are NOT. One could say much more about deception, ranging from Prosperity Gospel preachers to the fiction of plastic recycling to political campaign ads and constituent letters… How can we know the difference between reality and spin? I used to think information curators, such as reputable schools, libraries, journalists, and non-profits, could help us. And they do—except that reputable sources are now viewed through the same polarized lenses. Finding curators trusted by more than one side is very hard. So, I have my facts and you have yours. We wonder why we are anxious, defensive, fearful, and lack trust. Perhaps it is because we are, in scores and scores of ways, being assaulted by deceptions from the time we awake until the time we hit the pillow. And no one can be “a responsible consumer” for everything one consumes. William James wrote that we become what we attend to. The founders of our religions said something similar. We live today in an ecology of deception; we all attend to and make decisions based on deceptions. What, then, are we becoming? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Woke or Awakening?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/woke-or-awakening/) **Published:** November 15, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** (Note: after writing this blog, I discovered there is a substantial, serious literature from conservative voices claiming that “woke” and “awake” represent very different religious values and social mandates. It is a literature with which I should become acquainted. But I did not write the following with a woke/awake dichotomy in mind. My point of view is different.) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/GPV-Woke-Quote.png)“Folks, Oklahoma won’t go woke.” That’s a theme Secretary of Education Ryan Walters repeated on election night. The secretary has often sounded that theme, or alarm. [He defines woke this way](https://www.claremoreprogress.com/oklahoma/lawmakers-can-t-agree-on-definition-of-woke/article_e3fee678-bf56-11ec-87b1-7f2a14658b06.html): “ ‘Wokeness’ is this belief that you need to change drastically society…. It is an attack on the family unit. It is an attack on the values that have made America great. It is an attack on America and American exceptionalism.”’ He links wokeness to “indoctrination” and silencing, or canceling, dissenting voices. The Oxford English Dictionary offers a different definition of “woke” (and Merriam-Webster’s take is very close to the OED): “Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in stay woke (often used as an exhortation).” In Oklahoma, according to the secretary, anti-wokeness means we will “empower parents,” channel funding from public education toward private schools through vouchers (despite the reality of the dearth of private schools in rural areas), and teach students a state-enforced “correct” view of American and state history. But no indoctrination. If we look at these beliefs and policies from the clashing definition of the OED, then one might conclude Oklahomans shall not be well-informed or up-to-date in education; and we will not be alert to social discrimination and injustice. Hmmm. So, I’ve been wondering: Is being woke anything like being “awake?” From the point of view of religions, being awake is essential to right living. After the Buddha experienced enlightenment, he was asked what he was. His answer: “I am awake.” When Jesus taught his followers how to be ready to receive God’s Reign that would replace Rome’s Reign, he admonished them to stay awake. Abraham and Jacob, Joseph (Jacob’s son), Joseph and Mary—among others—received dreams from which they woke and then acted in the direction the dreams pointed. “Light” and “sunrise” are critical symbols in many religions and are associated with being awake or awakening, as distinct from sitting in the darkness of ignorance and/or oppression. Two of the mass Christian movement periods in American history are the first and second “great awakenings.” Being awake or, more accurately for most people, becoming awake means seeing and hearing clearly, attending to what is really going on without the distorting powers of fear, worry, or anxiety. Choose your spiritual discipline: prayer, contemplation, meditation, yoga, *lectio divina*, singing, gardening, chop wood, carry water. One of the hoped-for experiences derived from long attention to a spiritual practice is becoming more awake: seeing the world, seeing ourselves, seeing God, seeing relationships and connections more clearly. Now, no religious adept person claimed becoming awake would be comfortable or easy. Becoming awake is more like being born: pushed out of a cozy, contained, warm space into a world where you have to breathe, where you get cold, where you have to work to eat; a noisy world and you may need a slap on the rump or a suction device stuck into your mouth or nose to get you going. And one more thing about becoming awake: you’ll see yourself, the world, and the Ultimate differently from when you were asleep or living in twilight. Like Neo’s character in the Matrix series who comes to see the real world, one cannot unsee a shock-awake revelation. A people who would become awake to discrimination and injustice might indeed demand “drastic” changes in a state that incarcerates, punishes, impoverishes, and under-educates more than the national average; where the “right to discriminate” is supported by some religious leaders, and whose citizenry is burdened with mind-and-body infirmities that make abundant living very, very difficult. Perhaps our leaders are using “woke” as a slur because they fear what an awake citizenry might see, hear, attend to—and demand. Am I “woke”? No, I would not claim that state of being. But I would claim “becoming awake.” To paraphrase Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, who was speaking of the lifelong journey to be made complete in and by love: if you’re not walking a path of becoming awake, where are you going? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Three Earthquake-level Changes in Seminary Education](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/three-earthquakes-seminary-education/) **Published:** November 9, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** From 1977 to 1981, I was a seminary student. From 1993 until the present, I’ve been an educator in graduate theological seminaries. Every level of education has been changed, most radically, since 1977. Here are three of the most significant changes I’ve seen and experienced in seminary life. There are many others, such as accreditation, evaluation, the shift from what we think we’re teaching to what students are learning, expanded staffs to raise endowments, what “diversity” means and who it includes and excludes, faculty composition and recruitment and institutional expectations, what are the ministry positions seminaries are preparing students for. (My comments are limited to mainline Protestant seminaries. In the same time period, Catholic seminaries have also changed in many ways, not least of which are the expansion of programs for laity and educating priests who come from Africa and parts of Asia. Evangelical schools have expanded to include the majority of all seminary students in the U.S.) The transformation of the word space to include digitally-created space is one of the most radical changes. In 1981, all classes were in-person. While it was not true that everyone who attended classes lived on campus or made the seminary a primary community, we studied in the same physical space. That also meant students had to move to seminary, or at least within a sustainable commuting distance. And potentially competing seminaries needed either to lure students their way or establish a branch campus. Professors lectured and taught Socratically as they had been taught. Doing research meant going to the library. Today, a school anywhere can, potentially, be a competitor school anywhere. How a seminary can be a place of formation and not simply information is an endemic challenge. Students do not have to relocate in order to complete a degree (and oh what vituperative utterances I heard from seminary graduates of yesteryear when Phillips first moved assertively into the online space—as if students who did not move were not serious about their callings. Argh.) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Various-challenges-faced-by-the-faculty-members-during-online-teaching-n-80.png)And faculty: no more pencil-written, margin-noted yellow legal pads. In addition to knowing their discipline and feeding their minds and professional obligations, faculty must learn digital teaching tools which themselves keep evolving. One might have assumed faculty were course designers, for they were and are. But having a course design specialist in a seminary is moving from luxury to necessity. And consider the challenges of recruiting when your students might come from anywhere and be able to attend dozens of schools! Marketing—connecting who and what you are with persons who would love to share in what a school has to offer—has never been more essential or more difficult for graduate theological education. Second, throughout college and seminary, I learned the historical critical method of biblical studies: through history, archeology, word-studies, literary analysis, and establishing the *Sitz im Leben*—the life setting—one tried to imagine the meaning the text might have occupied with the original audiences, or at least the author or editor. Only then should one venture a hermeneutical tie to present-day faith communities. For at least my first decade as a theological educator, this historical-critical perspective challenged dozens and dozens of students raised without such tools to reconsider their fundamental assumptions about who Jesus was and is. Those tools were essential to the cognitive dissonance of theological education. Today, the method that was and is meaningful for me has been identified for what it is: embedded with Anglo-Saxon, male, privileged assumptions about, well, nearly everything, but especially important are the assumptions about the centering of one’s own social location as THE God’s eye context, about what reason and rationality mean, about spirituality (inferior to reason), progress and evolution of thought. Back in 1981, liberation theologies were known and developing. Whether the matrix of development was Latin American, Black America, Native America, or feminism, liberation theologies assumed the dominance of German theological methodology for biblical studies and theology. Those liberation theologians had to address the North American, Northern European cultural contexts in order to push off from them and show what theology and studying the Bible looked like from local communities, including “the least of these.” Today, theology done from within local communities, sometimes at the intersection of salient social boundaries and sometimes from within a very particular community, occupies much more space in seminary classes and on library shelves/databases. Historical critical study is not gone but it and the communities and timeframes it privileged are simply options among the many, vibrant possibilities for connecting with scripture, making meaning, and seeking liberation for abundant life. A third major change I’d identify is this: ministry today is very, very difficult. When I graduated seminary in 1981, I assumed I could have a career in ministry. I’d be appointed to a first church, and then a bigger one, and then a bigger or different one, at least a lateral move. I would have been wrong about the path but the assumption about having a career was not unreasonable. What I did not consider then, in addition to the huge matter of my move from congregational ministry to higher education, included the following: - The decline of the mainline church, begun in the middle 1960s, would not abate. There is no longer a pyramid of appointments; middle sized churches are nearly gone and many, but not all, larger churches carry fewer staff. (Most mainline seminaries could not survive today without both an ecumenical student body and distance education. We mainliners still have almost as many seminaries as we did when we had double the membership.) - The multiplication of women and racial-ethnic minorities into ministry (women regularly comprise more than 50 percent of enrolled students), and the (in some places) opening appointments to cross-cultural and cross-racial candidates, mean more competition for the “best” appointments than my younger, privileged-blindered self assumed would have been in line for me. - There was certainly polarization in church and society in 1981. And there were, as there have always been, unbalanced persons who could, in a volunteer organization, wreak havoc and chaos with everyone waiting for the pastor “to do something.” But that polarization is nothing like today, driven by moral emotions tied to partisan politics. The rise in church conflict through the decades, as also churches were being displaced from their previously privileged cultural positions while congregational memberships were also in many cases decimated, has taken a great toll on clergy. After all, I’ve been a member of a denomination in numerical decline since I was 10 years old. I don’t remember talking much about “pastoral resilience” in 1981, and we were not encouraged in seminary to develop and embody spiritual practices, other than prayer and Bible study. One of my classmates told me recently only a handful of the 50 or 60 have worked until retirement age in an identifiable ministry. Most of us left. We have not been the most resilient cohort. Teaching and, even more, *training* persons to be more resilient, need spaces in either the seminary’s curriculum or in a denomination’s ministerial formation programs, or both. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Forty Years of Change, or Not, in Church and Culture](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/40-years-of-change/) **Published:** November 1, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** As I near retirement from my full-time work (January 31), I’ve been reflecting on what has changed—and not—over the 41 years of my post-seminary ministries in congregations and graduate education. Here is a sampling of my thoughts about Protestant churches and social issues over the last four decades. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/back-in-1981-858x1024.png)](https://www.etsy.com/listing/585073940/back-in-1981-printable-newspaper-poster)In 1981, America was majority white, Christian, and Protestant. Today, the nation is no longer majority Protestant. If trends continue, the Christian majority will pass in about 20 years. And, depending on how one defines “white” and “non-white”—which are terribly imprecise terms derived from racist premises—the majority of the nation will no longer claim the designation “white” at about the same time as the Christian majority passes. Today, these trends challenge every community whose place in the social order is changing (which is all of them) to re-think themselves. That is hard work, regardless of whether a demographic is “rising” or “descending.” The shrinking of mainline congregations is part of much larger trends and can’t be pinned simply on internal factors. The mainline was, significantly, formed by cultural forces and is being dismantled by cultural forces. In the 1980s, many liberals alleged the numerical decline should be pinned on faulty leadership. Indeed, mainline churches often were really lousy at either evangelism (an embarrassing practice from a bygone era) or just welcoming new people. But a very significant segment of the culture, especially European-heritage cultures, was disconnecting from religious communities. Church opposition to abortion, women’s roles and rights, and issues related to sexuality did divide. But it took us all some time to reckon with the phenomenon of “I’m just not interested.” In 1981, the sound of the word “none” was spelled only one way: nun. In 1981, churches did not want to sell their property as they shrank. Today, the biggest asset many churches have is the commercial value of their property—or the ministry value of their property for matters such as affordable housing. “Leadership” was a dirty word in seminary in 1981. It implied white, male, and hierarchical. The preferred word was “enabler.” Since then, leadership has become THE word for what is needed or lacking, albeit not limited to white, male, hierarchical models. And “enabler” is now the dirty word. Political rhetoric was plenty hot then and now. The so-called “big sort,” of Reds and Blues sharpening the lines between them and moving to places (cities or suburbs or small towns) to be with like-minded people, was just underway in 1981. There were still moderates in both major political parties. But the political morality of the Reagan years polarized the nation: increasing defense spending, aligning with religious conservatives, implementing the Southern Strategy (such as substituting “welfare mother” for “Black”), and dismantling the New Deal and Great Society forms of government. Liberals (the preferred term at the time; “progressive” was still associated with the early 20th century political movement) hated Reagan’s policies, and some liberals hated the man. But all that was before the internet, social media, and semi-automatic weapons carried by civilians in public. Yes, polarization today IS worse than in 1981. As many commentators have said, doing church in pre-internet days was based primarily on assumptions from the worlds of oral and print communications. The revolutions that accompany digital communications and spaces are, in 2022, probably near their beginning. More disruption of those print and oral cultures, in favor of visual-emotional-immerse experiences, to come. From a liberal or progressive perspective, justice issues have multiplied and become ever more complex. I think nearly every issue, from climate change to racism to inhumane incarceration to trans-rights, was around in 1981 (not at the same level, e.g. the Three Strikes Law had not yet swelled prisons). But the matrix of them—and acting on the matrix of them for a person or community who wants to be “on the right side of history”—is not without its contradictions and proffered hierarchies of claims. Talk to leaders and members of any community that claims to be “inclusive” to verify the difficulty, if not impossibility, of claiming that attribute. That said, in 1981 marriage equality as the law of the land was unthinkable. “Race” in the dominant culture still meant black and white (except in Southern border states). Today’s complexity is daunting but necessary. And the relationship between justice matters will continue to morph. All of my ministry years have been influenced by the presence of the Religious Right in public life. The Moral Majority. The Christian Coalition. Praying away hurricanes and declaring 9/11 was caused by liberals, feminists, and gay people. The Tea Party. Christian Nationalism. Liberty University and Hillsdale College. As I’ve argued previously, there is a religious left but it is not a parallel to the Religious Right. Funding, institution-building, focus on pipelines from home schooling through federal judges, news outlets, and alignment with allegedly God-picked politicians all make the Religious Right many orders of magnitude different from a religious left. I did not hear anything about white Christian nationalism in 1981. That ideology was around but it did not have the public traction it does now. That movement now threatens the integrity of Christianity and the very being of the nation. Nuclear war was the greatest global fear then. Climate catastrophe is the biggest one now. But, even in 1981, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union acted from the “strategy” of mutually assured destruction (MAD) and each side could rain so many bombs on the other that each could “make the rubble bounce,” immediate loss of life was one concern. Rendering the planet uninhabitable was the other. And, it was controversial to bring up nuclear war in a sermon. Almost every congregation was populated with persons who voted for both parties. And today, nuclear war again joins climate change in our worries Battles over how to interpret the Bible regarding gender and sexuality issues were newer in 1981. Not new, but newer. Now the issues have ripened into church -dividing issues, as evidenced by multiple Christian denominations. It may be quite a while before “blessed be the tie that binds” feels like a blessing again. Several big positive differences between then and now: women and queer persons in leadership, cross-racial and cross-cultural appointments and calls, re-thinking the relationships between ministry and property owning, attention to both spiritual growth and justice matters, and cohorts of younger leaders not wedded to nostalgia for the 1950s. What comes next? I couldn’t guess. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Brief History of Christianity’s Failure to Unify](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/failure-to-unify/) **Published:** October 25, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** From its earliest days, the Jesus movement, and then Christianity, were comprised of different, conflicting streams. Jesus lived and died in occupied Roman Palestine. But Jews who believed Jesus was God’s promised one lived all over the empire. Paul, and probably other itinerant evangelists for Jesus’ Way, went to Roman cities, found the synagogue, and sought to persuade. Jesus communities formed in many places. One or more house churches of maybe up to 20 members sprung to life. And, as we can read in virtually every book of the New Testament, those small groups of Jesus followers did not agree with each other, either within their communities or from one community to another. The early Jesus communities were not idyllic islands of unity and peace. They were full of conflict, verged on and went over into division. Paul and the other writers would not have appealed for unity and peace so often if those experiences were abundant. If you extract conflict out of Paul’s existing correspondence with the Corinthians, you’ll hardly have enough words to make a sentence! We have four Gospels that tell some similar, some overlapping, and some completely different stories. Early Christianity was an effervescent pool bubbling with Jewish beliefs and practices, Zoroastrian influences, Greek philosophy, Roman mystery cults, Manichean dualism, apocalyptic hopes and fears, Gnosticism, and more. The reception of the Jesus movement differed by region. Conflict between church and synagogue moved to separation. The new religion was praised and cursed. It was banned, then it became legal, and then at the end of the 4th century reigned as the only legal religion of the empire. Effervescence and order vied for dominance. Christian communities in the East, in the West, in North Africa, in Egypt, in India developed their own structures, authorities, and practices. The Roman emperor imposed creeds when theologians could not consense. East and West formally split in the 11th century but that split was coming for many lifetimes. From the 6th century up through the modern era, Catholic orders of men or women religious, both laity and clergy, developed either to advance the mission of the church or to correct its excesses and deficits. Crusaders tried to retake the holy lands from Muslims, or at least to keep knights from killing each other in Europe by sending them on holy wars elsewhere, and to take out some ancient grievance upon the Orthodox East. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Münster_St.-Lamberti-Kirche_Turm_-_2017_-_2059.jpeg)Cages of the Anabaptists at the Tower of St. Lamberti Church, Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (2017) Then, came the invention of the printing press, the age of discovery that the world and its peoples—the opportunities for wealth and for evangelism—were larger than Europeans thought, the development of capitalism, the maturing of universities, the challenges of secular authorities to the dominating powers of the church, and the nascent nations. Western Christianity began its long period of splitting into branches: Catholicism, the Church of England, Reformed Churches, Lutheran Churches, and the Radical Reformation Churches that included Mennonites, Baptists, and others responding to the gospel command to “come out from among them and be separate.” Take all those conflicts, and now export them to the Americas and to the nations of Africa. Oh, and let’s see how many of our Christian heretical opponents we can kill on European battlefields while we’re expanding our wars at home. Answer: Christians in 17th century Germany killed a third of the total population of their Christian opponents on both sides. In the late 19th century, some Christians tired of the battles especially in mission fields. They began to experiment with cooperating rather than competing. In the late 19th century, the YMCA and Dwight Moody gathered youth from across the US to ecumenical conferences. Missionary leaders called a missionary conference in 1910. Europeans and Americans began “life and work” gatherings to deliberate together about Christian ethics in a world after the “war to end all wars” scared the devil out of them. Others said let’s compare what we believe and see where we might find common ground and not simply keep looking for how my faith family is different from your faith family. Then, in the terrifying aftermath of the atomic conclusion of World War II, as the United Nations was forming, leaders from missionary fields, ethics and society, and faith comparisons (mostly Protestant with a few Orthodox) said the churches must work together to help prevent a nuclear WWIII. And so the council of nations which is the UN was mirrored by a council of churches, the World Council of Churches. Going beyond the UN’s imperative, the WCC was searching for the real unity of Christ’s church and what must be surrendered to dissolve all the human-created divisions which frustrate God’s will for a united church and a just and peaceful world. This world scene of the 1940s was driven by powerful centripetal forces; we must pull together for the sake of the survival of the human race. Except the “we” did not include people of color around the world and developing nations as equals with economically wealthy Western predominantly white nations. The civil rights movement in the US highlighted to the rest of the world a defect, a perhaps fatal defect, in American Christianity. The US war in Vietnam further diminished the status on the world stages of not only America but also American Christians. While Vatican II opened the Catholic Church to participate in the ecumenical movement, and Catholics and Protestants marched together for racial justice and farm laborer rights, the women’s movement divided Catholic from Protestant about as quickly as dialogue opened. Developing nations freed themselves of colonialism and demanded an equal seat at the table. These struggles are ongoing. And there we are. Even though issues such as hunger, disease, and impending climate catastrophe might provide abundant centripetal energy today, centrifugal forces, spinning ourselves away from one another, increase. I cannot imagine the United Nations, Vatican II, the ecumenical movement, the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Church, or the Consultation of Church Union forming today. I hear the cries for councils of equals, for equitable representation everywhere, but little satisfaction in their realities. Who is at the table? Whose voices are there and whose voices should be there? Who can represent whom? How do we achieve a society with enough coherence and enough freedom to function? I’ve come to believe that our oneness—whether the oneness of a religious congregation or the oneness of our nation—would be founded upon three principles. While religions might contribute to those principles, those principles are not religious. First, we agree to play the same game. Second, we agree to play by the same rules. Third, we agree to stay at the table when the going gets tough. First, the same game. If one faction seeks illiberal minority control of a majority and another seeks to uphold liberal democracy with the majority recognizing minority rights, we are not playing the same game. One can’t play football with a baseball or baseball with a badminton birdie. The game for Americans is expressed in the Declaration and the Preamble to the Constitution: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, a more perfect union, justice, peace, defense, general welfare. Second, we agree to play by the same rules. The US Constitution prior to the Civil War and Reconstruction, meaning prior to the 13th-15th Amendments, was a set of rules for a slave holding, white male republic. With those Amendments, and then the 19th Amendment establishing women’s suffrage, the Constitution is a very different set of rules from the pre-Civil War document. Originalist interpretations of the Constitution that diminish the importance of the Reconstruction Amendments result in different rules from when the courts recognize the full impact of those amendments. Third, we agree to stay at the table when the going gets tough. When a couple comes to a therapist for relationship counseling, one of the critical first questions is: is this marriage counseling or divorce counseling? When one party believes that other is about to leave the table, what is risked will be much different than if each party believes the other wants to continue to live in the same household, or city, or state, or nation. Yes, there are legitimate circumstances for leaving the table: an inability to agree on the game or violating the rules to the extent that staying diminishes one’s humanity. I close with one stanza of a lovely, powerful poem by James Russell Lowell. He wrote the poem in 1845 as a protest against the, in his opinion, misbegotten Mexican-American War. Many Christians will know the hymn “Once to Every Man and Nation” that is excerpted from the poem. Hear Lowell’s pleas to keep looking forward. We will not accomplish what we, as a nation, need to do simply by honoring the past and not also reckoning with it. > [New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; ](https://poets.org/poem/present-crisis) > They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; > Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, > Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, > Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key. It is that last line that pierces me. “Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key.” Among the sources of that blood-rust is Christianity. Will Christianity also be an element in the forging of a proper key for the future’s portal? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Distrust Binary Thinking](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/distrust-binary-thinking/) **Published:** October 18, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** One of Phillips’ alums who follows my work posted a response to one of my musings, to the effect: “Be careful about creating an either-or, two-option scenario when there are more possibilities. There is no need to divide into two every time, as if “two” is the maximum number of options.” Caution appreciated and accepted. How many times are we presented with a binary choice? - Are you Red or Blue? - Is religion the source of most violence? Yes or no? - Are you pro-life or pro-choice? - Are you a racist? - Do you support or oppose the death penalty? - Do you support the Second Amendment or not? - Are you a patriot or do you hate America? - Do you believe the Bible or do you reject it? - Are you male or female? - Do you favor government regulation or free enterprise? - Do you support or do you want to de-fund the police? ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Binary-Numbers-65689-pixahive-768x576-1.jpg)In reality, many of us are sick of being cast into national binary narratives. Some years back, a reporter called me about the person just appointed bishop in my United Methodist Conference. For all my effort to bend the story toward the important, everyday stuff of a bishop’s life—clergy deployment, conflict, board meetings, public presence, and clergy-acting-badly—the reporter wanted to know only one thing: will the bishop abide by or work to change the rules regarding sexual identity and the clergy. I know, and in a few ways I am among, Purple people. - Religion is the source both of violence and hate, love and compassion. - The majority of Americans support a woman’s right to choose, up to a certain point in time. - Since we live in a structurally racist society, the right question might be: “What kind of a racist am I/are you?” - One can oppose the death penalty in nearly all cases but still support it for “abominable crimes,” such as murdering school children and their teachers. - Owning a rifle to shoot a rattler or a feral hog represents a very different rationality than the urban dweller who stockpiles semi-automatic weapons either to inflict a reign of terror or allegedly to defend against such. - Critique is a valid form of patriotism. - The Bible is a book of books, with several kinds of literature, that requires interpretation; one does not simply accept or reject. - There are more choices than male or female. - A positive business atmosphere should not mean no one is watching the impact of business on the environment or the honesty of that business with consumers. - One can support police to serve and protect, to come home alive and well, and also believe it is way past time to develop and implement practices to distinguish the criminal from the mentally-ill and treat each fittingly. I am hopeful the Hispanic/Latino/Latinx demographic may be a force to break up the false binary of Red-Blue. [Survey research](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/opinion/midterms-latino-voters.html) indicates persons from Spanish-speaking countries, or whose ancestors came from such nations, living in the U.S. do not widely use the term “Latinx.” Some three-fourths do not accept the term “people of color” as applied to them. [While there is not a stampede away from the Democratic Party, there is a channel to the Republican Party. Persons from Spanish-speaking cultures who are Protestant tend to be evangelical and Republican. Those who left Catholicism and dwell among the “nones” tend to be Democratic](https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/new-poll-finds-4-10-non-catholic-latinos-were-once-catholic-and-left). The old narrative of “If you are XXXXX, that means you must be XXXX” is, thank God, cracking. Evangelicals working for systemic racial justice and climate change, liberals working as victim advocates, religious professionals who still gather around interfaith tables, and past partisans who venture into No One’s Land between warring factions in order to do the work of governing also contribute. Three cheers for all of them. Do you want to contribute to de-polarizing families, congregations, and civic spaces? “Seek simplicity and distrust it,” cautioned philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Some matters are simple. Some are not. How do we distinguish? Not by imposing binary constructions. The truth is often more nuanced, complex, and messy than the media and our brains allow—until we make the effort to investigate the binary, see the humanity of The Other, and resist simple categorization. Getting closer to the complex, messy truth often means moving from a comfortable mental construction to a less comfortable one. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Old Santa-god Shows Up Again](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/old-santa-god-shows-up-again/) **Published:** October 4, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** One of my seminary pastoral care professors was Dr. Tibor Chikes. He was a Hungarian refugee who, along with his wife, survived the siege of Budapest in 1945, during which some 38,000 civilians were killed (including by Hungarian troops). I remember two sentences from his classes—which is pretty good, actually. The first: “If you can’t stand anger, get out of the ministry.” That alert has served me well for the four subsequent decades. If I remember the context correctly, the second sentence was spoken during a critique of American Christian values. Remember his war experience, during which tens of thousands were starved and murdered, when you listen: “Americans believe God is sitting on a cloud, peering down, and is most concerned about what people do with their genitals.” Right, as if the sole subject of morality is sex. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Krampus-Austrian-postcard-1910-658x1024.jpeg)Krampus, depicted on an Austrian postcard, 1910. Cci/Shutterstock.com But the other belief Dr. Chikes implicated is that God is watching, meaning ever-ready to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. Chikes rejected the belief in a God understood ultimately as Santa Claus of old, with a nice and naughty list, a bag of goodies, and an evil elf to dish out coal and switches. I am not saying God is indifferent to human behavior, but a Santa Claus god is not. Belief in that Old Santa god showed up recently again in public life in Oklahoma. One of our elected leaders invoked him. I’m not going to name the legislator but his identity is easy enough to discover. He was speaking about Oklahoma’s new ultra-restrictive abortion laws. Catch his moral and theological claim:. > “As funny as it sounds, we’ve experienced a big drought in Oklahoma. The week after — the week after — we passed this law to be able to protect the lives of children, we had the most overwhelming rainstorm that came across the state, and it was such an interesting conversation among people in the church, like, ‘Did that just happen? Did that just occur?’” The reporter concluded his story noting the state was in a state of deep drought and the rain was insufficient to lift anywhere out of drought (note: weeds in my backyard are wilting for lack of water. Weeds.) It is possible the story was told as a laugh line to warm up the audience that was receptive to the theological point of view. Maybe. I have never believed in a god who causes rain to fall or withholds rain because of a good or bad action. I don’t think 9/11 was caused by God’s judgment on queer, feminist, and liberal persons (Jerry Falwell, Sr.). No one can pray away a hurricane (Pat Robertson). But, for a moment, let’s go with the belief that God does punish bad deeds and reward good deeds, including legislation and government actions. Why is it that, in the perspective reflected in the legislator’s comments, abortion was an urgent moral issue while the world’s accelerating slide toward climate apocalypse is not? In a nation where we’ve outdone many others in claiming God on our side, why were we not severely punished for the institution of slavery? Of course, President Lincoln thought we were; read his Second Inaugural address that certainly would have branded him a “woke, CRT-loving socialist” today. Why is a state divinely rewarded for legislation designed both to save developing life and to force women to give birth but not punished for swindles, murders, and unjust laws that took lands promised in perpetuity to native peoples? Well, one could see the Dust Bowl as a consequence of ignorant and reckless removal of prairie grasses to grow more and more wheat. But I suppose one might see it as divine retribution for the evils associated with how Oklahoma became a state. And I’m sure there were untold numbers of people who neither contributed to despoiling the land nor to land theft who suffered from the Dust Bowl. Where’s the judgment, and on whom? Trying to discern the hand of God in the “signs of the times” is always a fraught enterprise. To this day, America doesn’t have a single national story either about the intent of the Founders of the U.S. or what were the causes, who were the heroes, and what were the outcomes of the Civil War. Old Santa god shows up all over those narratives, rewarding and punishing the same practices and deeds. For all the philosophers who believe god is a human construction peoples conjure in order to justify our moral claims, our public discourse still gives them bushels of good material. Maybe God is sitting on that cloud, not watching what we do with our genitals, but crying. And laughing. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [They’ll Know We are Christian by the Size of our Cross?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/christian-size-of-cross/) **Published:** September 27, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Last week my family took a two-night camping trip with one night in central Missouri and the second on the Arkansas/Missouri border. On the drive, we passed two different churches where the defining feature as one drove past at 60-ish miles per hour was a set of three gargantuan crosses. I immediately felt agitated. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/branson-giant-cross-1024x683.jpg)Walnut Shade, MO: The Branson Cross along side Route 65, built by a nonprofit called Images at the Cross, stands 218 feet tall. No, my feeling was not because I am one of those Corinthians to whom Paul wrote who were embarrassed or ashamed of the cross. I have long pondered the great value of Luther’s contrast between a theology of the cross versus a theology of glory. To consider a theology of the cross, think what the suffering Christ reveals about humanity and God rather than a theology in which there is nothing but victory, wealth, and success, often defined in secular terms. My friend and colleague Dr. Joe Bessler introduced me to the work of North American theologian [Douglas John Hall](https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Our-Context-Jesus-Suffering/dp/0800635817) who writes passionately about the wealthy North American context’s persistent theology of glory and the negative consequences of that theology on community, on others, and on the planet. The cross is a proper scandal for anyone who tries to follow the way of Jesus. But gargantuan crosses, visible for miles, are ostentatious public displays. But a display of what? I perused the website of one of the churches (I could not locate the second, but in looking about, I did find the tallest cross in North America, over 200 feet, is near Branson, MO). On the church website, I did not see stated reasons for why the giant crosses and why three rather than one. Yes, I know the Gospel stories of Jesus being crucified between two other alleged insurrectionists and their near-death dispute/debate about the value of Jesus. But why does the church identify with the three crosses rather than one? Surely not simply because the cluster of three better catches the attention of passing vehicles. Can you imagine the public reactions in Red counties in America where one might see a 200 foot high Star of David, Crescent and Star, or meditating Buddha? Why. So. Big? It is interesting how a religious symbol within a house of worship means something different when displayed publicly. Symbols require context. A cross in a worship space can (actually, should) be a focal point for the congregation. But take the cross outside, blow it up be a factor of 200, what does it then mean? What does it mean to people with no religion or from a religion that, historically and even today, suffers because of how Christians have treated them? Are the crosses received as invitation, as witness, as proclamation, as an attention-getter similar to blow-up clowns flapping in the breeze at a used car dealer, with eye rolls, as a punch in the nose? One of my favorite song lines, learned in youth fellowship days, is: “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” By our love. Not by the size of a publicly-displayed cross. There is no logical contradiction between a church with enormous crosses and striving to be known by the way the congregation loves God, each other, and their neighbors. But love understood in a theology of the cross, of whatever size, is much more difficult than love interpreted through a theology of glory. It is hard to believe big crosses in public space represent a theology of the cross. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [When Disruption is Gospel](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/when-disruption-is-gospel/) **Published:** September 20, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** It feels odd to work for an organization considered by some of the Powers and Principalities to be an enemy of sound education and good order. For the next few months, in addition to my Phillips work, I am serving as the interim CEO and president of the [Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice](https://www.occjok.org/). (I’ve been a board member for a decade and am personally dedicated to its mission, a mission that is congruent with my Christian faith commitments). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GPV-Quote.png)OCCJ is the descendant of the Tulsa and Oklahoma City affiliates of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The NCCJ was a “brotherhood” organization that brought religious and civic leaders together for “fellowship” at a time when crossing religious boundaries to work on the common good was rare. The NCCJ was especially active in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In most cities, whether in the South or the North, NCCJ work was considered somewhat edgy. When have racial justice efforts been anything but edgy and controversial? They certainly have been in Oklahoma. Today, the mission and vision of OCCJ is this: “OCCJ is dedicated to inspiring and equipping Oklahomans to overcome bias, bigotry, and oppression. We envision a state that is inclusive, just, and hospitable for all.” Well, today is not 1964 or 65. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts would be DOA in the Senate and in many states today. In those places, the Powers and Principalities are vigilant to stop teaching anything that allegedly makes students uncomfortable regarding their various identify groups—discomfort with “everything is okay as it was in the 1950s” not included. The OCCJ mission and vision are a critique of The Way Things Are. Our work assumes bias, bigotry, and oppression are embedded in both individual attitudes and in systemic structures. A state that is inclusive, just, and hospitable for all requires changed individuals and changed structures. We must reckon with Oklahoma’s histories on race, religion, land stewardship, and the like. Such efforts discomfort. I am proud of the great work the OCCJ staff does in offering [programs such as Anytown and a forum on race for high school students](https://www.occjok.org/our-programs/programs/), as well as an [inclusive leadership institute](https://www.occjok.org/our-programs/dei-workshops-leadership/) for professionals. For the high school programs, just a few years ago, recruiting through high schools was an effective strategy. That is no longer the case, for the Powers and Principalities are labeling and slurring such efforts as racial reckoning as un-American, socialist, wokeness. Many corporations support OCCJ. Why? Because they cannot afford the wasted time, money, and people fighting against the nation and workplace that both already is and that is evolving. Some of the biggest, most influential corporations in Oklahoma want the diversity, equity, and inclusion work OCCJ does because they want workplaces where diverse people understand each other, can communicate across cultures, judge they are treated fairly, and know how to welcome and onboard new employees. Oh, and they want the state’s culture to be an hospitable place for their employees to having fulfilling personal lives and to raise families in safe, education-affirming spaces. One would also think these are the goals of religious organizations. Indeed, the Jewish congregations and a few progressive Christian congregations work hard, with OCCJ and on their own, to increase their capacities to work effectively with diverse peoples. But there are also Christian congregations in which their theologies recognize “sin” (for, in Christian terms, bias, bigotry and oppression are sins) as only individual. In that perspective, systemic sin is a liberal invention and has affinities with wealth and income redistribution strategies such as communism. (There are also congregations of different faiths doing their own diversity work regarding race and ethnicity but which do not share OCCJ’s equality commitments regarding women and queer persons.) I’m not mocking. Just disagreeing. So, in Oklahoma, we have a state in which some of the Powers and Principalities and many Christian congregations believe just relations are achieved through changing individual hearts and minds, one at a time. I believe that too, but I also believe we must interrupt the cultural elements, institutions, and systems that incarnate bias, bigotry, and oppression and pass those on from generation to generation. For me, that interruption of the individual and systemic elements ailing persons and society sounds like how the gospel should play out in society. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Books and Holy Discomfort](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/books-and-holy-discomfort/) **Published:** September 12, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [Banned Books Week](https://bannedbooksweek.org/), celebrating the freedom to read, is next week. In Oklahoma and many other states, pulling “offensive” books or books that discomfort students regarding race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and the like and thus (in Oklahoma) violate the “spirit” of HB 1775, is a thing. A bad thing. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/banned-books.jpg)In honor of Banned Books week, I’ve pulled the following books I’ve read in the last few years from my shelves. Each of these books discomforted me, taught me, challenged me, changed how and to what I pay attention. The common themes are they all include an essentially moral critique: any narrative about Christianity in the U.S. that fails to tell deal with race, white supremacy, and/or money will be a selective, distorted story. In no particular order: Robin Wall Kimmerer, *[Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.amazon.com/Braiding-Sweetgrass-Indigenous-Scientific-Knowledge/dp/1571313567/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WYZMHMWYJD6Z&keywords=braiding+sweetgrass+by+robin+wall+kimmerer&qid=1662988135&sprefix=braiding+%2Caps%2C1015&sr=8-1)*. A beautiful weaving of an indigenous perspective and biological science. I was reminded how difficult it is for me to see myself as belonging to the land and as one of countless organisms sharing the biosphere rather than one to whom land belongs and seeing from outside. Among the many insights: white people don’t act like we’ve put both feet on the land; one foot is still on the boat. Climate change means that the Maple Nation, one of the realms for those wonderful maple-syrup producing trees, will soon be pushed nearly out of the U.S. Kevin Kruse, *[One Nation Under God](https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/0465097413/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S1SKU75CTNU5&keywords=kruse+one+nation+under+god&qid=1662988239&sprefix=kruse+one+%2Caps%2C115&sr=8-1)*. If you think the linkage between conservative white Christianity and the political right is relatively new, reconsider. Kruse’s book is subtitled “How Corporate America Invented Christian America.” Go back to the capitalist resistance and opposition to FDR’s New Deal to see how tight and long the relationship between a kind of Christianity, capitalism, and conservative politics is. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, *[An Indigenous People’s History of the United States](https://www.amazon.com/Indigenous-Peoples-History-ReVisioning-American/dp/0807057835/ref=sr_1_1?crid=AWBMXD8GQ8Q3&keywords=roxanne+dunbar-ortiz+%27an+indigenous+history+of+the+united+states&qid=1662988345&sprefix=ortiz+in%2Caps%2C116&sr=8-1)*. Each page is a revelation, and many of those revelations—if it was a revelation for you—is not a happy one. Did you know that tactics the U.S. military learned fighting Western native nations were still used in Vietnam or that scalping was used by the British against the Irish and carried to America by the Brits? America Firsters don’t fare well. Robert P. Jones, *[White Too Long](https://www.amazon.com/White-Too-Long-Supremacy-Christianity/dp/1982122870/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CVNK2E085GPR&keywords=white+too+long&qid=1662988391&sprefix=white+too+long%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-1)*. Jones’ narrative is both highly personal and sociologically and data-rich. The links between white evangelical Christianity and racism are not simply correlations. They are causations. Edward J. Blum, *[Reforging the White Republic](https://www.amazon.com/Reforging-White-Republic-Nationalism-Conflicting/dp/0807160415/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ORA2IJJEC28J&keywords=blum+reforging+the+white+republic&qid=1662988460&sprefix=blum+reforging+the+white+republic%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-1)*. Among the many factors that brought Reconstruction down was the desire for white Northern clergy to reconcile with their white Southern kinsfolk. Blum’s story theme: each step of the way, white Northern clergy betrayed Black people. Kelly Brown Douglas, *[Stand Your Ground](https://www.amazon.com/Stand-Your-Ground-Bodies-Justice/dp/1626981094/ref=sr_1_1?crid=25MHVHBW00XS0&keywords=stand+your+ground+by+kelly+brown+douglas&qid=1662988498&sprefix=douglas+stand+your%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-1)*. What are the connections between stand your ground laws, the murder of Trayvon Martin, and white supremacy? Plenty. Her telling is theological, moral, and historical. Ibram X. Kendi, *[Stamped from the Beginning](https://www.amazon.com/Stamped-Beginning-Definitive-History-National/dp/1568585985/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HWJXORFZ7TNK&keywords=stamped+from+the+beginning&qid=1662988547&sprefix=stamped+%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-1)*. Kendi is the villain in nearly any “critical race theory” hatchet job. His massive book represents even more massive research. He compiles and multiples so many examples of language, ideas, practices, policies, laws, and social systems regarding the construction of white supremacy. If a person who identifies as white, and I suspect many other racial-ethnic identities, reads this book and is NOT discomforted by this history, one has not paid attention. Darren Dochuk, *[Anointed with Oil](https://www.amazon.com/Anointed-Oil-Christianity-Modern-America/dp/0465060862/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1WJ0E3BR0C4JO&keywords=anointed+with+oil+how+christianity+and+crude+made+modern+america&qid=1662988602&sprefix=anointed+with%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-1)*. The subtitle is “How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America.” This book was of particular interest to me because I live in oil-famous Oklahoma and know many of the personages and institutions, fundamentalist and evangelical, about whom and which Dochuk writes. I had no idea some of the original extractors believed God put the oil in the ground for their generation to find. I knew of Rockefeller’s largesse toward mainline Christian institutions but not of the ties between oil and Billy Graham or Fuller Seminary. Heather Cox Richardson, *[How the South Won the Civil War](https://www.amazon.com/How-South-Won-Civil-War/dp/019758179X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=R2NAGA3NGK9O&keywords=how+the+south+won+the+civil+war&qid=1662988648&sprefix=how+the+south%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-1)*. Reconstruction is a period of American history that must not have been covered much in my American history classes. To understand what is happening today in the U.S., understanding the failure of Reconstruction, the ascension of the Lost Cause, the fights behind civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, and the return to that fight today, knowing this history of Reconstruction is essential. I had never thought about Confederate true-believers going to Brazil or out West and trying to reestablish a slave-labor economy. And, of course, one of those destinations was Oklahoma. All these books are great reads. Each book in its own way discomforted me, caused cognitive dissonance. How else does one learn but through being made uncomfortable? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast, Talking Theology and Impeachment](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-talking-theology-and-impeachment/) **Published:** January 21, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![West side of U.S. Capitol building.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/US_Capitol_west_side-300x155.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-talking-theology-and-impeachment/us_capitol_west_side/) Sit down with two Phillips faculty to talk about theology and impeachment and what do you get? A half hour of insight, perspective, and something to chew on. Dr. Joe Bessler, the Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology and acting dean, and Dr. Sarah Morice Brubaker, Associate Professor of Theology, are the guests on this episode of Committing Faith in Public. With host Gary Peluso-Verdend, they provide a stark contrast to Christian Right perspectives as they explore accountability, truth, sin, and hope. Photo Credit: Martin Falbisoner \[CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)\] **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [The Term “Essential Business” is a Misnomer that Caused Unnecessary Suffering](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-term-essential-business-is-a-misnomer-that-caused-unnecessary-suffering/) **Published:** June 9, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In college, I took several sociology courses. I still remember the professor’s opening remark in the class Social Problems, “The most important part of a social problem is defining the problem, because we pursue remedies based on how the problem is defined.” Sounds self-evident. But this insight is not simplistic. How we define an issue makes all the difference. Naming a social issue or problem wrongly can be expensive, frustrating, and will cause unnecessary suffering. Consider the declaration of “war on poverty” from the 1960s Great Society programs or of “war on drugs” in recent decades. How much did the “wars” turn from poverty and drugs to poor people and drug users? What if the efforts were called “rectifying inequality in economic development and outcomes for the sake of a flourishing democracy” and “helping people deal with their mental health, support families, and develop job skills during a period of rapid transition from an industrial economy to a tech-digital-knowledge economy”? I know, the efforts would need more memorable phrasing (liberals are terrible at bumper-sticker decrees), but you get the picture. A recent example of a mis-named social issue is the designations of workers and businesses as “essential” or “non-essential,” and then making those designations the basis for whether or not a business could remain open during the high-transmission phase of the pandemic. [![](https://www.oregonlive.com/resizer/0MFnUUaV4gH53-ZMNazhptqCqII=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/Z5RYNHYTURC7NEUZIG6IWT25XY.png)](https://www.oregonlive.com/resizer/0MFnUUaV4gH53-ZMNazhptqCqII=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/Z5RYNHYTURC7NEUZIG6IWT25XY.png)Profiles of Portland’s essential workers Oregonian Staff The connotations for “essential” provoked anger, confusion, frustration, and misunderstanding. I’m sure that officials and well-meaning bureaucrats who developed the term meant to name a category of work that included fundamental functions for society to function at all: respond to emergencies, utility and infrastructure maintenance, food supply, health care, and the like. Fixing a broken water main is essential. Providing salon services is not. Seems self-evident. But then came the specifications for essential and non-essential. The powers that be separated the sheep and from the goats. Liquor stores were sent to the sheep and houses of worship to the goats. Liquor stores are essential while houses of worship are not? While I can joke about how scotch might be considered essential during a shelter-at-home pandemic, in all seriousness, how are liquor stores essential if what we mean by “essential” is sine qua non: without this, society is endangered? Using the language of “essential” caused unnecessary anger and real suffering, while that usage did not address the core issues that needed to be managed: restrict the human interactions that spread the killing virus. There are two reasons why using the category of “essential” was the wrong way to name the issue. The first reason is because the danger of transmitting the virus is increased by the density of people, in close proximity, indoors, breathing the same air, for an extended period of time. Therefore, a choir practice is a highly dangerous place, as is evident by several tragic real-life examples where more than half a choir was sickened during a choir practice and some persons then died. Giving hugs, singing, laughing together at weddings and crying at funerals, sharing food, group recitation of prayers—all these activities are dangerous during a pandemic featuring an aerosolized killer. In contrast, visiting a liquor store to buy a bottle of wine or scotch is fairly low-risk unless someone with the virus coughs on you. The category of “essential business” tells us nothing about risk of transmission at a liquor store or at a church, and transmitting the virus was the risk government officials sought to mitigate with the categories. “Essential” is the wrong term. The other reason that the category of essential business failed to define the issue is because of the insult and, in some cases, injury suffered by persons whose work or business was considered “non-essential.” Who wants to think their work is non-essential? One’s work is often tethered intimately to income, to “making a living.” Work pays the bills. And for many of us, work is an expression of who we are, it is an extension of ourselves, an aspect—sometimes even a defining aspect—of our identity. That is certainly the case for small business owners who put everything they have, including investments from family and friends, into starting a business that was then critically endangered by a shutdown of indeterminate length. To be labeled “non-essential” is more than a misnomer; it feels like an assault, or at least like a random act of “I don’t care.” A pastor’s comments in a news article expressed the pain and confusion well: “A liquor store is essential but church is non-essential? I just want someone to acknowledge that my work matters.” From a religious point of view, in many traditions, work is a sacred gift to human beings. The Divine extends to humankind the privilege and responsibility of working together to care for each other and to finish and, when necessary, repair the world. All work that improves society and/or heals the planet is good work! The freedom to do good work is not an optional freedom. It is one of the defining freedoms that makes us human. The freedom to work is an essential freedom. Work is essential for human living and flourishing. To attach the word “non-essential” to work is going to be met with resistance. Connecting “non-essential” to work during a global pandemic when people fear for their futures, their businesses, their ability to make a living and provide for their families, leads to unnecessary suffering. The act of naming is a powerful moral responsibility. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [We are Inescapably Connected But It’s Not Clear that We can Share the Same Planet](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/we-are-inescapably-connected-but-its-not-clear-that-we-can-share-the-same-planet/) **Published:** March 10, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Whether we members of the human race want to be or not, we are each part of a larger whole. We ignore the connections, we ignore our relationships, at our peril. Whatever lessons and reminders there may be in the global pandemic that is spreading at internet meme-like speed, surely one of those lessons and reminders is how connected we all are. Yes, polarization runs deep. Yes, our connections bring dangers, not minor and not a few. Some connections bring joy and life. Some bring death (more on that below). But ultimately we cannot sever connections without killing ourselves and maybe everything else with us. Everything that is—from energy to matter, from space to time—exploded from a single point billions of years ago. Everything, from the energy-matter constellation in your body and in mine, to the energy-matter constellations throughout the universe. Everything and everyone. [We are stardust, as Joni Mitchell sang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRjQCvfcXn0). Homo sapiens outlasted or bested other humanoid contenders, and we share 99.9 percent of our DNA with each other. We inhabit one planet. We breathe one atmosphere. We all depend on the oceans of the world for weather and climate and oxygen. Toxins and trash we dump into the ground, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere are ingested and kill thousands of miles from their point of origin. We extract oil, shake and toxify the earth with wastewater from fracking, create single use plastic bags that in landfills will outlast many people we love, ban the banning of single use plastics, choke turtles and whales with these plastics—and no one is held responsible for misusing all the connections it took to come to this point. How difficult it is to see *all* the connections. There are some connections we acknowledge and value, and others we can’t or refuse to see. We can watch a movie or documentary or read a story about how a butterfly wingbeat in the Amazon is linked to a hurricane leagues and leagues away. And that kind of story moves us to tears. How beautiful and mysterious the connections! But when hundreds of thousands of people from Mexico and Central America flee their countries—countries with drug gangs that originated in the United States, drug gangs that supply drugs predominantly for people living in the U.S., drug gangs that filled a social void created by civil wars in the 1960s through the 1980s in which the U.S. had a huge role (propping up anti-communist dictators, protecting U.S. corporations, training what became death squads in the School of the Americas, ousting elected leaders and even bombing a capitol \[Guatemala City 1954\])—we as a nation cannot rouse enough compassion or moral indignation to overturn cruel and inhumane treatment of those refugees and asylum-seekers. We can’t see the connections between the circumstances to which we have contributed and the present. But connected they are. For we are all connected. There is no “safe browsing” or internet safe zones for children. There is only more or less safe. If we are online, we are exposed, vulnerable. We can access googles of knowledge, sustain wonderful relationships, or be snagged into hell. We are connected, for better and for worse. Religious folks: which side are you nurturing? The connections side or the “you must be cut off” side? We are experts at both. Religious people, we have a huge role we might play, for good, in this connected world. But that will be a choice rather than a natural outcome of religion. Religious people have started wars and died to end wars that their co-religionists championed. We’ve emphasized our differences, our holiness against the Other’s impurities and abominations. We’ve been exemplars of compassion that transcends all allegedly divinely-ordered separations. We’ve fed every division and every kind of hate, and we’ve seen and channeled the deep wells and arteries fashioned by Being Itself that circulate the energy of life and love. On the whole, as measured on the balance scale of time, will we religious people do more to foster a sense of One Ecology and One Community of All Living Things, or will we crusade as the Children of Light warring against the Children of Darkness—regardless of the deleterious consequences of that war for humankind and possibly for all living things except roaches? I don’t know. Today, the power of rejection, division, fear, othering, and difference-without-meaningful-commonality are in ascendancy, inside and outside of religions. Purity codes in religion and in religion-like movements are winning. And while the “who threw the first punch” drive for purity has surged from the side of authoritarian illiberalism, purity codes (and the desire to be protected from those who mean us harm) are not exclusive to the Right. Can we imagine all of us drinking from the same wells, looking up at the same moon, breathing the same air, delighting in discovering both the different and the same in each other, learning to live in a world worth living in for all humanity and for the gardens we steward, and elevating compassion and love that transcend our primate and reptilian brains? Remember this picture of the earth from space, taken by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972? ![The Blue Marble by the crew of Apollo 17 (1972)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg/300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg)The Blue Marble by the crew of Apollo 17 (1972) It is a photo that changed the way some people look at the world because all the lines between nation states on a map do not exist except on the map. From space, there is one planet. At the time that photo was taken, some observers hoped the photo would create a moral revolution. We are still waiting. Or, should I say, the challenge of the moral revolution is still in front of us. What if—simultaneously—we were able to see all the connections on and in this planet that make for life, connections that are always or often invisible to us? What if we could see the long chain fungi in the ground through which trees communicate and share nutrients with each other, if we could hear whale song and dolphin chatter, if we could see whatever navigation system that allows dung beetles to navigate by the stars, if we could picture the emotional energy fields that connect people in a group, if we could see the lines that connect all of us to a place of origin, from whence “our people” came, if we could see the connections that love creates? Religious folks could be in the forefront of this moral revolution. Or we could double-down on our own specialness and rightness, to the detriment of life per se. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [On Using God to Divide](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/using-god-to-divide/) **Published:** September 6, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The national motto, “In God We Trust,” has been divisive from the day of its minting. According to historian Harry Stout in his brilliant book, *[Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War](https://www.amazon.com/Upon-Altar-Nation-Moral-History/dp/0143038761/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WEQ3FOZIZIOT&keywords=upon+the+altar+of+the+nation&qid=1662384620&sprefix=upon+the+al%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-1)*, Northern clergy led—and Southern clergy took notes and then caught up—in the battle to show how religious and faithful they were. By promoting fast days (which President Lincoln declared) and preaching often on the righteousness of the cause, clergy importuned their flocks to show their faithfulness and, thus, tilt God to their side. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/in-god-we-trust-1865-coin.jpeg)The South wrote God into the Constitution. Northern clergy urged their elected leaders to do the same. Lincoln was among those who thought that was a bad idea. However, Lincoln did *coin*, in a real way (and with the encouragement of Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase), a new national motto: “In God We Trust.” The new motto would be stamped on coins (actually, on the two-cent coin). Stout notes the irony of a putting those words on the symbol of greed clergy often damned. Jump forward to the Cold War. Clergy and elected leaders—really, in the whirlwind of politics and religion I sometimes can’t sort which cohort leads and which is acolyte or water-carrier—throughout much of the political-religious spectrum distinguished between godly America and godless communism. President Eisenhower was a fan and cheerleader of that point of view. One Sunday, as he attended the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, he heard the Rev. George Doherty argue that America should have a stronger, public connection to God. Prompted by that sermon, Eisenhower supported adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and making “In God We Trust” the national motto. God-fearing “us” versus godless “them.” Let’s jump over the rise of the Moral Majority and President Reagan’s speech to conservative Christians that “you can’t endorse me but I endorse you.” Reagan used his pulpit and riffed on the mashup of “light to the nations” and “city on a hill” to invent the “shining city on a hill,” to keep drawing on that barrel Eisenhower tapped: America is godly. The USSR is godless. But in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union and its empire broke into states and nationalities. Russian Orthodoxy re-emerged as officially sanctioned. Russia evolves to understand itself as a prominent, or *the* pre-eminent, carrier of the Christian tradition. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Speaker Newt Gingrich introduced the playbook for politics being war: the other side is the enemy, not “my worthy opponent.” Weaponize everything. And, the trend grew toward American generations de-congregating from religious institutions with more of those “nones” identifying as Democrats or independents than Republicans. In dozens of states today, laws either encourage or mandate that the weaponized “In God We Trust” shall be displayed in every classroom. “In God We Trust” is one of the flags carried into the culture wars between Americans. I see fist-pumping that motto as one of the indicators the nation is cracking. Writing as a Christian, I don’t have a clue as to what “in God we trust” means for any nation. I get what the words can mean for individuals, families, and faith communities. I would love to hear interviews of elected leaders, in my state and in the nation, responding to: “Tell me about the god in whom in the nation trusts, or aspires to trust.” I am curious whether that god resembles anyone other than ourselves. Those would be revealing interviews. *E Pluribus Unum*, “From many, one,” continues to be the motto that inspires me. Of course, that idea could also be used to polarize the country—as can virtually any idea today. “Many”—we Americans are that, indisputably. Are we in any way “one” or could we be? For all of the nation’s history, that has been an essential question. Our future, if there is an “our” in that future, depends on the answers. At least the words don’t lead immediately into bearing false witness. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Using Public Schools as Battlegrounds is Immoral](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/schools-battlegrounds-immoral/) **Published:** August 30, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** If state legislators were in the legal position of employers, teachers in many states could sue for creating a hostile work environment. And students could sue for legislators doing nothing to ameliorate and much to inflame a hostile learning environment. A good teacher is a gem. A great teacher is priceless. And yet they are daily trampled underfoot by warring versions of what American has been, is, and should be. Underpaying teachers is degrading. Raising their pay is necessary but not sufficient. Yes, there is a money problem but that is not the total problem. Some legislators simply want to abolish public education, often for religious or political reasons. I think public education is one of the greatest ideas ever enacted in America. A democracy needs educated citizens who can reason, converse and argue, and with enough virtue and compassion to recognize a democracy requires something like the Golden Rule if the aspirations toward freedom and equality are to be realized. Ah, but many legislators in a state such as Oklahoma will quickly say “America is a republic, not a democracy,” which is to repeat a John Birch Society and southern Lost Cause talking point. Rule by the allegedly knowing few is hindered by public education. People of my generation remember nuclear attack drills: huddling under desks or in concrete-block hallways. The fear those drills engendered is nothing like the level of toxic pain inflicted on today’s classrooms because of the threat of gun violence. Anywhere. Anytime. Hostile work and learning environment. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/little-rock-9.jpeg)Hazel Bryan (right and behind) and other segregationists protest as Elizabeth Eckford (left) attempts to enter Little Rock High School in 1957. I know, it is not just legislators who are to blame. We’ve all seen pictures, and some of us are old enough to remember, white mothers spitting on and screaming at Black children walking into previously segregated schools. Some parents of this ilk laid down their children in front of buses. Well, we see similar uncivil behaviors today at school board meetings, including in Tulsa. But citizen righteous anger is ginned up by legislators who want an angry base to keep themselves in office. Give public money to private schools, in the form of vouchers, and call it choice rather than “let’s starve public education to death.” Let’s all ban books! Build a big bonfire and throw in everything that criticizes things as they are. Start with the history books, then novels, then graphic comics, then most of the social sciences. Oh, and surely we must police the examples used in math books where liberal commies sneak critical race theory into the texts. And the new, fabulous, humbling, awesome images coming from the Webb telescope: I’m sure someone is figuring out a way to tag those images so that a text can’t say “we’ve now seen back in time to within less than a billion years after the universe exploded into existence,” for that number contradicts the sincere religious belief that the universe was created in 4004 BCE. When the &\*%$ will we stop using our children and the people we entrust our children to for seven or more hours per day as the battleground for the problems we adults cannot solve or even address ourselves? Racism. Battles over gender and sexuality. How we tell American history, especially what we include and exclude which is the pretext for WHOM we include and exclude. And then we surround the schools with 400 million guns and promulgate a version of the Second Amendment that creates enormous tears in the social fabric and, every time an angry man invades a school and kills, more blood spilt from the nation’s heart. How do we call a truce on using the schools as battlegrounds? I don’t know. I hope somebody does, because the injuries we adults are causing to our children and their teachers is immoral, unethical, and unjust. And those of us who claim a religion within the Abrahamic traditions know this: injustice invites judgment. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Destined to Be, and Still Is, an Experiment](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/still-an-experiment/) **Published:** August 23, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Scholars who study religion as a form of human expression talk about exemplars: individuals who are not the founders of a religion but whose lives are icons of that religion, who incarnate the beliefs, practices, and virtues of that religion. An exemplar both reflects the glory of the religion and provides a window of insight into the religion. If Americanism were a religion, I’d judge Frederick Douglass is among the greatest exemplars of that religion. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/220823-gpv-blog-1024x576.png)Douglass was born into slavery, learned to read, escaped bondage (supporters later “purchased” his freedom), and became arguably the greatest advocate the nation has ever seen for human rights and citizenship for EVERYONE in or who comes to the U.S. He understood the liberating power of the ideas in America’s founding ideals and pressed white audiences to live up to those ideals. Again and again and again. Women and men, human beings of every color, from any nation have human rights that precede governments. In the last few years, I’ve seen many references to [Douglass’s outstanding speech delivered to a white audience](https://edsitement.neh.gov/student-activities/frederick-douglasss-what-slave-fourth-july), at their invitation, on the meaning of the 4th of July. It is one of those speeches that must be taught in schools—and one that some state legislators in some states might think sounds too much like the bogie of “critical race theory” to be taught. But fewer people may know about his speech on America being a composite nation, a nation that is destined, is purposed to be a gathering place for peoples from all over the world. [What follows is a series of excerpts from that speech, given in 1869](https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/speeches-african-american-history/1869-frederick-douglass-describes-composite-nation/), a year after Congress approved a relatively relaxed policy from immigration from China. That policy would be short-lived; in 1882, Congress passed a highly restrictive policy, the first targeting a particular nationality. I invite you to read these quotes with the problems of our day in mind: how we think about the nature and destiny of America; how we think about the relationship between human rights and laws; the value of welcoming immigrants; the role of America in a global village and as a global village. (I will not correct of change his 19th century language on the use of “men” sometimes as a stand-in for “humanity” or how he refers to persons from various nations and ethnicities.) > I am especially to speak to you of the character and mission of the United States, with special reference to the question whether we are the better or the worse for being composed of different races of men. > > A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves. > > Heretofore the policy of our government has been governed by race pride, rather than by wisdom. Until recently, neither the Indian nor the negro has been treated as a part of the body politic. No attempt has been made to inspire either with a sentiment of patriotism, but the hearts of both races have been diligently sown with the dangerous seeds of discontent and hatred. > > There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are external, universal, and indestructible. Among these, is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go to the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue eyed and light haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world they need have no fear. They have no need to doubt that they will get their full share. > > But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of all other races of men. > I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours. Right wrongs no man. If respect is had to majorities, the fact that only one fifth of the population of the globe is white, the other four fifths are colored, ought to have some weight and influence in disposing of this and similar questions. It would be a sad reflection upon the laws of nature and upon the idea of justice, to say nothing of a common Creator, if four fifths of mankind were deprived of the rights of migration to make room for the one fifth. If the white race may exclude all other races from this continent, it may rightfully do the same in respect to all other lands, islands, capes and continents, and thus have all the world to itself. Thus what would seem to belong to the whole, would become the property only of a part. > > In whatever else other nations may have been great and grand, our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds, and to men of no creeds. … Gathered here, from all quarters of the globe by a common aspiration for rational liberty as against caste, divine right Governments and privileged classes, it would be unwise to be found fighting against ourselves and among ourselves; it would be madness to set up any one race above another, or one religion above another, or proscribe any on account of race color or creed. > > The next objection to the Chinese is that he cannot be induced to swear by the Bible. This is to me one of his best recommendations. The American people will swear by anything in the heavens above or in the earth beneath. We are a nation of swearers. We swear by a book whose most authoritative command is to swear not at all. > > We shall spread the network of our science and civilization over all who seek their shelter whether from Asia, Africa, or the Isles of the sea. We shall mold them all, each after his kind, into Americans; Indian and Celt; negro and Saxon; Latin and Teuton; Mongolian and Caucasian; Jew and Gentile; all shall here bow to the same law, speak the same language, support the same Government, enjoy the same liberty, vibrate with the same national enthusiasm, and seek the same national ends. > > --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The (S)melting Pot](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-smelting-pot/) **Published:** August 16, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** If you have never read the play, *The Melting Pot*, and you care about what kind of nation, what kind of moral community, the United States should be, I encourage you to read it. Thanks to the [Gutenberg Project](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23893/23893-h/23893-h.htm), the play is available free and online. For many years, I’ve dismissed the metaphor of America as a melting pot. I knew the idea gained cultural currency due to Israel Zangwill’s 1908 play of the same name. But I had no idea of the content of that play until recently reading Yascha Mounk’s book, *[The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0593296818/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)*. His work encouraged me to find the play and read it. I hope you will do the same. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/TheMeltingpot1-743x1024.jpg)The story tells of a Jewish Russian refugee, David, who is writing a symphony called “The Crucible,” in which he envisions America as a great refining pot in which representative members of the human race stream. (One of the great problems of Zangwill’s play is the near absence of Americans from anywhere but Europe. Critics of the play rightly say that not everyone is invited into the melting. Does the metaphor also apply to Native Americans and Black Americans? The historical evidence would say no. But, please, read on and judge for yourself whether or not the metaphor might work.) David and Vera, a Russian Christian immigrant, fall in love; but then the lovers discover that Vera’s father is responsible for the pogrom during which David’s family was slaughtered. Their love, and David’s conception of what America is, are threatened by this revelation. Nevertheless, Vera encourages David to finish his symphony, to realize his vision in music. The play closes with the sun rising on the city, the protagonists kissing and pledging their love, and the audience cheering wildly. Schlocky, right? Yes and… Or yes, but… Before reading the play, I thought of the melting pot as a cooking kettle for creating a lovely stew, gently simmering. Or maybe the pot is like a fondue pot and the restaurant chain of the same name as the play. However, the pot Zangwill envisioned is not a nice heirloom cast iron kettle simmering on low or a fondue pot bubbling atop a mild Sterno flame. The pot is a crucible, as the symphony is named. The melting pot, the smelting pot, the crucible is for subjecting the contents to heat sufficient to separate the ore from the pure metal. This is a refiner’s fire. In the play, David proclaims: > America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won’t be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you’ve come to—these are the fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American. Hear the concern for leaving the feuds and hatreds of the Old Country behind. Becoming an American, Zangwill is saying, requires smelting out the hate. He further says that Euro-Americans are now *in the crucible rather than in their finished form*. God is not done making Americans. The heat is on. So, to come to America means to submit oneself to God’s intense refiner’s fire. One does not exit the crucible with the same composition one had upon entering. Each must be made new. Sounding religious to you yet? And then comes: At the close of the play, as the sun rises, David looks to the light and prophesies (a word I am borrowing from the stage directions): > It is the fires of God round His Crucible. > > There she lies, the great Melting Pot—listen! Can’t you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth—the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,—black and yellow—ah, finally; but still not red in the mind of a New York-oriented European immigrant\] > > VERA \[*Softly, nestling to him*\] > > Jew and Gentile—— > > DAVID > > Yes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, the pole and the equator, the crescent and the cross—how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God. Ah, Vera, what is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races come to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all races and nations come to labour and look forward! > > *\[He raises his hands in benediction over the shining city.\]* > > Peace, peace, to all ye unborn millions, fated to fill this giant continent—the God of our children give you Peace. The Republic of Man (Humankind) and the Kingdom of God? Looking forward rather than backwards? Zangwill’s vision is, fundamentally, religious, resonating with the Social Gospel aspirations of the day. So, Zangwill’s metaphor is not oriented toward blending everyone together into a stew in which one cannot taste the difference between a potato and a carrot. The melting pot is a refiner’s fire lit to smelt out feuds and hatred of “the other.” It is the place of the Divine Alchemist’s work to create a nation gathered from around the globe that will be smelted—not melted—together. Given the public rise in our day of white Christian nationalism, and politicized polarization among nearly all the rest of us, we could do worse than playing again with America as God’s smelting pot. We are all in the pot, the heat is intense, we all have hatreds and fears from which we need to be freed, and God is not yet done making America into what it ought to be. EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Peluso-Verdend is teaching a free, [online course](https://ptstulsa.edu/2022/08/16/one-from-many-course/) in September and October regarding the meaning and value of America’s original motto, e pluribus unum, one from many. For information, write . --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Mortared with Lies](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/mortared-with-lies/) **Published:** August 9, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In a PhD seminar, Dr. Brian Gerrish led the class through understanding where various Reformation leaders stood on the meaning and consequences of sin. John Calvin, he said, believed human beings are so captured by sin that we sin “and we like it.” Given the breadth of depth of telling lies in public these days, I may become a Calvinist (nah, not really, but go with me here…). When I was a child, I was taught at home, school, and church that lying is wrong. If one builds a relationship on lies, a family on lies, a society on lies, one has built on “sinking sand.” Ones creation is a house of cards; someone will eventually blow it down or shake the foundations and the lie-mortared structures tumble into the sea. I believe a goodly measure of the ubiquitous anxiety so many of us feel these days is because we feel the undertow of the waves of consequences due to so many public lies. We fear the results of those lies are going to be very bad; we just don’t know how bad. Today, we seem to live and move and have our being in lies. Despite dozens of official investigations to the contrary,[ 70 percent of Republican voters believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen](https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jun/14/most-republicans-falsely-believe-trumps-stolen-ele/). I was stunned to learn that a [mere 9 percent of plastic is recycled](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/whopping-91-percent-plastic-isnt-recycled), and [plastic can be recycled only once or twice before it loses integrity. The recycling logo was developed by plastic manufacturing companies; and they encourage us to recycle.](https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled) But most of what they produce, including single-use plastics, will outlive us in landfills, oceans, and rivers. The strategy of individuals [paying attention to our carbon footprints](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook) was developed by a fossil fuel company in an effort to avoid systemic changes that are possible only at the levels of government and corporations. [Fossil-fuel extracting energy companies have known about climate change for decades but have paid to withhold or distort their findings](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/). The Department of Defense has been including climate change in their scenario projections. When Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, DOD champion, mocks climate change and throws a snowball on the floor of the chamber, is his action a matter of not knowing or something else? [Alex Jones has been ordered to pay nearly $50 million to a family who sued him because, for whatever nefarious reasons, he claimed a mass school shooting never happened, that it was all staged actors organized by anti-gun rights activists](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/alex-jones-law-suit-verdict-sandy-hook-case-scare-conspiracy-theorists-rcna41828). Jones is but one of dozens and dozens of opinion pundits who daily spin out and repeat lies repeatedly—and make a great deal of money doing so. And QAnon? Where does one begin? I’ve known about the Lost Cause for some years—the interpretation of the Civil War that claims the war was about states right, a right to a way of life based on white supremacy, and that the South lost the war because God wanted to chasten them but that the Southern way would rise again. [I did not know, however, that the history book most likely used in my high school American history classroom perpetuated these lies](https://www.amazon.com/Union-Struggle-United-States-Nationhood/dp/0525560173/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2MM2RINGN42HQ&keywords=colin+woodard+union&qid=1660053222&sprefix=colin+woodard+union%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-1). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/House-collapse-on-Sand.jpeg)Do we, as a society, still believe lying is wrong, at least most of the time? Or has another belief overtaken us? When I first learned about the Unification Church about 50 years ago, it was said they practiced “heavenly deception.” This was a god-justified version of the principle “the end justifies the means.” Church members lied to potential converts as they recruited people on the streets to attend a life-changing weekend retreat. During that “retreat,” however, participants were subjected to brainwashing techniques in an effort to render them into church members obedient to the teachings of the founder. How many persons, associations, and media outlets today have buy into and practice heavenly deception? Apparently, we lie to promote and protect our interests, and we like it. But when will there be a reckoning? A house built on sand, mortared by lies, is still vulnerable to earthquakes and rising waves, yes? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [States are Not Denominations](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/states-are-not-denominations/) **Published:** August 2, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** One expects to be welcomed in different ways and to have different permissions as one visits religious congregations of various Christian denominations and other religions. But should a similar experience await you state-to-state? If I attend worship at a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church or a Catholic congregation, I would not expect to take communion, which in those places is for “family only.” At Orthodox and Catholic congregations, doctrine categorizes me as a “separated brother” and not in communion with them. However, if I were barred from the table at my own United Methodist Church or at a Disciples of Christ congregation, I’d be shocked. When attending a Baptist church I would expect to see a pool for a baptistry, for immersing a youth or adult, and not a font for sprinkling an infant. My baptism as an infant may or may not be recognized. When visiting a mosque, I expect to take my shoes off upon entering. I would expect to keep my shoes on upon passing the red door of an Episcopal Church. And if a Presbyterian Church usher instructed me to sit “on the men’s side,” I’d be as confused as if a Mormon invited me into a temple on a non-visitor day or a Muslim invited me to pray with the women. Welcomes, permissions, and privileges differ for members and non-members in nearly all religious congregations. This is expected. But state-to-state? ![](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/120120104900-greene-racial.jpg?q=x_0,y_246,h_2831,w_5033,c_crop/h_720,w_1280)In Isabel Wilkerson’s brilliant book, *[The Warmth of Other Suns](https://www.amazon.com/Warmth-Other-Suns-Americas-Migration/dp/0679763880/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1CGXR56HQAUGC&keywords=the+warmth+of+other+suns&qid=1659445191&sprefix=the+warm%2Caps%2C678&sr=8-1)*, she traces the stories of several Black families who participate in the Great Migration, who left the South from World War I through the 1960s looking for a better life with more equality of opportunity. (The families found that—sometimes and in part; often they found James Crow.) When describing what Jim Crow segregation involved, she detailed train travel from a legally segregated state to a state where segregation on public transportation was illegal. The example she included was a train coming from Kentucky and going through Cairo, Illinois. When the train entered Cairo from Kentucky, the cars were segregated by race. The train pulls into the Cairo station. There is another train waiting. All the passengers must disembark from the segregated train, walk over to the awaiting train, and take their seats in racially integrated cars. This story was new to me. I was taught long ago that Cairo is no pocket of racial harmony and shares more attitudes with the Old South than with the allegedly less-prejudiced North. So, I did not think of Cairo as a place where segregation gives way to integration. But Cairo is in Illinois, where integrated public transportation was a legal right. The bigger “newness” in this story is being introduced to one significant way in which passing from state to state during Jim Crow used to be anything but seamless. When rights vary by state, traveling from state to state is like moving from one country to another. Moving to live in a new state may well involve a change in rights. As one raised in the Chicago area, I was never asked to pledge my loyalty to my state, as far as I can remember. We recited the pledge every morning in public schools—to the United States of America. I did not pledge loyalty to the State of Illinois and would not have done so if asked. I have not and will not pledge loyalty to the State of Oklahoma. In terms of understanding the nature and origin of my rights, I always thought of myself first as a citizen of the USA. I think first of the Declaration and the Constitution. Up until very recently, I saw the federal government and the Supreme Court as allies in the work of ensuring citizenship rights, of widening the circles of equality and justice to include individuals and categories of person who were previously excluded or, in some way in their states, treated as “lesser than” or as unwelcome persons. That work of extension and expansion was often a counter to the mantra of “states rights” which nearly always seems to mean “in my state we have the right to discriminate.” As I respect the variety of practices between religions and among denominations, I love the different state mottos. The show me state. Eureka. Land of Lincoln. It is enlightening to learn the histories of different states as well as their current customs and ways. When I lived in the D.C. area for a few years, I always smiled when I saw the Maryland sign “Please Drive Gently.” In understanding Virginia, I had to learn what a “glebe” is (the equivalent of country but with an origin in property supporting a Church of England priest’s living, often by growing tobacco). From state to state, I expect differences in customs, foods, whether or not I’m called “hon” in a grocery store or restaurant, accents, and some mores. I do not expect and should not expect rights to be different, state by state. Rights are legally protected permissions to do something or not to be forced to do something. They are linked to responsibilities and duties. They are derived from normative understandings of what it means to be human. They are supposedly to be recognized and protected by governments rather than granted by governments. Turning states into something akin to sovereign denominations is a terrible, harm-full idea. Are we headed toward a nation in which crossing a state line will mean being stopped by an official who commands, “Papers, please?” --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Conservative and Liberal are Meaningless Labels](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/meaningless-labels/) **Published:** July 26, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://www.themainemonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/liberal-vs.-conservative.-Photo-by-Maria-Vonotna-iStock.jpg)What do the terms “conservative” and “liberal” mean? After much reflection, I think they mean too many things to be meaningful words. Using the words to categorize and accept or dismiss others, as is often the case, is like throwing a bucket of paint on the side of a barn rather than touching up a spot with a small brush. The terms have always meant something different in religion than they have in politics, despite affinities between conservative or liberal politics and religious practice. Using Christianity as the example—the religion that has, historically, claimed the largest percentage of adherents in the U.S.—conservative might mean an evangelical, a fundamentalist, a Pentecostal, a kind of Catholic. The term might refer to someone with advanced degrees from Wheaton and Fuller, from Notre Dame, or to someone who eschews all formal education and learns simply from the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the University of Hard Knocks. Jim Wallis and the Christians who founded and manage “Sojourners” are, in comparison to the founders and editorial stance of “The Christian Century,” conservative in terms of doctrine and sometimes more radical, if not liberal, in terms of social policy. It is possible to be radically “liberal” in terms of social policy and fundamentally “conservative” in terms of doctrine. The Christian abolitionists of the 19th century certainly fit this description as do many intentional small urban communal or monastic groups today. Using the word “conservative” demands context. Christian liberalism has meant both a way of interpreting the Bible and a stance toward culture and social issues. Also in a bygone era, to be a liberal meant to approach the Bible as a book written by human beings to express their relationship with God. Words may be inspired but not all words and not taken “literally”—which any self-identified liberal would tell you is a fiction. The interpreter claims responsibility for interpreting and uses the same historical, literary, and critical tools used to interpret any book. Today, liberationist and post-colonial scholars reject the “liberal” moniker as one rooted in a cultural time and experience (white, male, European, middle class) different from their own. Centering their own experience and community may or may not involve “liberal” approaches to scripture and faith. Calling every form of not-conservative faith “liberal” is a mistake. In politics and culture of the past, the terms liberal and conservative provided two stances toward the shared commitment to liberal democracy. Liberal democracy refers to the American experiment in self-governance, commitments to free and fair elections, a constitutional republic, limited government, protection of property, free speech, freedom from the tyranny of a state religion, the rule of law, and the right to redress grievances. Conservatives and liberals, more or less—one thinks of the significant number of segregationists and racists throughout our history—shared these commitments. Where the sides differed was in how small or large government needed to be, what happens when families and voluntary organizations can’t fully care for their people and issues, and how extensive government involvement in business must be in order to protect citizens from exploitation by business interests. Today, however, when someone tells me they are conservative or liberal, I need to respond with “Tell me more. What do you mean?” Some political conservatives despise the former president even as they agreed with some of his policies. Such conservatives also accepted the election results and feel the shame and anger many others feel regarding January 6. They hope the January 6th Commission and the testimonies of their many conservative colleagues lead to a just outcome, including prosecutions. Some people label themselves conservative and believe one must be a Christian to be a good American, the election was stolen, Victor Orban’s illiberal policies are the future of America, Democrats murder children, and January 6th was a useful exercise from which to learn how to be completely successful next time. Several candidates for political offices are running ads in which they wield semi-automatic weapons—something a traditional conservative or someone on another side would not do. So, what does it mean to be conservative? I think Christian nationalism is radical, not conservative. Much of what the previous president did and the signals he sent by which foreign leaders he admired do not represent conservatives. The term “liberal” has been used as a smear for so long now that many persons who have been a traditional liberal did not use the term. Thus, “progressive” grew in popularity. But, as has been widely reported, the commitments to free speech and a constitutional republic (rather than a more pure democracy) have eroded among those who might have been labeled liberal in a previous generation. For many years, I thought of myself as a liberal. However, today, that is a term still despised on the right and judged on the left nearly as harshly. The term, and those of us who drew meaning from it, are going the way of the dinosaurs. Rather than using the terms conservative or liberal, here is how I’m coming to see today’s religious and political tensions. In one quadrant, there is freedom. In another there is equality. There are many stances possible to express what freedom means. At its most extreme, absolute freedom is a right that only some people can have. Once freedom is granted to others to the extent one grants it to oneself, freedom cannot be absolute. There are those in society who recognize that freedom is a right for everyone and seek to develop an ethics and a society accordingly. There are those who claim freedom for themselves and don’t give a rip about others—and live and vote accordingly. The stronger the advocate for freedom, the more such persons see all problems as individual. In the equality quadrant there are also multiple possibilities. Equality could mean equality of opportunity. But it might also mean equality of outcomes—equity. Equality of outcomes might be enforced by law and would require a re-distribution of income and wealth, as well as moving with a fine-tooth comb through every law and regulation. Problems are systemic and the systems, from language labels through legislation and the courts, must change. Absolute freedom for some is a version of hell for equality advocates. Equality of outcomes is a version of hell for freedom advocates. So, I see the conflict between freedom and equality and between the perspective that problems are individual versus problems are systemic as more helpful in interpreting today than the labels liberal and conservative. And, I would add one more tension. Shall we read our history—as religious people, as Americans—as prototype or archetype? Is there a previous time when the religious or civic communities got “it” right and lived a pattern to which we should return (archetype)? Or is each generation an experiment in living out beliefs and principles that sometimes are carried forward from the past while others must be invented to meet the challenges of the day? Freedom in tension with equality. Individual responsibility in tension with social responsibility. Prototype in tension with archetype. And, like a true liberal, I could not get that on a bumper sticker. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Becoming Human Is Hard](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/becoming-human-is-hard/) **Published:** July 12, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** It takes a lot of work to become and remain a human being. If we think of “human” normatively, in an ethical sense of what our species could or should be, then I’d argue it takes a lot of intentional work to become and remain human. This is so because there is a great deal in life that either can happen to us or that we can do to ourselves to diminish our humanity. In Christian theology, human beings were created in the image of God. “Image” or “imago” has meant different things over the centuries: use of reason, creativity, being a maker/creator/artist. I like the understanding, derived from what “image” meant in Hebrew: a marker set up at the boundaries of a ruler’s territory. Human beings are markers of God’s realm. I also love Rabbi Marc Gellman’s take in his book, *[Does God Have a Big Toe?](https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Have-Big-Toe/dp/0064404536).* Creation on the 7th day is unfinished and human beings were created to be partners with God in finishing the world. There is so much in life that threatens to diminish the meaning of being human, that mars the image of God and lessens our capacity to work with God to finish the world. Many of us are familiar with the acronym “ACEs”: adverse childhood experiences. The Centers for Disease Control describes ACEs: > Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). For example: > > • experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect > > • witnessing violence in the home or community > > • having a family member attempt or die by suicide. > > Also included are aspects of the child’s environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability, and bonding, such as growing up in a household with: > > • substance use problems > > • mental health problems > > • instability due to parental separation or household members being in jail or prison. [The CDC enumerates the consequences of “toxic stress:”](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html) > ACEs and associated social determinants of health, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, frequently moving, and experiencing food insecurity, can cause toxic stress (extended or prolonged stress). Toxic stress from ACEs can negatively affect children’s brain development, immune systems, and stress-response systems. These changes can affect children’s attention, decision-making, and learning. > > Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances, jobs, and depression throughout life. These effects can also be passed on to their own children. Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas due to systemic racism or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities. Childhood experiences are particularly important because of how much brain formation occurs in childhood through ones mid-20s. This means childhood is also a critical time during which our brains may be de-formed. [![](https://www.npr.org/assets/img/2015/02/20/aces-1_custom.jpg)](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean)Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Credit: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Of course, brains are susceptible to toxic stress that robs us of our humanity long after childhood. One of my aunts was a bank teller. One day, a robber entered the bank and shot the teller next to her in the face, killing the teller. My aunt was permanently changed by that event, traumatized until relieved by her own death. Think of what the war in Ukraine is doing and will do to generations, or being pressed into child soldiering means for the psyches of their victims, or the kids in neighborhoods where gunfire is a daily occurrence, or the survivors of and witnesses to the unconscionable number of mass shootings in the U.S., or the veterans of America’s Iraq and Afghanistan wars scarred by traumatic brain injuries or missing limbs or with burn-pit damaged lungs. Such experiences can fuel fear, anger, depression, and bitterness. Such experiences can lead a person, or a whole society, to believe the world is headed more into Mad Max territory than destined to become a Beloved Community. Christians claim love is the most powerful force in the world. Toxic stress tests that claim repeatedly. And yet, we give billions of dollars annually to thousands of nonprofits and to religious organizations in hope of some repair, some healing. A key reason society supports nonprofits is to inject a little more humanity into the world, to boost humanity’s capacity to do and be good and to offset the sources of toxic stress. We join those organizations because we know being human is hard work, that there is always a need for repair, for recovery. We also hope to provide a more humane ecology for raising children—and the systematic abuse of children within some religious contexts feels all the worse because that abuse violates the double-sacred trust of dealing with children and of representing God. It takes a lot of work to become and remain a human being. The proverb about “it takes a village…” does not apply only to children. It takes a village to become and remain a human being. At some point in our development as humans and as adults, we each must deal with the hand we were dealt when we did not have a say: with the hugs and the ACEs, with the love and the trauma, with the kindness and the hate. And then we must own the hard work of becoming a better human being, of what we will do with our anger, of how we claim our agency, of whether we return an eye for an eye or seek to walk a path that includes anger *and* love, reparation *and* forgiveness, judgment *and* grace. While we each must own and courageously do our own work, we need communities to guide and support us in the quest to grow into being human. One never becomes human alone. One never remains human alone. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [One Cannot Open the Future with the Past’s Blood-rusted Key](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/blood-rusted-key/) **Published:** July 5, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “The sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) Does this order also apply to texts? Are texts made for people and not people for texts? This is, obviously for any one paying attention to national debates, a live question. So-called “literal” approaches to texts claim the authority of some past persons or generation, the wisdom and authority of a person or persons in this generation to interpret, and seek to limit contemporary life to what today’s authoritative persons claim is the way the first generation’s authoritative persons deigned life to be. Note how this claim depends upon the recognized authority of a previous generation, of one or more persons in this generation recognized as authorities, a text which meaning can be definitively known today, and a people’s willingness to limit life to the boundaries the authorities set. What about prejudices and inconsistencies in those authoritative human beings? The only ways around the dilemma of inconsistency are either to claim the authoritative generation was infallible, that any contemporary claim they were prejudiced or mistaken is wrong. Neither the authoritative writing generation or the authoritative contemporary interpreters have prejudices or inconsistencies. Or, one must confess one is no longer an originalist or literalist but is interpreting the text in light of contemporary judgments. And, if one decides the writing generation or contemporary interpreters have any prejudices or inconsistent judgments, has not that interpreter departed from a literal, “originalist” reading? Of course. One of the problems with any kind of literalism is that it is impossible to mold all of life, all personal and social decisions, all technologies, all changes in place and demographics, to fit into a text from hundreds or thousands of years ago. Regarding the Second Amendment to the Constitution: is a semi-automatic gun held by possibly untrained and undisciplined individual citizen included in the “well-regulated militia” and “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed” clauses? (And consider that “bear arms” was a term used only in military contexts.) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/literalism-problems.png)In a document such as the Constitution, when does “men” mean the male of the species and when does it mean “human beings” inclusively? A literal interpretation, combined with known concerns such as Abigail Adams importuning John to “remember the ladies,” tilts in the male exclusive direction. When human behavior has clogged rivers and oceans with plastic in just 50 years and is driving ecosystems to make life for humankind inhospitable, and during an era where Congress is unable or unwilling to deliberate regarding many life-and-death matters, is it SCOTUS’s job to protect a pre-modern understanding of the Constitution while the nation burns, chokes, and floods? When one claims to be a biblical literalist, believing in the “plenary inspiration” of the Bible, as if God dictated the words directly into the ears of the writers who were merely stenographers, it is well to ask what kind of literalist one is. On one extreme would be R.J. Rushdoony, one of the fathers of modern dominionism and theonomy. He believed disobedient children who persisted in their disobedience should be stoned, just as Deuteronomy 21: 18-21 commands. In today’s culture wars, one hears similar interpretations regarding homosexuals. Most literalists don’t go that far. So, are they still literalists? There are also self-identified literalists who claim Christ divided between the “ceremonial” expressions of his religion and the “moral,” and holds his followers only to the latter. That’s an interesting claim considering that distinction is not an ancient one and would seem to conflict with every “jot and tittle” in effect until heaven and earth cease to be. Where are the literalists regarding keeping prayer in closets and off public display, or that list of virtues against which there is no law, or welcoming the sojourner, or that the rich have woes coming, or concerning the man who selfishly shared his windfall with no one and then died. Communities create authoritative texts. When they do so, those communities make the decision to dance with those texts, to play with those texts, and—yes—to live with those texts in ways that DO shape it life. Shape is not the same as mold. Some of you will know the second stanza below as from a hymn. That hymn contains stanzas from a long poem by abolitionist James Russell Lowell. He wrote [“The Present Crisis,”](https://poets.org/poem/present-crisis) regarding the nation, its claims to truth, and slavery. Read the conclusion of his poem (emphasis mine): > They have rights who dare maintain them; *we are traitors to our sires*, > *Smothering in their holy ashes* Freedom’s new-lit altar-fires; > Shall we *make their creed our jailer*? Shall we, in our haste to slay, > From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away > To *light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day*? > > *New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; > They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; > Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, > Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the *desperate winter sea*, > Nor *attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key*. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Faith Based (and all other) Nonprofit Recipients Should Disclose Why They Applied and What They Received in PPP Funds](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/ppp-funds-revealed-faith-based/) **Published:** July 13, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** How do you feel about Edmond-based LifeChurch.TV receiving in the category of $5-10 million in taxpayer funds? How about the $2-5 million for the Hobby Lobby owner-supported Museum of the Bible? Or the millions received collectively by conservative Christian colleges in Oklahoma? Or various Catholic entities (a national story last week said the Catholic Church, collectively, received $1.4 billion, including in dioceses that have paid out massive sums to settle child abuse cases)? Or how about the hundreds of thousands received by United Methodist entities, (including Boston Avenue in Tulsa, which I attend), and Presbyterian organizations, and Jewish and (at least one) Muslim institutions? I’m still sorting through my thoughts and feelings. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PPP-Graphic-Churches.png)Screenshot of the PPP spreadsheet filtered for a business name containing the word “church.” Last week, I extracted the categories of loans-by-dollar of faith-based nonprofits in Oklahoma that received at least $150,000 in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). (You can see the full database of all organizations that received at least $150 thousand on the [Small Business Administration website](https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/cares-act/assistance-for-small-businesses/sba-paycheck-protection-program-loan-level-data). The names of organizations that received smaller amounts are not publicly available. I pulled the Oklahoma faith-based list from the spreadsheet on the SBA site.) [I then created a Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/groups/CenterForReligionInPublicLife/permalink/280191516537027/) in the Center for Religion in Public Life group (which is open to the public to join) as well as on my personal page. The list I created is also at the bottom of this blog post. Seeing the list and the dollar categories caused strong reactions from Facebook commentators. Strong *negative* reactions. “Evil.” “Greedy.” “Appalling.” Nonprofits, take notice, please. I think you have a requirement, and you certainly have an opportunity, to make your “case for support” in public. Admittedly, my initial reactions were also negative. There were organizations on that list whose missions and values I reject. Some fund recipients work for values I find abhorrent. But my negative reactions weren’t limited to organizations I did not like. Houses of worship, schools, and service providers I admire are recipients too. I also looked in the national list for some of the graduate seminaries I know best. There was my alma mater, Garrett-Evangelical. There is Union in New York City. And there, too, was Princeton Theological Seminary. Despite being supported by a *billion-dollar endowment*, Princeton applied for and received funds in the $2-5 million category. (The administration and board at Phillips Theological Seminary, my employer, after thorough discussion, declined to apply.) Some commentators on last week’s post offered a helpful, broader perspective than those who reacted negatively. They rightly said: “In Oklahoma, much social service work is done through faith-based organizations. These organizations have employees. The PPP was intended to help keep employees employed by covering 2.5 months of salary and utilities. Some of these organizations run food pantries, day cares, pre-schools, end-of-life care, ministries with families of incarcerated persons, and schools. Who knew how the pandemic shutdowns would affect giving? And then there was tuition not being collected.” All true. So, here’s where sorting my thoughts and feelings has led me. *First, it is important to acknowledge the new elements of this government assistance program: this is the first time that a SBA program was open to nonprofits. The opening to nonprofits raised the First Amendment establishment clause issue of whether or not to include or exclude faith-based nonprofits. The decision was to include them.* In past times, the idea of a government, taxpayer, national-debt-increasing federal program paying the salaries of priests, rabbis, imams, ministers, and the like would have been anathema. But with the conservative shift in the courts, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that states cannot bar faith-based schools from receiving state funding if the state allows secular private schools to receive funding, these are not past times. And we have a president who fires up his base by the wall he wants to tear down—between church and state. In addition, [one of his surrogates assured the president’s religious supporters that they would be included in PPP funds.](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/marco-rubio-says-coronavirus-stimulus-legislation-will-provide-government-grants-to-churches/) Now, in truth, Mr. Jefferson never got his “wall” per se. The wall of separation, never mentioned in the Bill of Rights per se, was Swiss-cheesed from the start. Today the holes are growing, especially for a highly conservative brand of Christianity. In the case of PPP, the holes were opened for all religious 501c3 groups. As readers of this blog know, I prefer more rather than less of a wall between church and state. I am passionate about the need to guard our faith symbols and stories from being misused by the state, regardless of which administration is in power. Seeing all these religious groups funded by the federal government, at the same time the Supreme Court is ruling in favor of [religious schools receiving state funding](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/espinoza-v-montana-department-of-revenue/), on the one hand, and [barring “ministers,” now much more broadly defined, from suing their employers for discrimination, on the other hand](https://www.natlawreview.com/article/us-supreme-court-backs-broad-interpretation-ministerial-exception-shielding)—along with nearly every other action and stunt this president and his allies have taken/pulled that reduced the integrity of religion—well, all this leaves me feeling sick to my stomach and worried about what else comes through this enlarged church-state hole. That wall is crumbling down. Because of the youth and conservative bent of judges appointed both by Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, even if the administration changes color from red to blue, church-state cases are going to be decided by non-separationists for a long time. Setting aside my objection to the program based on church-state matters: *I know the leaders of faith-based institutions were worried, rightly so, regarding what a shutdown would mean for them. They care about their employees, and in a nonprofit personnel costs are often most of their budget because their people are their programs.* Large nonprofit operations, faith-based or not, have many employees and, therefore, high payrolls. It does not take long for a $60,000 compensation package, multiplied by 50 employees for 2.5 months, to add up quickly to real money. Few nonprofits have substantial reserves to cover a few months, and precious few have long-term investments to draw from for an indeterminate amount of time. One of the lessons I learned serving as a seminary president for nine years is that, regardless of how liberal or conservative an employee is, at the end of the day, everyone wants to be paid! With these reasons in mind, it would seem reasonable and proper for all nonprofits to apply for funds. I would bet some boards and administrations also reasoned that it is their fiduciary responsibility to do all in their power to secure funding for their school. With that reasoning, leaving money on the table that might otherwise aid their organization is unethical. Yeah, I’m not buying that one. *We are not talking about donors, or disputed wills. We are talking about taxpayer dollars in a limited fund that, huge as it was, was insufficient to cover the requests of the businesses that applied. There were more or less needy organizations. More or less.* And it is highly likely that some with “more” shut out those with “less.” *What are the unintended consequences of taking these funds?* Religious organizations walked through the open door, opened by the state, of a different relationship between religious institutions and the state. Anyone who thinks that relationship will always benefit religion, that all the walking and requirements are in one direction, that there won’t be any quid pro quos, has not read history, or is not allowing what we know about history to trouble their justifications for taking this money. ***Here comes my biggest complaint, and I really hope nonprofits in general and religious nonprofits in particular, will address this matter: the secrecy about who applied, who received, and how much was received needs to end.*** Ever since the Enron scandal and the resulting Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, nonprofits have been required to be more transparent about funding, how their CEO compensation is determined, and to develop and follow conflict of interest and ethics policies. Secular nonprofits are required to file with the IRS a disclosure document named the 990 (you can review the 990 of any secular nonprofit, for free at [Guidestar](https://www.guidestar.org/)). Religious nonprofits are not required to file, although some voluntarily do so. ***For the sake of transparency and earning public trust, the SBA should have disclosed the exact amount each organization received. And for the sake of transparency and earning public trust at a time when the religiously-affiliated population of the U.S. is decreasing and public officials have contributed mightily to public cynicism, every receiving organization should disclose why they applied and what they received*.** These are public dollars, loaned by the federal government (more on that below). These funds have greatly increased the government debt. Who pays that debt? Will it be paid in this generation or will it take generations to pay this debt, as often happens after a war? ***Every receiving organization ought to publish on its website the reasons for asking for the money, the amount received, and furnish a report on how the funds were used. Anything less will make these loans-that-will-become-grants feel even more icky.*** Last point. *Whom should be thanked, and what form should thanking take?* If the organizations used the loans as intended, the loan becomes a grant. In the nonprofit world, a grant is a kind of a gift. And the gifting entity is owed thanks, as well as an accounting for how the gift was used. Who should be thanked? Congress? The American people? The President seeking re-election at all costs and his door-opening allies? And what form does thanks take? Swag? Not useful. (Who needs tens of thousands of key chains, shopping bags, or coffee mugs?) Thank you notes? Plausible. Quid pro quos? Ah, government money comes with strings! Now we’re in a political game. A political game that involves government, religion, and money—what could go wrong? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). (Author’s note: I would welcome other attempts to create an accurate list. Since I was judging which entities belonged on the list by name, I may have included or excluded some organizations in error.) a $5-10 million LIFE. CHURCH OPERATIONS, LLC b $2-5 million CROSSINGS COMMUNITY CHURCH, INC b $2-5 million MID-AMERICA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY, INC b $2-5 million OKLAHOMA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY b $2-5 million OKLAHOMA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY, INC. b $2-5 million ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF TULSA b $2-5 million SOUTHERN NAZARENE UNIVERSITY b $2-5 million THE BAPTIST CONVENTION OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA b $2-5 million THE MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE b $2-5 million VICTORY CHRISTIAN CENTER INC b $2-5 million WILLIE GEORGE MINISTRIES, INC c $1-2 million OKLAHOMA BAPTIST HOMES FOR CHILDREN, INC. c $1-2 million A NEW LEAF, INC. c $1-2 million ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY c $1-2 million BISHOP KELLY HIGH SCHOOL, INC c $1-2 million BISHOP MCGUINNESS HIGH SCHOOL c $1-2 million OKLAHOMA CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS, INC. c $1-2 million OKLAHOMA CONFERENCE CORPORATION OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS c $1-2 million OKLAHOMA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, INC c $1-2 million PHILADELPHIA CHURCH OF GOD, INC c $1-2 million RHEMA BIBLE CHURCH c $1-2 million ST. LUKE’S UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, INC. c $1-2 million MONTE CASSINO SCOOL, INC c $1-2 million THE ASSEMBLY OF GOD CHURCH BROKEN ARROW, OK INC c $1-2 million THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESES OF OKLAHOMA, INC. c $1-2 million THE VOICE OF THE MARTYRS, INC. c $1-2 million TULSA CHRISTIAN EDUCATION CORPORATION c $1-2 million TULSA JEWISH COMMUNITY RETIREMENT AND HEALTH CARE CENTER, INC c $1-2 million UNITED METHODIST HOME OF ENID, INC d $350,000-1 million BACONE COLLEGE INC d $350,000-1 million BETHANY FIRST CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE d $350,000-1 million CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY INC. d $350,000-1 million CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF TULSA d $350,000-1 million CHRIST THE KIN CHURCH d $350,000-1 million CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY d $350,000-1 million CHURCH OF THE SERVANT d $350,000-1 million CITY RESCUE MISSION, INC. d $350,000-1 million CONGREGATION B’NAI EMUNAH d $350,000-1 million CORDELL CHRISTIAN HOME d $350,000-1 million CRISTO REY OKLAHOMA CITY CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL, INC d $350,000-1 million DESTINY CHRISTIAN SCHOOL INC d $350,000-1 million FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF TULSA d $350,000-1 million FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH d $350,000-1 million FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF EDMOND d $350,000-1 million FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF TULSA d $350,000-1 million FIRST WESLEYAN CHURCH d $350,000-1 million GUTS CHURCH, INC d $350,000-1 million HEARTLAND BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE INC d $350,000-1 million JOHN 3:16 MISSION d $350,000-1 million KIRK OF THE HILLS CORPORATION d $350,000-1 million LUTHERAN SENIOR CITIZENS INC d $350,000-1 million MCFARLIN MEMORIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH d $350,000-1 million MEMORIAL ROAD CHURCH OF CHRIST d $350,000-1 million MOUNT SAINT MARY HIGHSCHOOL d $350,000-1 million OKLAHOMA ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH INC d $350,000-1 million OKLAHOMA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY d $350,000-1 million OKLAHOMA UNITED METHODIST CIRCLE OF CARE, INC d $350,000-1 million ORAL ROBERTS EVANGELISTIC ASSOCIATION, INC. d $350,000-1 million PEOPLE’S CHURCH, INC. d $350,000-1 million QUAIL SPRINGS BAPTIST CHURCH, INC. d $350,000-1 million SAINT MATTHEWS’ CHURCHES d $350,000-1 million SOUTHWEST COVENANT SCHOOLS, INC. d $350,000-1 million SOUTHWESTERN CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY, INC. d $350,000-1 million ST. EUGENE CATHOLIC CHURCH d $350,000-1 million ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST CATHOLIC CHURCH d $350,000-1 million ST. KATHARINE DREXEL RETIREMENT CENTER, INC. d $350,000-1 million THE ACADEMY OF CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN STUDIES, INC. d $350,000-1 million THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF BROKEN ARROW OKLAHOMA d $350,000-1 million THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH U.S.A. OF TULSA, OKLA. d $350,000-1 million TULSA BOSTON AVENUE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH d $350,000-1 million VICTORY CHRISTIAN CENTER, OKLAHOMA CITY INC. d $350,000-1 million VICTORY FAMILY CHURCH, INC. d $350,000-1 million VICTORY LIFE CHURCH, INC. e $150,000-350,000 FCC CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER e $150,000-350,000 MCFARLIN CHURCH DAYCARE e $150,000-350,000 VICTORY LIFE ACADEMY, INC e $150,000-350,000 A GLORIOUS CHURCH FELLOWSHIP INC. e $150,000-350,000 ALL SOULS EPISCOPAL CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 ALL SOULS UNITARIAN CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 ARROW HEIGHTS BAPTIST CHURCH, INC. e $150,000-350,000 BARTLESVILLE FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 BISHOP JOHN CARROLL SCHOOL e $150,000-350,000 BLESSED SACRAMENT CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 BLESSINGS INTERNATIONAL e $150,000-350,000 BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF CAMPS AND CONFERENCES OF THE OKLAHOMA ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 CHURCH OF THE HARVEST OF AMERICA, INC. e $150,000-350,000 CITY CHURCH OF BARTLESVILLE e $150,000-350,000 CLAREMORE \*\* FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF CLAREMORE e $150,000-350,000 COUNCIL ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 COVENANT LIVING OF BIXBY e $150,000-350,000 EMMANUEL BAPTIST CHURCH OF ENID, OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 EMMAUS BAPTIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 FAITH FREE WILL BAPTIST CHURCH, INC e $150,000-350,000 FAITH TABERNACLE ASSOCIATION, INC. e $150,000-350,000 FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 FIRST ASSEMBLY OF GOD e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH MOORE, OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF ADA e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF BARTLESVILLE e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF JENKS e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF MUSTANG, INC. e $150,000-350,000 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF NORMAN OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF OWASSO e $150,000-350,000 FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF ARDMORE e $150,000-350,000 FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF BROKEN ARROW, OKLA. e $150,000-350,000 FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF OWASSO, INC e $150,000-350,000 GOLDEN RULE INDUSTRIES OF MUSKOGEE, INC e $150,000-350,000 GOOD SHEPHERD COMMUNITY CLINIC INC. e $150,000-350,000 HOLY TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH INC e $150,000-350,000 HOMECHURCH, INC e $150,000-350,000 HOPE CENTER MINISTRIES e $150,000-350,000 HOPE HARBOR, INC. e $150,000-350,000 HOPE IS ALIVE MINISTRIES INC. e $150,000-350,000 HOSPICE CIRCLE OF LOVE ASSOCIATION e $150,000-350,000 HOUSE OF DAVID INC e $150,000-350,000 JEWISH FEDERATION OF TULSA e $150,000-350,000 KING’S GATE MINISTRIES, INCORPORATED e $150,000-350,000 MERCY SCHOOL INSTITUTE e $150,000-350,000 MESSIAH LUTHERAN CHURCH, INC. e $150,000-350,000 MET CARES FOUNDATION, INC. e $150,000-350,000 METROPOLITAN BIBLE CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 MINGO VALLEY CHRISTIAN SCHOOL, INC e $150,000-350,000 MINISTRIES OF JESUS, INC. e $150,000-350,000 NEW COVENANT UNITED METHODIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 NORTH CHURCH, INC. e $150,000-350,000 NORTHSIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 OAK HALL EPISCOPAL SCHOOL e $150,000-350,000 OKLAHOMA DISTRICT COUNCIL OF THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 PEACE ACADEMY e $150,000-350,000 PONCA CITY \*\* FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH OF PONCA CITY, OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 PUTNAM CITY BAPTIST CHURCH INC e $150,000-350,000 QUEST CHURCH, INC. e $150,000-350,000 REDEEMER COVENANT CHURCH OF TULSA e $150,000-350,000 REMERGE OF OKLAHOMA COUNTY, INC e $150,000-350,000 RESONANCE CENTER FOR WOMEN INC e $150,000-350,000 SACRED HEART CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 SAINT ANN RETIREMENT CENTER e $150,000-350,000 SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 SOUTHERN HILLS BAPTIST CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 ST MARYS CATHOLIC CHURCH OF PONCA CITY OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 ST PHILIP NERI CATHOLIC CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 ST. AUGUSTINE ACADEMY, INC. e $150,000-350,000 ST. CHARLES BORROMEO CATHOLIC CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 ST. FRANCIS XAVIER CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ENID, OKLAHOM e $150,000-350,000 ST. JOHN NEPOMUK CATHOLIC CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 ST. MARY SCHOOL e $150,000-350,000 ST. MARY’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL, INC. e $150,000-350,000 FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF STILLWATER, OKLA. e $150,000-350,000 SUNNYBROOK CHRISTIAN CHURCH, INC e $150,000-350,000 THE CARBONDALE ASSEMBLY OF GOD CHURCH OF TULSA OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 THE COOKSON HILLS CHRISTIAN SCHOOL e $150,000-350,000 THE EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT MINISTRY, INC. e $150,000-350,000 THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 THE GENESIS PROJECT, INC. e $150,000-350,000 THE GOOD SHEPHERD LUTHERAN CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 THE LOVE STATION e $150,000-350,000 THE OKLAHOMA BIBLE ACADEMY e $150,000-350,000 THE OKLAHOMA UNITED METHODIST FOUNDATION e $150,000-350,000 THE PARK CHURCH OF CHRIST e $150,000-350,000 TRANSFORMATION CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH OF ADA OKLAHOMA e $150,000-350,000 WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 WOODLAKE ASSEMBLY OF GOD CHURCH e $150,000-350,000 WRIGHT CHRISTIAN ACADEMY **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Stink and Grace](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/stink-and-grace/) **Published:** June 28, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Life stinks. I’m not using the word “stinks” as a value judgment. I don’t mean to invoke the scene of a child who dropped their ice cream on the ground: “Oh, Honey, that really stinks!” Or the baseball fan’s epithet when he thinks an umpire blew the call: “You stink, Ump!!” No, I’m talking about the smells of life: body odors, the waste of meat-eating animals, marsh rot, freshly spread pig manure on fields. [![YOUNG HELPER at Volunteer Work Day at Blue River. © Katie Hawk](https://natureconservancy-h.assetsadobe.com/is/image/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/photos/IMG_9360_1640x1025.jpg?crop=0%2C0%2C1640%2C1025&wid=1640&hei=1025&scl=1.0)](https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/oklahoma/stories-in-oklahoma/volunteer-clean-ups-at-blue-river/)YOUNG HELPER at Volunteer Work Day at Blue River. © Katie Hawk All those things, and many more, stink. A great deal of what we call civilization is built to deal with stink: paved streets; sanitation systems that move human and household waste to treatment plants, dumps, and recycling stations; soaps, detergents, bleaches, and deodorants; water purification; scrubbers to lessen the smell and damage of fossil fuels burned by utility companies. Life stinks. And if we don’t pay sufficient attention to cleaning up those stinks, especially when it comes to water and trash systems, society is in trouble. Ask any resident of Flint, Michigan what is like to live without drinkable water or any resident of New York City when sanitation workers strike and you’ll get ample testimonies: life without cleanup stinks. Now, I DO want to move from the actual to the metaphorical. Social life without repair, reparation, and forgiveness stinks. It is human to cause others pain and to feel pain in relationships. It is human to seek redress for being wronged, to seek an eye—or two—for an eye taken. It is human to define ourselves as over against some “other” and to fight against the other for the sake of honor, defense, or gain. It is human to dominate. All these behaviors cause human life to stink. Even some alleged practices of “repair” add to the smell: scapegoating, suppressing “undesirable elements,” burying the shameful past, and banishing. If this is all it meant to be human, life would only and always stink. But it is also human to cooperate, to care, to show compassion, and to reach out again despite being wounded. It is human to love. It is human to resist injustice and to defend those who are unjustly treated. It is human to desire to repair broken or damaged relationships and to seek a way forward. Together. These practices constitute a society’s cleansing system. Without compassion, repair, love, and forgiveness, being in any relationship—from the intimate to the societal—stinks. However, whereas a sanitation system might simply remove the smell from our eyes and noses, the social cleansing system requires each of us, and our communities, to deal personally with the stink. Any community—from a family through a village—or society without a functional social cleansing system will collapse under the weight of resentment, shame, and injustices. In religious language: brokenness, or sin, is endemic in human life. We will hurt someone else, regardless of intent. We will participate in systems that privilege some and disadvantage others, regardless of intent. But if the hurts and offenses are never flushed from the system, if relationships are judged to be beyond repair, if forgiveness is unavailable or demanded prematurely or withheld indefinitely, society will stink. As I tell churches when I teach or consult regarding their communities: a community is not perfectible as a term paper might be. There are term papers—rare, yes, but in reality—that are grammatically correct, stylistically sophisticated, and well-argued. But communities are always in flux, are never “ready to be turned in,” can never be perfected, will always include relationships that work and others that struggle. In other words, a society will always stink, more or less. And any community worthy of being called a community will always practice practices, such as repair and forgiveness, without which it is hard to live, and impossible to live abundantly. Again, in religious terms, life without grace stinks. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Religious Communities Could Help Us Develop the Power to Slow Down our Moral Responses](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/religious-communities-could-help-us-develop-the-power-to-slow-down-our-moral-responses/) **Published:** May 26, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** All religious communities are schools of moral formation and moral discourse. The work of defining the gap between “is” and “ought,” the difference between right and wrong, between the desirable and the undesirable, between what to love and hold close and what to reject, between times to act and times to wait—this work is essential in every religious community. Some communities fail miserably at this work, especially when leaders violate their fiduciary responsibilities and exploit the vulnerable. Some communities are effective at inculcating a moral core in its adherents, whether or not you or I would agree with the content of that moral core. I wonder how intentional religious communities are in their work of moral formation. ![moral tribes book cover](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/moral-tribes-book-cover-687x1024.jpg)[*Moral Tribes*](https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-Between/dp/0143126059/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M045C2M3Y3KG&dchild=1&keywords=moral+tribes&qid=1589897654&sprefix=moral+tri%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-1) is a 2013 book by Harvard psychologist and brain researcher Joshua Greene. The subtitle is “Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them.” His basic argument is: there are two different moral response modes rooted in the brain, one automatic and one manual. (Greene references Daniel Kahneman’s [*Thinking, Fast and Slow*](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1589896091&sr=8-2).) Our *automatic* moral response is emotion-based. The emotion-based moral system is pre-programmed for tribal behavior (he is using “tribe” as an anthropologist does, referring to an identity group larger than a family but smaller than a nation). We feel safer around people who we perceive to be “like us.” We care for and defend those persons we think are “like us.” Human beings evolved to form tribes because cooperation is a competitive advantage. But the cooperation that is a virtue of intra-group life is the source of competition with out-groups. By forming tribes, my tribe can cooperate to survive competition with other tribes, or to defeat them. The automatic moral response is one of the leading sources of division in today’s hyper-partisan politics. We who are working for a more just, hospitable, and compassionate multi-cultural, multi-religious America have a moral response that conflicts deeply with the automatic responses of the tribes that are enacting their will in state and federal politics and policies. Greene labels the other moral response “*manual*” to indicate this mode of decision-making is volitional. One must make a choice, a decision. In any particular person or culture, the manual moral mode might be underdeveloped. It might be developed only to rationalize and provide reasons for automatic decisions. It might be developed sufficiently to challenge and supplant the automatic. Any kind of cosmopolitan, transnational ethics which seek the good for the human race—without regard to tribe—and for the planet derives from the manual mode. Given the problematics facing the human race, more and more powerful manual mode thinking would be good! The good news, according to Dr. Greene, is that tribalism is more like code than hardware. Human beings don’t *have* to behave as competing tribes. We *can* develop the moral imagination to live toward a better life for more people, and for more of the planet’s ecosystems, than is currently the case. Which communities and what activities can strengthen manual moral decision-making, in persons and groups, to move us toward a more just, compassionate, equal nation that cooperates with other nations for the good of all rather than competes for regional or world dominance? Through the centuries, religions have developed traditions of spiritual and moral formation designed to shape its adherents’ automatic moral responses and their powers of responding with reason and not simply rationalization. Prayer, worship, education classes, service projects, global studies. Religion can be excellent in building walls around its tribe and rejecting, or consigning to hell, members of other tribes. And, religion can excel at building bridges of cooperation and compassion between groups. In Tulsa as in much of the rest of the nation, we see both! Bridge-building is intrinsic to compassion, to expanding the circle of who we consider “like us.” Our automatic moral response mode disposes us to be compassionate to those who are “like us,” to sit with others in their suffering and to see what we can do to relieve their suffering so that no one suffers alone and so that the group remains strong. What we need—we, religious people, we residents of the U.S.—is more, and more intentional, moral formation that will strengthen our communities, our tribes, and our nation’s capacity to see “the Other” as “like me,” “like us.” Who could lead the way? Public schools are overburdened. Many politicians in power have another agenda. Social good entrepreneurs are doing admirable work. But the organizations that have more opportunity than perhaps any other type of organization in our society to step up to the plate, and do the work of moral formation, remain religious organizations. Now would be a good time for those who believe in building bridges of compassion rather than walls of rejection to get louder and do the work of moral formation with more attention and intention. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Loyalty May Be Virtue or Vice](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/virtue-or-vice/) **Published:** June 21, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** > Faithful adherence to the sovereign or lawful government; *spec.* of government employees. Also, in later use, enthusiastic reverence for the person and family of the sovereign. > > Definition of “loyalty” from the Oxford English Dictionary The meaning of the word “loyalty” has vexed me recently. At home, we watched the classic movie, *All the President’s Men*, about how the Watergate story broke and developed 50 years ago. When young reporters Woodward and Bernstein went door-to-door to seek information, many people slammed the door on them. One woman, nearly in tears as they questioned her about President Nixon, charged (paraphrase): “You don’t understand loyalty.” Loyalty is a mercurial virtue or moral emotion. It is among those moral emotions that some moral psychologists claim is of much higher value for conservatives than for liberals. The meaning of loyalty is particularly interesting for a nation begun in an act of revolt, a betrayal of “the sovereign or lawful government.” The republic was founded in an act of betrayal against monarchy and a particular monarch. Today, in the hearings regarding the events of January 6, 2021, the controverted meaning of loyalty is on display. The former president values loyalty to him personally, and many elected officials and candidates for office around the country evidence “enthusiastic reverence for the person and family of the sovereign,” just as the former president demands. Those who invaded the Capitol claimed they were the patriots, evidencing their loyalty to America. The vice president, in their perspective, was the traitor while, for the rest of us, his loyalty to his oath of office saved the nation from further chaos. What is the difference between loyalty and sycophancy? Perhaps the latter is the extreme version of the former. And if the extreme becomes the definition, then there is no higher loyalty. Witnesses in the U.S. House hearings, largely Republicans, reject loyalty to the person in favor of loyalty to the rule of law. “We are a nation of laws and not loyalty to particular persons,” is both the implicit and explicit moral claim of a constitutional republic. For some persons, any action which is not blind loyalty is betrayal. That is both an un-American and un-Christian moral claim. When a pastor sexually assaults a minor or uses their office to seduce a vulnerable congregant, and the situation becomes known, the reaction from parishioners ranges from loyalty to the person of their leader to loyalty to the principle of “believe the testimony.” So many congregations and victims of pastoral misconduct have been tormented by demons, sometimes for decades, because those in power quashed and buried actions that needed investigation. Those in power refused “to betray” the pastor and thus betrayed their fiduciary duties to everyone else. My own denomination, The United Methodist Church, is roiled by conflicting loyalties. We cannot claim to be united or even to “love one another.” There are those of us who have been “the loyal opposition” to the denomination’s stance regarding homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage, staying and acting mostly within the system to change the system. Some of us decided we must transgress the prohibition out of loyalty to an understanding of God and the Bible that differs from the understandings embedded in the current policy. Are those who transgress the current Discipline of the church guilty of betrayal, or is the denomination’s stance a betrayal of Christian love? ![](https://st-takla.org/Gallery/var/albums/Jesus-Christ/14-Judas-Betrayal/www-St-Takla-org--Damiana-Monastery-icon-Judas.jpg?m=1419425415)Damiana Monastery icon Judas (Modern Coptic icon, painted by the nuns of Saint Demiana Monastery, Egypt) Loyalty and betrayal are, of course, at the heart of the Christian narrative. Judas betrays Jesus, revealing his location to the temple authorities and then identities him to the temple police with a kiss. One of history’s most awful betrayals, right? Well, a bit more than 50 years ago the musical *Jesus Christ Superstar* challenged that interpretation. In John’s gospel, the claim is Judas was a thief who stole from the common purse. The other gospel writers make no such allegation. What if Judas thought Jesus would usher in a violent overthrow of the Romans and was deeply disappointed when it became increasingly clear that was not the case? What if he judged Jesus had betrayed his mission because Judas held a different understanding of how God was going to act? Then was his act one of betrayal or loyalty to a higher cause? Loyalty may be a way of concealing self-interest, sycophancy, or tribalism. And loyalty may be just what is needed when the going is tough. Is loyalty a virtue of a vice? When is betrayal an act to support a higher or different loyalty? The answers require judgment. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Is the Future Ecumenical or Parochial?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/ecumenical/) **Published:** June 14, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In the aftermath of World War II, ecumenically-involved Christian churches urgently mobilized to prevent World War III. Churches that believed they were following the commandment of Christ to love one another and to discern their God-given unity organized missions, social action, and dialogue as aspects of the modern ecumenical movement from about 1908 through World War II. Then, surfing the same wave from which the United Nations emerged to replace the failed League of Nations, the founding leaders and churches of the World Council of Churches professed their conviction that the world needed an outward and visible expression of the unity of the church to counter the forces that otherwise might rip humanity, and even the planet, apart. Christianity, they firmly believed, while expressed differently ethnic enclaves and nations, was a trans-ethnic, transnational movement. Its adherents were to be loyal first to the Reign of God and secondly to the country/nation/state in which they lived. The priority for the two realms—God’s reign and human nation-states—must never be confused. Nazi Germany was their bleedingly-fresh example of what goes wrong when the two are commingled and the state commands supreme loyalty. In the post-World War II era, with the world locked into the politics driven by the USA and their allies versus the USSR and their allies, with fear of nuclear annihilation, Christians were influential and diligent in working for a lasting peace. From the first, the peace and unity in Christ movements were opposed. Some Christians condemned the United Nations and the World Council. The latter was deemed a communist organization because it included a Central Committee, and only communists had central committees. The WCC was a modern Tower of Babel, a human attempt to dethrone God through organization and centralization. Ecumenism per se was dismissed as “latitudinarianism”—another way of saying open to all manner of heresy and pollution, in terms of doctrine, practices, and—yes—peoples. (To be fair, these criticisms came from several angles and communions, from fundamentalist and evangelicals and including elements of the Reformed tradition, Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Purity codes and ecumenism do not mix.) The subsequent heirs of those ecumenical, world-organization opponents are the ones behind the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Eagle Forum, and their descendants and cousins (including, it could be argued, the Tea Party and white Christian nationalism). Their efforts—which may include events such as Catholics, Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Baptists, and Pentecostals holding hands in protest outside an abortion clinic—are sometimes called “the new ecumenism.” But cooperation for a common purpose, while essential and (when the cause is good and right) admirable, is not ecumenism. Ecumenism begins in the theological conviction that God loves the *oikumene*, the whole world. God’s beloved world includes God’s beloved human beings who demonstrate they understand who they are by how they love God, each other, themselves, and God’s creation. Human beings have been immensely creative in conjuring ways to divide ourselves from each other, not just to distinguish but to set up hierarchies of better over worse: male over female, wealthy over poor, strong over weak, white over brown, Christian over all others. In an ecumenical perspective, these divisions in church or in a church-supported culture, are sin. Ecumenical Christianity does not seek to eliminate distinctions between genders, those of differing abilities, and cultures. But, when thinking and acting rightly, ecumenical Christianity asks how those differences can serve the whole, for godly purposes. Unity is not uniformity, for outward uniformity requires autocracy. Diversity does not necessarily mean division, difference is not occasion for disgust, for dividing what God does not divide. Condemning those who are considered impure is the kind of religion Jesus rejected. From looking at the overflowing cornucopia of diversities among human beings and in the created order, from the darkest depths of the oceans to the most brilliant star-lit sky, delight in diversity is evident everywhere. But while the world could use a robust infusion of an ecumenical spirit, another spirit dominates the day. In the post-World War II years, ecumenical Christianity ascended in importance and influence. The social upheavals and resultant anxieties from the 1960s and 70s flipped which kind of religion would ascend. Magnetic attraction moved from ecumenical to parochial. And in today’s world where, as one commentator said, the world is at war with our own diversity, religion that consumes and feeds the energy of hate, division, fear, and superiority has grown very powerful and seems here to stay. And what of the churches preaching that love is stronger than hate and fear, that love covers a multitude of sins, that God is pure unbounded love, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, that all human beings are children of God, that the planet is part of God’s beloved creation, that we are supposed to show by our actions we are neighbors to each other? [![](https://movieshub24.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Horton-Hears-a-Who-2008-full-movie.jpeg)](https://youtu.be/y8GsRWctVXA)They are still there. But some days their collective voice seems to be as soft as the Who’s that Horton vowed to protect but which “the powers that be” could not hear. So, keep calling out, all you Who’s in Whoville. Make sure no one fails to speak up and out. There is one God—creator of us all, who is the source of true power and authentic love. We share one home (the earth) we are supposed to till and keep, to repair and work with God to complete. We belong to one humanity, one race, sharing all but the tiniest fraction of DNA and yet gloriously diverse We are to neighbor each other, and anyone anywhere is potentially our neighbor. We have one intertwined destiny—at least until an asteroid hits the earth or the sun supernovas; and we have freedom and responsibility to shape that destiny. Love, not fear. Justice and equality, not oppression and this or that supremacy. And, for those of us who identify as Christian, we look to Jesus to light the path on which we must walk—and not only “believe.” Maybe—through the din created by fear, weapons shooting and sabers rattling, through social media and school-board disrupting hate—one day our voices and love will again contribute to an ecumenical turning to meet the challenges of an ecumenical age. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Evil and Ill? Yes but...](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/evil-and-ill-yes-but/) **Published:** June 7, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** There is evil afoot as well as some kind of mental illness regarding gun violence in the U.S. On those points I agree with those who attribute America’s excessive gun violence to evil and mental illness. But I see very differently where the evil and mental illness are located. Americans kill each other with guns [more than any other nation](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081). Are Americans more evil than other peoples? Are we more mentally ill than other nations? If one believes the argument that gun violence in the U.S. is because of evil and mental illness, one might be required to answer affirmatively. However, since church-going Christians continue to be a much higher percentage of the population in the U.S. than in other nations where gun violence is lower and where mass shootings are rare, one wonders from whence the excessively evil and sick people come. Must be from all the atheists and liberals… except that the latter group is less likely to own guns than their conservative neighbors. So, scratch that possibility. Surely, one understands naming an action or an actor “evil” or “sick” when that person plans and executes a massacre of children and adults they never met. What kind of degraded human being could look into the eyes of children and pull a trigger? I understand labeling such an act or actor “evil” or “an abomination.” And surely there is illness, deeply distorted thinking, involved when a man opens fire on his doctor and anyone who got in the way. America has always been possessed by a gun culture. At the time of the Constitution’s adoption, it was assumed individuals owned guns for hunting and for self-protection. Guns are us and are likely to be us for a long time. The 2nd Amendment referred to something different from individual gun ownership. It was written regarding state militias. The “right to bear arms” is a clause which, in the language of the day, was used only to refer to the military (see the articles to which I link below). Gun ownership is not an evil in itself. I appreciate the Jewish perspective that human beings have two inclinations: toward good and toward evil. By the way we are treated and by the way we treat ourselves and others, we strengthen one inclination or the other. Policies and practices, morals and mores, should strengthen the inclination to do good. In terms of owning guns, the last four decades have strengthened the opposite inclination. The National Rifle Association was founded for the purposes of promoting responsible gun ownership among sporting enthusiasts and hunters, safety, and marksmanship. Fine. Sounds very reasonable and not at all evil. But within my lifetime, the NRA became a pre-eminent power broker in American elections at all levels. The mission of promoting responsible gun ownership morphed into fear-and-danger mongering to sell more and more guns, with abandon. The legitimate desires for safety and the right to self-defense were twisted into a culture of constant fear and danger where “the only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good buy with a gun.” White reactions to the civil rights movement, to Black Power, and to the biggest influx of immigrants in two generations were hijacked to stoke more fear and sell more guns. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/firearms-per-100-residents-nation-rates.png)With an estimated 1.2 to 1.4 guns per every person in the U.S., America is awash with guns, including an unprecedented number of guns designed for war available to civilians. And the solution to our “gun problem” is always more guns. Arm the teachers. Arm an usher. Arm the pastor—there is a lot of room under those robes to conceal. Arm a secret shopper (okay, I’ve not heard *that* one… yet). And, give kids bullet-proof backpacks. Wall up all doors but one. “Harden the targets.” So, an industry and its elected backers amp up a culture of fear and danger. They effectively move the culture and the needle on how the Constitution is interpreted so that even elected officials, who should know better, profess the 2nd Amendment is “sacred” and must be interpreted “purely.” Heck, that “well-regulated militia” clause has been severed from “the right to bear arms.” They meet the cries of at least 60 and sometimes 90 percent of the population for common sense gun laws with a very undemocratic “no.” They squeeze out nothing but “thoughts and prayers” when innocents of all ages are massacred by persons wielding weapons of war. In short, they offer guns as the solution to a problem they fed and fed and fed. And they blame evil actors or mental illness for an irresponsible monstrosity they created and from which the industry and its elected backers wash their hands. That deception is evil. This deception, this lie is fed repeatedly to the American people by a minority of the population and ensconced in law and culture. If the solution to the gun problem they brought upon us is more guns, and if *we the people* accept that solution, that acceptance may not be mentally ill according to some DSM-5 definition. But it sure is evidence that our culture-and-policy-fed inclination to evil is winning over our inclination to good. And for any person who professes to believe that human beings are created in the image of God, that acceptance is also evidence that we really believe something else. --- LEARN MORE: - For the history-based reading on which I relied in what I wrote, [see this article](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-nra-rewrote-second-amendment) from the Brennan Center for Justice. - [Article on public health and gun violence](https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/we-can-reduce-gun-violence-in-the?r=dvayr&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email). - For several common sense policy proposals that address the supply side of guns in the culture, read [this one](https://tulsaworld.com/opinion/columnists/column-spare-us-the-thoughts-and-prayers-here-are-ideas-for-action/article_1c731480-e067-11ec-b5fd-c3bf8ce68c2d.html). --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Speak Up Against White Christian Nationalism](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/speak-up/) **Published:** May 24, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The United States is not God’s chosen nation. The United States is a nation and not a church. These truths are under attack and responding to the attack needs the attention of every person who believes these two statements are true. White Christian nationalism is one of the greatest threats facing the U.S., and it is the greatest threat facing Christianity in America. White Christian nationalism (WCN) is an amalgam of what is wrong with the practice of Christianity in the U.S. and with the nation. WCN is gasoline for the arson fire set to burn democracy to the ground, for providing inspiration and a moral hierarchy to impose the will of a minority on the majority of the nation—in the name of God. Except both WCN and God will wind up smelling to high heaven—to a heaven emptied of divinity unworthy of devotion, loyalty, or respect. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/US-Not-Chosen-1024x536.png)Six years ago, I was concerned about the counterfeit Christianity known as Christian nationalism. I said it influenced political discourse beyond its numbers but was not an existential threat to nation or Christianity. But now, candidates are running for office—and winning primaries and offices—based on white grievance, claims that America is founded on Christian values and/or by and for Christians only, and that the U.S. is God’s chosen nation that receives blessings from God if the right people with the right laws rule. And if the right people with the right laws do not rule, the nation is cursed. Yes, Manifest Destiny—the claim so-named in the mid-19th century that white Euro-Americans were given the continent and colonies by God to Christianize (or exterminate) the inhabitants and enjoy all the “blessings” provided by the land—has been around in an evolving way for tens of decades. And in the 1880s and the 1920s, fearful yet confident Anglo-Saxon supremacists shut down immigration for “others.” But the competing push has been to expand the franchise (voting) and who “deserves” full rights, despite the best efforts of Jim and Janes Crow politicians and supporting voters. The trend was toward enlarging the circle. Not today. Close the borders. Narrow who votes. De-legitimize elections. Return to state’s rights arguments and threaten nullification. Turn *from* Christian identity as a marker between the U.S. and godless communists *to* a battle line drawn within the nation. And the energy to boil this conflict into a war, to claim “alternative truths and facts,” to narrow what it means to be an American, to imagine and act on the most paranoid conspiracy theories, and to limit who belongs and who has full rights—is white Christian nationalism. WCN does not have a doctrinal basis, as in a creed like the Nicene or Apostles. Christian nationalists don’t care, and most won’t even know, about the historical clash of “symbolics” (creeds and defining beliefs and practices). Closed or open table? Proceeding from the Father and the Son or the Father alone? Trespasses or debts? Nonsense. Who cares? What matters, in a creedal sense, are these: loyalty to all the laws, policies, freedoms and prejudices that favor whiteness (with white males at the pinnacle); the 2nd Amendment; America First; Christianity as an ethno-identity, optionally connected with church-going; Jesus as a law and order man, who slides with his spikes high and pitches inside, punishes his enemies through his Chosen Ones, and expects his name to be inscribed in every capitol, in every civic plaza, and somewhere in the Constitution; heterosexuality and two genders are sacred, every other claim is an abomination; inequality is God-given; freedom for “my people;” the end justifies the means; Christians, the right Christians, should rule—always and forevermore. White Christian nationalism is destroying American democracy, and it drains the integrity of the Church that should be communities of Jesus followers dedicated to the love of God, neighbor, self, and all that God has made. Here is my question, my plea. On the website of the church you attend or know best, would you advocate for a message that reads something like: > Christianity is a transnational community of persons who claim to walk the path Jesus walked. Jesus’ path was paved by suffering love walked in defiance of a death-dealing empire. God offers new and abundant life to all who walk this path, who repent of the ways of empire and who seek to love one another as God loves us. We see white Christian nationalism as a false path, impossible for Jesus’ followers to walk and critically dangerous for the nation we inhabit. If WCN is a grave danger, then shaking our heads and washing our hands are insufficient. We need to make our opposition to WCN loud, public, clear, and persistent. Otherwise, in our silence, the hope of both a more perfect union fades, and Christianity will become simply a name associated with the empire and the violent bondage and inequality it was born to resist. Please, speak out. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [What is the End Game?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/what-is-the-end-game/) **Published:** May 17, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** From the day Vladimir Putin told his military to invade Ukraine, the world has been asking what is Mr. Putin’s end game. Is it to claim a couple of regions? Is it to make Ukraine a vassal state? Or is the end game much larger: all of Ukraine? Russia realigns the world through its use of tactical nuclear weapons? When a particular news/opinion station or podcaster spits out venom and conspiracy theories closely aligned with the “replacement theory” beliefs of the man who massacred people shopping for groceries in Buffalo, what is the end game being played with their use of “free speech”? ![](https://www.christiancentury.org/sites/default/files/styles/460x625_breakpoints_theme_cc_theme_851-1100_1_5x/public/images/detail/122921jan6-jesus-maga.jpg?itok=b1HHzGQx×tamp=1639075533)When similar fear-stoked theories of white replacement are employed by candidates for elected offices to outmaneuver the already-conservative elected official to the right, what is the end game? In Oklahoma we’ve made it very difficult to raise taxes. Quality of life indicators are nearly all in the bottom fifth of all states, numerous tax cuts have not created more prosperity then surrounding states, public education has been given far more lip service then support, and our governor is paying more public attention to birth certificates than to health care. What is the end game? The nation’s immigration policy and practices have been a mess through every administration since at least 1980. But with one party claiming the other is for open borders, that the other party wants more immigrants who will vote them into office, and making immigrants from Central and South America and the Caribbean sound more like an invading disease than desperate human beings, what is the end game? (Ironically, neither party claims the favor of those immigrants who care more about basic safety and economic opportunity than about how progressives and conservatives parse the English language.) The people who tried to kidnap Michigan’s governor or who assaulted the Capitol Police in the name of law and order, or all the elected officials who flipped from declaring that the leaders of the violence—including among their ranks—need to be held accountable to insisting “get over it:” what is the end game? Within some Christian churches and in the Christian Right media machines, talk about civil war is growing. That talk is louder and more public than before January 6, 2021. What, in God’s name, is the end game? Estimates on the number of guns held by the public in the U.S. range from 300 million to 400 million. Mass shootings were in the news several times just over the weekend. On cue, public officials express outrage, offer thoughts and prayers. Some demand better laws—and no matter how many persons of every age die from gunfire, no massacre of any scope will be sufficient to change the minds of the power and principalities that hold the nation hostage to an insane interpretation of the right to self-defense with killing machines. What is the end game of a public owning more guns than there are people dedicated to sacred violence? We know that pesticides enter our bodies hitching a ride on food. Microplastics are everywhere in the ocean and in our guts, lungs, and bloodstream. Sometime in the next several years—at least once—the average temperature of the earth will exceed the threshold of the mass disaster danger zone. Since we, the American people as a people, seem to lack the will and the discipline to change our habits, what is our end game? Screaming at each other on social media. Labeling and dismissing. Shaming. Ganging up on someone who has acted in a way the group believes deserves punishment. And the algorithms are designed to keep us scrolling for more and paying attention to the posts written with inflaming words. What is the end game? What is the end game? Not a multicultural, shared-power democracy. Not the Beloved Community. Not depolarization in service of pragmatic compromise to get things done. Not clean air, clean water, and healthy soil. The endgame is: More hate. More fear. More guns. More de-humanization. Lower quality of life for more people. Shrinking markers of democracy. Less freedom for all but the group that imposes order on the others. More violence as a means of control. And a Christianity that looks a lot more like the Roman Empire patronage/vassal/peasant/terrorize to keep order existence than the leaven of love and justice that Jesus embodied. Please pay attention to the end game. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Public Religion in the News Digest, November 1, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-in-the-news-digest-november-1-2019/) **Published:** November 1, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [**![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)Why Democratic candidates need to talk about religion better and more often.**](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/opinion/democrats-2020-religion.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage) Frank Bruni opinion piece. As a friend pointed out to me, over 20 years ago George Lakoff said the Democrats had a problem using moral and religious categories (and her point was that Marianne Williamson’s approach—using the language of spirituality rather than religion per se—is a better fit with the times, can be heard by a broader swath of the increasingly de-congregated public). [**And here is a view that opposes Bruni’s take. Dems talking religion will not sway voters.**](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/2020-democrats-need-religion.html) Why? Because Dems’ moral claims that accompany their religious views will continue to conflict with white evangelical Christians’ moral universe. [**Muslim girl wearing a hijab disqualified from cross country race**](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/student-athlete-disqualified-ohio-race-competing-hijab-n1071381) Based on what Attorney General Barr has said about religious liberty being the primary liberty (see [here](https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics)), one would think the Department of Justice would be completely on the side of the runner. We’ll see. [**ICE and threatened fines for immigrants in sanctuaries**](https://www.apnews.com/f6fdbc4da0334bf085b5c2dd28e71c04) The Trump administration was threatening fines of up to $500,000 for undocumented immigrants being housed in sanctuary churches. In all but one case, the administration has now withdrawn that threat. **And here is another story where a religious liberty defense was denied by the judge** [Anti-nuke protestors convicted](https://truthout.org/articles/convicted-anti-nuclear-activists-speak-out-pentagon-has-brainwashed-people/) “The defendants, who said they were following the command of the biblical prophet Isaiah to ‘beat swords into plowshares,’ were denied the right to present the defense of necessity, which allows one to commit a crime in order to avoid a greater harm. They were also denied the right to discuss the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which ‘ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected.’ Thus, they were limited to their own testimony about their subjective motivations for their acts.” [**Ross Douthat opinion column that the decline of Christianity in the U.S. is overstated.**](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/opinion/american-christianity.html) Douthat offers three counters to the case regarding the how rapid the decline is: the decline is predominantly of lukewarm/cultural Christians rather than true believers; millennials might not opt out permanently; decline is more of a Catholic than a Protestant problem. I think he is right on the first, but I don’t affirm the second two reasons. True, religious trends in the U.S. are cyclical rather than linear. But Millennials are starting out less religious than previous cohorts when those cohorts were Millennial-age. And it is not only the formerly mainline Protestant denominations that have experienced convulsive changes related to numerical decline. Southern Baptist Convention membership and baptisms have [declined for a decade](https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/may/southern-baptists-acp-membership-baptism-decline-2018.html). [**Michael Gerson likening White Evangelicals to a Drunk and Exposed Noah in the Tent**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evangelicals-have-been-reshaped-into-the-image-of-trump-himself/2019/10/28/f37f5154-f9c0-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html) “Rather than shaping President Trump’s agenda in Christian ways, they have been reshaped into the image of Trump himself.” Gerson has been critical of his president and his most unshakeable supporters, but perhaps no more so than in the references he uses in this piece. Gerson says that, since 99% of white evangelical Republicans oppose impeaching the president, that puts Gerson in a tiny minority. [**Jonathan Rausch on what makes partisanship today different from what it was a few decades ago.**](https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/rethinking-polarization) I’m quoting him extensively because I think he is on to something really important. A book-length treatment on the triumph of political identities and feeling over critical thinking is Lilliana Mason’s *[Uncivil Agreement](https://www.amazon.com/Uncivil-Agreement-Politics-Became-Identity/dp/022652454X/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3AGTH22LY97OE&keywords=uncivil+agreement&qid=1572618758&sprefix=uncivil+%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-3)*. “What if, to some significant extent, the increase in partisanship is not really *about* anything? To put the point in a less metaphysical way, what if tribalism as such, not ideological disagreement, is behind much or even most of the rise of polarization? What if emotional identification with a partisan team is driving ideology, more than the other way around? To understand and assess this peculiar proposition, we need to expand our toolkit beyond classical political science and into social and cognitive psychology.” “It increasingly appears that students of polarization 10 or 15 years ago were barking up the wrong tree. We were looking for changes in *ideology* when changes in *feelings* are more important.” “The founders were well aware of the dangers of populism, demagoguery, and faction. They built a constitutional order designed to force compromise and impede sociopathic behavior. But the institutions they put in place to act as gatekeepers (the Electoral College, the appointed Senate) became obsolete, and the successor gatekeepers (political bosses, smoke-filled rooms, big media) came to seem undemocratic and lost their grip. Today, the road to power for a sociopath or demagogue is comparatively unobstructed. As a result, the fail-safes designed to protect the system when the settings go out of alignment have themselves begun to fail.” [**Voting for Trump in Amish Country?**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/10/09/famously-secluded-amish-are-target-republican-campaign-drum-up-pennsylvania-votes-trump/) In Pennsylvania, the electoral college votes were decided by a margin of 45,000 voters, and the state has some 75,000 potential Amish voters, most of whom don’t vote. Could they become a voting bloc? If so, for which candidate? Turns out: most Amish who are registered voters vote Republican. Does the phrase “Amish PAC” seem like a joke The Onion proposed? Nope, no joke. [**Hispanic Evangelical Swing Vote?**](https://religionnews.com/2019/10/24/in-a-close-2020-election-could-a-hispanic-evangelical-swing-vote-be-key/) We cannot assume that voters will vote *on issues* rather than *with an identity group*. With the identity group, *voters may be voting not for issues or candidates but against the enemy*. Latinx voters, except for Cuban-Americans, have largely voted for Democrats. But Latinx evangelicals represent a particular kind of intersectionality that makes predictions based on assumed political identities more difficult. [**Joe Biden was denied communion at a Catholic Church**](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/politics/joe-biden-denied-communion-south-carolina-catholic-church/index.html) As is the case with many Catholic lawmakers, Biden says he is personally opposed to abortion but believes laws should be broad enough to allow for positions grounded in other moral warrants. That stance is not good enough for some of the “fencers of the table.” Question: should the beliefs or actions about social matters, or one’s political party, ever disqualify a person from receiving communion? If you disagree with President Trump on, say, how persons at the U.S. southern border are being described and treated, and the President attended a service in your congregation, should he be served? [**God told President Trump to withdraw troops from Syria to hasten the End Times?**](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/anne-graham-lotz-god-orchestrated-trumps-withdrawal-from-syria-to-set-up-the-last-days/) A great example of implicit bias at work. The pastor starts with a premise that God put President Trump in office. She (the pastor) could not understand why the president ordered the withdrawal of troops from Syria. In the Bible she found her answer that allowed her to maintain rather than challenge her original premise. [**Should a sitting governor speak about his personal faith at a church event?**](https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/35543-ffrf-tells-okla-governor-official-church-appearance-is-not-ok) This is an older story (early September). The citation link about is to the Freedom from Religion Foundation website, which provides their rationale for answering “no” to the question posed above. I think the FFRF opinion was right to criticize the governor’s inauguration speech, because of its legislative implications that might favor one religious group over others, but wrong to tell an elected official that they should keep their faith completely in their pockets. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [Why Religious Congregations Should Talk About Politics](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-religious-congregations-should-talk-about-politics/) **Published:** September 20, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Excerpt:** If moderate and progressive religious congregations developed their members' capacity to have difficult moral, ethical, political conversations, both the congregation and democracy in the U.S. could be improved. **Content:** “We should not talk about politics in church.” I’ve heard this emphatic “not” throughout my church-going life. The reason is understandable: “Politics is divisive, and I don’t want conflict and division in church. We’ve got plenty of that already! If we talk about politics in church, it will only make people angry.” Fair enough. People do not come to sacred spaces to fight. People come to be part of a community to help them handle daily living: to connect with their Ultimate Concern; to support their families and their long-term relationships; to provide perspective and encouragement for issues with children, aging, disease, accidents, death, tragedies; to mark transitional times with rituals of celebration and grieving; for meaning, empowerment, and belonging. Given the deeply polarized character of today’s politics, one can understand why congregants loathe to talk about politics in sacred spaces. However, silence in the matter of the relationship between politics and religion is killing congregations and contributing to the demise of democracy in the U.S. This plea is written to religious people in the United States who are dismayed or disgusted with the quality of political discourse and practice in this country, as well as with the image that religion has developed in the past four decades because of the direct and collateral damage to which the Religious Right has contributed in dissolving the fundaments of a vibrant democracy. Rather than eschewing politics in congregations, those of us who are dismayed or disgusted need to increase the capacity of congregations to talk about politics and religion. \[I am speaking of discourse about political issues, not candidate endorsements.\] I do not underestimate the effort it will take for increase the quantity and quality of these conversations because we all in the United States–religious congregations and the wider culture–are engaged in a war. We are warring over the moral fundamentals required for a complex, culturally-diverse society. This war has compromised the moral standing of nearly all institutions of American life. Markers of this war are evident in legitimacy crises. At least half the population rejects the legitimacy of all three branches of the federal government. Contesting the legitimacy of national elections has become common. The actions of our government have morally outraged many of us. In our names, our government has tortured “enemy combatants.” The current president ordered children to be separated from their parents at the U.S/Mexican border in order to inflict sufficient pain so as to deter parents from even thinking about asking for asylum in the U.S. Social inequities–evident in policing, the courts, and in staggering income and wealth inequalities–beg the validity of the claim: “with liberty and justice for all.” There is no end of this war in sight. One cannot imagine that moral authority will be broadly imputed to the President, the House, the Senate, or the Courts anytime soon. The status and authority once accorded to universities and colleges has being diminished by the political Right’s attacks on them as liberal elitist snowflake factories. Finding a news outlet that is accorded trust across partisan divides is about as difficult as locating the Loch Ness Monster. And the moral standing of the dominant religious institution that publics once held in high esteem–the Christian churches–has fallen sharply. The abuse of women and children, in every denomination but now with the magnifying glass on the Catholic Church, is a primary reason for the loss of moral power. Another reason for Christianity’s decline in moral authority is because the amalgamation of religion and partisan politics known as the Christian Right, which has dominated the public’s perception of what Christianity is since the early 1980s, has spread a virus that is destroying the bases of democracy and compromised the integrity of religion. Nearly all of Christianity in the U.S. is infected. Churches, especially conservative ones but not contained to them, are petri dishes for cultivating a Manichean virus which frames both politics and religion as the Children of Light warring against the Children of Darkness. This virus transmutes opponents into enemies and disapproval into hate. Symptoms of the infection include viewing compromise as evil and substituting absolutes, outrage, and purity codes for the moral reasoning necessary in argumentative, ambiguous, and messy democratic societies. If this virus is not interrupted, the consequences for the U.S. and for a distinct religious witness are immense and negative. Consider the rhetoric in everything from Facebook posts to Supreme Court “interviews.” What is the potential endgame when our opponents are “mobs,” “enemies,” or “not real Americans”? The logical endgame of Manichean politics is that dark-side political losers must be silenced, re-educated, disenfranchised, oppressed, exiled, segregated—or exterminated. Unless religious congregants become attentive to this Manichean virus and advance our capacity to handle political conversations in our congregations, we perpetuate the infection and fuel the war. Silence will not interrupt the Manichean virus. We in religious congregations must learn to talk better with one another. It is hard to talk when you are at war. It is rare in the United States today to experience holding environments for difficult public interchanges: spaces where communities have authorized, empowered, and backstopped their leaders in the work of encouraging people to stay at the table long enough for the murk of fears and anxieties to clear, for root issues to emerge, and for a community to engage in uncomfortably learning. Congregations, or particular groups within congregations, can become holding environments and then act as leaven in broader communities. If we could create holding environments, here are some examples of topics worthy of conversations. *Power*. Politics is a moral practice, an exercise in practical reason. Practical reason is deliberation about matters that could be other than what they are; ambiguity and disagreement are expected. The skill necessary for moral politics is the ability to use power wisely while working in the intersection of people, principles, and concrete circumstances. Politics is necessary, not a “necessary evil,” to exercise power in a democracy. How might religious congregants learn and teach how to use political power morally? *Love and justice*. Love is a desirable virtue in many religions. Reinhold Niebuhr argued that justice is the social expression of love. From a religious point of view, every society needs a politics of love and justice. How might religious congregants contribute? *Human Dignity and Care for the Earth*. For theists, God is the creator of the universe. If God is the origin and the destiny of creation, all humankind shares a common origin and destiny. What is the meaning of this teaching vis-à-vis identity politics, international relationships, acting as caretakers of creation rather than owners, and adequately addressing climate change before homo sapiens fuels its own extinction event? *Greatness*. According to Abrahamic religions, God judges the goodness and greatness of a people by how that people treats its most vulnerable citizens. How might religious congregants advocate for and witness to this understanding of greatness and goodness? *Integrity*. Religious leaders need to pay constant attention to the uses of religion in political discourse and public life. It is common for political leaders to cloak their interests in Christian language and symbols. But Christians have also willingly contributed their symbols, having stolen them from a Judaism (e.g., City Set on a Hill, New Israel, Promised Land), to the nation’s narrative in ways that obscured and obscure the violence of slavery, genocide, colonization, and the prodigal exploitation of creation. How might religious leaders better define and protect our symbols from misuse in the political realm *and* contribute to how political and civic leaders in the U.S. frame our national story? *Table practices for community*. Conversation, argument, negotiation, compromise, toleration, reckoning, penance, forgiveness, forbearance–these are humankind’s best tools for avoiding physical violence and staying in relationship with each other. They are community-sustaining practices. They are table practices. In communities such practices occur when persons are able to sit with each other without fear of the knives on the dinner table. There is nothing easy, safe, or “nice” about table or “civil” practices, especially when a community’s skill in the practices is rusty, underdeveloped, or just plain absent. At the same time, when someone intends harm to you and your beloveds, the need to protect may trump the ability to talk while war is being waged. How might religious adherents exercise the need to protect from those who mean us harm, while we work to end the war rather than perpetuate it, and develop our skills in these table practices? *The difference between what we can expect from our religious community and from the best possible political community.* A critical aspect of the conversation that needs to be developed is to differentiate the ultimate end of a religion from the purposes of civic and political communities. What is the relationship between the moral order advocated by one’s religion and the moral order of a pluralistic democracy? Developing any of these conversations in congregations would both increase a congregation’s capacity to deal with conflict within and increase the capacity of its adherents to contribute to a vital democratic society. Would not the United States benefit from a significant minority of persons with increased capacities for practicing conversation, argument, negotiation, compromise, toleration, reckoning, penance, forgiveness, love, and forbearance—as well as for treating every person with dignity, working to deescalate the war, and bringing people to a table? Religious congregations should form adherents who treat politics as important but not ultimate; if Republican rule or Democratic rule is a substitute for religion then God help us all! Presently, because of the Manichean virus some religious communities have unleashed on the culture, forming congregants who do not confuse the ultimate with the ephemeral and who exercise their faith fittingly in political life is not going to happen if religious congregations are unable to talk better about politics and religion among themselves. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Which Democracy, Which Spirituality?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/democracy-and-spirituality/) **Published:** December 10, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![Book cover of Democracy May Not Exist But We'll Miss It When It's Gone](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAALUAAAEWCAMAAAAXciZvAAAA+VBMVEXwTjc2AwD/58PwTDU0AAAnAAAiAAD1UDj/7sklAAAqAADwTjj+1rIxAADwSTMtAAD0b07xYEPxRS/5oXv0fFogAAD3jWYcAAD/8c73l2/4nHj3h2L8z6jQRDH/37r/6sXydV3vQShnHhOtNCTwWEDWQzD0dFP0Z0n+48CzNif7vpj8yaL0h2j8sovwaVD0lHj5uJT7q4T1qowAAAA9CgfEQTD4nHcVAADjSDWgMSb0jHFeFxLzlXh3Jh2SMSP0gGBJDwv2t5j4waDznoKBJyBRFRC7NCjwfGLzOiL5y63ublXyq430uZvzoIaZMSNgGRI1CgD8vpOvLyhZUJodAAAgAElEQVR4nO2dC0PaTLOAgwsssLBIBNFKwGgi3oqXgsQ7VayXtvq1///HnJnZ3VwQtBex3zmHeX2VhFyenczOzkzSjWXNZCYzmclMZjKTmcxkJjOZyUxmMpOZzGQmM5nJTGYyk6kIk1KMLEtGn2RSWLiKjRxCJI/wHmJfV+IUtre7dyttoPc6SYHNRKVS8TxP2HZ8F+F+td+bWjY/u+ECcw9budxSc9e25MPSXFxan11WaW2SFL9bMU7WWbqV7wttn+RyXqg5+ypHiEsn9nNqm1VyeiHXOoma6l7l7t2xB58edbHVCpVt7wFpDpiWPiN1DgWB8e/SlS29HC60Wsh9YrTNOq253PsqW94iiLFsu9Gaa51UvhZvXbDrM5S93Fzr6nZ3d/dkVRL11fX1t01si7lC7j7s9L7KviuC4lq6NzHZBEO4Y7ZEzTEbxV2aax264DhsCQ2B63Di2q71DdpyqHeqoOrf1bLlLRlvzpMh9dUd4EVb2EtzOc1noa5ze+hf7OJcq6jWoqqh4cV3VLZ7D1e3NWcs273Cz203prex1JZ9CLZMfpsxNLG597RsuQpX+ts9KpvUy1Zz2IrGrhs6tgnUZ625JYb7uMh/3UJlv9dQ4+7AKTtoJUbZ1zmy0s3d0K2MoxZ0UXCoYQIU3bz7DF/svpOy5QM6CNctAqhyI8K9LSruM3syNXNX0W2Q0r/DqjO7jcp+NtJPRZTGHmwbvF/os6VdvULuXIeNo97M7d253vUmXKNd7JbW5txcU0r3a+u93AirgGkUOw8PnWLMZ1vS9b4B1L49jloPOfD9FRqIfQ0N/gqHuEVl370HNaraQBhlK0/twoBZlOOp9fh+j/bA7E0zdKL/vHwHZbN2Kx5noBth7t6t7mzGHY/TNezXvMNLY+/l4od4jwHShY7fQsm1UFUY03WgK67C2OfN6c723K5b387OYNzPPUi8JmDfGJfgDxzsHdwIq+CItory8NBGy+64n5eAp3H9fRMozsZTw4juouvZAb3KPcDdV0forOLh7Gm7Efsr+lhXZSfkRvZdu4FKb+GvpjXWh6DnE2D20EZmSTD/OaHzG/fze4R+HnShpjFEZt8v5ZY6kn1bImPPbXb0+e2lVkRdUf4aYnI0KHkC+4RpDEsccErCHq6vrx9C1TDr9nYX1Oc+fEMP/NU1qaBsXO2YEQeygk0aZVgTxyV5cn12LUKbkB04hDVlE8FANHYKk+RK1/a82DfMdaOghEP6iBELq7QrnoAR6dkhpsv8ggjGJsZBjKmQFuX9iGYyk//jIkbErNdu4JcTEzFtZ5c4mXSTommZjqvR40VDho3+j6GrG0EU9p0UIuYcVWZvT8kHysurpJzQeexbFbjJ1eJ947OtNW7v3Tfur23r5OSkE8dmLrvGRGjzale3mlVg8Do7O9v13Glw22e5VlyWrkldbjG3iqcTkL23TBoGMS2IJ73WUpiZ0XpICnIq3F1qrtqqtapilVsqntjPz/pW1BTiY7hK1PIyB4kkEXUwhqJNhY25zXeXeZuQI0YqZIyqguowGCQylfWD7udwxee3D0rk3mYTBc5RvAdRqnEbcyp0xvCb6iRCJ8Wbko1Suzs5jLM+Xx+qTBOPQNS5JboEucMpYGN3u2tjuHpneiOds3VP+R9jLR38Yw6PuS1R74XX3f2OWcWei2U18Q0pK5KOkNtllVu8DLnOdPok2gHoyIQVqhC8pJQNNkQZDcWl2EeT1MzCbLOjLf/ukIoUivpWMnkHeXBuStV4RS1jS2ioDWXZEPSjjiEsbZHWlIUYEEzPoyVVe2tLTU2lwDD3nC41Je2Yp5AboSpxa460SEpLUruNVqsZuW/7dgm/DKktLJE0xVRGoAQ1AyNvNTyyC2FakfsM5JtUBkxQY2bQ+hbrbvAlNC5G/fl9qN1tLCARqlI286jialCT1LhwGFkAY0U07MhC2Obce1gIa1MZWnZyYekfbRczX5c9pxag66+x+1BWE/J1Rb3qSvuOfPz0qd19VJNL5wM3gjaCXWrOaF5RX4d2XdQFqNiRrlVvvD45uW5CezenFFjFqNEc5ubuYcgpRmUkLC5R6eM5NVUmonTZxU67KtUok6M7TlOroMWo7UMzPFNpQesXrCYEVdSGhEbMsJJgo101bT2iK7md1r3TiJrJJROSELep2W2OUtOQhKOSi4WzBsR2TNruKt3MkzHqKd6pCakFqrp1v7ODQet+0biRhFEot8E8JYJMqjX3/aHSvv2GdoFhlxrRPe9qmoWokJrK55smQ+jMaTeCxcAENWykZVXat3hZci1oC1rxvdAxX+4W3PY070GG1PpOhV7tfsu1llDZY6hN4Ri+tjtNHV7DmH+likCKmiKupYep9calFkaYzLpvNu9DR8W8+0bxMz24AIlARN3KhUL3M6R93VQ198at8ulA3VoCankLB56asgXWwNA1J6tfpk7GrNXVVXPvg3nXMWnjWmHLh5OzvduKrT03eyjeF/EquY37qytvWonwa7Wv+EMsOpPV+azZH9obu/vFTEas8uOZzGQm/4+Fv7AmURv8DfmjnWLCLM55IgLmMcETPI5i8+Mg2lT/GtmCczZysNc4zCbJjSft6jsgfiC4qZ8G6zFBqKcRbN6rqU256A1vCvnu2nEQ34IHTq/n+HQ23jsfolxsBTxSr+CPyUceufB7vZ4Ph+Fb5+fnx9xst35+vvZzzMVe69ey2Vrp9NFcd6efMZIvcdpiKwHll1Pqg3OaLZdSqXQpmzbngRM55918Pl8vnK7jNuv1MkohmzqOyspMfFqPHZKL45tMLZ/Pdi8CHhRK5Zpj2l8vlTKB9Uz4OZwXpJQp9dSB/AwspklKXYHU5bITO4cY0GoAqpWAuFwupVPp/Km6kJxf5MtpdcT8jQBl5dXBUunseUgNGw0iy+ZON68g0oVCDw6bKp1qa1krpwrPDBS/GJbhgLUCANSVwoA6nep26TADoi6VumF7BT8tp6kx6/V0qlx+urg4H+Th06n6ei0Ln/OFcraQLj8JuOD5VHpwMyiBKrLh+YNUuhYqm2/1oU1wXeEnnXEsflpK1beUedVS6e44swbqdNfpPd6ATtS2QF3rBVqowSVgCs8xBAygBjtJp/LnPvWWdfx8wfW3+XOwUOei0A0YUZd8bgXHhVSqH6guyh/zEQ13oM2ZwbET+OunaDi8l4VLSCq4Af7eRGoBp76op9JloajrTqzjI3UqP1SdiR/XUor6vIygeq2D2NACUE64s+9jMzS1haaSVxeTixQcEZSt9h2UUtkhOAPcZwvX4aELoAO+nk2Vnvg4H0nUpNKLAm2rqWNbIHWqdqyuGZgFUvOgH1qfpeBgZ7y4WSfRdQ21xUGBa4r6OI82rJW9VU8VhuGVVAYEhgE6ENBhyv5YlxlSMz5Ip7GPoIU80zVoGy4VdPB0SlGj6nqxw9zAKbifjRGMUkP3oGYyCzaFnzxZNjQ0nR5RJzarfM4vMqnyxXg/zy80NW2bgRNgb7x5OkU516cDNYH5BJwN8C9RQyfOxi4eXqm+gKZknEnU3XSaqPnPGtB0UUW41B9tKDpGOE8Ge0IhGD+GwukMtVODbkjUQIlSHmjq9Cn0C3Aka4VUaaA6AqyM926+DnYV0LESOUBk1726MkDCr/HjTCoLymZ+PZXZGlUo74ENFcj2x0LHqC0/ogZiHBoMdekp6CI2qLkUXBjq1Ah1X8BXA/GcOsC+CQfoO5bqloAvwItjs4E6++V5RAAdEihuJsUB/DHUNZwAuxJQl07PSYYhNTk6dKsONVOAYaWysUELLaaOx0olRzLy1zCoP8E3hXPyENADwNhgW1J2UNcGnhARYK+v9ybFWCG1gFESzknU+a1kbyw9wUXL0HG4pv4CVzYcxiGEg8t+w7eyqWwveXigTuH4CVf8huwYnGN5KGAogAuX4oJnxno31ELpfKzXU9TG84Hh0XZInYgSiBpPl66BBSpqS+AIGgZN2BlBcwEEAU+RO+SGuoTRyppaCT0kVa7363X0S+sc8WI92AR43IFrMCZsiusaBg3u/ycNftqyktQspAYACnk0NYQSYHfgVhhcJXQ/2A/5EOAvwhMP4WqBvadPn55AsU8YvNI4FEp6QHilgWo+HGioG8DQcp710iQ158FxmgxPUWfWrehZAEMNJ+BWSI1BFHjdYxxWnTUdDogARufskJF1rZfzpwFSY28E71nA3XEcKmE0CQIml0VlF1LlgRog/JtsQaO+Sg1NLtWht5RvKDlAH5LvK/kETiukDo1BRU8+jMvpTL87yNdwgFZeDUa6VKF2frx+kYYG1IZE7UODszhuUIxRWsPAfQsE+kIXxnccBOo3xz8fn/rQpLp2aC9TozNP4zBdWxPcUBspT6YG7AGNzDhylmo6noM4M41hbwEHUTziOvprpeO8TyNW3TfpjXIjPOgiQiGDXbZc0CbyGnUNnXOmXjK27PTzofSR+imfOY1T1wslZTrisVYrw96Z/mnYn3ivWythOJ3OY+TL1/uFrE/haKZ+DkZczp9HnqdQyGRgG3HeV7uU60+mg/ufCv0XqNdP19aGw3WH8zAD24okwC0eL45jY3fv8VHnT5A4bV3A3sd+ItPbeuqC07g5xqSOO8fHKss8PoZ87vh8eO6HmwoHDoVN4v5wAI5mMIycSfB4/Bht+RxbC3u2Rjtslkw4sftFfnRMJgvbgzsWseQ1+jCydbQEdhLuMvrdFGTMOPCnRYNZEfO/U/53XpdnJs+m1wneTMRomCiCWFZsWiDihblYsyY3kFzNpI7598/k9pMpkyWeYu3wlaMXvu/HimIBLBEPeLjY+VUhQgkXztb6lqObJYKk/P0/uqp34wdh/KIfUfOhSk2CdKFcMtkyPy+U9DbcuYmqYEGqW9aNFNbjIJ+FsbU7DCj7yqbjkp086P2qZBN5Dv/Zz0TUQb2mikDrEPzowBmLC5Bs6zpI/ya8BpC/q60xg9BVs3QBAg1BdRkcsTEdAnkL6niOzB3IsqNa1kWhNFAcp2EViEMCmNdWBaFceWDMIiipeEdQLa2UqZWzWYiH6hec9/oYmmIqWMDo5tOkJPZ3qLEmpEtZASgjpOYBpGQ1VQ6C2F1Heusq5jTUYUgfUsNKLIGt+0Gw9YS1qHXuH6M8llPlCwxu1seXZn6TmlJzkgHmdyH1I9YYtLIhac5gNIrtqhtjRmqsOPAENV6MC1W9BrVDDB7oElqYkP79GIHU6ZpP6dE5BLqRrgMMu02UG5QhJwww18VLI2LUqdJ/SHeamm/VQptjdGlUGcTS1H8NHFLDZUYzeMQoP6TGQksaMuUbvZRHGL+gto1TQ2KAdm6on0rpTMyjn5ZUkenNqbEKuMaxLpCKWQiH1OwGyJVlq7Ksv1aOewCta0jCITzX1KybLsSqc5iCZf0pUJfOu5B3XvjQ8wsXXaNrVG5+3TL1OF0CL4ce0FDne08Fqu5oar+cZPPz2vu8MXXhuIfF/i5WzuHUmhrrMiWOaaXxwudYd0n1/SR11uFrgJ3vBeXx1KDr6VBDVgfWmYKULtCej9JU+MSx7NwlE+EBmn2iAErUPS7W8tADjlXPBXcZG6dok5ozHWq6BVB44kit7FoMYCCDDLJ3Xkrrc1H3LMXreJqaofNJQ1ZOvREywNhoy4eFdFrVEd+cGobBbPkJYg6ja/RfaiQroYdRm/qjZXBNbdH9GO0lsW4Z3Uzh4DHNLYK3p4bz3mAwGlIPSmFZK/TZoP/kfbSQmvFhzVAHfdhFGz+VaEy/mAI1RJM0VCgLIYdRwCI2Ft9NIXkyNbY6q1tHFcDyOg2CPRgny2u6BdOgVrm10rXAymfG18Hwo3EjQXcyNYS4WQ0lTsHKs93hxXBQS6fCe5VTorZCarzDEA0VIqXvZrxEjUNr3VjSGtCmywUMVzMmuHpb6k/5fowkyGYx4j+tZ+uhs+Dr/QylAUG3XBuh7pfCnif44ydNzR8LeYxbSpn6hQh38OvlF4pgvyf4rEAYgwmBi5boOU58MNF3ecVwbS0ZGvuna09OtN1jGC6K9fObwU3iYQbmD4fnzhtRj2SNlg4x49GkYLGHPUb2Tq4J4l8IMbL1VItgM5nJTP53yH+HG0jeGfBBou+E4/sOeEP8rVZwZ6uHPjjwk/Le0FulrpFyjw/7hfyNedBaDLKZT4+c+Z8Kn1Tq5wzy+VrpgvOf6tExI9kxz4FNlXo9qsHVepw/lVMFE6RBrI8BGz4NUfcJuo7xazq7RjeaY/doS+9ODdmTfnzvU48SKP18Ej+mwpIVUTOIBMu1bKl+KtY/QcKQxfJJvgbSf2cTAep0Vz8oeeyr2hjV8eADPYEVUeNjL4WhcLo/Offpvh7EsIUtfPbSmTyTxNSoB/G7d6T8coCpk35ULqSGTVOBjlFU0A+ZrL5x/67QijpxTrwdX7oReAtZ5eMhNRhz4pmvGPU7S1zXag0lMiXI98o36rZGaNcBPk9xHEVy/5a6+6gkqkTT00ImdYp8CD0ZmQ3vG/9TanyoFeWTie95Dx2ceXogohZsDR+qKPfPLVXX+afU+gngekgtuvi4hKn3htSQQazf1OkRJrpN+W+pSwOSlHG6/BRvRpiKQIwaXYeDT/3m1TMs/9audTBiaulovhlCY6PUeB/RH0Ai+88tJN0NkmtqMET3oEeaUkdkIapgs5VJ9dVjaf+WmjMzCxLjfiGNhbotYFdBkaEWvHeDDxmh3/5voPZj91xFt5TKYr3yMavLkppaBKf1ctexeDAopQv/3ELw8Xj1lBPC4qP86llgDP+GURwirFN8mP9mLV1KZYb/vDeGAScWskMNC7xJl8bwj/n9NFlIgP+AAJ8pK6u72ET99/cO/4j6k3mgLAu63vqUyeS1+ngvn8lj9OoXugXqjWKYyeO/IjkNdLf8lP/0T6gt/Oc1RnxxfAzxahhn+PRgWFg0EoIH68PhRVjZC2Cfd59fXKHFhI08BDbyeFm4eXzpvThnMpOZzOQtJTl9ZOyzWs+S8ovH+9WN/1RoWk9p/hU/47En93CiDTPlhhHzrYz9u39FJ/R0B9Fkfzi7hU0ziyTmxnOfzZT322LvNoso9+qFCW5zc07PkIOzahWl3cwlRE+aIHf39vTUMfahmoKBVfb29jx50rg3cuXKvW/bC3Zn+3M02QLzrj5f/e2Dpvaenusuh7NXWHfRdF/2da7VlLKZfDeEod5rNps0Sx+rNNX8avYhrJL2mdICacLFdXt2p1lshtTS2yz+9QxQNA20ntzN1tShroEadN1Scwbjn1DXrF0sNs9wGiv7uqmQXOD87Np7QN1U0gBq4JWdYoIa2vAWum6enV03cR4+9pxa3pLgbCidB5Bwv6ti8crG6SYBFtvLUKO3EqnpLRIgsHTYbNhsOtRF18Z5oXHilbtWnHquyRjNtewu0Ywxscl0yRLAoJVF0IciXnmidm01RTNazddx1H87pQhRYzdXM8sTtR1Rx2aSTk7GTards5lNFgzKdkH527alqA2UfXZ1yaZF7br299bcUkfp+iyh6wnUlt0oolJV5wPjrRSxFUS9faemRMGtXGlNiXoTAFpqjvBR6om6hl6IFiFh1wYq2z0BfHAqSN1Q84WqifGsKVGTf6AJpTR1zELERGrWhrOf3MKvKthG094HT4fTGO0Zz9c0hjKO+i/nJUJdq3fctHJfXesumiPpFWrLBR1/A+AdtwqgX++LRdwxRr0zVeq5za9fDw+bNO3/XTSLFk5w9xI1mgjCndjoBZF11eh6D+XsxJ6qrsHz2a5HtoFvVtBTidpfW+CvrYnU6EVAGjitk9KvtBT1/Z2tXqBjNnxGXXkLH4KeAnhz30FtrbmmniazOafngp1AzXZI1VINOWAkrqFOzks1jvpNdA1SpcnA5Am9a8iWNs6PGc5AOo4ahhBkpblqUdnNW2aFulYSt5DwPWhEbY9/E9rvUG+Cm9rBWckw6mxCv7zafdjFmWjD2TvHUstVoPlA7bJB7U19PGjA9SHJd9UriPp2VUmFqHcf9NIfYhvP19LOQ01cm2uhZ4kmThtLzRioWl15eQkjoh1SG/FCaiPQd71og+beH045aJ8t6Ui1dUgzkdqXNGUdkG9G0xjaS62l56/XgCjDzMnm7jSVm4fBMhTTpMnUJ39o3/L26jPJdce8Ecf7CplAq3joRWaHb1lYfXYGMGfTyeTtZlsh7u5HYqjjnHZl8++pLTPbeOyVCrb02p5MpEnRNOSJfT+G3kLu6+9lbG42c4R4BsesMfncmwh0yl/p3syKXn74i3fSZ69lmMlMJsto9xhZTlaQJnSmV8pTb98DZTX5dlHZEVb0LlUmRcUz4QIkl14l4Vwk+Box4QUTGPXp/TzVEqYOG2uXVDW5ZPuSWhrfYns7MZEv6+zgawq2Gw0cCqV3trOz80OPL3L1cHt7+yjKnlj7x8cf0pKLHxNSpSntV5aXV3TF50gXpzrLy8se89ptHX6wyvx8hTF8O6sWDw8aw6lMcOmQOcXCRiZ3sJrlbu/sILXYvwLObfoMo942jnc/PkbFrzYwgtO+PIiLomYbBwsHNFyy9sGimmt9eWFhWbLqwoIODuTiwsKlZPPLoSzC0arVMDD3lhcXx6aY9n5jJ7oo9nbxyrI0NbMPAHoHfj6SYhD6B/yEQ7uh3v2IsElqy1tYOKBKILAdkHLlAUAyVj06WtHUu0cfxlAvVs0Thd7iZOrGfhiQHkB+HeqaCSA+8DZ+XKpwH4A3rA8LcQshalbptEE+HBws02XWdo2aRautACwqm3XgQ2UC9aKiXiFqwGavUxdNznVSbMSp56+2d4QpONkL+/sQTMNCNIorauVC7GWglpETYRsLCElmoD7swl9o4zjqRRl2ZKTW2C9TN4q79PqNB4BuxCyksrO90zHXQX7Y3z9wk35QU6sDEXXsSzCRBTi7d4DUoGx2RAY9gTrcj6gXV8i5vEzdKD6AFj38FNO1sKEnXu15tg78t/d/HDzEs6YXqWHFwsKRTRoG8WQbfreNrumayJWIOnT1inpxBTBeo240wJHsaGqjawDFrnh1sEHvO2QfyYPsRlWBJPXJCDU6iwMPNb6M/7tVULpQ1Lva0S2G1DpyjagXV/A+xUvU4J0bOy7i78d1jbX1HfJ8HwV1q48/yItchi/heFHXZBvVS9TzIvIf6U4J1EdHH44+wM/RqA+Rirp6qbBfoi7unoFBo6avHxK6hm8rC+ixr+iVmZJdIvfH7Y3wNRIvUZMXOfqArMiPCn9ghtpIknrRUMsVVLcnXqI+ufuI/bDx9e42qWvMa7yTfTPOgKPYWEBuYW4YvGQhcH5l0hVmLx4o49bUHxDx6Gh5MjUjO3lR1ye2JPOQcpQaz2IzwP6orEIw+/LH/vbDOOpnuiYvgsMhGJf5hNQfjpaFyr8uQ2q1AgmVv7aYNu8XqKEH46DIFHVoIUx6NLH+LVg39E1m6U65fWnefvGiri2GVkHjovIklyG1enGAjKiTPqRK1+RVaoDZxzQwoWshPuzswvHtD2DaLnv4+NGypfSgR1Z/kboaKhgHSDWua2oyoRh1zK4UtSU3XqVGQ7BGqNEytj88tHdB1Qtu9Qe4vWq7c7C/v+39koUoVlVwsMGNHKmeMp46MTaqQERhv0it2pmwEPmAfm+H4ieIqw/CMseCmU7/FWqIUSkUscgNHuyyydQ6DoFANqJW2BOoi8W9iLpY3MH6qoqv5eo2RarbOxCDCwnuAx32/sco5tt/hfryYN4EZosHnYhaj+hAvZLw10lqwh5LLU8Wold8ss719Rlepctder2a9JbRSg7m6Q6LfDjY3/7x8SSMRZh3WTUngH2Wl0dfbwK+Izx05UBX/ara1jFzWFh4kdqS88vjb+FEt/HVgnp5WpSBeZWwcgZd0atY8deuxd/mKce82lNuRGHthmkqpCx6rSBnJ9phLgN5DJvf2IjSGbZRGQf9miTTV8gafy91Zc8/xo/4/FkOOsf4A8xkJv9M3skOxz7dxMICCpMTKk5YLGbJ+0EMnzeKbS2S35mzvcFDUbKysTHPGPyOS5ued0LP7VUvL6tjvI/05qsrKyvVduyGQmW+CgJ+S4cpldi0+ZDE49+oYPNHHi081Qbm8+DpF+OyQc4e2OdXLoFtZWNEM8yCUWtFiSkkiY2qERV7sPZ8iC3m52khRv039wmQevE5tZSgSY9VVpD68nIlOUIxQbwKvKprF9WYbJCNtYHUjCdToW6vwLkuMe/RygLqSxiZgKpdqW6MDKsKer4NJgHJNImnjAPsisxkXlPPe6p/amos6XlRZvtX1Cs0IknIr0B7UvUUoAaFQUvaVAYd2Qf0vEF3b2RbRxcb1FaK9T38DKuJWjc4pmvxFr2RdK0+M6LW66uLbYh0QKPPDs/EIkCHYRH9qoTWjN+TjShq0La0Err+G9rXqCHIEcpC5sXI/TA2D/YsRlYBZ1QnwTZ4hnoetf1c139NvTKG2lIlK+hsl5cbydvd2FE3RnOtSNUgqOwKM9SIHe+Nb3CrcSK1WlMBBwKQ1fjDjhK7qFo2aRNXlhzutkFGDtQVT9n2cx/y19TjLMSc39sgf1GNnUSCr1H19HnlseFzktoKqdvMI23H7PqtqCfrGg1FzKPHjo0zYCGL84p6UVOPWIgVWggOsojdjnT9Bo7vVWoKOObBSmJTk84r/SL1oqZGZxfF+lFvxCKqp81b6/ot7p2/bCFMjxErK7HRkXng+eZxOxxTFHXC86Gqobtq6hDb+JBpU8MwPY+DjJegJicC2HSHoK30jiZSraiKsRUbZVRLvAT1GwSzL1kIQ6QNAaM1/I03hkb0y7Znqb7KTBiy4WF0Fx/RdRwlYtSe+HvX96JdezqsuxwZItFGKHpaNAEhIxuJoifVaENtjfF8lfElg1+nfsFCLjV3dWQvr6oj1cWVeR1Nx4K+eROpzkej/FSpF5O9USh3vTHqWVM+bakAAAGcSURBVFC3FKnOx8y0rSLsjbAMGFEj9ij1n0NTISZEUlWVZKsgIPHGZoNY4bFksloi8BGhqIXCitrE6P56bPycbobJZpWUmcxkJjOZyUxmMpOZzGQmM5nJTGbyf07idUL9Ej01axLjTE2oxNRq/QZEWi3wh0olVJ7h8SPp3fHWB1PzRVmChy/sw7nn8D/68s/mXuKBJRhO2443qnzBv3zxmf/F4cGX4IsPPw78Fl8C3/Fxlc+F78M3wvkivjg+M2+6htV6Ri6q+DhC0OzBPvz5yYTeuecEARwS94QlEDxs8OVPqIOfvuMAmu8w4OHQAFj4EnBkC75AIxwfDi9gmasVP7kjvlhwVvjmyxasx90FNM+Hg2ArOXzi/Cd8dHznp+VAI3Bnav/WT5wX2bH8n+Kn8wW/sZzXGcdQA2ZAU92pqZcDEcAZQDeC4yGDgAsH/nDfx7cyOrgdbgKNhI8MPsK+8J0fgOLx9WYBbupwEcAVpPed+TSDsxAO6B3WwFk4bebT0S0xhSmGefgrtjxxw9cP9bs7zWQmM5nJW8r/AP8P8n9HXFJAAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC)Not long ago, I thought “democracy” carried a near-sacred aura in American public life. No longer. There is a book I’ve not read yet, but the title is so spot-on the book is on my “must read” list. Astra Taylor wrote *[Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone](https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Exist-Well-Miss-When/dp/125017984X).* Confidence in democracy as the best means of governance is flagging in the U.S. Younger generations believe less in its promise and potential than older generations. Books such as *[How Democracies Die](https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762946/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3H14OOGDXDD64&keywords=how+democracies+die&qid=1575989972&s=books&sprefix=how+demo%2Cstripbooks%2C190&sr=1-1)* catalog modern democracies hollowed out from within, resulting in dictators and demagogues. The world’s nations which have been democracies are not as smitten by democracy as they once seemed to be. In my sabbatical reading last year, I came to understand better that “democracy” has been a dynamic, multivalent practice in American life. The definition is not settled. Nor is democracy’s character. Nor is its potential for good and for ill. Nor is its future in the United States. What does democracy mean? Democracy can mean majority rule, with political minorities be damned. Eighteenth century opponents of democracy did not see the difference between democracy and mob rule. Hamilton and Madison in the [*Federalist Papers*](https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers) argued for the moral and pragmatic importance of *not* creating permanent minorities and of the majority respecting the rights of political minorities. Let that argument, or plea, sink in. Democracy can mean one person, one vote, and that voting translates into laws and policies that express the people’s will. But democracy can also mean a party in power gerrymanders districts in a way that undermines the value of voting for persons whom the gerrymanders seek to neutralize. From colonial times, as European settlements took their shape, there were huge regional differences between understandings of democracy. (I highly recommend Colin Woodward’s *[American Nations](https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw6eTtBRDdARIsANZWjYYT2qOcKmb0RS0PMg-RCVfq_t22PlxRIWXU_Ev443k6VmY9QUyCEk8aAoNPEALw_wcB&hvadid=241588516936&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9026550&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=14837919613416300644&hvtargid=kwd-37390624067&hydadcr=15334_10336120&keywords=american+nations+by+colin+woodard&qid=1575992912&s=books&sr=1-1)*.) Democracy as envisioned in New England, influenced by the Enlightenment with a fairly expansive (for the time) understanding of the voting franchise, was far different from the Athenian-style democracy desired by Southern plantation owners: free white male property owners ruling and enjoying an economy built on slave labor and patriarchy. Democracy can mean free and equal persons voluntarily bound together in a social covenant to accomplish together what they cannot do separately. Democracy can mean arranging society to allot maximum freedom and liberty for individuals. Democracy can also mean respecting the rights of communities, rights that legitimately limit the rights of individuals. Democracy can be a useful fiction and opiate of the people administered by elites who have rigged the social and economic systems to help themselves to society’s rewards while throwing crumbs and punishments at the hoi polloi. (And it is this sense, I believe, that leads many persons of color and Millennials to distrust representative democracy.) With democracy in turmoil, I’ve been thinking about what the spirituality of democracy is. Or, to be more precise, what the spirituality of each type of democracy is. By spirituality, I mean the explicit and implied answers to what human life means. Spirituality also includes practices that connect each person and each community to something or someone larger than themselves. Some spiritual practices foster our better angels. Some strengthen our demons. What if we understood polarization as a spiritual practice—which it is. It is a practice of war, just as Newt Gingrich ordered when he was Speaker of the House (see [*How Democracies Die*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die) for the history on his tenure as Speaker). In this case, the war is waged in gerrymandering and the courts. The end toward which polarization aims is conquest and exile of the defeated. What if we understood stoking fear as a spiritual practice—which it is. Fear is politically useful to close ranks, divide, exclude, and/or eliminate. What if we understood truth-telling and reckoning with our past for the sake of our future as spiritual practices—which they are. If anything connects us to each other—and divides us from each other—it is the stories we tell, who and what we include and leave out. What if we understood speech and words as sacred trusts—which they are: divine gifts that enable us to acquire knowledge, reason together, discover and make meaning, deliberate, grow wise. What if we understood neighboring and self-governance as spiritual practices—which they most definitely are. Imagine the kinds of communities we’d enjoy if the virtues of self-governance and neighboring walked hand-in-hand. The authors of *How Democracies Die* and *Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone* allege the U.S. never has been a democracy in which all citizens—regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, class, ability, and all the other ways we identify—have had a voice. (Pundits recently have criticized presidential candidate Joe Biden for using his work years back with a segregationist as a positive example. Practicing tolerance, forbearance, and civility in Congress in Jim Crow, pre-civil right America involved almost exclusively white men.) I think that is a correct assessment. What it takes to be a democracy today requires much more effort, discarding past practices and acquiring new learning, than was the case before 1964. Same goes for the spirituality of democracy. Becoming a democracy of which we can all be justly proud means paying attention to the spirituality of democracy. To whom and what are we connected? How are we connected? Where are we headed? **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Privatizing the Public is a Bad Idea, for We Can’t Reap What We Did Not Sow](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/privatizing-the-public-is-a-bad-idea-for-we-cant-reap-what-we-did-not-sow/) **Published:** March 17, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![Pickle barrels.](https://live.staticflickr.com/30/90076848_d21e18268f_h.jpg)Pickle Barrel at Katzinger’s in Columbus. How many articles and studies detail the dangers and detriments of valuing quarterly profits over long-term investments? How many times have we, the American people, been warned that our sense of “the public,” “the common” is too thin? Or, in the colloquialism my late father repeated often in reference to society where taking is valued more than giving: “You can’t keep taking pickles out of the barrel without putting some back in.” The US has been privatizing public spaces and services at least since foisting the laws of private property on lands indigenous people once held in common. In the past century, FDR’s New Deal programs—during which the nation’s individual liberty-loving, small government side was muted by the needs for work, food, housing, rationing, sacrifice, war-time utilization of private businesses, and other social programs—was not universally loved. Some corporate interests at the time worked vigorously to overturn or undermine the “socialist” New Deal, and some Christian leaders aligned with them on that subversion (that story is well-told in Kevin Kruse’s [One Nation Under God](https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/0465097413/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1W3JOM07V0E6R&dchild=1&keywords=kevin+kruse+one+nation+under+god&qid=1584457564&sprefix=kevin+kruse%2Caps%2C172&sr=8-1)). And then there was the Reagan Revolution, during which many Americans were convinced or reinforced in their belief that free market capitalism and unregulated business is good, while anything the government does outside of national defense, enforcing contracts, and regulating people’s sex lives and women’s bodies is bad. Outside these matters, government is incompetent. How’s that working for us when we need a robust sense of “the public?” It is as wise as not installing fire alarms until after a fire. Can you imagine the [Interstate Highway Project](https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/interstate-highway-system) today? Can you imagine the [private-public partnership that produced all the inland shoreline in Oklahoma and state parks today](https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=LA010)? Can we who are Red State residents really imagine a healthcare system that serves all our people? Can we imagine a well-funded, high quality, effective system of pre-school through 12th grade public education? Can we imagine a national system for election security? Can we imagine a humanely and sustainably produced and safe food system? Can we imagine our government ensuring that we all have clean air, clean water, and healthy soil—wherever we live? Can we imagine a government pandemic disease response team and system that can be called on at a moment’s notice to move from active-watch to action mode? (By the way, a [prescient TED Talk that Bill Gates gave in 2015](https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_outbreak_we_re_not_ready?language=en) is absolutely spot-on regarding the attention the federal government did not give before the present moment.) When we shrink public goods and spaces by privatizing them, we reap the consequences. When we need a strong public response, when we need corporations to cooperate and citizens to act like citizens rather than angry consumers who are being denied their right to party on St. Paddy’s Day or buy a shopping cart full of toilet paper, we reap the whirlwind of what we’ve planted. Me. Mine. My right. My family. And let’s add the “protection” of me and mine with more guns; [gun and ammo sales are surging](https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-15/coronavirus-pandemic-gun-sales-surge-us-california). Right now, we need “we,” “us,” “our,” “citizens,” “neighbors,” “public,” “common,” “mutual rights,” and responsibilities paired with rights (rights are meant to allow us to fulfill responsibilities). The individual is a fiction or, according to Aristotle, a malformed being when disconnected from others. Yet, global capitalism with the elevation of the free consumer over every other understanding of what humanity is, is based on this fiction. That fiction crumbles in moments like the present when our attention turns to the basics of our connections to each other: holding each other, breathing the same air, sharing a meal or a drink, watching a play or a movie, standing in line at the grocery store, going to work or school, attending worship. Religions, overall, have it right: persons are formed in communities. If we want strong persons, attend to strong communities. Maybe the present crisis will motivate the American public, at least temporarily, to behave as if religions have it right. Our nation’s sense of the common good, of robust public life and spaces, and of the need to have trustworthy and competent government officials at all levels of society are too thin currently and do not express the basic truth of human nature. We are people first and persons second. --- PHOTO CREDIT: Pickle Barrel at Katzinger’s in Columbus by [stu\_spivack](https://www.flickr.com/people/stuart_spivack/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [William Barr’s Faith-Based Stance on Public Morality in America](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/william-barrs-faith-based-stance-on-public-morality-in-america/) **Published:** October 22, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Excerpt:** Overall, while there are many places where I fundamentally disagree with Mr. Barr, I do share a concern with him. The concern is not the decline of institutional Christianity, of a particular sort, but is this: Which institutions today are in a strong position to form moral communities and moral citizens that can develop the virtues necessary for a multicultural, shared-space democracy? **Content:** I read the [CNN article about a recent speech](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/12/politics/william-barr-religious-values-moral-upheaval/index.html) by Attorney General William Barr. The brief article led me to read the speech per se, which is found at the [Department of Justice website](https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics). Below, you’ll find my summary of the lengthy speech, with my thoughts in italics. Mr. Barr’s comments show, again, why a public official’s faith stance may be entirely relevant to how they fulfill their duties. His topic was “religious liberty in America.” His context was a speech in the law school at Notre Dame, a Catholic university. AG Barr identifies as Roman Catholic. Speaking of the Founders of the U.S., he said: “The imperative of protecting religious freedom was not just a nod in the direction of piety. It reflects the Framers’ belief that religion was indispensable to sustaining our free system of government.” *In this speech, Barr consistently ignores Thomas Jefferson, who was neither an orthodox Christian nor a believer in the necessity of some form of public religion. Rather, Jefferson thought that public schools could become the moral gymnasiums for the republic. And I can’t imagine most of the Founders being comfortable with elevating religious liberty to the top of a hierarchy of rights that would, when there is a conflict between rights, always triumph.* In the 20th century, overcoming fascism and communism were democracy’s major challenges. In the 21st century, it is the lack of moral education of citizens. Liberty is preserved only when persons (he says “man” and “men”) have, through religion-derived moral education, controlled their own appetites and passions. This is the meaning of “self-government.” He believes true moral values, not subject to human rationalization, “must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.” *Well, I agree and disagree. I agree that moral self-discipline is indispensable to a liberal democracy—with “liberal” carrying its classical meaning of limited government, as well as the protection of minority rights from the tyranny of the majority. I disagree that morality is possible only for believers in a supreme being. This is a canard that conservative Christians are repeating frequently in public discourse.* “How does religion promote the moral discipline and virtue needed to support free government?” Religion gives “the right rules to live by.” His first example from Christianity is the dual commandment to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. *And he claimed, again, that “The Founding generation were Christians.” In addition to excluding Jefferson, he is also ignoring Tom Paine. In 1961, Martin Marty’s dissertation was published, titled “The Infidels” in which he discussed some of America’s unorthodox founders.* Then he introduces natural law which, through reason and experience, can “discern standards of right and wrong that exist independent of human will.” *Natural law would seem to open the door to “moral atheists.”* Religion has been under attack for the past 50 years. *That is an interesting starting point, 50 years: hippie generation, use of mind-altering drugs, Vietnam War protests, civil rights movements. Then in 1973, Roe v. Wade.* The consequence of these attacks has been diminished support for morality which, in turn, means “Virtually every measure of social pathology continues to gain ground.” He cites: the rate of children born to unmarried women; devastation to families; drugs; depression; suicide; “increase in senseless violence”; angry young men. *We in the U.S. are certainly experiencing a changing moral order, and Barr is correct that the old centers (there was not only one moral center, and the was moral order worked in Jim Crow segregated America has changed) have not held. But note that he is thinking purely in individual terms. You’ll see more of that radical individualism, when it comes to morality, shortly.* He blames “militant secularists” aligned with so-called “progressives.” “The fact is that no secular creed has emerged capable of performing the role of religion.” “…the secular project has itself become a religion, pursued with religious fervor.” *Note that secularists of the type he is describing (and partly manufacturing; hard-core atheists don’t even comprise a majority of the religiously unaffiliated) tend to be college-educated, while the social problems he cites tend to be problems of non-college educated and poorer persons.* He goes on to say how distracted this age is (e.g., John Wesley [said the same thing of his age](http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-79-on-dissipation/) in the 18th century). *Yes, I am part of the chorus who says the same, and Wesley’s sermon on “dissipation” is a good reminder to check on what in our era’s problem is really new.* With religion now too weakened to act as a “self-correcting mechanism,” the state takes on the role of “alleviator of bad consequences,” which is the opposite of what Christianity teaches. “Christianity teaches a micro-morality. We transform the world by focusing on our own personal morality and transformation.” *Ah, here is where he speaks explicitly of morality being a Christian and personal matter. There is no social gospel here, no sense of a government or a corporation with the power to structure social conditions in ways that work for some persons and against others. No sense of what wealth inequality, market forces, racism, and other structural advantages/disadvantages do to individuals and their families.* He claims that the law, and the courts, are being “used aggressively to force religious people and entities to subscribe to practices and policies that are antithetical to their faith.” He is referring, for example, to LGBTQ-positive curriculum in public schools, or to businesses which do not want to serve categories of persons, and the lack of exceptions made for religiously-based dissent. “This refusal to accommodate the free exercise of religion is relatively recent.” *Hold on here! White supremacy laws and mandated school segregation were defended by white Christians as God’s laws—until they weren’t. Rights are conditioned by other rights, which means rights are determined in context and are not absolutes. Rights can and do conflict and, therefore, particular cases need to be adjudicated rather than religious rights reigning supreme every time.* “We \[Catholics\] understand that only by transforming ourselves can we transform the world beyond ourselves.” *Transforming ourselves? I don’t think that is good Catholic theology. God is the agent of transformation.* *This point of view, that the transformation of the world depends first on the transformation of individuals, is also consistent with white evangelical Christianity, who again might object to self-transformation language.* He concludes by affirming “authentic Catholic education,” stating the need for lawyers to fight on the side of right, and declaring his commitment “to fight for the most cherished of our liberties: the freedom to live according to our faith.” *I have to ponder that one. Is the freedom to live according to one’s faith* the most cherished *of liberties? It’s right up there, but the most? I see better now why he believes religious rights triumph over, say, the right not to be discriminated against by businesses and legal authorities.* *Overall, while there are many places where I fundamentally disagree with Mr. Barr, I do share a concern with him. The concern is not the decline of institutional Christianity, of a particular sort, but is this:* **Which institutions today are in a strong position to form moral communities and moral citizens that can develop the virtues necessary for a multicultural, shared-space democracy?** *Religious congregations still have substantial influence, although I question how well we are using that influence. Public schools have some power, in a way, but so many schools are restrained and drained by the same issues that trouble the rest of society. Some corporation heads and boards are taking public stances on issues like climate change, while developing workplace cultures that are much more diversity-sensitive than was the case a short while ago. But only some businesses take the stance that their business should do what is good and right.* *There is a vacuum of public morality evident throughout the society, most especially in halls of power, and that vacuum is sucking life out of a lot of people. Barr thinks the dominance of a particular kind of Christianity should fill the vacuum. I don’t. But I have to admit that I don’t know what the answer is regarding which communities and institutions are positioned to form the kind of neighbor-regarding and eco-conscious people this nation needs as a white-male-Christian-dominated order dies away and a new order is being born.* **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Ethics and Public Health](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/ethics-and-public-health/) **Published:** May 10, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Excerpt:** I think we should expect public health to be premised upon some version of utilitarianism, promoting the greatest good for the greatest number and minimizing pain and suffering. I think what we have seen is a principle of “my freedom” exercised without regard to the freedom of anyone else--as long as the freedom we're talking about is the freedom to remain unmasked. It was both disheartening and angering to see Christian pastors denigrating public health practices as secular tyrannies and attacks upon freedom. If Christian principles meant more, at least the way that Paul wrote about Christian principles, we would have seen much more concern for the weakest and most vulnerable. Instead, we saw and still see something that looks a lot more like Nietzsche’s world where are the strong scoff at the vulnerable. No person invoking religious principles should resonate. **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/public-health-graphic-300x207.png)The former executive director of the Association of Theological Schools related school governance to public health. Neither, he said, is sexy work. However, when there is a crisis and you need to invoke governance or public health policy or protocols, you’ll be thankful you have them. Public health in the United States is a bit of a mess. Yes, that’s understated. The last two years have revealed or underlined so many deficiencies in planning and policy. But this time also certainly revealed the American public approaches the ethics of public health from radically different perspectives. I am currently teaching an online class about morality and ethics using the NBC comedy series, “The Good Place.” I am among the many fans whose professional work is in public morality, the importance of friendship for a good life, and questions regarding whether or not human beings can grow to be morally better. (I recommend to you a book written by philosophy and ethics professors reflecting on the show, *[The Good Place and Philosophy](https://bookshop.org/books/the-good-place-and-philosophy-everything-is-forking-fine/9781119633280)*.) In [ episode four in the third season](https://www.netflix.com/watch/80242497?trackId=14170286), the moral philosophy professor on the show, Chidi, has a serious mental and existential crisis. In his despondent state, he stands in front of his class and explicates in just a few sentences the basic philosophical positions on morality. He tells his class about virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontology. Virtue ethics postulates that we know what is good by looking what at what a good person does. Utilitarianism’s claim is that a moral action should be judged by its consequences rather than by intent. A moral action brings about the greatest good for the greatest number, maximizes that which is beneficial and pleasurable and minimizes suffering and other negative consequences. A deontologist would argue the morality of an action is embedded in the intent of the actor, in the principles that led the actor to take action. But in his state of existential despair, Chidi testifies the only real philosophy is nihilism. A few scenes earlier, Chidi was walking through a park and approached by a drug dealer. Chidi quotes to him from Nietzsche that there is no God, God is dead and we killed him. To which the drug dealer responded, “I was just trying to sell you drugs and you made it weird.” Well, if we approached public health from the perspective of virtue ethics and we’re looking for what a good person does, some of us would claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci was a good person to emulate. Follow the science. Trust only legitimate health authorities rather than whatever one reads on social media and hears on partisan news sources. However, Dr. Fauci embodied for others exactly what a good person should not do. For them, the good person to emulate was the business that refused to close or the legislator who advocated to make mask mandates illegal. Utilitarianism would seem to be an act moral perspective for the work of public health. Connect policies and protocols that result in the greatest good for the greatest number, maximizing benefits and minimizing suffering. However, the suffering of those whose livelihood depended on gathering places that were petri dishes for spreading the virus, whose venues were closed, was significant. It was difficult to negotiate between preventing the spread of the virus and the suffering of lost income due to venues being closed to prevent the spread of the virus. Considering pandemic responses from the perspective of deontology, one certainly finds competing perspectives on which principle to invoke, which intent to try to fulfill. The principles of protecting the vulnerable and “we are all in this together” were there. Protecting my freedom to do as I please without invoking the wisdom that my freedom ends where your freedom begins was widely on display and often ignored calls to protect the elderly and infirm. We sometimes heard this “keep it open and don’t mask me” position stated as “personal responsibility.” Those of us living in a Red state culture know this mantra. There were certainly some of our fellow citizens who embraced nihilism and sought to impose their perspective on all the rest of us. A government committed to nihilism under the banner of “freedom” is a frightening image. There is one other ethical perspective that may have been on display. It’s called ethical egoism. One must always make a decision based on what one believes is good for oneself. This philosophy is sometimes joined with eudaimonism or flourishing. Some eudaimonists claim that if everyone follows their bliss, the universe will coordinate and harmonize. Given that in the United States most likely over one million people have died of COVID, nine million people lost someone close to them due to COVID, tens of thousands of people are living with long COVID, and civility came closer to hitting rock bottom, the claims of ethical egoism and eudaimonism must be judged as false. I think we should expect public health to be premised upon some version of utilitarianism, promoting the greatest good for the greatest number and minimizing pain and suffering. I think what we have seen is a principle of “my freedom” exercised without regard to the freedom of anyone else–as long as the freedom we’re talking about is the freedom to remain unmasked. It was both disheartening and angering to see Christian pastors denigrating public health practices as secular tyrannies and attacks upon freedom. If Christian principles meant more, at least the way that Paul wrote about Christian principles, we would have seen much more concern for the weakest and most vulnerable. Instead, we saw and still see something that looks a lot more like Nietzsche’s world where are the strong scoff at the vulnerable. No person invoking religious principles should resonate. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) IMAGE CREDIT: Image used from the [New England Public Health Training Center](https://www.nephtc.org/enrol/index.php?id=35) https://www.nephtc.org/enrol/index.php?id=35 **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Help Me Plan Public Ceremonies of Grief and Lament](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/grief-and-lament/) **Published:** May 3, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The most recent statistics are these. Worldwide, while the official death total is around 6 million people, it is estimated that up to 20 million people have died from COVID-19. In the United States, given that we have surpassed 900,000 official deaths, it is probably fair to estimate the total deaths from COVID exceed 1,000,000. Some of these deaths were surely not preventable. Some of them surely were. How does that song from the musical *Rent* go? “529,600 minutes, how do you measure, do you measure a year?” Twenty-million deaths in such a short period of time represent millions and millions of lost years. That loss needs to be grieved and lamented. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Ухтинские_карелы_-_причитальщица.jpg?20190622071528)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Ухтинские_карелы_-_причитальщица.jpg?20190622071528)Add to the deaths dozens of other kinds of losses. The loss of health plaguing those with long COVID. How many children have lost one or both parents? How do you measure the loss of a parent? The loss of normal rituals when a loved one died. Workers from store clerks to teachers to restaurant servers to flight attendants to all levels of medical personnel experienced burnout, insults, profoundly ignorant and abusive behavior, and even assault and deadly violence. Why? Simply because they said “Please wear a mask,” or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone decided to take out their anger on the next person they met. So many people, both individuals and even whole industries, should be raised up as heroes. In once-upon-a-time normal times, the scientists and public health officials and delivery systems and drivers would be. But these are not normal times. What is happening and what will happen to our society if we do not grieve and lament our and the world’s profound losses? Nothing good. We in the United States cannot expect our elected leaders to lead in creating moments and memorials for grief and lament. There would have to be way too much dealing with reality and with each other as human beings, both of which are in critically short supply among those who have been elected to lead—as well as in the general population. In the past, we in America have often turned to our religious organizations to help heal self and other-afflicted wounds. I don’t know if we, as a people, are of a mind to make that turn in any substantial way this time. Nevertheless, the nation collectively and we in our communities locally need opportunities to grieve and lament. While the culture of our day has demonstrated that anything can be made political, grieving is going to be seen as less political then lamenting. To lament means to deal with a loss that was preventable, a loss from which we cannot shirk our responsibility and culpability. To lament is both to feel the pain of a loss that did not have to be and to realize that our own behavior contributed to bringing the pain upon ourselves. Thus, one can see that lament implicates our choices, assumptions, and prejudices. For some months now, I’ve been considering what kind of public ceremony I might help to develop in and for the greater Tulsa community. I’ve consulted with some clergy friends and other caring professionals. As we’ve experienced waves of COVID that have delayed larger gatherings, it has been difficult to plan and calendar a ceremony or a series of ceremonies. Imagine with me, please. I imagine a gathering at a place like Guthrie Green. At nightfall. Each attendee brings something to represent the loss they and their family experienced during COVID: a picture, an article of clothing, a coffee cup no longer used. Candle lighting. Poems of lament. Music such as Barber’s Adagio played on a solo cello. Songs of grief from our religious traditions. And some room made to thank those who have been performing throughout the pandemic with professionalism and compassion. I can imagine one service, and I could also imagine a series of services, such as one expression of lament and grief on every Monday at noon or dusk for a month. I reach out to you, the regular readers of this blog, and ask for your opinions and your help. What community expressions of lament and grief what you find most helpful? What might draw you out of the comfort and safety of your home on a summer or fall evening to gather with others for the essential work of grief and lament? Leave your comments on Facebook or email me at . --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public: Braver Angels](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/braver-angels/) **Published:** April 28, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Excerpt:** It has become cliché to note that America is highly polarized. Polarization has become something like the weather: something to complain about rather than act on. Braver Angels is an organization dedicated to depolarize America and to revive the spirit of our democracy. One cannot imagine a more important contribution to reviving civic faith of America and in America than helping citizens of opposing views to know each other. Here in Oklahoma, we have a Braver Angels alliance. In this episode of Committing Faith in Public, senior vice president at Oklahoma State University (Tulsa) Chris Benge and All Souls Unitarian Church pastor Barbara Prose talk about the alliance to which they give leadership. **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Braver-Angels-Logo-300x44.png)It has become cliché to note that America is highly polarized. Polarization has become something like the weather: something to complain about rather than act on. [Braver Angels](https://braverangels.org/ "https://braverangels.org/") is an organization dedicated to depolarize America and to revive the spirit of our democracy. One cannot imagine a more important contribution to reviving civic faith of America and in America than helping citizens of opposing views to know each other. Here in Oklahoma, we have a Braver Angels alliance. In this episode of Committing Faith in Public, senior vice president at Oklahoma State University (Tulsa) Chris Benge and All Souls Unitarian Church pastor Barbara Prose talk about the alliance to which they give leadership. Mr. Benge has given decades of service to Oklahomans and is a Republican. The Rev. Prose pastors a progressive congregation, is a social justice advocate, and identifies as a Democrat. How many places can you hear a civil and honest conversation between persons who identify with different parts of the political spectrum? Join host Gary Peluso-Verdend and listen in to this special episode of the podcast. To learn more about Braver Angels in Oklahoma, email [bprose@allsoulschurch.org](mailto:bprose@allsoulschurch.org "mailto:bprose@allsoulschurch.org") or [chris.benge@okstate.edu](mailto:chris.benge@okstate.edu "mailto:chris.benge@okstate.edu"). **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Imperial Christianity Again](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/imperial-christianity-again/) **Published:** April 27, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [The following](https://bitterwinter.org/patriarch-of-moscow-blesses-war-against-gay-prides/) is an excerpt from Patriarch Kirill’s sermon on “Forgiveness Sunday” on the Orthodox Church calendar. > For eight years there have been attempts to destroy what exists in the Donbass. And in the Donbass there is rejection, a fundamental rejection of the so-called values that are offered today by those who claim world power. Today there is a test for the loyalty to this new world order, a kind of pass to that “happy” world, the world of excess consumption, the world of false “freedom.” Do you know what this test is? The test is very simple and at the same time terrible—it is the Gay Pride parade. The demands on many to hold a gay parade are a test of their loyalty to the new world order; and we know that if people or countries reject these demands, then they do not enter into that world order, they become strangers to it. > > But we know what this sin is, which is promoted through the so-called Prides. This is a sin that is condemned by the Word of God, both the Old and the New Testament. Moreover, the Lord, condemning sin, does not condemn the sinner. He only calls him to repentance, but not to ensure that through a sinful person and his behavior, sin becomes a life standard, a variation of human behavior regarded as respected and acceptable. > > Entering the field of Great Lent, let us try to forgive everyone. What is forgiveness? If you ask for forgiveness from a person who has broken the law or done something evil and unfair to you, you thereby do not justify his behavior, but simply stop hating this person. He ceases to be your enemy, which means that by your forgiveness you deliver him to the judgment of God. This is the true meaning of forgiving each other our sins and mistakes. We forgive, we renounce hatred and vindictiveness, but we cannot there, in the face of heaven, accept what is not true; therefore, by our forgiveness, we commit our offenders into the hands of God, so that both God’s judgment and God’s mercy may be administered on them. So that our Christian attitude towards human sins, delusions and insults will not be the cause of their death, but the just judgment of God would be carried out on everyone, including those who take upon themselves the heaviest responsibility, widening the chasm between brethren, filling it with hatred, malice, and death. I do not normally use an extensive quote from someone else in my blogs. I normally use a few lines. However, when I read a few summaries of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow’s forgiveness Sunday sermon, I sought an English translation. It took a little while to find it. Upon reading Kirill’s text, the connections between his version of Orthodox Christianity and the Christian Right in America are clear. Each embraces imperial Christianity and claims the authority to use violence to cleanse. Why is it that when Christianity is closely embedded with a ruling party, almost always Christians justify holy violence and war upon some scapegoated other? How do we who call ourselves Christian so frequently take a religion allegedly modeled on the path of Jesus of Nazareth and use that religion to justify killing others? [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Stanze_Vaticane_-_Raffaello_-_Apparizione_della_croce.jpg)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Stanze_Vaticane_-_Raffaello_-_Apparizione_della_croce.jpg)Detail from “The Vision of the Cross” by assistants of Raphael, depicting the vision of the cross and the Greek writing “Ἐν τούτῳ νίκα” in the sky, before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. (Wikepedia) It is as if Jesus’ call statement in Luke 4 that “the spirit of the Lord is upon him to preach good news to the poor” is mistaken. It is as if the Beatitudes are reversed and the weak are to be swept away by those with military might. Why is it that when a government claims the sacred canopy of Christianity, that canopy is constantly splattered with blood? We in the United States certainly know this corrupt association between Christianity, rulers, and violence. We know our history of how these 50 states came to be populated predominantly by people from other parts of the world at extreme cost to the nations who first lived here. We know many of our founders were not only great philosophical thinkers. They were also land speculators who infrequently recognized the humanity of the persons and nations from which they took the land and made themselves wealthy. We know how Christianity was used to justify slavery as well as to promote a post-slavery nation in which Black and White would remain unequal. We know from our own history that some immigrants were seen as desirable and others rejected because they diluted the purity of the imaginary white gene pool. Why is it that it’s so hard to find persons and parties running on a platform that sounds something like this: > Love is the highest form of human interaction. As a people, we cannot be told by our government whom to love and whom to hate. We can however, by legislation, policy, and influencing culture, demonstrate that we are a just nation. We are a nation in which freedom and equality are equally valued values. We are a nation that provides opportunity for everyone to be prosperous, with prosperity understood in multiple ways. We are a nation in which where the zip code in which one lives does not determine access to good education, affordable and high quality health care, and equal treatment under the law from the police through the courts. Our party stands for the broadly embraced religious value of seeing dignity in every human being. In making decisions regarding the production and use of natural resources, we resolve to minimize the negative impact our decisions may have on future generation and maximize the possibility that their lives will be at least as good as ours. There is no longer a majority religion in the United States. But Christianity still holds more cultural power than any other form of organized religion. In terms of political power today, Christians of the sort that would resonate with Patriarch Kirill’s words seem more visible and identifiable in American public life than Christians who believe that bringing good news to the poor is at the heart of Christianity. Patriarch Kirill’s statement ought to be roundly condemned by all persons who name themselves Christian. He is using Jesus and his disdain for liberal democracy to justify Russia’s war against Ukraine. While his language is Russian, his rhetoric is far too familiar to those of us in the United States following how Christianity has been and is being used to justify purifying a land through exterminating those we deem to be dirty and installing a government that claims to be God’s agent. I close with [these words from Martin Luther King, Jr.](http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol04Scans/155_7-Apr-1957_The%20Birth%20of%20a%20New%20Nation.pdf) The contrast between Dr. King’s words and Patriarch Kirill’s will be clear to you: > The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence are emptiness and bitterness. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [History is Not Linear. It is Not Even Quite Cyclical.](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/history-nonlinear/) **Published:** April 19, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Movements and ideas travel history in loops that end in different places from where they began. Sometimes the loops are virtuous and sometimes they are vicious. Today, I am afraid vicious loops are intensifying and tightening. We in the 21st century seem intent on repeating 20th century conflicts with the addition of climate destabilization, instantaneous worldwide communication, social media-compounded fear and righteous rage, and weapons of mass destruction. A clergy friend and I were talking yesterday. He rightly reminded me that the Christian narrative centers on Good Friday through Easter Sunday. My retort, “But will humankind ever make it past Friday or, on a good day, Saturday?” The early 20th century was marked by Western nations ensconced in ethno-nationalism, energized by founding myths and imperial versions of Christianity, fighting for land and natural resources and cheap labor. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/christian-nationalism.png)Even the world’s allegedly most advanced democracy, the United States, distrusted democracy as evidenced by voting restrictions and prohibitions. But perhaps more than distrust of democracy, our nation was characterized by a distrust of the federal government. In terms of culture, race, religion, and states’ rights, the Civil War has never really ended. Here in the early 21st century, we are very familiar with this distrust of democracy. Today, Metropolitan Kirill of Moscow provides a sick sacred canopy to Vladimir Putin’s cruel and inhumane and illegal war on Ukraine. Kirill claims the war is necessary to cleanse civilization of its western modernist elements, especially everything associated with the United States. Here in the United States, one version of Protestant Christian evangelicalism proffers itself as *the* church. This version of evangelicalism has shed core convictions about Jesus being Lord, a literal interpretation of scripture, the necessity of a conversion experience, and maintaining a personal relationship with Jesus. From a progressive Christian point of view, it is difficult to find much religious within this political identity version of evangelicalism, except for its God claims. It is Christianity in service of empire and all the actions an empire takes to protect its borders and shape the world in its image. In the early 20th century, Protestant Christian churches in the West began to seek expression for movements of unity. Evangelize the world in this generation. Learn to cooperate rather than compete in the mission field in order to avoid importing the conflicts that roiled Europe for centuries. Activate the gospel to promote social justice and to show Christianity has answers to the world questions and solutions for the problems of modern life. These churches were relatively blind to the tensions that resulted in World War I. Their vision was a little less occluded in between the wars. After the Great War, the danger of Christianity married to nationalism was crystal clear in war monuments all over Europe and America and in the presence of legions of maimed and traumatized veterans. The battle cry among ecumenical churches was “let the church be the church!”–rather than providing the sacred canopy for savaging another nation. Christians from many lands were instrumental in building institutions after the Second World War that, it was hoped, might foster the relationships and be given the authority to prevent World War III and to weave a more just world order. The United Nations, especially its Declaration of Human Rights, would not have happened without Christian leadership. There was cross fertilization between the ecumenical movement, in both its regional and international expressions, the UN, and movements for peace and justice–including the civil rights movement in the US. Today, it is inconceivable that either the United Nations or the World Council of Churches could be created. Not in 2022. Inconceivable. Thirty years ago, political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared the end of history. With the demise of the USSR, liberal values, capitalism, free markets, and democracy had triumphed. Authoritarianism was in the cemetery. Oh my. What a difference 30 years makes. Liberalism and its attendant values of free speech, globalization, and dissent have slid into disrepute. Religious nationalism promoted by authoritarian leaders is once again ascendant. What will the next 30 years bring? Will the next cycle of history turn virtuous or stay vicious? And will Christian churches re-assert their prophetic voices and distance from the state or will they lose their souls in exchange for the supreme ruler’s ear and ego? Time will tell. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Loren Richmond](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/loren-richmond/) **Published:** April 13, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** What does one do with the master of divinity degree these days? The answer is not necessarily simple! In this episode of committing faith in public, the Rev. Loren Richmond (MDiv 2013) talks about his journey after seminary. He has been a church pastor, a church planter, a hospital chaplain, and a student in an MBA program specializing in nonprofit management. In this very challenging era for the institutional church, Loren is trying to equip himself and, through his podcast, prepare others to face challenges with knowledge, courage, and humility. Loren relates lessons learned through experience and often as a result of things not going as expected. Before the end of the podcast, Loren is joined by his young son. Thus, we the audience experience one of the other challenges of post-seminary, bi-vocational ministry: parenting. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [The Immorality of Hidden Costs and Deferred Maintenance](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/immorality-deferred-maintenance/) **Published:** April 5, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In cities such as Tulsa and states such as Oklahoma, drivers are used to bouncing on the roads. Potholes, cracks, and crumbles are everywhere. When I drove Oklahoma’s roads often, every tie I owned was coffee-stained; taking a sip of hot coffee while encountering a pothole or heat-crack at 70 mph is not recommended. In 2017, it was estimated that [bad roads cost Oklahoma City drivers over $2,000 per year in repair costs](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/columns/2017/05/11/research-group-says-poor-roads-cost-oklahoma-motorists-5-billion-a-year/60600467007/). Why don’t the legislature and county boards increase revenues for roads a little for everyone in order to minimize repair costs later? ![](https://andonix.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Iceberg-of-Ignorance-1-980x586.jpg)Imagine not seeing a dentist for 20 years. No prophylactic care for plaque, creeping gum disease, or small cavities. Two decades of neglect result in abscesses and deep cavities. Suddenly, one needs a dozen root canals and crowns. Except, nothing came on suddenly. And the cost of care after decades of neglect is astronomical. It would be prudent to get regular care to avoid catastrophic bills. Uninsured individuals using hospital emergency services for what might have been routine care if they had insurance cost all insured persons billions of dollars annually. Surely there is more cost and care-effective health system than the one we suffer with now, with the suffering concentrated among those who can least afford it. In Oklahoma, we know darn well that our state’s overall mental health rating is very low for children, teens, and adults. [In 2017 we had the nation’s worst Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) scores—immorally high](https://oklahomawatch.org/2021/08/25/seeking-to-reduce-treat-effects-of-childhood-trauma/). Yet mental health services in the state are chronically underfunded. Police are called to deal with individuals in mental health crises who need attentive care rather than cuffs. Would the cost of mental health rapid response teams more than pay for itself if a city avoids a [multi-million dollar payout](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-misconduct-costs-cities-millions-every-year-but-thats-where-the-accountability-ends/) every time the wrong first-responders make the wrong kind of response? Nationally, we’ve been talking about the school to prison pipeline for decades. Schools are not organized or resourced to deal with high ACEs children or those with profound learning challenges. Dropped out or expelled children and teens may then encounter the police and courts as their next exposure to public institutions—followed by jails, prisons, and penitentiaries. Those institutions are better equipped to punish than help troubled persons at their point of need. We know early childhood education and small classrooms are two elements of making life better for children. But we refuse to fund and implement such reforms. So, we pay to build inhumane human warehouses. On April 4th, the World Health Organization released a report stating that [99 percent of human beings breathe bad air](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/says-99-percent-worlds-population-breathes-poor-quality-air-rcna22822). And, no surprise, the worst air is inhaled by the poorest people. Microplastics are found at every depth of world’s oceans, and we keep pouring tons more plastic waste into the water. Plastics clog the bellies of whales—and [human blood tainted with microplastic](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/could-microplastics-in-human-blood-pose-a-health-risk) is now coursing through our veins! Those plastics join dozens of other chemical compounds, settling into fatty tissues, that did not even exist 50 years ago. Humankind has known for long enough regarding the unsustainability of our energy lifestyle to have acted meaningfully. Yet, few governing authorities have taken a relatively small action such as banning single-use plastics (and in Oklahoma, our legislature has banned cities from banning them). What are the long-term costs, passed from generation to generation, of our use of fossil fuels today? Everything from our bodies to the trees and the coral reefs and whales reveal the clear answer. What would today’s high profits be if the generational costs hidden in those profits were accounted for? In the [Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy](https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/values/), the principle for action is how will the action affect seven generations. I’ve found some websites claiming this means seven generations into the future. Another interpretation is that [the seven generations are the ones closest to the present](https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/how-to-honor-the-seven-generations): great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, our generation, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. I’d love to hear a debate between those two perspectives! One includes voices from the past, the other projects further into the future. But, in both interpretations, decisions are made in the context of generational connections and set human beings as being *of* the earth rather than *over* the earth. Either interpretation provides a much better moral matrix than the short-sighted, stingy, self-interested, irresponsible ways our nation and our states are making life-shaping, and life-damaging, decisions now. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [What Good Does Punishment Do?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/what-good-does-punishment-do/) **Published:** March 29, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “I’m going to teach you a lesson!” exclaims an angry stranger who felt disrespected by another driver right before he pulls the trigger. Why do we punish? Even if we understand one person’s punishing behavior toward another person, why does a *society* punish? I am no expert on these questions. I invite you to ponder with me. Doing to others as has been done to you seems ingrained in our brains. In the Bible, refuge cities that were off-limits to revenge-killing and “eye-for-an-eye” commands were meant to limit vengeance. A society establishes rules in order to create boundaries for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. There would not be some version of the Golden Rule in every world religion if there weren’t equally universal violations of the rule. And elevating the rule as coming from a deity, as the monotheistic religions do, underscores its importance. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1280px-Hester_Prynne.jpeg)Hester Prynne at the Stocks—an engraved illustration from an 1878 edition of “The Scarlet Letter.” Engraved by A. V. S. Anthony, Hester Prynne & Pearl before the stocks. In some societies, honor and shame drive behavior. If someone offends the honor of another—by stealing, slapping, killing, raping, looking at one’s kin “the wrong way,” telling a joke at the other’s expense—honor must be restored through an act of violence or through the submission of the offender to the offended. Otherwise, the offended is mired in their shame. Dueling, extrajudicial killings, feuds and the like are attempts to restore honor. Punishing the other for their offense says something about a society’s moral order, the rules regarding what individuals owe to each other. If that moral order is violated, the violator must be punished to repair the broken order. When White Tulsans brutally attacked Black Tulsans in 1921, the pretext was an alleged assault by a Black man toward a White woman (offense of honor). But in places such as sermons preached from a White church the following weeks, the opinions were more about how Black Tulsans “brought this on themselves” through offenses such as simply being prosperous. White Tulsans could not stand for Black people being as or more wealthy than White people. The violence was justified as actions that would restore the moral order of white supremacy. But why does a *society* punish? Not every society has jails, prisons, penitentiaries, and capital punishment. Not every society has extensive systems of codified laws, police, courts, prosecutors, and judges to decide if a person is guilty of a charge and, if so, what their punishment should be. The United States imprisons a higher percentage of individuals than any other country in the world. And we are also the developed nation with the most ostensibly religious culture. States with the highest percentage of self-identified Christian evangelicals, such as Oklahoma, punish more severely. Despite admonitions such as “Vengeance is mine says the Lord,” one might suspect that religious people believe they are acting as God’s agents when wrongdoers are punished. When God’s moral order, which one has to believe one knows in order to enforce it, is violated, it is imperative that “justice is restored” by punishing. Thus, in places such as Oklahoma, we pass laws to punish everyone associated with the “offense” of abortion, try to undo federal protections for those who do not identify as straight and cisgendered, and seek to carry guns anywhere at any time because someone might seek to violate one’s right to stand one’s ground. All moral claims. All associated with warrants to punish. Well, here is my fundamental question: what good does all this punishing really do? I get the emotional satisfaction of returning hurt for hurt, of “besting” someone who has offended me. That emotional satisfaction is often portrayed in movies where the hero finds and kills the lawbreaker when official channels could not reach the perpetrator. And the audience applauds “justice” being done. In today’s debates about what justice means, “restorative justice” is a phrase used by advocates for a community-based approach focused more on penance than punishment. But in popular culture and in the halls of justice, restorative justice means making right through perpetrators getting what they “deserve” and victims getting “satisfaction.” What good does punishment do for any of us, offenders and offended alike? Does punishment lead to a beloved community, to a peaceful and prosperous society, to one’s free pursuit of happiness (a good life)? If so, then we in the United States should be the most peaceful, just, beloved society the world has ever seen. Some people *are* dangers to society; society should be protected from them. Someone who robs or murders or assaults or defrauds should face meaningful consequences. But whatever is fundamentally wrong with American society will not be fixed by more punishment. Paraphrasing Einstein: the system that created the problem will not yield the answer to the problem. What would create a more humane and godly moral order is yet beyond our nation’s grasp and vision. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast with Jesse Ulrich](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-jesse-ulrich/) **Published:** January 31, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** What was it like growing up Je[![Logo for Pod 4 Good](https://res.cloudinary.com/pippa/image/fetch/h_750,w_750,f_auto/https://assets.pippa.io/shows/5d8d133ab8ba57ae71fc96ea/1569779349287-2474703841bbdd7689346901798613e7.jpeg)](https://shows.acast.com/pod-4-good/)wish in Tulsa, attending a nearly all African-American elementary school where one was a dual minority, then having the experience of living in a large Jewish community in Boston before returning to Tulsa? Jesse Ulrich talks about these and other formational experiences that have helped him navigate the boundaries between cultures and develop skills that have been helpful to the places where he was employed and now in his new role. After a stint at the [Jewish Federation in Tulsa](https://jewishtulsa.org/), Jesse established [Rant9Productions](https://rant9.com/), a business to help organizations–especially non-profits who are passionate about their work but often don’t know how to tell their stories to others–get better at telling their stories in podcasts, marketing, and other digital media. His podcast is [Pod 4 Good](https://rant9.com/tagged/pod4good). Jesse and host Gary Peluso-Verdend worked together for several years on the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice Trialogue Committee. Gary interviewed Jesse at Jesse’s home before Christmas, using Jesse’s first rate equipment. And, after Gary interviewed Jesse, Jesse and his podcast partner Chris returned the favor and [interviewed Gary for Jesse’s podcast](https://rant9.com/pod-4-good-episode-9-gary-peluso-verdend-d12815d87e97). **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast with the Revs. Marlin Lavanhar and Carlton Pearson](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-the-revs-marlin-lavanhar-and-carlton-pearson/) **Published:** December 5, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![ Click to download ](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d059d1b70d017000181d3c2/1563385177874-NFO696EMO6FTMPUTV4CI/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kEhRb-mGDiEi0xC18_AR20gUqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKcIhmhaf0_y3jP90sctjPbyJl_LgGHVX5eJAayYAVUQeLJuPsDj2XpL8L_ZrvpLsfK/Promo_Image_5_American_Heretics_1200x630.png?format=500w)]() When folks from around the country think of religion in Tulsa, they are likely to think about Oral Roberts University, Victory Christian, or Rhema Bible. But many don’t know about [All Souls](http://allsoulschurch.org/), the largest Church in the Unitarian Universalist Association and a potent progressive spiritual force in public life in Northeast OK. A recent documentary movie, called “[American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel](https://www.americanhereticsthefilm.com/),” featured All Souls as an exemplar of liberal religion in the Heartland. In this podcast, Gary Peluso-Verdend talks with two pastors of All Souls about the church and about their experience with the movie. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [On Taking God's Name in Vain in Public](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/gods-name-in-vain/) **Published:** March 22, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** With our behavior, Christians have sullied good words over time. Evangelism should mean “good news” rather than aggressive proselytizing. Missionaries have been colonizers and imperial agents. Evangelicalism is in danger of being a zombie for political identity. And then there is the word “God.” Of course, God’s name—any one of God’s names—has been invoked since before history and assigned praise and blame for everything from earthquakes to elections, from winds to wars, from accidents to anointings. Has this prolific or profligate invocation of God been truer anywhere than in the United States? A community friend recently told me about a meeting in which a local pastor declared God wrote the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Not the other amendments, solely the Second. Whaaaat? A cohort of Christian leaders and influencers trumpet the prior president as God’s anointed, akin to either the flawed King David or the pagan Cyrus who liberated Israel from its captivity (in the U.S., the claim is that the president liberated evangelical Christians from the captivity imposed by the previous administration). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/19730417_Nixon_Makes_Brief_Watergate_Statement.jpeg)I am somewhere between sick and tired of candidates for elected office in my part of the nation declaring that God told them to run for office. Can you imagine a president returning to the pre-Nixon years and omitting “God bless America,” or similar words, from the end of their speeches? Personally, I admire and want to promote the national motto, *e pluribus unum*. The official motto, “In God We Trust,” printed on our carriers of value (money), was supposed to differentiate godly Americans from godless communists. Given the power of the U.S. in the world’s markets and military conflicts, I’ve never been sure what trusting in God means for a nation with so much power. Nevertheless, state legislatures are requiring schools to plaster the motto in every classroom. All this has led me to wonder: what would happen if we in the U.S. invoked God less often in public life? There is an ancient theological tradition called apophatic theology. Since who and what God is cannot be captured in words, since every representation of God is partial, then it is just as important to name who and what God is not as it is to make affirmative claims. God is not king (or queen). God is not an emperor. God is not a president. God is not a mother or father. Saying “God is not” does not cancel everything about claims regarding who God is, that God may have some of the attributes we know from human leaders. But apophatic theology reminds us to hold our claims loosely. What if God does not have candidates, does not determine the outcome of elections, does not anoint kings? Yes, the Bible contains plenty of call stories for prophets and kings, for judges and tribal leaders, for a Christ and his followers. But what if we in the U.S. are now in a perpetual state of conflict, another expression of the oldest form of hate and murder—fratricide—because, in Abraham Lincoln’s words (Second Inaugural Address): > Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. The Civil War may have been a different battle if neither side would have claimed God on their side. Claiming God’s imprimatur elevates one’s cause to the highest level and, not ironically, can result in the most vicious violence in the name of “all that is holy.” Western Christian theology has been too oriented toward understanding God in the context of human history and governance. Our theologies, my own very much included, have been puny. We have not embraced the realities of a nearly 14 billion-year-old universe, at least five mass extinction events on earth, countless potential lifeforms elsewhere, and the fact that humankind belongs to the earth and not the other way around. Who is this God in whose creation dinosaurs dominated the planet, or where a solar flare could disrupt life as we know it, or in whose universe life is undoubtedly teaming? Not emperor. Not king. Not father. Not. Not. Not. In a counseling session some decades ago, the counselor listened to me detail a relationship that troubled me. At some point, the counselor looked up from his clipboard, put down his pencil, and stated: “With everything going on in the other’s life, you know, you are not the center of their drama.” I wonder how often we put ourselves at the center of the universe, at the center of God’s drama—and we are not. Our problems, our elections, our battles. Important to us but not the center of the universe’s attention. As is said in Taoism, “The Tao that can be named is not the Tao,” so with Christian naming of God. When we think we know who God is and what God is doing, we are sure to be at least partly wrong. Claiming God’s approval can be a form of taking God’s name in vain. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Indoctrination is Not Education. Undoing Indoctrination is Discomforting](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/undoing-indoctrination/) **Published:** March 15, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** > Oklahoma’s children need to be taught that “America is the greatest country in the history of the world because of the principles this country was built upon because we believe that individual rights were given to you by God and because we believe that morality and Christian values are the way to live your life.” [Oklahoma Secretary of Education Ryan Walters on the passage of rules written by the State Board of Education to enforce House Bill 1775, known popularly as the anti-critical race theory bill](https://twitter.com/sec_walters/status/1502060934919073795?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet) Dear Secretary Walters, I watched your Twitter statement, several times, regarding the assurance that “critical race theory will not be taught in our schools.” Thank you for publicizing your position. I would like to offer a response. I write as a Christian, a clergyperson, and a seminary educator for the past almost three decades. I believe morality and Christian values are good for my life and for many. Good for everyone? That is another matter. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/education.png)I also know firsthand that the content of Christian morality and values is disputed. Those disputes, of course, are supposed to be *within faith communities* rather than *adjudicated by agencies of government*. I am ever grateful for the First Amendment. Nevertheless, we citizens “commit faith in public,” as one of my teachers said. But doing so almost always means entering an argument that might be informed by but will not and should not be settled by religion. First, I am very happy to learn from your words that Oklahoma will not engage in “state-sponsored racism.” As a state that wrote racism into its original constitution (and where racism has played out historically, as in, the establishment by the federal government and then the white takeaway of Indian Territory, the Osage reign of terror, the Tulsa Massacre, lynchings, sundown towns), it would be wonderful to live in an Oklahoma where the state actively pursued anti-racist equality, which I take to be the opposite of state-sponsored racism. Second, given the scope of HB 1775, might we also be confident that state-sponsored sexism in Oklahoma schools is prohibited? That would be wonderful. Third, I, too, abhor public school children being “indoctrinated” by the Left, as you say at the conclusion. I also disdain children being indoctrinated by the Right—or any other position for that matter. *Indoctrination has no place in public education.* As educators have argued for generations, we must teach critical thinking, an essential skill of discernment, for cutting through noise and catch-phrases that obscure and distract to gain cultural and political power. Especially in a day with more knowledge available and more opportunities for lies to be perpetuated and spread than any other time in history, critical thinking for a self-governing people is the only way we are going to have a republican democracy worth claiming to be “the greatest nation.” I am so glad our Founders rejected the inherited doctrine of monarchy, even as they struggled with their severely limited moral understanding of how much democracy they trusted, and for whom. Fourth, on the matter of “discomfort.” The bill states, rightly, I think, that no child should be made to be uncomfortable for how they were born or to whom they were born. *That would be a wonderful value to uphold for ALL our children*. I surely don’t want a straight heterosexual cisgendered white physically able child to be denigrated because of any of those attributes! And if the bill’s intent is also to prohibit discomforting a child who is LBGTQ, of color, or physically challenged, this bill would pave a wonderful way forward. But for those of us who think in terms of Christian morality and values, I think we should be very careful about fencing-off the powerful educational effect of discomfort. Being made uncomfortable with sin used to be essential to the evangelical conversion experience. To be converted is to turn around, to turn from what one was doing, to see and think and feel and act with new orientation and energy. As mentioned above, critical thinking is a discomforting activity. I believe strongly in the need for safe-enough spaces in order to have really brave and discomforting conversations and arguments. *Converting conversations and arguments*. An example from Christian education: taking the Beatitudes seriously as a way to live and organize a community is a really uncomfortable experience, especially in a society so oriented toward power, wealth, punishment, and merit. Jesus surely discomforted a lot of people, and his words still do. Here is a fact that seems to discomfort many people today: white Christians tend to tell American history differently from any other religious identity group. We represent the people who thought of America as the Promised Land but without accounting for the expenses incurred by native Americans and stolen Africans. In addition to all the good that the U.S. represents in history, an adequate high school American history education should include: - A. the land of the Americas was populated with people, cultures, civilizations before 1492; - B. taking that land required the Europeans to justify their conquest morally and they used their religion for that end; - C. for wealth-seeking men, great swaths of land required a tremendous labor force to work the land and low to no wages to grow wealth; - D. the lives of many millions of indentured servants, enslaved Africans, enslaved Indians, and new waves of immigrants were all used to build wealth for others; - E. the history of our great nation could not be written without the stories of the construction of race and color, laws to protect property of white people and limit voting by poor and non-white voters, the Civil War (or, as Frederick Douglass wanted to call it, the War for the Abolition of Slavery), Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, lynching, voter suppression, the Lost Cause, internment camps, Indian boarding schools, and (skipping up to our time) voter suppression again and the rise of hate crimes and white nationalist militias. Throughout all of this history, white Christians have *often* been at the forefront of aligning the laws and moral codes to benefit ourselves first. *Sometimes* we’ve joined others in the discomforting work of exposing the sins of racism, personal and systemic, and marching with persons of other skin-tones and religions for a society more like the oft-quoted line from the Declaration or the soaring rhetoric of the Gettysburg address or Dr. King’s brilliant usage of America’s sacred words. Can a public school teacher teach everything I’ve just named above? Can a public school teacher teach that this history and the conflicts the history represents are not really past, that each of us has a personal responsibility to confront our nation’s past? Can a teacher teach that, while it is true children should not be found *guilty* for what previous generations did, each generation has a responsibility *to do what it can to rectify inherited wrongs*? That responsibility is both corporate and personal, or so my faith-based understanding of human nature (persons in communities) leads me to profess. If not, then I would judge HB 1775 is, in effect, indoctrination on behalf of a society that has not faced its past, is not dealing effectively with its present, and cannot face the future *together* with hope. I hope we agree *we don’t want indoctrination of any sort* in our public schools. In public schools, we want spaces hospitable for educating responsible citizens. Responsible citizenship requires recognition of our shared human dignity, learning together and from each other, thinking critically, conversing honestly, arguing civilly, making room for dissent, and learning to live together well both despite and because of our differences. In my opinion, these are all civic values highly compatible with how I understand Christian values and morality. Thank you for your attention. The Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend President Emeritus and Executive Director, Center for Religion in Public Life Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, OK --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Bible and Book Banning in Oklahoma](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/bible-book-banning/) **Published:** March 8, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Some lawmakers in Oklahoma and elsewhere are either banning or “researching” which books they’d like to ban. In Oklahoma, a bill currently still alive in the legislative session would make the Bible the official state book. Why a state needs an official book is one question (we don’t have one now). Which version of the Bible is another matter. (A different bill proposed to require school libraries to accession the 1611 King James version.) The representative who offered the resolution [said](https://ktul.com/news/local/new-oklahoma-bill-would-designate-holy-bible-as-state-book): > We are people of great faith.…The Holy Bible is an integral part of numerous faiths and is deeply important to many Oklahomans. Even when we don’t always agree with each other, we always know that we have a foundation higher than politics that we can rely on to remain unshakeable when times are tough. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/banned-books.png)That statement deserves to be unpacked. “Holy” is a strange word for a state resolution. There is no one “Holy Bible.” How many faiths are included in “numerous?” There are many multiples of interpretations about what constitutes that “foundation higher than politics.” And that foundation, whatever it is, is supposed to be off-limits in official government business. But the question I’d like to explore here is: How does the Bible differ from the books they want to ban? Following the chronology of the books as arranged in Christian Bibles: the opening chapters involve fratricide (Cain and Abel), genocide (the flood), a curse (Noah on his son Ham) used in pulpits millennia later to justify chattel slavery, attempted deicide (Tower of Babel), and a rape and dismemberment as horrific as anything a Mafia movie could imagine (Judges 19). Don’t forget polygamy (many) and attempted rape (in Sodom). Abraham passes off his wife as his sister. The man after whom the people is named, Jacob who becomes Israel, was a master deceiver. The greatest leader-heroes commit murder (Moses) or arrange a murder (David) in order to cover his infidelity. The king known for his wise words (Solomon) impressed some of his citizens into deadly slave labor. These are not models for morality. A theme that sweeps throughout the whole Bible is not law and order but rebellion against oppression and a God who sides with the suffering rather than upholding the ruling powers. Overlords who use people and create and benefit from inequality and cruelty do not fare well. There is also that land invasion or taking a promised land (depending on perspective), a story that has been used to justify massive murder and land dispossession far away in time and space (with the U.S. being the chief example). Have you read the Song of Songs as the erotic love poetry it is rather than as an extended analogy of the relationship between God and Israel or God and the church? And Jesus, the man who claimed God gave him a message to preach good news to the poor and liberation to the captives. The so-called Lord’s Prayer begins with a Mt. Rushmore sized “taking a knee” in the line: “Your Empire come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” That line is a call for God’s way to replace Rome’s way. Read the Beatitudes, that part of the Bible on which no lawmaker appeals to write legislation. Or the Magnificat as spoken by his mother, with kings tumbling from their thrones. Jesus lived communally. His parables were all about what we owe to each other in ways richer and different from any appeal to capitalism or “personal responsibility” could create. He was ambiguous, at best, on paying taxes. His attack on the moneychangers seriously bloodied the noses of Jerusalem’s economic elites. In the framework of today’s attacks on anything and anyone who asks us to consider how we are connected to each other, how freedom for everyone limits my freedom to ”do what I please because this is a free country,” Jesus would surely be labeled a socialist or communist. On the basis of these examples (and I’m sure some of you could add many more), the Bible should be a candidate for banning (if you are into banning books; I am not). And, writing as one who has read the Bible for almost 60 years, who spent time learning Greek (somewhat) and taking a biblical Hebrew course (somewhere in the foggy past) in order to read the books of the Bible better, who has preached from the Bible for nearly 50 years, of course: there is a great deal in the Bible to commend it. The Bible is also soul-searching poetry, stories that reveal the heights and depths of human nature, timeless reflection on suffering and mortality, plumblines for measuring a society according to the way the most vulnerable are treated, and inspiration to finding joy. For Christians, the Bible is also the sole source for stories about who Jesus of Nazareth was, what his ways entail, and his understandings (refracted through the Gospels and through Paul) of who God is. Understandings that are critical for those of us who claim to follow him. If you judge the social worthiness of the Bible by its worst moments, it might make many lists of banned books. However, take the insight offered by the late New Testament scholar Doug Adams. He said the Bible does not contain models for morality but mirrors for identity. Just like many great books with disturbing content that should be read. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Lenten Reflection on the Sin of Individualism](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/sin-of-individualism/) **Published:** March 1, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed the human animal is a political animal. He meant that we are a communal species, formed in the “polis,” through interaction with each other. Those who set themselves outside of the polis were “idios,” things unto themselves. He used the word from which the English word “idiot” was derived. In every major religious tradition, there are stories about creation and the place of humankind in creation. In no story of which I’m aware are human beings created to be in competition with each other, with the winners keeping more and more of the planet’s goods. In the creation stories best known among Christians and Jews, human beings were created for relationship with God, each other, other living beings, and the planet. We are created to love God and each other. Following many Christian theologians, I believe justice is the expression of love at a societal level. In Jesus’ parables, anyone who harvests a miraculous crop yield and thinks they are entitled to keep it all are, well, idiots (see Luke 12:16-21). If we were made for relationship, if the nature of humanity is communal, then individualism is sin. (Life lived in contradiction to which we were made is my understanding of sin.) My, do we live in a sinful world. In Oklahoma, we are not our siblings’ keepers. Our elected leaders push highly individualistic policies. The governor cheers for individual businesses over communal good and an ethic of personal responsibility that seems to mean, “I’ll do what I choose to protect my freedom and you can live with my choice.” The pressure for giving tax dollars to individuals to use for private schools (in a state where most of the rural population does not have private schools), a move really meant to disintegrate public education, arises more frequently in Oklahoma than the villain in horror movies who should be dead keeps re-emerging for another battle. In ancient Israel when the tribes were newly confederated, in states of emergency, tribes sometimes went their separate ways. “Israel to your tents!” was the cry to disperse. In Oklahoma, we live in a constant state of “Israel, to your tents.” Is living this way not a violation of human nature? In recent days, we’ve been horrified and angered at the invasion of Ukraine. But the actions taken by nations and corporations to restrict Mr. Putin’s resources are telling for how connected the world actually is. From the pandemic restrictions, the importance of everyone in supply chains was, at least temporarily, in our attention. Now, we see how the world’s banks and information platforms connect nations with a rich web of crisscrossing channels and relationships. If only more of this web of relationship could reside in our attention permanently. This week, a [new climate study is out](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60525591). The news is awful. We’ve been told again and again: “Time is running out. If we care about others today, and if we can about our descendants, take systemic action NOW!” But the world’s nations, perhaps especially the one in which we live, is still acting as if it is okay for each to make their own decisions. Yesterday, [an Oklahoma congressman](https://cole.house.gov/media-center/weekly-columns/open-letter-president-biden) sent a letter to President Biden. It is a respectful letter focusing mostly on the need to support Ukraine by upping the U.S. defense budget. The congressman also criticized the president for “vilifying” the fossil fuel industries. Of course, Oklahoma is a major extractor of carbon-based raw materials for fuel. Increasing fossil fuel production would be good economically, for Oklahoma—temporarily. But in terms of humankind’s connections to each other and dependence on the planet that give us life, his recommendation is exactly what will bring hell to earth more quickly. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Ubuntu.png)The whole world is not captive to individualism. While following a story recently, I found [this video](https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/black-history-month?vpid=p0bqvs1m) by South African professor James Ogude describing what ubuntu is. Ubuntu is an understanding that “I am because you are.” We are part of each other. We belong to each other. The planet does not belong to us; we belong to the planet. This is truth. (Dr. Ogude also distinguishes between “individuality,” which is good, and “individualism,” which is a false construction.) How far away is our current society from living according to the way humankind was created to live? In the country I know best, far. Very far. What is a pathway from here to there? I do not know. I do not know. So, as Lent begins, I will submit to the imposition of ashes, be reminded that the stuff of the earth is from which I was made and to that earth I will return—just as tens of thousands of generations have before me. We are part of each other. I am because you are. We are because the earth is. We are not living according to these truths. Lord, have mercy. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Jesus Deserves to be Served by an Educated Church](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/educated-church/) **Published:** February 22, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “Because I hope Christians will have something intelligent and helpful to say and do.” That is the fundamental reason I write this blog. Furthermore, that is fundamentally why I took a path into theological education 35 years ago. I am not claiming the thoughts I commit in public themselves *are* the intelligent saying and doing the church needs. But I want to create an open invitation to be “in” on that conversation. I love the paraphrase of the saying regarding generals and war: theology is too important to be left only to theologians. A powerful truth: there are many times the number of laity as there are clergy. Laity are doing their work, for the most part, outside the walls of churches. Laity are the ones engaged in legislating, healing, teaching, banking, soldiering, investing, drilling, cleaning, serving, machining, trucking, plumbing, building, accounting, policing, farming and so many other occupations. Laity are the ones perceiving, working in, and changing the world—for better and for worse. Laity cannot do their work with mature moral, ethical, and spiritually informed abilities equipped only with a 12-year old’s confirmation education. They need challenging adult formational and transformational education. Here are just a few of the world-changing “make it better or make it worse” dilemmas in which we live today: - The captivity of all sectors of society by partisan, polarized, politicized thinking is killing all of us. If we play out the current end game(s) of the polarizers, heaven help us all. *It is going to take an extraordinary effort for peoples of faith to free up their language and practices from the evil of partisanship.* An extraordinary effort. - Humankind is rendering this rare planetary jewel unfit for a large proportion of humankind. *Christians should be importuning industry and government to act decisively now.* Switching to sustainable disposables in the church kitchen is a fine step but is not enough. - The lawyer’s question to Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?,” and Jesus’ re-formulation of his question, “Who proved to be neighbor?,” are both life-and-death questions for our time. Polarization has re-directed and restricted who we think we owe anything to. Globalization has both weakened national borders and created crises in many border zones. *We need robust, principled and pragmatic conversations, policies, and practices that address Jesus’ questions.* - No reputable scientist today would say that “race” is a biological reality. Race is a cultural construct. Hierarchies of race and color are untrue, unfair, and unjust. Homo sapiens is one race. How will this nation, or any nation, disempower structural racism, so deeply embedded in collective and individual imagination, in policies and practices, in monuments and money? *On balance, will churches uphold the old order or work in the forefront of the new?* - There is a battle being waged for the soul of America. Will we re-emerge as a white people’s haven, close borders, suppress critical thinking from all disciplines, disenfranchise everyone the ruling party judges is unfit to vote, and continue to use the land’s resources like colonist-extractors and colonist settlers? Or will we embrace our reality of being the most population-diverse experiment in democracy the world has seen? We will become a nation that tells an honest history, reckons redemptively with our past, and resolves together to take bold action for the sake of a better America and a better world—including the increased chances of long-term human survival and flourishing? *Christians could play an important, perhaps decisive, role in this redemptive work.* And we might not. When one’s garden is not doing well, when fruits and vegetables one hopes to enjoy are not developing right, check the soil. Is the soil healthy and alive? Analogously, if we are not getting the fruits in church and society we need and expect, check the culture’s soil. What does it have, what does it need? Which toxins should be removed? What kind of life-giving agents should be added? ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Christian-Imaginations.png)Christians need well-developed imaginations, intellectual frameworks, moral commitments, and courageous hearts to be able to work toward “better” rather than to participate in “getting worse.” Therefore, in my small way, through this blog (as well as through podcasts and the free, online classes I teach), I take the perspectives I’ve been privileged to learn through graduate theological education and share them. Denominations did not start seminaries to educate clergy. Educating clergy was the means. The church should not be a meritocracy with the clergy on top. The end is a more educated church. We clergy are educated in order to be educators. *The end* must be *a more educated church*. The laity, in partnership with God, have daunting and life-giving work to do. You need an education fitting for the work. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Talking about Politics in Church](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/talking-about-politics-in-church/) **Published:** February 15, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Leaders in many congregations are understandably resistant, sometimes immunized, from talking about political matters in church. Who needs more polarization, anger, and bitterness? However, since politics runs on the same rails as social ethics and public morality, not talking about politics means the moral, ethical, and religious dimensions of politics are hidden, undebatable, or dominated by the religious leaders with different scruples. Is there an alternative path and strategy to talking about politics in church that enables conversations about social ethics and public morality? Maybe. I’m taking a clue from an organization in whose mission I participated in nine times over the span of 20 years and which I still support financially. The alternative is simply asking, “What is the material condition of our neighbors and, for those who need help, what can I do that is genuinely helpful?” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/asp.png)The Appalachia Service Project is a ministry dedicated to making homes warmer, safer, drier. ASP staff recruit adult-and-youth teams from across the country to spend a week living in and working from an Appalachian service center. From Monday through Friday, teams of eight-or-so teens and adults drive into the hollows to work for a family on whatever is necessary to improve their home. That said, the mission is hyper-clear: while the volunteers are there to do work, they are there first to build relationships. Teams don’t arrive at the work sites on Monday, throw on their work belts, and start demolishing a dwelling or jacking the house from rotted foundations. We were taught to mosey up to the house, greet each family member, confirm with them the work the staff had arranged with the family for the team to do. Doing good work accompanies building relationships. The orientation for making the trip and being good guests on someone else’s turf started months before the trip. While engaging with the family onsite, we did not talk politics. Now, this was the 1980s, mostly. Polarization and anger were less pronounced. And while there were numerous Confederate flags, big and small, to be seen, they had not risen into public controversy nationally as they are today. While the guidelines for engaging with families discouraged political talk, we were taught the history of Appalachia, including the political decisions which influenced the present. The Indigenous cultures, territorial expansion West, the Scotch-Irish, the Civil War, the discovery of coal, whole counties run for the sake of coal interests and profits, mine disasters, timbering, isolation, electrification, black lung disease, boom and bust cycles, exodus to cities and boomeranging back, the War on Poverty, jobs, violent union strikes and union-busting. When driving to and from the work sites, we often passed huge coal trucks that took up a bit more than their lane on roads with one lane in either direction. Guess which of us needed to move in order to avoid a collision? It was said that we should treat coal trucks like they owned the road. That was a prudent strategy—and at least somewhat a true statement. Coal interests controlled the local politics. On the one hand, with the family, we were dealing simply with their material conditions. We did work to render their home warmer, safer, and drier for all the residents. On the other hand, in debriefing sessions in the vans on the way back to the center after a day’s work, and during the evening programs at the center, we all were making connections between the personal and the political, the circumstances of the families for whom we worked and what was within and beyond their control, the ways the political moral order worked for them or against them. In other words, we engaged in a lot of political-moral-religious discussion prompted by attending to one family’s material circumstances. What is the life expectancy, and how many years is the gap, in the ZIP codes in our city or town? Where have lead water pipes been replaced and not? Where are the food deserts? How far do our neighbors travel for health care, and do they have insurance? Who is dealing with chronic diseases, physical and mental? How good are the neighborhood schools? Are there any discrepancies between neighborhoods regarding safety, policing, air and water pollution levels, shopping, job opportunities? Unless one believes their religion is simply about eternal salvation, with this life being no more than a gymnasium to train for the next, each of the questions in the above paragraph is a valid, important question for a religious community to ask. Each question is about the material conditions of our neighbors. And each of those questions implicates political decisions regarding the distribution of goods and services. None of these questions can be addressed only at the level of “personal responsibility.” In the New Testament book of James, chapter 2 verses 14-17, we read: > “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” Offering clothing and food is one level of response. Asking why someone is unclothed, unsheltered, hungry, or sick very often leads into a discussion of politics, social ethics, and public morality. That is an essential discussion for religious congregations. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Spiritual and Ethical Limits of National Sovereignty When the Planet is Burning](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-spiritual-and-ethical-limits-of-national-sovereignty-when-the-planet-is-burning/) **Published:** December 3, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![Brazilian Rain Forest](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Amazon_Manaus_forest-300x129.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-spiritual-and-ethical-limits-of-national-sovereignty-when-the-planet-is-burning/amazon_manaus_forest/)Brazilian Rain Forest A few months ago, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro took refuge in a concept that may prove to be a dinosaur sooner rather than later: national sovereignty. When the leaders of world’s nations expressed alarm about the statistically abnormal rate the Amazon rain forest is burning this year, and offered financial assistance to battle the blazes, Bolsonaro angrily invoked the doctrine of national sovereignty. His retort to the concerned leaders of other nations: the portion of the Amazon that is within the borders of Brazil belongs to Brazil. Do not interfere with the nation’s economic development (rain forest is burned in order to cultivate cash crops). Or sovereignty. But is national sovereignty a sufficiently apt concept to govern decisions about a planetary resource as important as the Amazon? I’m asking about sufficiency because the 21st century—for better and for worse—is the most connected century of human existence thus far, and humankind has not evolved to make the world a better place in the matter of dealing with our diversity. (Which is not to say NOTHING is better in the world today. I highly recommend the late Hans Rosling’s book, [*Factfulness*](https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12CU5N4P9YJME&keywords=factfulness&qid=1573490870&sprefix=fact%2Caps%2C216&sr=8-1).) True to the reptilian-primate part of our brains, we homo sapiens “other” others, which makes the multiplication of connections dangerous. We continue to create “in” and “out” groups, to divide “us” from “them,” to declare what is mine that you can’t have. The waxing of nationalism, and the waning of internationalism, are symptoms. America first. Italy first. Russia first. China first. Brazil first. If we don’t do better with the opportunities to evolve as a human race than we are currently doing, our connectedness will be humankind’s, and maybe the biosphere’s, undoing. Climate weirding is bad and, by some measures, accelerating. The earth appears to be into the planet’s [6th mass extinction event](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn). The 5th event, the result of an asteroid strike, ended the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The 6th event is driven by homo sapiens. And [recent studies have indicated that even climate scientists have become alarmed that their predictions regarding the impact of climate change under-estimated how quickly measures changed, for the worse](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/). (See [this article](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/no-the-amazon-fires-wont-deplete-the-earths-oxygen-supply-heres-why.%20https:/www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/why-amazon-doesnt-produce-20-percent-worlds-oxygen/) on what the earth really needs from the Amazon.) The current controversy with Brazil and the Amazon shows the absurd limitation of national sovereignty in the face of potential catastrophe. While the Amazon is not truly “the lungs of the earth,” it is the home of a stunning amount of biodiversity, it absorbs much carbon dioxide and thus cools the planet, and fresh water—an increasingly scarce and valuable resource—is abundant. The whole earth and all living things need the Amazon rain forest, as well as its cousins on other continents. Of course, the same “the whole earth needs” claim could be made for anything regarding the basic supports of life on earth: healthy soil, healthy oceans, fresh water, and clean air. Chemically toxic or dead soil, massive islands of plastic on the surface and micro-plastics at every level of the ocean’s depth, polluted/lead-laden water, and air despoiled by carbon fuel residues are threats to life. The threats are sometimes local. However, in a globalized planet rolling toward a cliff of human-driven climate change and a species-extinction event, threats are not contained within national borders. To apply Martin Luther King’s famous line about injustice: an environmental threat anywhere is a threat to the environment everywhere. The doctrines of and related to national sovereignty will not disappear anytime soon. Internationalism appears to be waning. If the United Nations died tomorrow, one can’t imagine the leaders of today’s nations creating a replacement organization. But the doctrine of national sovereignty is too limited to serve in matters such as the continuing possibilities and potentials of life on the planet. We need another way of thinking to inform our practices and habits. Within religious traditions, there is an understanding that human beings belong to the earth, rather than the other way around, and that a Creator gifted a life-giving world for humankind to till and to keep. In Christian circles, we talk about stewardship rather than ownership. Yes, some Christians talk domination rather than stewardship. And some limit stewardship to money, especially giving to the church. Argh! What an awful distortion and diminishment of what could and should be a transformative understanding of what persons and nations are here to do. Do you want to imagine a good life for your descendants, for your great-great-great grandchildren and their neighbors near and far? Then we had better see ourselves as stewards, taking care as we pass through this life, living gently, and urging our leaders to incorporate stewardship into our nation’s policies and practices. If we don’t, then the equation is: America first + Brazil first + every other nation first = opting for death rather than life. And that is no way to live, period. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### ["No One is the Boss of Me!" Is Not a Sufficient Understanding of Freedom](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/no-one-is-the-boss-of-me/) **Published:** February 8, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “Hey, it’s a free country.” What does that mean? I am a member of the United Methodist Church. Baptized as an infant. Confirmed in sixth grade. Ordained as clergy in 1979 and 1983. Since the beginning of the Methodist movement, freedom has been an issue. In England, John Wesley claimed extraordinary authority to send preachers where he chose and to itinerate through the parishes, with or without permission of the bishops of his church, the Church of England. In the newly-free United States, American Methodists made Francis Asbury a bishop, despite the ire of their “dear old daddy” Wesley (and the satirical hymn composed by Charles Wesley) who said his opponents might call him a fool but never a bishop. The first split in the new church came just after its founding. Some men left, calling themselves “Republican Methodists,” alleging that Bishop Asbury acted like an old world monarch, moving them around like a king playing chess, and there should be at least as much “liberty” in the church as in the society. Richard Allen led a withdrawal of Black members from the fledgling denomination following general treatment as second-class people, Asbury’s refusal to ordain Black clergy to itinerate, and the lack of freedom to appoint or call a preacher of their choosing. Another split came in the 1820s and 30s when there were pushes for lay representation in decisions (the denomination was largely clergy-run until the end of the 19th century) and for clergy to have some say in who their supervisors would be. The North-South split in 1844 was about several matters but included bitter controversy regarding who can tell a bishop what to do. These controversies, among others, illustrate the inherent tension when equality of freedom is promised or expected. If all persons are not equally free, if some are more free than others, there has to be a compelling reason to accept uneven freedom. Now, that tension and circumstance would be worthy of discussion. In today’s public discourse, I wish we were able to do a deep dive into what we mean by “freedom.” The pandemic presented us with oodles of opportunities to make that dive. Everything around masking and vaccine requirements, how we frame and value public health, how my actions affect those around us wherever we are, whether or not protecting the most vulnerable is worth any sacrifice by others, voluntary vs. legislative restrictions on conducting business and making a living. All these matters were rich opportunities for public debate. Yes, we’ve had *some* of that debate. But the events which dominate the news are angry citizens shooting or punching store clerks, parents threatening violence against school personnel, and legislators telling everyone which party they represent by whether or not they mask. What I see is lot of “you can’t tell me what to do.” The governor of my state, in his State of the State address delivered Monday, paired “freedom” and “personal responsibility” in characterizing the kind of state Oklahoma is. He disparaged the “blue” states for all their legislative limitations and mandates and championed our “red” state for the freedom to do business and live here without interference (and, o, the exceptions to the “without interference” are legion if you don’t fit the conventions). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Freedom.png)But “personal responsibility” should mean one takes responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions, for what one owes to others. Minimally, what one owes to others is the same freedom one claims for oneself; and that owing then puts a limit on one’s own freedom. But we’re not having that discussion. “You’re not the boss of me. This is a free country. You can’t tell me what to do.” When such statements are thrown down like trump cards, as the definitive conversation-stopping answer to which there is no response, it is awfully hard to hold together a church or a nation. *I offer this closing as a reminder of the much deeper dive into what freedom means*. [The following](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8578/8578-h/8578-h.htm) is a part of the famous scene in *The Brothers Karamazov*. In this section of the novel, the characters play with the idea that Jesus has returned to earth, is recognized and celebrated by the people, but the Catholic Church’s Grand Inquisitor is angry. He arrests Jesus, imprisons him, and lectures him. Human beings (I won’t change the male language in the quote), he lectures, do not want real freedom, cannot handle real freedom which entails the burden of making moral choices and accepting responsibility and consequences for the decisions one makes. I want the Inquisitor to be wrong. > I repeat to Thee, man has no greater anxiety in life than to find some one to whom he can make over that gift of freedom with which the unfortunate creature is born. … Hast Thou … forgotten that to man rest and even death are preferable to a free choice between the knowledge of Good and Evil? Nothing seems more seductive in his eyes than freedom of conscience, and nothing proves more painful. … Thou hast burdened man’s soul with anxieties hitherto unknown to him. Thirsting for human love freely given, seeking to enable man, seduced and charmed by Thee, to follow Thy path of his own free-will, instead of the old and wise law which held him in subjection, Thou hast given him the right henceforth to choose and freely decide what is good and bad for him, guided but by Thine image in his heart. But hast Thou never dreamt of the probability, nay, of the certainty, of that same man one day rejected finally, and controverting even Thine image and Thy truth, once he would find himself laden with such a terrible burden as freedom of choice? That a time would surely come when men would exclaim that Truth and Light cannot be in Thee, for no one could have left them in a greater perplexity and mental suffering than Thou has done, lading them with so many cares and insoluble problems. Thus, it is Thyself who hast laid the foundation for the destruction of Thine own kingdom and no one but Thou is to be blamed for it. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast with Chaplain Jacob George](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-chaplain-jacob-george/) **Published:** June 3, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Chaplains can be found in all kinds of institutional roles these days, from Tyson Foods to the military and hospitals. The Rev. Dr. Jacob George is the director of pastoral care at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa. After years in hospice work, he moved into the hospital setting. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/jacob-george-photo.png)Jacob George He is a Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor at the highest level, directs a very religiously-diverse program at Hillcrest, and also directs the congregationally-based CPE program at Phillips Theological Seminary. Jacob talked with Center for Religion in Public Life director Gary Peluso-Verdend by phone about his work at Hillcrest in normal times and during the extraordinary time of a global health crisis. ***Editor’s Note:*** Dr. Jacob George received the Distinguished Service award, presented by the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC) in July 2019. The award celebrates the contributions of any individual or organization that promotes the standard of professional chaplaincy in an exemplary manner. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Maybe a Little Hell Could Be Good](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/little-hell-could-be-good/) **Published:** February 1, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** There was a time when the point of evangelical sermons was to scare the hell out of people and frighten them into heaven. If people were not uncomfortable to the point of feeling the war in their souls between God and Satan, the preachers were not doing their job. Now a branch of the political and spiritual descendants of these evangelicals is working, state by state, to make sure their children are not discomforted by the “hell” of what they learn in school. Evangelicalism was, of course, not always primarily a political identity most associated with predominantly white and historically Southern denominations in the U.S. While one can find strands of evangelicalism (and just about everything else) in the Bible, evangelicalism emerged as a distinct understanding of how one becomes and remains a Christian during the Protestant Reformation. Evangelicalism centered on the authority of scripture over tradition and on the personal experience of the “for me” of the promise of God’s grace offered in Jesus Christ. Here in the U.S., especially during the opening decades of the 19th century, mass religious meetings—camp meetings—developed. Camp meetings evolved to maximize the evangelical experience of conversion. Those meetings, often in wooded or “wilderness” settings, lasted from a few days to two weeks. Attendance could exceed thousands. The larger meetings featured multiple preaching platforms. Day and night, preachers held forth. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lorenzo_Dow_by_Lossing-Barrett.jpg)Lorenzo Dow preaching, engraving by Lossing-Barrett, 1856 The best preachers were reserved for night. In the wilderness, it was believed, the devil is strongest, confrontations between God and Satan most powerful. At night, with torches flickering around the camp, preachers did their best to scare up visions of hell. One well-known, very weird, preacher was Methodist Lorenzo Dow. “Crazy Larry,” as his colleagues called him, would bring people news from their relatives in hell! The point was to scare people into seeking salvation NOW. Preachers used every rhetorical trick and physical manipulation to make people uncomfortable enough to seek relief. No relief would be available to the people without a painful confrontation in their souls and bodies. The techniques and some of the physical pieces of camp meetings were adapted for congregations. Hell was a prominent theme in sermons until the early 20th century, in the mainline church (which is one branch of evangelicalism), and long after that in southern evangelical and some Catholic congregations. (When the movie, *The Exorcist*, was released in 1973, some religious commentators mused that when the churches gave up preaching about the devil, Hollywood found there is still a very substantial audience.) The standard evangelical sermon ended with an altar call for those who felt “convicted.” The mourner’s bench, a front pew in some churches, is where the saints-to-be could be surrounded in prayer until Jesus triumphed. In traditional evangelicalism, good news is first received as bad news for the sinner. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! … ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved…” Today, legislators in multiple states, working from the same playbook, are passing laws to prohibit white children (not stated as such but that is the group clearly being “protected”) from being discomforted by America’s racial history or the claim there is systemic racism now. No exposure to the hell to which “others” in the U.S. were and are subjected. How completely un-evangelical. Grace first teaches our hearts to fear. Grace first opens our eyes to the moral and material gap between what is and what should be. Only after that discomfort, and repentance, and acts of repair can a person—or a society—find salvation. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [An Open Letter to White American Christians](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/an-open-letter-to-white-american-christians/) **Published:** June 2, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** My fellow white American Christians: On the soil of indigenous people’s nations, our forebears planted a version of Christianity, and they planted the rhizome of racism. They brought that rhizome to America and planted it along with all the wonderful aspirations expressed in the opening of the Declaration and the Preamble to the Constitution. That rhizome has crowded out and stunted the growth of the national aspirations. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1024px-Bamboo_with_rhizome_1.jpg)Bamboo with rhizome Racism is like a bamboo rhizome. Once planted, its roots grow and grow and grow and take over the landscape. Over the past 400 years, white Christianity and racism intertwined. Like a couple married for more than half a century, they have become one twisted branch, so that it is no longer possible at times to know for certain where one ends and the other begins. As so many Christians have said so eloquently, from centuries ago to the past few days, racism is sin. It is the antithesis of the Way of Jesus. But alongside the doctrine that racism is sin, white Christianity planted racism, cultivated racism, benefits from racism. The work of eradicating racism, the work of separating Christianity from racism, is centuries overdue. *Centuries*. And we white Christians have a vital role to play in digging up this root our white forebears planted and from which people of color continue to suffer. For the sake of explanation and brevity, I’m going to shorthand some history. The following is not the whole story, but we all need to know this outline. Jesus of Nazareth was a Palestinian Jew who led a small group of followers within Judaism to live according to God’s law as summed in the commandments to love God and neighbor and as refracted through the justice messages of prophets such as Isaiah, Amos, and Micah. Jesus prayed for the Empire of God which would disrupt and supplant the Empire of Caesar. Jesus was murdered by the Roman authorities for insurrection, for the Reign of God was an enemy of the Reign of Caesar. After his death, his followers claimed God resurrected Jesus. His followers kept alive Jesus’ counter-imperial message, which grew into a movement that in a short while had spread throughout the Empire. In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity as the imperial religion, and the course of Christianity in world history was flipped. The message meant to subvert the Empire and its ways became an element, and then an essential expression and ally, of the Empire. The work of social justice in a grossly unequal and unfree empire was transformed into a divine mandate for social order and the support of hierarchy in church and society. That alliance between the secular and spiritual “swords” held, more or less, well into the Reformation and the 17th century settlement of religious wars in Europe. That alliance was critical during the so-called Age of Discovery, from Columbus to the English colonists, when imperial Christianity was exported to and planted in the Americas. A late 15th century pope divided the world between Spain and Portugal and declared that all newly discovered lands without Christian populations shall be conquered in Jesus’ name. This act is known as the [Doctrine of Discovery](https://www.ucc.org/justice_getting-to-the-root-of-it_the-doctrine-of-discovery) and was one of the reasons used, even by Protestants, to take the land of indigenous nations as their own. While not all colonists sailed to the New World with holy causes, many did. None came with holy aspirations more than English Puritans who fled to the “howling wilderness” to conquer souls and lands in the name of Jesus. They were joined by Anglicans who settled in Virginia, the Carolinas, and the Caribbean. Despite regional differences among the colonies, uniting characteristic across the miles included white Christian people claiming a right to the land, believing they were doing something new (enlightenment and holy commonwealths in New England, re-founding an Athenian, slave-labor based republic in the South), participating in the slave trade, and benefiting from slave labor. And they, the white leaders of the colonies, thought they were developing a nation primarily for white people, especially Anglo-Saxons—and male ones, at that. And Christian. They set up laws and social systems, and utilized the Christian religion, as tools to create a white Christian nation. All this was a new kind of Constantinian establishment, certainly a Constantinian alliance between Christianity, whiteness, social hierarchy, and good order. The energy and mandates of white Christian establishment religion is embedded in the dogmas of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. Some of the white Founders knew slavery was wrong. But they wrote about the injustice of slavery while holding slaves and white supremacist views. One argument was that slavery would die a “natural” death if we just gave it time. But many preachers taught that alleged racial differences and even the institution of slavery were God-ordained rather than social constructs. It took a Civil War over two centuries after slavery was introduced to end chattel slavery, but racism found new and, in some ways, even more powerful expressions. Black codes. Jim Crow. Then there was the construction of whiteness per se, including hyper-Anglo presentations of Jesus in church and society. And largely segregated churches. Time per se will not reduce racism. When Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his brilliant [“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html) in 1963, he was responding to white “moderate” clergy who claimed they agreed with the ends of the movement but that King was moving too fast. “More time” was the white mantra. Dr. King politely said, “Hell, no.” Today, I’m often reading younger activists voicing an updated version of “justice postponed is justice denied.” That update says: “I’ve lost hope in the ability of white people to work for freedom and equality. They want to keep their privilege, keep the system rigged for them and against us. As it has always been in America, so shall it be. Time to enact a different strategy from the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s.” Maybe we are finally at a different moment. God, I hope so. I hope we are at the moment when the majority of us white Christians do see that gross inequality drains the potential of America’s promises, that Christianity used by the government as a tool of division and of white evangelical Christian supremacy is dangerous for the country and disastrous for Christianity, that we the American people do have better angels than the ones currently on display, that we can be more of Dr. King’s “beloved community” and less a republic of white America-first bullies. Here is what I think is required of white Christians today. This is a list of our work, in order to be decent allies with people of color. - Claiming “I am not a racist” is a non-starter. Are you actively participating in anti-racism efforts? By way of confession, it has taken me a good while to realize that “being one of the good ones” is not the same as engaging anti-racism work. This bamboo root will not dig itself up. - Have you been involved in an intentional deep-learning process to understand your own whiteness and the privileges that whiteness conveys in American culture? - Learn and change our narratives about what Christianity is and what this nation is. If you’re testifying that Christianity is *primarily* about claiming Jesus as Lord and Savior as the *end* rather than the *beginning* of faith, and that America is exceptional in God’s eye, please learn more of the story. Just like all the Tulsans who say “No one taught about the 1921 Race Massacre when I was in school,” there were many darker motivations, behaviors, and events in American history that were not taught when I was a child. I’ve had to re-learn American history. Maybe take a strategy from Christian nationalists: don’t rely on public schools to teach all that needs to be taught about American history. Teach it in church, too—the whole story, including angels and demons. - What is the state of the conversation about race in the church you attend, and who is participating in that conversation? We can’t neutralize the toxin and heal the soil without doing the hard-ground shovel-work of talking. - Is your congregation involved in issues such as mass incarceration, policing, environmental justice, food deserts, ZIP code disparities in life expectancy, health care access, equity in community development, public schools, or reparations? If not, what is the anti-racism work you’re doing? Sometimes we white people have acted as if we don’t know the bamboo root is in the ground and as if we don’t see the stalks growing among our most valued values. Sometimes the root is exposed and no one with a heart and soul can miss the invasive plant that is choking the better crops we could be harvesting, like justice, equity, peace, and well-being. Today is one of those latter times. It is time—past time, way past time—to chop down the plant, dig up the roots, compost Constantinian white supremacist Christianity, and plant something more healthy and Godly. For the sake of Christianity. For the sake of the nation. For the sake of our neighbors. And for the sake of our own souls. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ If you’re interested in reading book-length treatments of the subjects I mention above, here are a few starters: > Edward Blum and Paul Harvey, *[The Color of Christ](https://www.amazon.com/Color-Christ-Saga-Race-America/dp/0807835722/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1I5BV5K82RF1R&dchild=1&keywords=the+color+of+christ&qid=1591101850&s=books&sprefix=the+color+of+the+chr%2Cstripbooks%2C189&sr=1-1)* > > Kelly Brown Douglas, *[Stand Your Ground](https://www.amazon.com/Stand-Your-Ground-Bodies-Justice/dp/1626981094/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KSHX56SLE7NP&dchild=1&keywords=kelly+brown+douglas&qid=1591101439&sprefix=kelly+brown%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1)* > > Greg Grandin, *[The End of the Myth](https://www.amazon.com/End-Myth-Frontier-Border-America/dp/1250179823/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1591101352&sr=8-1)* > > Robert P. Jones, *[The End of White Christian America](https://www.amazon.com/End-White-Christian-America/dp/1501122320/ref=sr_1_1?crid=RJB2VPX9QLE8&dchild=1&keywords=the+end+of+white+christian+america&qid=1591101735&s=books&sprefix=the+end+of+white%2Cstripbooks%2C179&sr=1-1)* > > Jill Lepore, *[These Truths](https://www.amazon.com/These-Truths-History-United-States/dp/0393357422/ref=sr_1_2?crid=AKCM6NEXBVYC&dchild=1&keywords=jill+lepore+s+these+truths&qid=1591101507&sprefix=jill+l%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-2)* > > Cornel West, *[Democracy Matters](https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Matters-Winning-Against-Imperialism-dp-1594200297/dp/1594200297/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1591101618)* Image credit: [XIIIfromTOKYO](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bamboo_with_rhizome_1.JPG) / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Pandemic and Moral Dilemmas](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-pandemic-and-moral-dilemmas/) **Published:** April 21, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![My Planet of the Apes The "Planet of the Apes" starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall was shot at the Fox Movie Ranch and Point Dume Beach in Malibu. The final scenes take place in what is known as Pirates Cove at Point Dume in Malibu. This is my creation of the final shot from the movie.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/planet-of-the-apes-statue-of-liberty-300x133.jpg)The first movie I saw with my friends as a teen was [Planet of the Apes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1016397_planet_of_the_apes). I will always remember my surprise at the final scene when Taylor completes his journey, falling to his knees in front of a buried Statue of Liberty, swearing, and condemning humanity for destroying the earth. That ending was a huge “reveal.” In the U.S., we are in the midst of a huge non-fiction reveal. [*Covid-19 and the economic collapse it has caused have laid bare how connected our problems are.*](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opinion/climate-change-covid-economy.html) While prior to the pandemic some Americans saw the matrix of connected issues, I hope that more people will pay attention to the ganging of moral dilemmas made evident by the pandemic and our nation’s responses. Here are the most evident moral problems I see: - **Wealth and income inequality**. For decades, some observers have warned about a Grand Canyon-sized wealth gap that has opened in the U.S. since the 1970s with devastating negative consequences for the middle and working classes. In addition, “essential” workers today—such as grocery and convenience store employees, delivery drivers, lab techs, nursing home caregivers—are paid less (many far less) than a middle-class living wage. (This income inequality also implicates the relationships between employer, employee, and consumer, for *we all participate* in a value exchange where workers are on the short end.) - **Health care tied to work**. I understand the policy desire to incentivize work. But the pandemic has created an economic sinkhole (who knows how deep this crater will go?) into which hardworking individuals and solid businesses have fallen. Conservatives can’t claim workers did this to themselves. There always was a social fabric cost of bundling health care with work, as if the only incentive a society has for a person keeping healthy is to be gainfully employed. - **Racism**. The consequences of infection are more severe for people of color than other populations, especially those persons living in ZIP codes where the life-expectancy is significantly lower than average. Asian ethnicities are targeted with verbal assaults, insults, and worse. - **Disposable populations**. We’ve heard stunning statements from lawmakers about the elderly. We have systems that create mass incarceration. We pay people in service industries as if they are cogs in a machine, one that can be replaced for another. - **Are our health care workers also a disposable population**? The inability to outfit everyone with personal safety devices would suggest an unsavory “yes.” Consider, too, the levels of post-traumatic stress—both current and coming—among health care workers, first responders, funeral home workers, and coffin trench diggers who have been seeing death in war-zone levels. The psychic, soul-cost among these workers will be staggering. Will good-enough help be made available to them? - Environmentalists have warned for more than a half-century that **an ever-expanding, consumption-based economy is unsustainable**, for humans in particular and for life on the planet in general. Now that economy is comatose, the planet is taking a breath, and the economy-driven cost in human misery is high. So, what are the alternatives to an unsustainable economy on which we all depend and which is bringing us to the cliff of a sixth mass extinction event? - **What kind of government and governance do we need, and at what levels**? For the last 40 years, public rhetoric has been infected with the fiction that government is necessarily inefficient and ineffective and private business, governed only by the jungle rules of the free market, is the opposite. Please. The denigration of government, often by the very people we’ve elected to govern, has eroded public trust; that erosion of trust, compounded by a dumbfounding distrust of experts and science, is killing us now. Really killing us. How about, after we are through the first critical phase of the pandemic, switching the argument to what size government do we need, to do what, and at what levels? What will it take to build trust sufficient for the work of governing? This is a monumental moral dilemma. - **“We are all in this together.”** We’ve heard that claim frequently. It is a fine claim, a fine *aspirational* claim. It may even be a claim that most of the American public affirms, regardless of political identity. But hoarding is counter-evidence to the claim, as is price-gouging. Doctors pleading for supplies and being outbid by another state or by the federal government is more counter-evidence. The White House’s self-contradictory messages have done harm to the claim. Refer also to the points above regarding disposable populations, racism, and inequality. We should see ourselves as all in this together, and we could make that aspiration more real. But we are not there now. And the gap between “is” and “ought” is even greater when we broaden the aspiration to all humanity, in all nations. Are we really all in this together? - **What is the role of religion in this society?** This is a complex question. I have just one response here: it is immoral for religious communities to claim a First Amendment right to assemble when assembling can lead to disease and death. Ethics 101: First, do no harm. The partisan political stance in which religious liberty is being claimed as the first of all liberties, whether regarding public assembly or right to discriminate, has led to the immoral conclusion of some pastors and congregants that the government never has a compelling interest to say “stay at home.” Now, where can we converse, argue, debate, discuss, imagine, and deliberate about these and other moral dilemmas that stick out today like Lady Liberty’s torch on a fictional post-apocalyptic beach? The answer to that question may imply another moral dilemma. --- IMAGE CREDIT: Image “My Planet of the Apes” by [Tony Hoffarth](https://www.flickr.com/photos/hoffarth/ "Go to Tony Hoffarth's photostream"). The “Planet of the Apes” starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall was shot at the Fox Movie Ranch and Point Dume Beach in Malibu. The final scenes take place in what is known as Pirates Cove at Point Dume in Malibu. This is my creation of the final shot from the movie. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Watch 3 short videos created for the [One from Many project](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-online-session-1/) ## ![cc logo](https://creativecommons.org/images/deed/cc_icon_white_x2.png) ![](https://creativecommons.org/images/deed/attribution_icon_white_x2.png) ![](https://creativecommons.org/images/deed/nc_white_x2.png) ![](https://creativecommons.org/images/deed/nd_white_x2.png) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Stop Running from Ourselves](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/stop-running-from-ourselves/) **Published:** January 25, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** My wife and watched the final season of *The Expanse* (available on Amazon Prime). The series is a sci-fi story with—surprise surprise—a very human plot. Earthlings immigrated to Mars and are in the process of terraforming it. Another colony of human beings, the Belters, live on spaceships all their lives. They work the asteroid belt for the raw materials coveted by both Earth and Mars. Earth and Mars develop different, competing cultures. Mars achieved technological and military superiority. Earthlings act as guardians of tradition. And the Belters were relegated to the most dangerous, dirty work, for the benefit of Earthers and Martians. There is resentment, classism, competition, capitalism, social hierarchy, greed, revenge, duplicity, bravery, and moments of kindness and diplomacy. And it seems some alien race is both opening vast new worlds to human beings but will not tolerate human avarice The *Expanse’s* story is of human beings exporting our broken selves into and onto other worlds. The *Star Trek* series presents a stark contrast to *The Expanse*. Starship crews are fundamentally explorers rather than exploiters. After a planetary near-extinction war and first contact with a non-human species (Vulcans), earthlings develop cooperative institutions and the prime directive: non-interference in the affairs of beings they encounter on their missions. In the *Star Trek* series, human societies evolved beyond prejudices and social divisions that have bedeviled us for as long as we’ve existed. If we human beings ever develop the capacity to reach other planets or explore the galaxy, I wonder if we will behave more like the people in *The Expanse* or in *Star Tre*k. I want to think we could evolve à la the *Star Trek* plot, but that seems unlikely. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/1024px-Apollo_15_flag_rover_LM_Irwin-1024x1024.jpg)Now, I was and am a fanboy of space travel. Until I discovered during a driver’s permit exam that I needed glasses, I wanted to be an astronaut. I could tell you all about the NASA heroes in the same way a kid with a serious baseball card collection could rattle off a player’s stats. I never would have made it as an astronaut; I do not have the “right stuff” to be able to spin! But I still believe exploration, gaining new knowledge and understanding, and “boldly going forth where no (human) has gone before” are highly worthy endeavors. Except… Why do today’s billionaires with their private rockets want to achieve breakaway velocity? I fear the Expanse plot fits them more closely than Star Trek. There is money to be made, properties to claim, resources to extract, dominance to achieve. Perhaps you, too, are disturbed by the repeated plot in sci-fi space movies and shows that the time is coming when we must leave the planet in order to survive. In these movies, we’ve so despoiled the biosphere that it can no longer support our species. The movie *Wall-E* did a fabulous job telling that story—a cartoon with a lot of humor but not simply a kid’s show. *After Earth* and *IO* are two stories on the completely post-apocalyptic hellscape side of the ledger. On which path is humanity currently headed? More like *The Expanse* or *Star Trek*? More like working with the God-graced creation toward healing the biosphere or fantasizing about abandoning the planet to repeat our behavior on other worlds (or, à la *Wall-E*, lose our purpose for being which we outsourced to AI and self-soothing consumption)? I eagerly await the knowledge the unbelievable tech of the James Webb telescope will bring as it enables scientists to look back into time 13.7 billion years. (There are 344 possible failure points, with 266 passed! Its orbit, just achieved a million miles from earth, will be in the push-pull of the earth’s and the sun’s orbits.! Might new knowledge in some way contribute to dashing the escapist fantasy of leaving behind a toxic former home, which was once a rare jewel, orbiting in the Goldilocks zone, that includes a species whose main job was supposed to be to till and keep it and to learn to live as inextricably connected to one another and to this planet? If we stop trying to escape, maybe we can face our history, our present, and our destiny. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Marcia McFee](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-marcia-mcfee/) **Published:** January 21, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [Marcia McFee, PhD](https://marciamcfee.com/), is one of the speakers and is worship designer for this year’s [Remind and Renew](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/remind-renew/), January 25-27, at Phillips Seminary and online. She is a visiting professor at Redlands University where San Francisco Theological Seminary finds its home. With a PhD in Liturgical Studies and Ethics, and related work in cultural anthropology, she brings a rich perspective on the intersection of liturgy, ethics, culture, and both ecclesial and public life. About halfway through the interview, podcast host Gary Peluso-Verdend set aside the script and spent the remainder of the time talking with Dr. McFee about the rituals and public displays on January 6 this year. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Chelsea Yarborough](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-chelsea-yarborough/) **Published:** January 13, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The Rev. Dr. Chelsea Yarborough is one of the speakers this year at Phillips’ Remind and Renew event, January 25-27, in Tulsa and online. She is assistant professor of liturgical studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. Dr. Yarborough recently completed her PhD at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is a professor and minister known for exploring liturgy in the context of black theology and preaching outside the pulpit. In her wide-ranging conversation with Committing Faith in Public host Gary Peluso-Verdend, she talks about ritual as protest, social reimagining as distinct from social repair, and coupling repentance with penance as genuinely difficult work. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Immoral Freedom](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/immoral-freedom/) **Published:** January 18, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** When Amazon founder and multibillionaire Jeff Bezos returned from his brief trip into space aboard his own rocket, [he said](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/jeff-bezos-thanks-amazon-workers-blue-origin-launch-revealingly-tone-ncna1274565): “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you paid for all of this.” Pause. “Thank you for working almost as fast as the robots I will one day replace you with, and for buying stuff from both legit and illegitimate manufacturers as I do my best to drive every seller of every item on the planet into my website.” This fictional sentence I just composed is about as moral as what Bezos said. Fundamentally, he thanked everyone for giving him the freedom to do something that very few persons on the planet can do. When freedom is not reciprocal, when freedom is not mutual, when my freedom depends on your lack of freedom, then my claim to freedom is immoral. We Americans are transfixed on freedom. Those of us who call ourselves Christians resonate with biblical stories such as the Exodus (or at least the liberation and conquest parts; the wilderness testing—not so much) and “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand fast therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1) Never mind the context, that Paul is talking about circumcision. But what do we think about equality? Are we as in love with equality as we are freedom? No. Not even close. We tolerate, and even deepen and widen, inequalities in our nation. Look at this one graph (pre-pandemic) from [Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/#the-wealth-divide-among-upper-income-families-and-middle-and-lower-income-families-is-sharp-and-rising):![](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/01/PSDT_01.10.20_economic-inequality_1-4.png) For anyone claiming these figures represent a working meritocracy, I have pieces of the true cross and Noah’s ark to sell to you. I keep thinking of the powerful song from the musical *1776* in which Carolinian John Dickinson proclaims: “Don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor.” The graph shows what the (un)godly market has wrought, and the numbers look even worse in terms of inequality if one compares Black to White Americans. We claim to embrace the line from the Declaration that “all men are created equal” despite the limited “original intent” regarding to whom “men” and “equal” applied. We salute the words of the Gettysburg Address: “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” And we parade out Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy and words annually—although the words-of-choice are often so redacted that “the fierce urgency of now” is all-but-extinguished. (Aside: as I watched the MLK parade in Tulsa yesterday, I had a visceral reaction to one entry from an organization that in this state stands for just about everything Dr. King opposed.) In current political battles, equality is a particularly loaded word (and I won’t go to “equity,” which may be even more incendiary). Any social policy dealing with inequality that involves taxing the wealthy to create more opportunity for the poor is considered immoral by some. The word equality, along with words like “community” and paying attention to unsustainable and destructive inequalities, brands one a socialist or communist. Champions of equality are accused by opponents: “You want to take away from me money I earned and give it to people who did not work for it and don’t deserve it. That’s immoral.” Declaring a nation based on quality of opportunity (“if you work hard…”) within a system established and defended to protect inequality creates conflict, and maybe even war. The chasm between words and realities fosters anger on one side of the divide. Attempts to narrow that chasm evoke anger on the other side.![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/freedom-equality.jpg) Here is the moral dilemma of freedom yoked to equality. When equality is yoked to freedom, freedom cannot mean doing as one pleases without regard for the freedom of others. Said more plainly: equality yoked to freedom means my freedom is limited by your freedom, and vice versa. Freedom is not an absolute—and neither is equality. No right or condition is absolute. One could say that America is a continuing story of how the moral dilemma of freedom-equality will play out and whether or not we are indeed dedicated to the proposition that all persons are created equal and free. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Public Religion in the News Digest, November 8, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-in-the-news-digest-november-8-2019/) **Published:** November 8, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** **[![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/public-religion-in-the-news-fb-post/)[The President’s latest private meeting with Christian-Right leaders](https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article236866398.html)** Quote: “Trump’s meeting on Tuesday with at least 25 faith leaders from around the country was not on his public schedule, however it was acknowledged by a brief White House statement later that day. “Johnnie Moore, a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom who attended the meeting, said faith-based leaders vented about the impact of impeachment efforts on their legislative priorities and that the sentiment was, ‘they’re trying to impeach us.”’ **[Excluding individuals and couples from adopting, on religious grounds, by a federally-funded agency](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/01/new-rule-would-allow-foster-care-adoption-agencies-to-exclude-on-religious-grounds/)** Quote: “At the time, Miracle Hill Ministries, a Greenville South Carolina charity, accepted only Protestant, churchgoing people to its federally funded foster care program and required participants to sign a statement of faith. That meant it declined serving Jewish or even Catholic families wanting to foster a child. “Miracle Hill, which received about $600,000 in public funding in 2018, [asked for the exemption](https://religionnews.com/2019/01/30/s-c-foster-care-agency-tests-publics-will-to-exclude-on-the-basis-of-faith/), so it could continue receiving government support “HHS granted it in January. The following month, a Catholic mother of three who was denied an opportunity to volunteer at one of Miracle Hill’s children’s homes [sued](https://religionnews.com/2019/02/25/in-battle-over-protestant-only-foster-care-agency-lawsuit-asks-who-is-a-christian/) the federal and state governments, accusing them of religious discrimination. In June and before the case was heard in court, Miracle Hill [relented](https://religionnews.com/2019/07/31/sc-protestant-only-ministry-changes-course-opens-its-doors-to-catholics/) and allowed Catholics to serve as volunteers and foster parents so long as they agree to a doctrinal statement of belief. “It still won’t allow Jews or Muslims or same-sex couples to foster children.” **If you don’t know yet who Paula White is, you might want to learn** **[From the Religion News Service](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/01/paula-white-to-head-trumps-faith-office/)** Quote: “Televangelist Paula White is unfit to serve in the position of advisor to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative,” read a statement from Americans United President Rachel Laser. “She has no experience in government or public service and no history of undertaking the kind of interfaith outreach necessary for this role. Instead, she has operated in the shadows to influence public policies that discriminate against women, LGBTQ people and religious minorities, and the nomination of partisan judges who will support those harmful policies.” **[From the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/us/politics/paula-white-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)** Quote: The move is “a very ominous sign” and signals that “Christian narcissism” has come into the White House, said the [Rev. William J. Barber II](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/us/politics/poor-peoples-forum-2020.html?searchResultPosition=1&module=inline), who organized the Moral Mondays protests in North Carolina and who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. “The so-called prosperity gospel is a false gospel,” he said, comparing it to a theology that justified slavery because of economic prosperity. “It is an attempt to interpret the gospel to be primarily about personal wealth and personal power, which is contrary to the theology of Jesus where the good news was always focused on caring for the poor, the least of these, the stranger, the sick.” **[From Right Wing Watch.](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paula-white-has-new-white-house-job-and-new-book-says-god-used-her-to-get-trump-elected/)** White [prayed at Trump’s inauguration](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-preachers-on-trumps-inaugural-podium/) and is often at his side when he is [making an announcement](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/whos-more-cynically-using-religion-trump-or-his-religious-right-boosters/) that shows his [willingness](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/religious-right-cheers-trump-push-for-federal-agencies-to-fund-religious-groups/) to turn the religious right’s agenda into federal policy. She has told viewer of Jim Bakker’s TV show that [opposition to Trump is opposition to God](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trumps-spiritual-adviser-opposition-to-president-trump-is-opposition-to-god/). At an election rally in Orlando in June, her prayer [portrayed](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paula-white-kicks-off-trump-reelection-labeling-opponents-demonic/) Trump’s opponents as evil, wicked, and demonic. And she is mobilizing religious right leaders to [denounce the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trumps-evangelical-boosters-rally-around-him-as-impeachment-moves-forward/). **[Here is a short video compilation of Paula White moments](https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1191495086581792768)**. Wow. Just wow. And one more, from **[Religion Dispatches](https://rewire.news/religion-dispatches/2019/11/04/trump-white-house-cranks-religion-to-11-as-impeachment-looms/)**. Quote: This religious revival is all about impeachment. The hour-long prayer session included a standing ovation and was widely covered by [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-pastors-pray-white-house) and other [conservative](https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/october/great-discussion-and-celebration-faith-leaders-pray-for-trump-at-white-house) outlets, who explicitly characterized the prayers as a pushback against impeachment. “We are unwavering in our support for the president,” said one of the preachers. In June, White prayed at a Florida Trump rally and [declared](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/19/paula-white-donald-trump-orlando-rally-demonic-networks/), “Let every demonic network that has aligned itself against the purpose, against the calling of President Trump, let it be broken, let it be torn down in the name of Jesus,” and that “Trump will overcome every strategy from hell and every strategy from the enemy.” Such revivals are nothing new—for Trump or for other presidents waging a public relations war against impeachment. **[President Trump’s speech to a Values Voter Summit](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-values-voter-summit/)** (a gathering a mostly Christian Right religious leaders), October 12, 2019. It is a long, winding speech. Full of ad hominem attacks on opponents and critics. A grand example of how to subvert religion to one’s political purpose. Quote: Socialism is obsessed with the pursuit of power because it has replaced religion within government. And in their eyes, it has absolutely replaced religion. When you look at some of the things that they’re in favor of, it’s like, it’s like anything — nobody has ever seen anything like it. The New Green or Green New — you can say it either way, by the way. It doesn’t matter; same thing. (Laughter.) It doesn’t matter. Somebody said, “Which comes first?” I said, “It doesn’t make any difference. They’re both crazy.” (Laughter and applause.) No cows, no planes, no people, no energy, no oil, no gas — no nothing. This evening, we reaffirm true foundations of American society. We believe that every American has the right to live by the dictates of their conscience and the teachings of their faith. (Applause.) We believe in the right to free exercise of religion. (Applause.) Thank you. **[This is a really good summary of the deep divide between partisans, exacerbated by religion](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/22/politics/religion-gap-republican-democratic-voters-polling/index.html).** You’ll see many illustrations in the article of how differences are at the stubborn level of meaning-making: story, belonging, moral order, obstacles/empowerment. Quote: This separation in attitudes is rooted in an even deeper divergence between the two sides: While whites who identify as Christians still represent about two-thirds of all Republicans, they now compose only one-fourth of Democrats, according to results provided by the [Pew Research Center from a new study it released last week](https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/). Americans unaffiliated with any religion, and racial minorities who identify as Christians, now each make up a bigger share of the Democratic coalition than white Christians do, Pew found. Both groups remain only relatively minor components of the GOP coalition. --- ### [Church Attendance, the Pandemic, and Discipleship](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/church-attendance-and-pandemic/) **Published:** January 11, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/empty_pews_3203684a.jpeg)What long-term effects will the pandemic have on religious congregations? Specifically, what will be the results on attendance? Churches were already experiencing waves of historic-level crises prior to the pandemic. The very model of “going to church” is a 16th century innovation within a Christendom mentality. Five hundred years ago, churches were central cultural institutions. Churches derived from the so-called Magisterial Reformation (the ones that were aligned with the governing authorities)—from the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican traditions—were competing expressions of the fracturing empire. Holograms of that fracturing empire planted themselves in America. America’s unique circumstances, first in the colonies and then in the nation, fostered a new landscape for churches: lots of land, no established religious authority at the federal level, rapid development of towns and cities, and the need for places to congregate. Historian Martin Marty wrote that Americans had a “mandate to congregate.” Even religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, whose practices did not include weekly congregating did so in America. But, church attendance has been slipping and, at times, caving. Slipping since the middle 1960s for ecumenical Protestant denominations and for about 15 years for Southern Baptists. Caving since Vatican II and then with the abuse scandals of recent decades for Catholics. Even in numerically-strong congregations, the definition of “active membership” is attending once per month. And you all know about the sharp rise of the “nones” and “dones” over the past 20 years. Recall that Lovett Weems, a church demographer, warned a decade ago that [the society was facing a “death tsunami.”](https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/1868/the-coming-death-tsunami.) The death of the last of the World War II generation and then aging Baby Boomers would build the highest per capita death rate the nation had seen since the 1940s. (I’ve been unable to find how Weems’ projection is playing out.) Then along came the Covid pandemic. Death rates have soared. Grief, anger, depression, frustration, and conflict have poured into the nation’s oxygen supply. And the habit of church attendance has taken an enormous blow. Perhaps evangelical congregations that defied public health practices and kept meeting are faring better—at the moment—in terms of pre-Covid v. present day attendance. But many congregations are either, at present, seeing well-less than half the attendance in comparison to pre-Covid days. Church-going is a habit. For millions of people, that habit is now broken. One could say the pandemic is merely accelerating a trend that was already well-underway. Maybe. What will be the longer-term impacts on ministry? There were and are several strong positives about the frequent attendance model, positives for both church and society: - Congregations are great stages for practicing skills necessary for public life, such as public speaking, group decision-making, dealing with differences. - Congregations promote joining something larger than one’s family. - Congregations, of a category, promote civic, ecumenical, and interfaith cooperation for the common good. - Congregations are at the forefront of providing volunteers to help in times of crises. - Congregations, sustained by their members, provide spaces for public gatherings and some provide spaces of beauty; we should not underestimate the importance of these spaces—and I’d say especially the beautiful spaces. - Frequent attendance could be formational. But what is being formed? I deeply admire the legions of ways pastors and other congregational leaders have embraced or developed new ways of reaching out, to keep in touch with members, during the pandemic. Daily devotionals, written or live-streamed. Changing the meaning of attendance to include online along with in-person. Learning to use technology for teaching. Drive-by celebrations. Use of outdoor spaces. And, (not but) the attendance model of church has a real problem. If the end of all the efforts to create an attendance habit is discipleship, then assessing the effectiveness of the model should be based on that end. Fifteen years ago, the granddaddy of seeker-sensitive churches, Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, conducted a broad and deep survey of their attendees. Leadership determined that the effectiveness of their ministrations with attendees could be judged by how those attendees assessed their capacity to love God and neighbor grew through their association with the church. The result of that study was this: the attendees told the leadership that they did not judge their capacity to love God and neighbor was significantly increased by attending. Butts in seats did not translate to a growing capacity to love. Of course, this survey done in one congregation is not a comprehensive indictment of a model. I am sure there are thousands of congregations—small, large, and in-between—where there is a plethora of stories of transformed lives that were not simply the result of attendance but without attendance would have been impossible. Today, [the mega-identity that has swallowed other identity markers culturally is political identity](https://www.vox.com/2018/5/2/17304836/ezra-klein-show-book-recommendations-lilliana-mason-identity-politics). Most Americans, and perhaps the majority of church-goers, believe hyperpolarized partisan political identities are causing dangerous damage in public life. Those identities are not oriented to loving God and neighbor. If we who think the love of God and neighbor is essential to what it means to be human, religious leadership should prayerfully, collaboratively consider what kind of interactions among congregants could subvert the dominant political identity to make way for essential humanity. Attendance is only a part of that equation. I think we have a sterling opportunity, might I say “mandate,” to seek the other factors. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Victoria Loorz](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-victoria-loorz/) **Published:** January 10, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Victoria Loorz, MDiv, is one of the speakers at this year’s [Remind & Renew Conference](https://ptstulsa.edu/news-events/remind-renew/) at Phillips and online, January 25-27. Rev. Loorz is a “wild church pastor,” an “eco-spiritual director” and co-founder of several transformation-focused organizations focused on the integration of nature and spirituality. After 20 years as a pastor of indoor churches, she launched the first Church of the Wild, in Ojai Calif. and began to meet others with the same sense of call to leave building and expand the Beloved Community beyond our own species. She then co-founded the ecumenical Wild Church Network and Seminary of the Wild. The Rev. Loorz and Committing Faith in Public Life host Gary Peluso-Verdend talk about her extraordinary work around ritual and communities seeking connection with God, among themselves, and with the particular places in creation, such as marking Ash Wednesday in the ashes of a California wildfire. She also muses about ritual work toward social repair and species repair. (And GPV offers apologies for mispronouncing Ojai, California). **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [How Religious Communities Might Lean into 2022](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/lean-into-2022/) **Published:** January 4, 2022 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Bumpy-Road-Center-for-Religion-in-Public-Life.png)America is in for a bumpy 2022. Consider a few of the accumulating moral and spiritual dilemmas facing us (there are many more…). *Surely, America will surpass one million people dead from the pandemic*. If you have a better imagination than I, you might picture the continuing consequences of those losses: depression and burnout among medical personnel; grieving families, including orphaned children; disrupted classrooms; anger rising both from people who reject vaccines and masking and from those who judge the pandemic is so much worse because of those who reject vaccines and masking; every institution from stores to museums to religious congregations figuring out how to fulfill their missions; continuing inequality in access to care. How does a society grieve so much loss, and how do the religious congregations to which a sizable percentage of the population still turns help the processes of grieving? *The contract between employers and employees is being renegotiated*. Workers are no longer swallowing the bitter dish of sub-poverty minimum wages. The whole “essential worker” debate indicates a deep sense that their work is not valued. Cities such as Chicago or New York where tens of thousands of people commuted downtown for work are pivoting right and left trying to adjust to the impacts of erstwhile commuters working from home and not patronizing restaurants and public services. Then there is the matter of huge buildings loaded with offices that may no longer be necessary. The moral contract between worker and employer is changing, even as the meaning of work itself is morphing. How might religious traditions contribute to the debate about the meaning of work and the ethics of the employer-employee relationship? *Each month that passes without dramatic private and public transformations regarding energy capture, production, and usage brings the planet one step closer to a future in which our descendants will suffer even more than today’s Australia or California or New Orleans or sub-Saharan Africa.* In order to take meaningful action on a global scale, there has to be a profound combination trust and verification among nations. Neither exists. The image I cannot shake is Jeremiah weeping over Jerusalem: witnessing the destruction of a beloved people in a beautiful land, a destruction that did not have to be, that the people brought on themselves. **Addressing and either slowing or reversing the destruction of this planet’s capacity to support life that includes humankind is the most important moral, spiritual, religious, economic, political, cultural issue any of us will face—or from which we turn away.** *What is the nature and shape of the community we will seek?* There has never been one American story, just as there has not been one kind of Christianity. Multiplicity is in the human DNA. We humans keep spiraling around ideas regarding what to do with our diverse multiplicity. We set up social hierarchies, moral orders of what we claim to owe to each other, of who should occupy which rung, of what the freedoms and limitations are of those who occupy each rung, and whether or not a group or an individual can/may move between rungs. In society and in religious institutions today, one can see and hear evidence of hierarchies based on color/race, sex and gender, wealth, producer v. worker, maker v. taker, social justice practices, age, education, religion, and guns. All of these hierarchies are contested; most are wobbling, at least. At the same time, we Americans are allergic to hierarchy: we reject the imposition of hierarchy on us. We don’t want anyone above us on the ladder. But are we really willing to accept equality? Rejecting hierarchy does not translate to accepting equality. O that “freedom for me means freedom for you, and my freedom will be limited by your freedom, and vice versa.” No, we—as a nation or as many communities of faith—do not have sufficient social capital, trust, and well-developed practices of conversation, argumentation, and conflict management to have the arguments we need to have in order to address our problems and act on our opportunities. America’s cultural and political agreements, as well as its core myths, are embattled. The outcome could be the end of the experiment only or the end followed by a new hope. Can your religious community address one or more of these moral and spiritual problems in a way that makes a positive difference, at least for your immediate community? A service of memory and lament regarding pandemic deaths and losses, a sermon series on the dignity of work, a congregational pledge to eliminate all single-use plastic from households and the house of worship, and the congregation’s leadership upping their skills in fostering meaningful conversations and arguments would be small but potentially important places to greet 2022. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Label Bubbles](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/label-bubbles/) **Published:** February 25, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![Mutliple political labels.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/52c2df7ae4b0d215dded86fd/1424387520185-WZY4YQ3V6XXOOICG6EVU/image-asset.png?content-type=image%2Fpng)Political partisanship rules all types of discourse, including religious discourse. The terms that express political partisanship—alt-right, right, conservative, moderate, liberal, progressive, radical—have infected the nation’s speech. It is nearly impossible for religious types, who have been labeling ourselves and others for centuries, to eschew labels. But, today, labeling is dominated by partisan politics. And this partisanship occludes rather than illuminates, shuts down rather than opens, conversation and debate. For several years during the beginning of my term as seminary president (2009-2018), I was very hesitant to use the term “progressive” to speak about the seminary’s orientation. I liked (and like) [Dr. Hal Taussig’s essay](http://cil-de.org/documents/Grassroots%2019-3.pdf) on the real differences between liberal and progressive Christianity (progressive is not simply a substitute for the controlled-by-the-Right “L” label). But the word “progressive” in politics had a long and varied meaning. Today, progressive in politics often paints liberals as pragmatic sell-outs to capitalism (think Bill Clinton and, for some, Barack Obama) whose solutions to problems are too incremental, based on compromises that feel like losses, and not sufficiently attentive to or disruptive of structural inequalities. While I came to accept a “progressive” label, it was because that term had the highest affinity with what I think Phillips is doing. But while one can’t write or interact in the religious or the political realms without labels, it is best to hold the labels very loosely. I am not debating the merits of any of these political positions here. But using labels such as conservative, liberal, or progressive in a religion—let’s take Christianity in the U.S.—hides at least as much as they reveal. For example, there are affinities between kinds of religion and kinds of politics, but affinities are not the same as identities. One can be conservative/traditionalist in religion and disengaged from politics (the Amish). One can be religiously conservative *and* staunchly justice-oriented on the behalf of the racial and economic justice in terms of politics (like Shane Claiborne, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Jim Wallis, William Barber, hosts of Catholic women religious, and Martin Luther King, Jr.). Obviously, there are thought leaders where conservative religion aligns closely, even if at times weirdly, with conservative politics in persons such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Tony Perkins. From a religious point of view, the above-named persons would be considered religiously conservative. But there is a canyon between Graham and Claiborne, for example, in terms of politics. The terms liberal, conservative, and progressive mean increasingly little to me (and President Trump’s dominance in the Republican Party has shredded what conservative used to mean for Republicans). They are terms we use in public life to label ourselves or categorize others. We use the terms as substitutes for getting to know a person’s point of view, or to decide in advance who is trustworthy, or to put someone in a test tube to see what color the litmus paper turns. In politics, rather than labeling, I prefer to ask questions such as: - What are the roles of government, families, legislative politics, corporations, private foundations, non-profits, and voluntary organizations in creating vibrant public spaces *and* preserving privacy? In the dynamic interplay of public and the private spheres, where are the boundaries of expectation and responsibility? - In addition to protecting people from foreign and domestic threats and enforcing contracts, what do you see as the purpose of government? - What are the virtues we in the U.S. want to practice in relating to each other? - Do you think democracy means “majority rules” or do you think democracy requires the protection by the majority of the rights of political minorities—or do you not care about democracy at all? - Tell me what you think is right and what you think is wrong in the U.S. How do we get more of what is right and decrease what is wrong? - When you say “family,” what do you mean? How should the sectors of society work together to support families? - What should be the purpose of incarceration? - In debating about taxes and the size of government, do you argue about big government versus small government, or do you advocate for government being as big as is necessary to get a particular job done effectively? - What is the best way for our society to maximize citizens’ capacity to be responsible individuals? - What is the role of the government in regulating corporations for the sake of public safety? - How do you see the roles of the press, non-profits, religious organizations, and lobbying groups in holding elected officials accountable? - Should there be a social safety net and, if so, which categories of persons should be included? - What is the role of government, if any, in rectifying social inequities and promoting and protecting equity of opportunity, as well as in assessing outcomes? - Which rights do you claim (such as free speech, free exercise of religion) that you have a difficult time extending fully to others? In religion, rather than labeling, I would rather ask questions such as: - Do you think it is important to be a discerning *and* generous person in all ways—the way you listen, the way you give, the way you forgive? - Where do the practices of confession, penance, and forgiveness fit in your faith, and if you seek to practice them, how are you doing that? - Would you say you trust in God? What do you think that phrase means? What are the practical consequences of your belief? - What is your understanding of sin, and what difference does that understanding make in how you reflect about your own motives and interpret the motives of others? - According to your interpretation of your faith tradition’s core narrative, what time is it for the world? What time is it for the U.S.? - Which religious practices or expressions have you seen that would you rather the “free exercise” clause of the First Amendment not include? - In what ways do your so-called conservative, liberal, or progressive religious beliefs and values clash with conservative, liberal, or progressive points of view in politics? (In my opinion, if the answer is “Umm. I don’t see any clash”, there may be a problem worth investigating.) - Is the teaching of your scriptures self-evident to the rightly informed, or do scriptures need to be interpreted in the context of communities of interpreters? - How would you define what it means to be a well-educated person, and how is such education best accomplished? - Do you want the government to exclude everything religious, make space for religious communities to bring their value-systems into public spaces, or reserve center-stage for a particular religion? - Is Christianity primarily a John 3:16 salvation religion to prepare adherents for life after death, primarily a Matthew 25 religion that concerns how Christians treat “the least of these” in this life, primarily a wisdom tradition regarding how to love God, self, others, and the garden (the earth), or what? The problem with asking such questions is that categories will blur, boundaries will swiss-cheese and move, and we would not be able to argue with the self-righteousness that destroys relationships like acid rain killed lakes in the Northeast. The joy I imagine in asking such questions is in the conversations and arguments that would ensue—as long as we stay present with the persons and the questions rather than retreat into our label bubbles. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Nativity Politics](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/nativity-politics/) **Published:** December 14, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Occasionally I hear from laity or clergy concerning discussing politics in church. Of course, who would want to use worship, a ministry meeting, or a church school class to replicate a polarized, contentious go-nowhere storm of words and emotions? No one. But we should be very careful about broad statements concerning church and politics. On the one hand, barring political matters from religious life means the weighty moral issues of the day are met with spiritual silence. ([See my blog on that topic](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-religion-and-politics-are-inseparable-feed/).) On the other hand, prohibitions on politics in church would also mean that we’d ignore not just a single elephant in the room of scripture, but a massive herd. For example, take the two nativity stories in Matthew and in Luke. Both stories are saturated in political drama. Both stories reflect the politics of living in cantankerous province of the Roman empire. Ignore the politics of the story and one remains ignorant of their meaning. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/MatthewNativity-1024x620.jpg)In Matthew, Jesus is born at home in Bethlehem, the city where God’s anointed was to be born. A star appears, as stories also claim happened at the birth of Caesar. When Herod, the Roman-appointed King of the Jews learns from the magi that a King of the Jews has been born, Matthew says that Herod was troubled “and all Jerusalem with him.” No doubt, for this newborn king would cause heartburn for Herod, his patronage appointments, and the Romans. And the Romans did not ignore heartburn brought on by this gods-denying people. So, according to the story, Herod, not knowing which particular child was his rival, echoes Pharaoh—who may have been history’s original “Jews will not replace us” leader, for Pharaoh feared if his enslaved population grew too large, they would rebel. Pharaoh was eventually undermined by Moses, the baby who got away. So, to avoid Pharaoh’s fate, Herod gave a blanket order for soldiers to slaughter all children under two years old. Except one toddler got away… His parents took him to *Egypt* for safety. One should not miss the wonderful interplay of political references and meaningful reversals of where safe harbor might be found. No politics in any of that, right? Actually, ignore the politics in the story and one cannot understand the story in its context nor use it to interpret our lives today. In Luke, we get a lengthy run-up to Jesus’ birth. One storyline follows Zechariah, Elizabeth, and the birth of John, the one who would become John the Baptizer. Read Zechariah’s testimony at the end of Luke 1. That speech is full of references to the one who will rescue the people from their enemies. Zechariah is not addressing humanity’s inner demons but liberation from his people’s occupying overlords. Then there is little, humble, quiet Mary—except that one cannot read the words we’ve come to know as the Magnificat and allow such diminutives to depict Mary. Mary mightily prophesies that her son will save the people from their enemies, bring down the powerful from their thrones, send the rich away empty, and fill the bellies of the hungry. Geez, socialism, obviously. I don’t know how politics-in-church allergic choirs sing the Magnificat in Handel’s “Messiah” without breaking out in hives. After receiving these revolutionary messages, Luke’s readers then learn an imperial census, a prelude to a tax levy, will cause him and his very pregnant wife to travel to Bethlehem. An imperial demand for more money from the enemies her son would undermine caused Mary to give birth in a stable. If one filters out the politics in the birth narratives—and in SO many places in the Bible (we could go into the language of referring to God as King, and the classical prophets do not make sense without a king and ruling class to speak against)—one both distorts the meaning of texts and impoverishes the churches’ capacity to address today’s politics with moral and spiritual power. Silence is not always golden. Sometimes silence makes matters worse. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Enough](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/enough/) **Published:** December 7, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** When my oldest child was young, he often heard his parents say, “No, that is too much,” when he grabbed an excess of something off a buffet or wanted more ice cream than a three-year-old should have. But whenever he was asked how much of anything he wanted, he stated: “I want too much.” And that was a desire, not a confession. We Americans love our “too much.” Recall the visual of sweater-wearing President Jimmy Carter attempting to persuade Americans to turn down their thermostats in the winter. He was pilloried. Repeatedly. When it comes to our wants, “enough” is not in our national vocabulary,. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/nast-santa-stocking-test.png)The cartoon picked to accompany this blog is a Thomas Nast classic. Nast, you may know, crafted the image of what American advertising portrays as Santa Claus. In the cartoon, a little child is nailing an oversized stocking to the fireplace mantle. The caption reads “A chance to test Santa Claus’s generosity.” The top of the stocking reads “Mother,” so the child might not have been asking for themself. However, a bigger stocking to hold a greater amount is an expression of greater love. If I love you, I will give you more things. That’s sick. In my extended family, we are dealing with a family member who needed to move from a house into a much smaller space. The moved person is somewhere on a scale between a collector and a hoarder. After dealing with thousands of decisions before an estate sale (clean, toss, sell, donate), we still have hundreds of items that need determinations. My wife and I resolved we should not leave a similar yoke on our family. In order to avoid that burden, we have to pare down to and stay at “enough”—and that is not always a simple matter. I just finished Patrick Deneen’s 2018 book, *[Why Liberalism Failed](https://www.amazon.com/Why-Liberalism-Failed-Politics-Culture/dp/0300240023/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)*. While some of his positions lean conservative, it is difficult to locate Deneen’s work on a liberal-conservative scale—a difficulty that makes it such a provocative and helpful read. His argument: the philosophy of liberalism (e.g., which has both conservative and liberal forms but is premised on individual rights, free markets, ostensible belief in self-government and self-determination/the pursuit of happiness) contains the seeds of its own destruction. In postulating that human beings are “individuals” in our “state of nature” rather than fundamentally connected to each other, liberalism corrodes all loyalties besides to oneself. In addition, liberalism lifts human beings out of the natural world and supports our efforts to dominate nature (e.g., industrial revolution, fossil-fuel based economy, spreading plastic trash in the air, soil, and water). Thus, we are left with individuals, the state, an a collapsing biosphere. The state must assume the regulatory and “fairness” roles of creating working rules for—and cleaning up after—all these happiness-pursuing individuals accumulating their stuff and using their excess of “freedom” to invade other’s spaces. Liberalism fails because, in other words, human nature is fundamentally communal, we live in the world and not above nature, and there is no tradition-ing, no place to learn the virtue of self-control and of saying “I have enough.” One of the many contradictions of modern Christianity in the U.S. is celebrating Christmas through fostering an economy of excess. In the Thomas Nast cartoon referenced above, this child is hanging a large *stocking* but it was still a *stocking*; and the stocking was the place where *all* the presents went. The stocking was a container for “The Enough.” Here are two of the more anti-American teachings I know, both derived from the Bible. In the Lord’s Prayer, there is the phrase: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Daily bread. The ask is for enough. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians (4:11), he wrote: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have.” That is a radical statement and a stern challenge to American Christianity. “Enough” is a word and a practice Americans nailed to the cross. “Enough” needs resurrection. --- Image Credit: Thomas Nast / Engraving / Harper’s Weekly / December 30, 1876 from the [Macculloch Hall Historical Museum](https://maccullochhall.org/collections/the-thomas-nast-collection/) Thomas Nast collection. [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [We Need More Kitchen Table Conversations about Politics and Religion](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/we-need-more-kitchen-table-conversations-about-politics-and-religion/) **Published:** January 28, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** I have [previously written](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-religious-congregations-should-talk-about-politics/) on why moderate and progressive religious communities need to talk more about politics. Here, I want to expand on the topic with which I opened that essay: the reticence and resistance to engaging and fostering conversations about politics in religious communities. (Politics in terms of ethics, policies, desired ends, taxing and spending, visions of the community we seek, personal and communal rights, responsibilities, and freedom—rather than electoral politics.) I acknowledge that some religious communities are ensconced in a mindset that emphasizes one’s inner relationship with the Divine (a vertical rather than horizontal relationship) and private morality, which extends beyond one’s family only thinly. But for any religious community that believes their religion should shape their moral perspectives toward neighbors, strangers, and the planet, then we should be questioning why we can’t talk more about politics in religious communities. What are the potential reasons, and implications, of not talking about politics? In my previous essay, I underlined the 40-year reign of the Christian Right dominating national political discourse as one consequence of the relative silence coming from the rest of us. But additional reasons and implications include: Not talking about politics means we affirm things as they are, or we believe we can’t do anything to change what is wrong, or we don’t care. So, not talking about politics is rooted in privilege, in despair, or in apathy. Anyone want to claim as virtuous any or all of those reasons? Not talking about politics means we don’t have the tools to deal with conflict. I think this is a major factor for religious communities. They fear conflict because they are financially fragile, and they don’t want to lose the remaining fragments of the base that once supported their ministries. In addition, people come to religious communities with many motivations, but I’d bet seeking peace is high on that list. Well, homo sapiens is steeped in conflict. A lot of conflict (some anthropologists think we survived by killing off other human species). Despite our species’ talent for conflict, it is the rare religious community that intentionally teaches conflict management, which is not only about resolving conflict but includes both intensifying conflict when necessary and learning to live with unresolvable conflicts. That kind of religious community requires a commitment, from everyone, that many communities may not foster, value, or enjoy. A lifetime ago, when I lived in a rural parsonage and parishioners would knock briefly and invite themselves in the front door, I learned about the difference between a front room welcome and a kitchen welcome. The front room was for casual conversations, information exchange, and niceness. At the kitchen table, however, deeper into the house, was the place for more heartfelt exchanges, more pain, more grief, more potential for working on—if not through—difficult matters. For some people, their religious community has, figuratively speaking, both a front room and a kitchen, and they’ve been to the kitchen. But for how many people in your community is this the case? [In another essay, I’ve written about the interwoven nature of religion and politics](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-religion-and-politics-are-inseparable-feed/). “Religion” and “politics” names two overlapping fields in which story, belonging, moral order, and obstacles/empowerment to overcome obstacles play and play out. Is the religious community you know a community of moral discourse that seeks to equip adults (not only adults, but I’m focusing here on adults) with the moral framework they need to navigate the rich, complicated intersections of religion and politics? In many religious communities I know, the educational focus is on children and youth, especially children. The transitional ritual into adult membership occurs in the early teen years. And then… what? In today’s world, and in addition to personal relationships (a realm that is a great deal more complex than in the patriarchal and binary world that is being challenged, if not left behind), morally well-equipped adults would be able to think about and act beneficially regarding: - - being a neighbor; self-education on the issues of the day, - household stewardship for the benefit of the long-term health of one’s family, society, and of the earth, - making and spending money, - use of technology, - working and voting for social justice, - and self-awareness—to name just a few topics. How many people do you know who are well-formed for adult life? I don’t know. But Robert Kegan’s book title may still be apt: [In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life](https://www.amazon.com/Over-Our-Heads-Mental-Demands/dp/0674445880/ref=sr_1_1?crid=356CTQA7FRQRN&keywords=kegan+in+over+our+heads&qid=1580227060&sprefix=kegan+in+o%2Caps%2C159&sr=8-1). Finally, and this statement is a hunch rather than a more formed claim, differences of political opinions, and moral stances, generate as much strong emotion, if not more, than any other topic these days. Now, I follow the moral psychologists who argue that homo sapiens is fundamentally an emotional species that also thinks, rather than a thinking species that also emotes. And that David Hume, rather than Immanuel Kant, is more correct: morality is linked to emotion first, and reasons are given to justify the emotions. (I don’t affirm this as deterministically as some might, but that is another topic.) There is an emotional charge to political opinions that seems too potentially explosive to risk setting off in polite company, or in a group where you think you might not simply be affirmed. People either get angry or descend into a charged silence when their political stances are questioned. What I suspect is this: our political stances are more self-interested than many religious people want to admit, and our self-interests conflict with the prevailing moral atmosphere of our community’s official moral and ethical norms. So, maybe there is an element of shame, or a fear of feeling shame, or a fear of being exposed or judged as hypocritical or morally wrong that keeps some individuals and communities from talking more about politics and faith. If I am at all right about these claims, then we need more relatively safe kitchen table conversations. There are a [few places](https://www.fearlessdialogues.com/) in society [trying them](https://www.better-angels.org/our-story/), but I would hope that religious communities would be in the forefront. Many obstacles. Many opportunities. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Public Religion in the News Digest, December 20, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-in-the-news-digest-december-20-2019/) **Published:** December 20, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/public-religion-in-the-news-fb-post/)[Religion cases coming to the Supreme Court: who does a “ministerial exemption” include?](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/19/21028094/supreme-court-religious-schools-ministerial-exception) (for another article on this matter, see [this one from the Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-to-look-again-at-whether-teachers-at-religious-schools-are-ministerial/2019/12/18/0881b628-21ad-11ea-a153-dce4b94e4249_story.html)). > From the article: > > “The Establishment Clause prevents the Government from appointing ministers,” Chief Justice John Roberts explained for his Court, “and the Free Exercise Clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.” This is why, for example, a federal law barring gender discrimination in employment does not require the Catholic Church to ordain women. > > But religious institutions employ many people who perform a combination of religious and secular duties — and many of these employees have only minimal religious responsibilities. According to the federal appeals court that heard the case, for example, *Biel* involves a Catholic schoolteacher who [mostly provided secular instruction](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8420578345801942083&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr) — but who also spent a couple hours every week teaching from a workbook on the Catholic faith. She claims that her teaching contract was not renewed because she has breast cancer, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. (The school claims that this teacher lost her job because her classroom management was not strict enough.) [Treated Worse than Jesus? No.](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rep-barry-loudermilk-claims-trump-has-been-treated-worse-than-jesus/) > From the article: > > The shock on Twitter was audible. The speech even prompted a [Politifact fact check](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/dec/19/barry-loudermilk/false-claim-comparing-jesus-pontius-pilate-and-tru/) that unsurprisingly determined the comparison to be false. Beyond the Jesus comparison, it’s worth noting that Democrats had [repeatedly](https://apnews.com/69ba97b946c14b4f9d4d83577a05d22a) [invited](https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/democrats-invite-trump-to-testify-in-december-impeachment-inquiry/) Trump to testify. [The long debate within Judaism as to whether Judaism is a religion and/or a nationality was raised again by the president with a recent executive order.](https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/jews-and-judaism-religion-and-identity) > From the article: > > This sharp divide in defining the essence of Jewish belonging, of being a Jew, between religion and nation has a past. Prof. [Leora Batnitsky](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160139/how-judaism-became-a-religion) argues that the split itself is a historically contingent one; in her view, it arose in the late eighteenth century as new ideas of empire and state gave Jews both an opportunity and a challenge of full participation in a supra-religious collective identity but at the cost of cultural homogeny and historical amnesia. The definition of Judaism and Jewish identity as solely religious was articulated by Moses Mendelssohn in 1783, in an ambitious argument that Jews are fully committed members of the polities in which they live and should be accorded full rights as such. Other Jews, in the Hassidic, Mussar, and Zionist movements, championed a cultural-national heritage that entailed remaining a demarcated people locally or expressing itself in commensurate political terms of self-determination, through Jewish statehood. Non-Jewish politicians and thinkers of the period engaged in the same debate. [Younger evangelicals, and with the support of some older ones, are talking and acting differently regarding work, money, capitalism, and the poor than the generations who aligned squarely with free market talking points.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/christianity-inequality.html) > From the article: > > I’m not ready to be cynical about the faith and work movement. I have spoken to too many younger evangelicals who have come of age in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and are showing signs of disillusionment with traditional white evangelical politics — because the Christian right has fallen well short of St. Paul’s [command](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+12%3A13&version=NIV) to “share with the Lord’s people who are in need” and because it glorifies a profit-obsessed rat race that sucks even the winners dry. Dave Blanchard, one of the founders of [Praxis Labs](https://www.praxislabs.org/), an organization that supports Christian entrepreneurs, told me: “The line of taking Milton Friedman for everything he has to offer is falling out of favor. We’re in a time when we’re interrogating capitalism — a reformation project that shouldn’t be confused with socialist approaches.” [We all should know where our food, our news, and our legislation come from. And don’t tell us lies!](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/09/ohio-timothy-ginter-project-blitz) > [From the article: ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/22/ohio-religious-liberty-bill-project-blitz-christian) > > [The Guardian revealed](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/22/ohio-religious-liberty-bill-project-blitz-christian) the bill was nearly identical to one promoted by Project Blitz, a state legislative project guided by three Christian right organizations, including the Congressional Prayer Caucus (CPC), WallBuilders and the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Project Blitz aims to promote and help pass conservative legislation across the US to fulfil its rightwing Christian agenda. > > When initially approached, Ginter told the Guardian in an email from a legislative aide that he had “no knowledge of ‘Project Blitz’ and has not been working with WallBuilders or the Congressional Prayer Caucus”. > > However, a screenshot shows Ginter was listed as the co-chair of the [Ohio Prayer Caucus](https://web.archive.org/web/20190119172340/https:/cpcfoundation.com/states/ohio/), the state chapter of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, as recently as January 2019. Ginter’s former chief of staff, Chris Albanese, is currently listed as the state director of the state chapter of CPC, Ohio Prayer Caucus. > > “I would call it an outright lie,” said Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst with Political Research Associates, and an expert on the Christian right. “The Prayer Caucus in the states are the action arm of Project Blitz – it is Project Blitz,” he said. “When he told you, ‘I’ve never heard of Project Blitz,’ that was a lie,” said Clarkson. [What is the potential—for good and for bad—of artificial intelligence when it comes to religion and spiritual care?](https://slate.com/technology/2019/11/priest-rabbi-robot-walk-into-bar-religion-technology.html) > From the article: > > But religiously motivated uses of A.I. and surveillance technology are inevitable—in fact, plenty already exist. One company [provides](https://splinternews.com/youre-being-secretly-tracked-with-facial-recognition-e-1793848585) facial recognition technology to churches so they can keep track of member attendance. Smartphones are a [fixture in church services](https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/06/many-church-services-are-now-a-sea-of-iphones-and-clergy-members-think-thats-great.html), many large churches have their own apps, and millions of people read the Bible on screens instead of in print. The Church of England recently [developed an Alexa “skill”](https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/25-may/news/uk/want-to-know-about-god-just-ask-alexa) that reads prayers, answers questions like “Who is God?,” and helps users locate nearby churches. The Vatican now [sells a $110 “eRosary” bracelet](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/17/vatican-launches-110-smart-rosary-bracelet-that-tracks-your-prayers.html) that encourages Catholics to pray and logs their progress as they do so. [Secret internment/re-education camps for Muslims in China. One of the biggest world religion stories of the year, I’d judge.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/world/asia/china-camps-muslims.html?searchResultPosition=3) > From the article: > > “They are missing that point where they go from ‘This handful of people did bad things’ to ‘We need to lock up 1.8 million or however many people are estimated in camps,’” Mr. Byler said. > > [Former camp detainees who have left China](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html) have described numbing, harsh and even brutal treatment inside the facilities. Detainees are subject to constant indoctrination that warns them to renounce religious fervor and support the Communist Party. They are forced to study Chinese, memorize laws, practice marching and learn skills for factory work. [Religious targets for hate crimes: Jews and Muslims are most targeted in the U.S.](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/12/fbi-report-jews-the-target-of-overwhelming-number-of-religious-based-hate-crimes-2/) > From the article: > > Newly released FBI data shows that Jews and Jewish institutions were the overwhelming target of religion-based hate crimes in the United States last year. > > The [2018 Hate Crime Statistics](https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2018-hate-crime-statistics-released-111219) reported 7,120 total hate crimes last year, compared to 7,175 in 2017, a decline of less than 1%. > > Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,550 offenses, and the majority of those — 57.8% — were anti-Jewish. > > By comparison, anti-Muslim hate crimes accounted for 14.5% — the second-largest target of religious hate. Anti-Sikh hate crimes accounted for 4.1% of the total. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [Jesus, Son of Herod](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/jesus-son-of-herod/) **Published:** November 30, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/massacre_holy_innocents-1024x683.jpg)](http://easternprom.com/pismenny5.shtml)“Massacre of the Holy Innocents” by Alexey Pismenny We know the story told by Matthew that Herod, the Roman-appointed king of the Jews, received the Persian Magi looking for the child born to be king of the Jews. Recall Herod’s response to the news of a rival king after the magi excluded him from whatever they learned about Jesus’ location: slaughter all children in the area around Bethlehem two years old and under. Herod’s wicked response is one way fearful sovereigns have dealt with rivals. But imagine with me a different story. ***From Herod’s personal journal:*** A few days ago, I received a visit from a group of Persian astrologers asking where the king of the Jews was to be born, for they had seen a star which they interpreted as his rising star. Ugh. Like some child born to any Jew would be given the same “star in the heavens” honor bestowed on the Emperors. Nevertheless, one can’t be too careful, especially given the history of even emperors being slain by their rivals. I asked the magi to return to me after they had located the child. Of course, I did not trust them to return. So, several loyal spies trailed them. My men immediately returned to me with the news, while the wily magi disappeared. I wasted no time—for who knows if the visit of these strangers might have aroused suspicions in Bethlehem or in the child’s house. I called for a royal retinue to assemble, as resplendent and impressive as anyone had seen. Make sure my wealth and power were on display. Shock and awe. As soon as the company was assembled, we traveled to Bethlehem, led and followed by my guards and a few off-duty Roman centurions. We created the stir in the village for which I hoped, right up to the child’s house. At the home, the door was already open, and a man, his wife, and a small boy stood in the doorway, eyes as big as large shekels. My servants announced me. Then I stepped forward and proclaimed the following: > “I am Herod, your king. I have been informed that a very special child resides in this house, Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph. I’ve been told that this boy Jesus is destined by Adonai to be king of the Jews. Well, I am not sure how that would happen, given that kingship is granted by the Empire. But, I am prepared to play my part in this mysterious story. I come to say I am here to adopt this child. I will raise him in the palace as my own son. He will learn all that is necessary to become a wise and just king. Looking at your surroundings, it is clear that I can offer him a life exponentially better than you can afford him.” What could those peasants do? They turned over their son to me. I took Jesus back to my palace, and here he will live out his days. Keep your friends close and your enemies—and rivals—closer. In my household, I will keep an eye on him and I can ensure he learns the values and skills necessary for one who serves at the pleasure of an occupying force. He will learn that: > Happy are we who are wealthy. > > Happy are we who can avoid ever being hungry. > > Happy are we who rule and are, therefore, above the law. > > Happy are we to whom others are indebted. > > Happy are we who tell the stories about who and what to fear. > > Happy are we who use violence to establish peace and order. > > Happy are we who are feared. Then, if Jesus should ever reign (as unlikely as that prospect is), he will know how a king must think and act. Can you imagine what would have happened if Jesus had been allowed to believe he was a prophet-king? The prophets in our scriptures often opposed their kings. They called out what they saw as injustices, especially the actions of leaders and the way the rich treated the poor. Prophets were disrupters. No, the Romans would not tolerate subversion and neither can I. Better that religion serve the king and provide a canopy of sacred protection for what I do. The king needs religion to buttress his actions and to maintain good order. No king needs a prophet shooting off his mouth and fomenting resentment regarding how the rich treat the poor. So, I have adopted this child. Threat neutralized. End of journal entry. --- IMAGE: *[Massacre of the Holy Innocents](http://easternprom.com/pismenny5.shtml), o*il on canvas, 36″ x 24″ (91 cm x 61 cm) 2008, Private Collection; Museum quality reduced size giclee prints on canvas available. [Inquire](http://easternprom.com/cgi-bin/contact.cgi?to=alex&subject=massacre_holy_innocents&op=noerror) [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Christianity is Poor Social Glue](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/christianity-is-poor-social-glue/) **Published:** November 16, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** A former official from the former administration opined a few days ago that America is one nation under God and requires one religion. I’m sure the religion he had in mind was not Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, or any faith other than Christianity. Critics pounced on his statement—rightly so—as outrageously anti-American and anti-Constitutional. [Dr. Heather Richardson, in a daily missive](https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-14-2021), details how the “one religion” statement is exactly opposite of what James Madison, a leading author of the Constitution, had in mind. However, one might muse about what the nature of the Christianity is that the former official asserts must be the nation’s one religion. I’m sure that religion has little to do with the so-called ecumenical creeds, adopted and enforced by imperial decree. (Imperial decree, by the way, ends debate much more efficiently than the monks who killed each other over the wording.) The religion he wants is social identity Christianity. Social identity Christianity, such as has emerged in several European nations, is not credal in the way that homoousios and homoiousios in the first centuries or that early Lutheran-Zwinglian-Calvinist-Catholic conflicts were. Rather, social identity Christianity is a means of determining belonging: who belongs and who does not belong in or to a nation as those worthy of citizenship. In today’s European nations, waves of migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers from Muslim nations have provoked the rise of identity Christianity. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Social-Glue.png)In other words, this is reactive Christianity as social glue, meant to bind some people together and exclude those who don’t “belong.” Belonging involves telling the stories, abiding by a moral order, and agreeing to overcome who or what holds a nation back from its promise. Color and national origins “just happen” to align with the kind of Christianity the Christian identity proponents embrace. So, the history in the modern, pluralistic world of employing religion as social glue: how has that worked? Not well, of course, other than to turn religion into a means of hate, rejection, warfare—you know, all the stuff Jesus embraced, right? No. When Jefferson and Madison imagined a union without a religious requirement to hold office (Article VI of the Constitution) and then forbidding an established church but acknowledging a right to free exercise of religion (the First Amendment), they held history in mind. That history included devastating religious wars in Europe since the middle of the 16th century. No religion could serve as a social glue for the republic for, if you ally a religion with the coercive power of the state, you sow discord, enmity, and violence—not peace. Twentieth century Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray wrote that the First Amendment is an article of peace, not a doctrine. The amendment is meant to avoid ever allowing one religion to rule and, therefore, being used to divide people. Every society needs social glue, and a pluralistic democracy perhaps most of all forms of social order—trust, social capital, mutual and reciprocal rights to be protected and defended, a moral sense of what we owe to each other, a practice of argumentation and conversation that enables members to address problems and work toward effective solutions. Yes, in America’s history and present, the answer to who “belongs” in the republic has substituted skin color/race, ethnic origin, gender, wealth, family name, unrestrained capitalism, and religion for democracy’s social glue. The tensions and violence derived from these substitutions are evident both in our history and our present. Lousy binding elements, all of them. So, how does a nation such as the U.S. is today, foster trust, social capital, mutual and reciprocal rights to be protected and defended, a moral sense of what we owe to each other, and a practice of argumentation and conversation that enables members to address problems and work toward effective solutions? Not by scrapping one of the only principles that unites most Americans: the freedom to choose one’s religion, if any. Christians, think of it this way: we know the biblical story in Matthew about Herod ordering the death of Jesus. What would have happened if Herod had decided to enact another time-tested way of controlling a rival: adopt him? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [A Future for Christianity in America](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/future-for-christianity-in-america/) **Published:** November 10, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Last week, I finished recording the last two lectures for the online, public course I’ve taught (five of the six lectures are available for anyone to view on the [seminary’s YouTube page](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPzttUFAK6oE4asxcKAZ2piC4S)). The course, “Bursting Wineskins,” starts with an accounting of why the Christian-entwined-with-America story is ending, moves through how one might interpret religion/culture/politics, and then proceeds to use numerous primary historical documents to illustrate conflicting positions Christians have staked out in American public life.![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Slide1-e1636556544556.png) This course required more new preparatory reading for me than perhaps any course I’ve taught, for credit or not for credit. Here are a few lessons I learned along the way: - Time after time, I exclaimed to myself, “Why didn’t I know that before?” One of the truly new learnings came from reading Darren Dochuk’s outstanding work, *[Anointed with Oil](https://www.amazon.com/Anointed-Oil-Christianity-Modern-America/dp/0465060862/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1QARFL2S1TJ9Y&keywords=dochuk&qid=1636471521&qsid=131-3715440-8627610&s=books&sprefix=dochuk%2Caps%2C189&sr=1-1&sres=0465060862%2C0393339041%2C0268201293%2C0812243099%2C0268158797%2C022650977X%2CB01B98JGBA%2CB07DW818VS%2C0199372705%2CB00A2MN81E%2C0802871526)*, which documents in detail the close relationship between Christianity and oil in both ecumenical and fundamentalist expressions. I knew how important Rockefeller dollars were to funding prominent institutions of the Protestant mainline. I did not know anything about the independent oilmen and wildcatter dollars that fueled key fundamentalist (BIOLA) and evangelical (Fuller) institutions and even the very essays that become “The Fundamentals.” - There are many sources for accessing primary documents of Christian histories in the U.S. online. The websites include too many to detail here. Just look up “Christian women and suffrage” or “Christian sermons on slavery” or “Frederick Douglass and 4th of July speech” or “Christians and the labor movement” and the marathon would begin. - The Civil War ended slavery and the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were designed to supersede the founding document in terms of enslaved Americans. That I knew. But I did not realize the extent to which those amendments and the culture required to uphold those amendments have been challenged *continuously* since 1870. In this sense, *the Civil War never ended—to this day*. From Jim Crow to today’s efforts to restrict voting, to gerrymandering, and to claiming states’ rights against federal power, Christians have marched, staffed the barricades, and preached for and against an America in which freedom requires social justice and serious attention to equality. - Exploitation of labor—slave labor, indentured labor, immigrant labor (documented and undocumented)—and the lust for cheap resources (land, minerals, fossil fuels) are as American as apple pie. A sarcastic version of “This Land,” sung by those Christian preachers and politicians, who claimed Anglo-Saxon divinely given superiority, might go like this: “This land is our land, this isn’t your land, from the Aleutian Islands to the gulf stream waters, from Hawaii to Madawaska, God took this land from you to give to us.” Christians have been active participants, defenders, and protestors against those practices which are definitively un-Christian but which drew and draw energy from a Christianized ideology of Manifest Destiny. - My longest lecture (nearly 45 minutes) narrated documents related to supporting hierarchy and working for equality. In 45 minutes, all I could do was introduce hearers to a very few documents regarding the hierarchies of race and color, and those addressing gender. Christianity in America has spent a great deal of time, energy, money, and attention on preserving or, to a lesser extent, undermining social hierarchies. - The Christianized ideology of American exceptionalism results in an immature nation unable to embrace finitude and error and churches in danger of becoming imperial chapels. Christians have contributed heavily to that ideology. And Christians need to do everything in our power to delegitimate that ideology and to offer alternatives. Whether Christianity in America will prove itself to be—on balance—conservative, progressive, anchored to warring political parties, brilliantly creative and independent, or irrelevant hinges on how we Christians do the work of undermining a deadly ideology and offering vibrant alternatives. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Most Wonderful — and Destructive — Time of the Year](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/destructive-time-of-year/) **Published:** November 2, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The single most climate-destructive annual event of the year is… Christmas. Christmas is a climate disaster. Now, the Christmas season is my favorite time of the year. I love Christmas—the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the memories, the occasions with family and friends. I listen to religious carols throughout the year when I write (as I’m doing while writing this blog). But, celebrating Christmas as we in wealthy Western nations do harms the planet more than at any other time of the year. ![](https://6clwtt46zy435zu42m34c6uw-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/iStock-full-bin-with-paper-and-card.jpg)Yes, attaching an annual climate catastrophe to Christmas is a Grinch-y thing to say. But considering the urgent need to change our ways in order to slow the damage our descendants will endure, we should attend to the carbon usage and waste of: - Un-recyclable wrapping paper. I wonder if that Santa “paper” from 10 years ago is part of an island-sized plastic blob in the Pacific. - Extra food production and waste (how many times have you brought a dish to a party that was half eaten, not because it was bad but because there was simply a glut of food?). - Christmas light usage. Even with LED lights, the collective energy drain is enormous. And notice how the upscale shopping center managers that encircle trees with all those pretty lights will cut the lights off at the end of the season rather than spend the labor money to unwrap the trees. - Driving and flying are the two most carbon-intensive means of travel. And from Tulsa, for example, train service—a much more carbon-efficient means of transportation—is nonexistent. - Gift-buying, of all presents wanted and unwanted. Consider the materials used and the shipping costs in carbon. And, of course, the damage done to the environment of ensuring a profitable year for retailers who rely on Christmas to evidence its status as the pinnacle of a consumer society. In particular, so many toys, made of plastic, are broken within weeks of usage. - The land usage, water consumption, shipping, and the carbon stored in the trees added back to the atmosphere when the trees are burned. You get the picture. And one can quickly see that individual actions are important, but systemic changes are required if we want to make a real difference. I recall my favorite scene from the Peanuts holiday specials. Charlie Brown, searching for meaning in life, from his pit of despair, cries: “Does anyone know what Christmas is all about?” Linus replies that he does, takes center stage, and recites the nativity story from the Gospel of Luke. Linus’ heartfelt, humble recitation, changed everything. Now, imagine the planet is begging Charlie Brown’s question, revised as: “Does anyone know how to celebrate the birth and life of Jesus without destroying me?” The answer is yes, but the cultural and economic changes necessary for wealthy Western “Christian” nations required in order to celebrate Jesus without an annual catastrophic climate event are profound. If you’ve resonated with any of the above, here are a few articles to consider (and I’ll note that a Google search regarding green initiatives in churches pulled almost exclusively from the UK and Canada): [“Six ways climate change is waging war on Christmas”](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/six-ways-climate-change-is-waging-war-on-christmas-180948064/) [“From turkey to tinsel, here’s the truth about how you can have a more climate-friendly Christmas”](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/environmentally-friendly-christmas-climate-change) [“Climate change Christmas Carols” (a little wicked satire)](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/22/climate-change-christmas-carols) [“The twelve carbons of Christmas”](https://www.carbonfootprint.com/12_carbons_of_christmas.html) [“The carbon cost of Christmas”](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263969440_The_Carbon_Cost_of_Christmas) --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) --- **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [A Moment at Lucy's Therapy Booth](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/a-moment-at-lucys-therapy-booth/) **Published:** October 19, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *Peanuts*, the comic strip written by Charles Schulz from the 1950 until 2000, remains my favorite. I am grateful to my wife who found me a vintage Snoopy-as-professor, my go-to neckwear when recording lectures. In the vast *Peanuts* collection is [classic scene](https://youtu.be/vzmidvCBeoc) from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” A melancholy Charlie Brown plops down at therapist Lucy’s booth to explore what is bothering him. After collecting her five-cent fee, with glee, Lucy offers diagnostic terms to help Charlie name his ailment. > [Lucy: Are you afraid of responsibility? If you are, then you have hypengyophobia.](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) > > [Charlie: I don’t think that’s quite it.](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) > > [Lucy : How about cats? If you’re afraid of cats, you have ailurophasia.](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) > > [Charlie: Well, sort of, but I’m not sure.](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) > > [Lucy: Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you have climacaphobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia. This is fear of the ocean, or gephyrobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges. Or maybe you have pantophobia. Do you think you have pantophobia?](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) > > [Charlie: What’s pantophobia?](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) > > [Lucy: The fear of everything.](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) > > [Charlie: THAT’S IT.](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/16643) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Charlie-Brown-Lucy-Help.png)That scene came to mind as I reflect on what ails our nation. I wonder how to label the sense of disconnection manifest in so many public spaces. I looked up phobias and disorders to prick my imagination. So many interesting words. And yet I also felt called to coin a few neologisms myself. Politicophobia is the unreasonable fear of politics or politicians. If we could remove the word “unreasonable,” politicophobia might be a phobia in the mix of germs. I wondered if there was a word for “fear of community,” so evident in the political right’s equation of communism, tyranny, and any sort of collectivism (mask-wearing makes me is a “sheeple”). The fear or rejection of the essentially communal nature of humankind is also evident in controversies regarding wearing masks and getting vaccines. Anyone who has seen the demonstrations of how we actually conspire (conspire means to breathe with; [have you seen those pictures of how far a cough or sneeze travels?](https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/20698-respiratory-droplets-from-coughs-sneezes-can-travel-beyond-6-feet-study)) together should have been convincing. Instead, a significant minority of the population harangues Walgreens employees for not carrying a horse drug and causes shortages at farm stores of the same drug. I thought maybe koinoniaphobia might be a word: the fear of koinonia (an essential word in the New Testament for Christians, being partners in community with Christ and with each other). But the closest word is koinophobia, which means fear of living an ordinary life. I know that fear! But that is not the root of our national disease. There is philophobia, which is fear of love or of friendship or of romantic relationships. That’s not it, either, but—again—if this fear can include fear of having a friendship with someone who has opposing views and your other friends would disown you if you are seen, in person or online, with this friend, well, then maybe there is some load of philophobia. Xenophobia, the fear of strangers or the fear of the other, seems an obvious choice. And we’ve done an excellent job of creating “others” to fear! One would think there really are Children of Light (God) and Children of Darkness (Satan) with completely different creators, souls and DNA, rather than a single species sharing 99.9 percent of our DNA in common and about half of the nation claiming a creation story of one God creating us all. But can we apply xenophobia to the fear of sons and daughters, of cousins, of in-laws, of parents who hold “the wrong” political views? Alethophobia (not a neologism) is the fear of truth. Yes. Oh, yes. A heavy viral load of that. How about irenephobia (neologism)? The fear of peace. Now, you might question that anyone fears peace. But, given the level of conflict in our nation, and the truism that we are organized for the results we are getting, it would seem we don’t want deep peace, real shalom. One last phobia: isophobia, the fear of equality (that is a neologism, but barely, because there are many articles and essays on the topic). We Americans claim to LOVE our FREEDOM but we have far less affection for acknowledging the same scope of freedom for everyone. We trumpet the idea of equality from the Declaration and the Gettysburg Address, but equality terrifies those with power or they would not be fighting so viciously against it. Moving out of the phobias, we also might consider the disorders. Failure to attach rings partially true. Some people are unable to form a meaningful, compassionate attachment to anyone else. Is that number growing? I don’t know the research, if there is such research, but if I were to guess, I’d guess “yes.” Escalating crime, gun sales, gun violence, and suicides since the start of the pandemic—are these pandemic-driven or more persistent and powerful trends? Or oppositional defiant disorder, a stance of anger, rejection, and violence toward anyone with authority. Picture the faces of the insurrectionists on January 6, or the red-faced spitting anger toward nurses, school boards, teachers, and grocery clerks regarding mask mandates. Sure looks like anger, rejection, and violence. “Perfect love casts out fear,” reads 1 John 4:18. I’ll take a heavy viral load of that, please. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Good Thing We Don’t Essentialize Identity](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/good-thing-we-dont-essentialize-identity/) **Published:** October 12, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [A woman’s family story claimed the family was 100 percent Irish. The family celebrated all things Irish. But then, through DNA ancestry testing, the woman discovered that her dad, who was adopted, was not Irish at all but Eastern European Jewish. That, and other revelations, led the woman to wonder who she actually was, as per her DNA.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/she-thought-she-was-irish-until-a-dna-test-opened-a-100-year-old-mystery/) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/gpv-genaology-map.jpg)My ethnic background keeps changing. A few years ago, I deposited that bit of saliva into a test tube and mailed it to the processing company. My DNA mix was pretty much what I expected: about half aligned with people who also took the test and live in Southern Italy, with the rest from Germany, Bohemia, and other nations near the eastern edge of Europe. However, as more people take the test and results are included in the database, I’ve become less Italian and more Eastern European—in terms of ancestry. This does not mean I’m going to eat more sauerbraten and less eggplant parm, but the shifting DNA results do bring the constructed nature of my identity to my foreground attention. Very interesting, especially since my family-of-origin played up the Italian side more than the Bohemian-German side (Dad’s parents were both Italian immigrants; we don’t know when my mom’s ancestors immigrated or exactly from where). My adult children, whose genetic heritage from Italy is much lower than mine, nevertheless lean into the Italian fraction with gusto. Our teen daughter, adopted from Guatemala, presents a really interesting picture. Predominantly Mayan, yes, followed by Spanish, and then a mosaic of ancestors from centuries ago from a few African nations and even Iran/Persia. Oh, the histories of conquest, invasion, and ethnic mixing represented in her DNA. And, despite our best attempts to keep her connected to Guatemalan culture, her musical and culinary loves are K-Pop and Korean and Japanese foods. Her choices. Good thing that in America we don’t essentialize identity, don’t select elements from culture (things that could be other than what they are), raise them to the level of “natural,” and then construct power arrangements based on “nature.” I’m saying this, of course, with some sarcasm. We Americans have constructed deeply divided identities as if the dividing lines were revealed by God. Identity is always a construction. There is hardly anything “natural” about it. Identity is self-selected for those with power and imposed on others by those in power. The so-called “one drop” rule and “blood quantum” used to determine “race” reflected the white supremacist-bathed science of the day. There is only one race. That said, the term “race” is not going to disappear or become irrelevant anytime soon. But one can hope a change in social equity and in culture might someday bring an end to a racist understanding of race. [About 10 percent of Americans now identity as mixed-race](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html). I suspect that, if everyone got their DNA tested, that number would be several times higher. [Over 40 percent of American adults have switched religious identities at least once in their lives](https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-2-religious-switching-and-intermarriage/). The quests for pure doctrine and exacting boundaries around religious communities are doomed to fail. Oh, some religious communities construct mythic stories either of a pure origin or the possibility of a pure future. But, in reality, religions over time have influenced each other, have borrowed and adapted from each other, often for the better. There would have been no Reformation in Christianity or Renaissance in Europe without all the contributions of Islamic scholars who kept Greek learning alive during the West’s Middle Ages. There is no Christianity without Judaism. One could not comprehend Buddhism without Hinduism. Sexualities have always been multiple and genders fluid. But enough social space has been made, at least for the time being, to express them. Party politics in the U.S. has always been identity politics. For most of our history, at the state and federal levels, white, male, and wealthy were the three identities that mattered most. That fact is demonstrated amply by whose portraits line the walls of capitols. Today’s identity politics are much more complicated. This is not only because other categories of persons are organized and using their power. It is also because identities are swirling, not quite at a kaleidoscopic complexity but getting there. There is nothing “natural” or “inevitable” about the identity polarization in the nation today. The mega-identities of Red and Blue are fictions. Unnecessary fictions. Dangerous fictions. Unsustainable fictions. I wish there were the equivalent of DNA tests for religious, philosophical, moral, gender, sexual, class, and political identities. We would surely be surprised by the complexity, the ambiguities, and the multiplicity that each of us is and each of our identity groups are. The results of such tests might lead us to be more humble, more curious, more generous, and feeling more connected to those we thought were not like us—but, in reality, are. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Grace for Clergy](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/grace-for-clergy/) **Published:** October 5, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/methodist-missionary-image.jpg)Clergy health and well-being have been career-long interests for me. About 25 years ago, I explored the question as to why so many early Methodist circuit riders died or dropped out of ministry prior to their thirtieth year. I read more than 20 journals of 19th century Methodist itinerant preachers who lived long enough to write about their ministry. Many of those men wrote journals to supplement their sub-poverty income after ending their active ministry, often with broken health. There were two factors the journalists often mentioned regarding what drove them. One factor was that they were soldiers in God’s army battling against the devil; the devil never sleeps and neither could they. The other factor was this: while they preached a gospel of grace, they did not see that grace applied to them, too. They feared that, if they dropped out of ministry shy of using every once of their strength in that ministry, the gates of heaven would be closed to them. During October when some traditions honor the work of ministry, and if you are a congregant or a friend of a member of the clergy, would you please extend a bit of grace to them? These last few years has been tough on so many professions, none more than on anyone whose job is to care for someone else or to keep us all supplied with the necessities of life. The pandemic affects all of us. But that pandemic hit as social tensions rose to an unsustainable level; and the way the pandemic has been addressed by everyone from government officials to furious parents de-masking teachers is evidence the tensions have not diminished. Teachers, school boards, service providers, and hospital staffs continue to be painfully stretched. So, I’m not claiming any special pain for clergy in these distressing times. This blog is simply a plea to consider what these times have meant for them. And give them some grace. Religion in the Western world was already in the midst of what the late Phyllis Tickle wrote was an every 500 year upheaval. The interior meanings and the exterior forms of religion are fundamentally changing. Profound changes (e.g., technology in worship, the meaning of doctrine) were already evident. America has been de-congregating since the early 1960s. The kind of churches for which I was prepared to minister in 1981 when I graduated seminary are now but shadows. The rules of advancement in the profession are gone; I don’t think there is anything today that resembles a career path in ministry. This fact is a tremendous burden on young clergy with thousands in educational debt. In the 1950s, denominational officials needed plant managers. In the 1980s, family systems thinkers and innovators. Today, new clergy should be the equivalent of survivalists who know how to re-purpose, imagine, and persist. The pandemic is surely accelerating change. All the articles I’m reading assert that work spaces will never be the same again. How about worship spaces? What has technology enabled for which we should rejoice? And what has technology made possible that might tear even more holes in the social fabric, including the fabric of our beloved communities? As I wrote above, social tensions were at an unsustainable level before the pandemic hit. In terms of the social energy in American politics and public life, nothing has really changed since January 2021. Congress is not more civil or productive. Fear of one’s constructed “other” has not lessened. The 2022 mid-term elections will continue the battle for America’s soul and story, as well as whether or not democratic dreams of freedom and equality are in our rear view mirror or ahead of us. Plus, the nation has passed more than 700 thousand dead from the pandemic. Many times that number are grieving the death of their loved one or the long-term mental, spiritual, and physical consequences of their own bout with the disease. The pastoral care burden of all of this is enormous. Many congregations are not solidly Red or Blue but Purple or, rather, a salad bowl of Red and Blue. Purple sounds like there is a middle ground; God help those who try to fashion a middle ground! Some clergy have been assailed by parishioners for following CDC guidelines because vaccines and masking, or not, have risen to the level of political identity. While every major Christian denomination has official statements on the sin of racism, some white persons feel judged when the subject is openly discussed in sermons and educational offerings. One might say this is evidence of “white fragility.” Granted. But for the clergy, such people are a pastoral care challenge and obligation, the kind that weigh heavily on their shoulders. For clergy who serve congregations always under the siege of racism, their stress is unrelenting. Some clergy are well-differentiated, emotionally very mature persons who are able to choose their responses rather than react when triggered and tensions build. But others of us functioned in our families and function in our congregations like toxic sponges. The toxins have been too much to handle. For clergy, the combination of extreme social tensions and the challenges of the pandemic reveal conflict over the very nature and purpose of religious communities, as well as what those communities contribute to or withdraw from the social fabric. In addition, the widespread evidence that, no, we do not act like “we are all in this together” and that “love your neighbor” is, in American practice, a moot moral injunction for an alarming percentage of our neighbors, calls into question the influence all of our religious congregations have on social behavior. In theological terms, grace is a healing expression of God’s love. When you have a chance, please extend grace to the clergy. And clergy, please accept grace for yourselves. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Christianity Without Jesus in America](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/without-jesus-in-america/) **Published:** September 28, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** A recent [opinion piece in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/revenge-forgiveness-terrorism-biden.html?referringSource=articleShare) highlighted a statement President Biden made after 13 American soldiers, and three-score Afghans, were killed in Kabul. “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” Esau McCaully questioned the morality and theology of that statement, especially the part about forgiveness. (I wonder if the President extends the same principle to the families whose members were killed in the retaliatory drone strike that killed civilians.) A refusal to forgive. I’m not at all sure what forgiveness would mean in this circumstance, or how a president could offer such on the behalf of shocked and grieving families. McCaully’s thoughts set me to wondering about the way nations, our nation in particular, use religion and religious teachings for their own purposes. The U.S. is not and never was a Christian nation. A nation with millions of self-identified Christians, yes, but a nation following Christian principles, no. Specifically, we are not a nation that follows the core teachings of Jesus. Not that any nation does… [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/dashboard-jesus-dancing-bobble-head-carlton-public-space-fun-play-recreation-vacation-vehicle-toy-child-1435173-scaled.jpg)]() In the civil religion—the religion often invoked or conjured to interpret the origin, purpose, and destiny of the nation—we do indeed draw words, metaphors, and symbols from the Bible. We have historically imagined ourselves exceptional and chosen. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. We see political and social conflicts as a clash between the children of light and the children of darkness. We’ve thought conquest will make better the people and land we conquer. One of our favorite teachings appears to be an eye for an eye; our civil religion is an expression of “do unto others as they have done onto you.” When considering the life of the nation, it seems we prefer the Exodus-Conquest narrative and the sharply divided, good vs evil world, and the avenging Jesus, of Revelation to the Jesus of the gospels. Can you image the U.S., or any nation, that shapes policy according to: - The Lord’s Prayer. In this prayer, Jesus proclaims the superiority of God’s ways to Roman ways and petitions for God’s ways to supplant the empire. He prays for bread for everyone, for the forgiveness of debts (monetary debts), and to be shielded from the temptation to violence. America sounds more like the empire to be replaced than like the realm-to-come. - The Beatitudes. Our nation has repeatedly acted on our belief in redemptive violence. Rambo is much closer to an American saint than, say, Francis of Assisi. In America, the poor, those who mourn, the merciful, the pure in heart are among the “left behind” and, sometimes, seen simply as losers. And our national religion teaches us to hate losers. - In Luke’s gospel, chapter 4, Jesus quotes from Isaiah to define his ministry: preaching good news to the poor, restoration of sight to the blind, release to the captives. Jubilee was that teaching, practiced or not in ancient Israel, of land reverting to its original tribes every 50 years. Debts were forgiven. Social inequalities were rectified. In America, the arguable right of all rights is the right to private property. I am not disputing that right, but Jesus apparently did. - One of Jesus’ most radical teachings is that your family is bigger than you think. Time and again, Jesus told his listeners that the circle of care they extended to family was too narrow, that their sense of neighborhood was too parochial. Remember the public service-type spots made often at the outset of the pandemic: “we are all in this together?” True, absolutely true. But, this is not how we’ve behaved for the last 17 months. Apparently, America is quite selective regarding which biblical stories and teachings we choose to embrace, and which we silently reject. I would include Jesus’ teachings in what we, as a nation, reject. As with religion, so with a nation: judge by what we do rather than by what we say. Nations act according to their interests and their real values are evident in their behavior. I don’t expect America to be a Christian nation, under any administration. A claim that we are such or that we embody Christian values hides more than it reveals and hinders us from seeing ourselves as we are. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public: "Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom"](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/) **Published:** September 16, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** On this special edition of Committing Faith in Public, Gary Peluso-Verdend walks and talks with [Woody Guthrie Center](https://woodyguthriecenter.org/) executive director Deana McCloud through the exhibit, [“Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom.”](https://woodyguthriecenter.org/visit/exhibits/songs-of-conscience-sounds-of-freedom/) This traveling exhibit debuted in Tulsa and is at the WGC through October 11. Listen as Gary interviews Deana regarding select items from the collection that sweeps from the Revolutionary War to the murder of George Floyd and the commemoration of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Their tour ranges from Frank Sinatra to Mickey Guyton, from liberation jazz to John Lennon, from Bob Dylan to Shemekiah Copeland. The podcast includes song clips from various artists. Phillips’ senior director of communications Kurt Gwartney accompanied Deana and Gary (he took the photos). Enjoy and learn! CLICK on a photo to view a larger image. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GPV-Guthrie-Center-Interview-9-300x213.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/gpv-guthrie-center-interview-9/) “Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom” is on exhibit through Oct. 11 at the Woody Guthrie Center. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GPV-Guthrie-Center-Interview-4-300x200.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/gpv-guthrie-center-interview-4/) From Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” song about lynching to Frank Sinatra’s short file on religious tolerance, “The House I Live In,” the exhibit presents the history of music in movements of conscience and freedom. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GPV-Guthrie-Center-Interview-6-300x200.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/gpv-guthrie-center-interview-6/) A series of handwritten lyrics, including “The Ballad of George Floyd.” [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GPV-Guthrie-Center-Interview-8-300x231.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/gpv-guthrie-center-interview-8/) This mural commemorates the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GPV-Guthrie-Center-Interview-5-300x200.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/gpv-guthrie-center-interview-5/) The tradition of songs of conscience and freedom continues today with new artists, including those who took part in the “Fire in Little Africa” weekend event. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GPV-Guthrie-Center-Interview-1-300x200.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/gpv-guthrie-center-interview-1/) This is Mickey Guyton’s gown. She was the first Black woman to be nominated for a Grammy in the Best Country Solo Performance category. [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GPV-Guthrie-Center-Interview-2-300x200.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/songs-of-freedom/gpv-guthrie-center-interview-2/) Deana McCloud and Gary Peluso-Verdend talk about the way music has fueled movements of conscience and freedom while touring the exhibit. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [The Problem of Valuing Freedom More than Love](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/freedom-more-than-love/) **Published:** September 14, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Love, not freedom, is the highest Christian virtue. We are set free in order to love. We are not supposed to be chiefly in love with freedom. Love is expressed in the twin commandments to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. (Over time, I’ve joined with those theologians who claim that these commandments include loving our common home, the earth, and other living creatures.) A Unitarian pastor once told me the congregations he’s known included many persons who pushed off from another tradition, but they had not all embraced something else. They felt oppressed by their former religious home and left. But leaving can become a way of being. For the U.S., the colonies confederated sufficiently (with A LOT of foreign aid) in pushing off from England. What is it we embraced since then, besides when we were attacked, felt threatened, or coveted more land, oil, or commercial opportunities? “Freedom,” we Americans and millions of American Christians cry with “Braveheart’s” William Wallace. But once we gained our freedom, what have we embraced? Freedom as a rallying cry is a seriously dysfunctional or even ironic call in terms of forming a congregation, community, or society. There are deeply embedded, highly conflicting cultural patterns evident in unblendable stories and values within the American experience. These forces generated by cultural patterns function like pressing powerful magnets together: they will never touch, and the pressure in the spaces closest to each other could crush anything in its way (as anyone who tries to create tables for deliberation in those spaces knows and feels). Freedom as the highest virtue can lead to disintegration. ![A folk song called, ](https://www.bethsnotesplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Love-Love.png)Love in human relationships is an expression of mutual regard, of caring for the life of the other with at least as much care as one has for oneself. We love because God is love and we are made in God’s image. All of us. And yes, some persons, cultural expressions, and social systems are so seriously twisted and deformed by loving the wrong objects that the image of God is very, very hard for the even most loving person to see. Yes, love needs freedom. Without freedom, love could become a tool for oppression. Loving freedom and making it the highest virtue deforms and obscures the image of God in us. Loving freedom as the highest virtue, especially freedom that is not yoked to neighbor-love or true self-love, creates all manner of pain in human life and on the planet. Freedom to drink excessively. Freedom to drill anywhere. Freedom to take what I want. Freedom to invade. Freedom to pay what I want for labor. Freedom to say anything to anyone. Freedom to carry a gun—ANY kind of gun—everywhere. Freedom to drive without seat belts and to ignore speed limits, stop signs, and turn signals. Freedom to throw my garbage out the window of my car (use that as a metaphor for where human beings have deposited our trash from the height of great mountains to the deepest parts of the ocean). Freedom to buy and sell without regard to social consequences. Freedom to handle a pandemic the way I want to, regardless of how my decision affects anyone and anything else. “We are free” is one claim. “We are free to love” is quite another. No, freedom and love are not incompatible virtues, but there is a hierarchy. If freedom is the highest virtue, a community-understanding of human life is untenable, which means human life becomes untenable since—Christian teaching, again—God’s creation is one big relationship. If love is the highest virtue, then relationships have their proper basis and freedom its fitting constraint. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Post 9-11 Lessons from my Humbling Garden](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/post-9-11-humbling-garden/) **Published:** September 6, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/980FB9A9-B806-43EA-BCAD-5674B390EF5E-e1630942919412.jpeg)We bought our current house seven years ago. We were attracted by the idea of working nearly 2/3 of an acre of yard into gardens of edible delights—for us humans. We started with a Bermuda grass front lawn, a mixed grass backyard, dozens of once-tended plantings that fell on hard times when the previous owner became infirm, the residual damage of an old gas leak in the front yard that did something nasty to the soil in that area, and over 50 trees casting too much shade and hosting lots and lots of critters, and the critters on which the critters feed. *Attempts to transform this space from a lawn grass-weedy-oak tree ecology to one where we could grow abundant food for ourselves have been humbling, and sometimes plainly humiliating.* There is *so much I did not know* about gardening, especially gardening in a larger area than I’d worked previously. *I thought I knew enough*. I did not. For example, just getting the mix of sun and shade right, especially with summer temperatures at a sunburn-level for so much of the summer. Or testing and amending the soil properly, based on what I was trying to grow, rather than simply amending with mushroom compost or our own blend. And pests. Dear Lord, the pests! I know everything needs to eat, but my early, young, tender, lovely plants must smell absolutely delightful and look delectable to all manner of vine borers, ants, aphids, caterpillars, night-eaters, and egg-laying flyovers. *Nearly every growing thing has been eaten by something else.* Thieves! I fenced the bunnies out of lettuce and carrot beds. But the squirrels! They who make their homes in the many oaks, gorging themselves on thousands of acorns (oh that the squirrels were heritage pork feeding on those acorns!), they are thieves and scoundrels. I got my tomatoes in late and fruits were just filling out when the heat stunted their growth and the squirrels stole them as snacks. Evil squirrels. Where is the predator to take them out? That family of hawks should turn its attention from songbirds to squirrels. There are not only pests and thieves to annoy. *There are actual dangerous things*. First poison ivy I’ve ever had in a yard (now, if the city would just allow us to have small goats we’d have fewer weeds and pests and no poison ivy). I’ve killed numerous brown recluse spiders living in our lumber supplies, plus a few in dark places in the house. The black widows send a shiver through me every time I see one, most recently a huge one dangling from a weed barrier a few days ago in an area I’m preparing to cultivate. (shivering sound) *But a problem about pests, thieves, and dangers is that I don’t always know which is which*. Assassin bugs. The name sounds awful but they prey on other pests! Just don’t get stung by one. Wasps? Depends. There were wasps that emerged to kill off the cicadas. There are mud wasps, building their homes just outside our 60-year-old window frames, like the one that stung me in my bed (40 years ago; I still have the scar from the sting on my back). And there are wasps that lay their eggs on the backs of a kind of caterpillar that strips tomato plants; when the larvae emerge, they eat the tomato plant eater. And that spider I saw the other night, huge, brown, dangling itself on its thread from the roof and hovering about the tomato plants, is it anything to fear? I don’t know. In the garden, *I still cannot be sure what is friend and what is foe, what to cheer and what to fear*. For the all years we’ve lived here, we’ve battled bamboo. The original owner planted a small bamboo grove that took over a third of the yard. It attracted its own ecology of tics and nasties. We cut down the grove (filled a full flatbed truck), paid to have the rhizomes dug out to the depth of 18 inches, buried metal barriers in the ground to prevent re-infection from surrounding yards. And yet, *I’m pulling up rhizomes when I find them and constantly mowing down new shoots.* During the spring, those shoots can grow 5 feet in a week. I could spread poison on the bamboo but then I fear we’d be eating poison in our food. If I left the bamboo untended for a year, we’d be right back where we started. *It has become native to this land.* Finally, I’m getting older. I tire more easily than I once did, especially in the heat. X-rays show arthritis in my shoulders and knees. *I don’t know if I have the energy, the money, the time, or the will to complete what we started.* *In sum: we ventured into a project far larger than we possibly knew. We did not have sufficient theoretical knowledge and know-how to get the job done; knowledge and know-how was out there, but we did not ask and act to the extent required.* *We have tried to transform the property to use the land for our purposes but the native elements keep bouncing back. We’ve tried to eliminate dangers and nuisances, but we are still learning who is friend and who is foe. We surely have killed some of each and, therefore, have given power to the wrong critters.* *There are deeply rooted trees and weeds and rhizome grasses that might be removable over a very long time with even greater effort but which would likely require so much effort or so much poison poured into the soil that the cost-benefit becomes a barrier to proceeding. Using poison may be a danger to all living things. And I am currently low on time, energy, money, and will.* If all this is so with a small piece of land, how much the more so for a nation whose leaders thought it could do nation building in a completely foreign nation, to make the other safe and useful for its own purposes, a nation that has persevered in outlasting transformers and invaders for centuries? A humbling, even a humiliating experience, is an opportunity to learn, change, mature, grow. Become better grounded. For individuals, for communities, for nations. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Elimination Diet for the Bible in Public Life](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/elimination-diet-bible/) **Published:** August 31, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Can the Bible be used to interpret American public life at all without abusing scripture? Sure, I know that is a loaded question, with the two words “without abusing” the most loaded. Over the past four years, I’ve written numerous blog posts critical of how supporters of the former administration misused the Bible to advance Christian nationalist claims. The president was hailed as Cyrus the Persian, the non-believing king who liberated real Christians from their captivity under the Obama administration. The president’s relationships with women were framed as if the president was King David, through whom God did great things, the king’s adultery and murder-order notwithstanding. Christian nationalist presidential advisers constantly defended the president and attacked political opponents as if the former were a savior and the latter were Satan’s minions. Oh, and holding up the Bible for that law-and-order nightmare moment outside a protest-supporting church. No words necessary. Chilling. Then we have our current president, who is the most deeply religious president since Jimmy Carter. He is a practicing Catholic, steeped both in Irish-American Catholic culture and in social justice Catholicism, especially for laborers. President Biden represents the political agenda [George Packer calls](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/) giving everyone “a fair shake.” When the president spoke to the nation after the bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 Americans (as well as about 170 others), [he said this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHO90WMg3AQ): > Those who have served through the ages and have drawn inspiration from the Book of Isaiah, when the Lord says: “Whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?” The American military has been answering for a long time. “Here I am, Lord. Send me. Here I am, send me.” Each one of these women and men of our armed forces are the heirs of that tradition of sacrifice, of volunteering to go into harm’s way to risk everything, not for glory, not for profit, but to defend what we love and the people we love. > > And I ask that you join me now in a moment of silence for all those in uniform and out of uniform, military and civilian, of giving the last full measure of devotion. Of course, I would expect and I want the president to recognize the loss of life, to honor those who put themselves in harm’s way. (And have you read the stories of those young people? Heartbreaking, every single one. And I’m sure the stories for each of the scores of Afghans killed are heartbreaking, also.) What I did not expect was to hear the president invoke, on the behalf of a military mission, the story of God calling a prophet 2,700 plus years ago to speak to a sinful, unhearing people that they would soon experience destruction. The president referenced this Isaiah passage because of the call-volunteer-sending pattern, which he saw as analogous to a soldier in a volunteer army being deployed. I can understand the president reaching into a book meaningful to him to frame a difficult moment. But in doing so as the president, he also added to the practice of using scripture to give warrant for whatever elected leaders want to do. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/banned-bible.png)The Bible has been used over time by elected leaders in the U.S. to justify slavery and white supremacy, to take land from the native nations and to attempt genocide, to open the earth for as much fossil fuel as we can extract, to preserve patriarchal hierarchies, to hate Jews and Muslims, to fight wars, to find the nation always righteous and innocent, and to execute wrongdoers. I understand why some observers want to banish religion from public life. However, then there are the traditions of Christian support for the abolition of slavery, for universal human dignity triumphing over colorism, for women’s rights, for children and for public education, for the protection of immigrants and laborers, for the sovereignty of indigenous nations, for voting rights, for civil rights, for Black Lives Matter, for LGBTQ+ persons, for waging peace as strategically and fiercely as a nation fights a war. And advocates of all of these stances also appeal to the Bible for warrants. For supporters of the immediate past administration, the biblical interpretations behind most of the above actions are abuses of scripture. For persons, myself included, who advocate for the actions listed above, the Christian supporters of the prior administration who see the devil in BLM and mask mandates and who see the hand of God ordaining this nation and specific leaders are the ones abusing the Bible. Here’s a dilemma: I don’t want to banish religion from public life, and I hate the way the Bible is misused in public life. You may feel the same way about how the Bible is used and misused in church! But if public life is a place the Bible will be used, it will be misused, too. Here is a thought experiment, albeit a scenario that will never happen: what if every elected leader in the nation took a one year fast from referring to the Bible in public life. Where would they go, to what would they refer, for inspiration and reasons for choosing particular actions? Sometimes practicing an elimination diet is the best way to discover what is nutritious and what causes inflammation. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Public Religion in the News Digest, January 10, 2020](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-in-the-news-digest-january-10-2020/) **Published:** January 10, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/public-religion-in-the-news-fb-post/)[Religion New Service](https://religionnews.com/2020/01/02/the-decades-biggest-religion-news-stories/) lists the top 10 religious news stories of the past decade: > From the article: Benedict XVI resignation; Islamophobia; clergy sex abuse; #ChurchToo; the “nones”; mass shootings at houses of worship; gay ordination/gay marriage; evangelicals and power; anti-Semitic attacks; religious freedom (trumping all other rights). [Washington Post interviews Sojourners’ Jim Wallis](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/03/are-there-cracks-trumps-evangelical-firewall-jim-wallis-hopes-so/) regarding the *Christianity Today* editorial and what it represents: > From the article: The evangelical right, those leaders — the Franklin Grahams, the Jerry Falwell Juniors, the Ralph Reeds — have made a transactional bargain, a Faustian bargain with this administration. … Mark Galli \[the outgoing editor of Christianity Today\] said, ‘I can’t accept this anymore.’ He can’t take the ‘gross immorality’ anymore in exchange for getting the policies that he wants. It gives evangelicals with similar concerns permission and cover to do the same. > > We don’t have to win back a majority of white evangelicals. We just have to make a difference among white evangelicals in five or six states, and I think we can do that. There’s a crack in the white evangelical wall of support and that crack is growing bigger every day. [University of Chicago Div School’s Cynthia Lindner discusses why religion needs to disturb as well as comfort.](https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/disruptive-religion) > From the article: There is something destabilizing, it seems, in these material reminders of a savior’s stable birth. This intimate collision of human and holy, occurring in spaces open to the public gaze, represents a fundamental disruption of the categories, venues, and identities by which human societies demarcate and distribute power, worth, and value. Religious claims of conscience—especially those that disturb the safety or predictability of the status quo—have always made societies anxious. In our own context, there has been litigation opposing manger scenes and menorahs in our public squares and domes atop our suburban mosques, silencing the steeple bells and voices of muezzins that would remind us of any obligation beyond those of nation or economy. While these and other measures to control religious expression and practice may seem to be simply the reasonable accommodations of an increasingly pluralistic culture, the concurrent caging of our contemporary moral imagination has sapped our ethical will and crippled our civil discourse, and with devastating consequences for our life together as a society and for the future of the political and naturals ecosystems on which we depend. [One of the values that Pete Buttigieg brings to public debates is talking about his faith, in public, and in different terms from the claims of the Christian Right.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/26/backlash-pete-buttigiegs-christmas-tweet-religious-divide-it-exposes/) But, when he does, he is soundly criticized in ways that reveal the biblical interpretation that stands behind some evangelicals’ public stances. > From the article: Liberal Christians like Buttigieg argue that Trump supporters would reject Jesus, who according to [some](https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/12/27/were-jesus-mary-and-joseph-refugees-yes) [interpretations](https://twitter.com/dukekwondc/status/1210215283262197760?s=20) of [scripture](https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/21/opinions/parini-jesus-refugees-christmas/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_content=2019-12-26T05%3A32%3A04&utm_source=twCNN) fled Bethlehem for Egypt as a toddler to escape death, from seeking refuge in the United States. But many conservative Christians reject the belief that Jesus was a refugee since both his birthplace and Egypt were a part of the Roman Empire. This difference in understanding appears to shape how different Christians view refugees. Only 25 percent of white evangelicals — a group that overwhelmingly backs Republican politicians — believe that America has a responsibility to welcome refugees, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey. More than 60 percent of black protestant Christians — a group that overwhelmingly supports Democratic politicians — believe that the United States has a responsibility to admit refugees. [Emma Green interviews the National Association of Evangelicals Leith Anderson](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/12/leith-anderson-silence-moderate-evangelicals/604120/). In the interview, she demonstrates again that evangelicalism is not one piece. > **From the article: Green:** The NAE is part of [the Evangelical Immigration Table](http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/about/). That organization has, in the past few years, [published letters](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/why-religious-conservatives-are-calling-out-trump-on-family-separation-at-the-border/563060/) that have openly criticized policies of the Trump administration, particularly around child detention at the border and family separation. > > I’ve wondered if it feels lonely for you to be putting out letters that seem to contradict the views of a large segment of American Christians—the strong majority of white evangelicals [who support](https://www.prri.org/research/fractured-nation-widening-partisan-polarization-and-key-issues-in-2020-presidential-elections/) more restrictive immigration laws, for example. Do you feel out of step with the zeitgeist of evangelicalism on immigration specifically? > > **Anderson:** No. It’s back to the 2,000 verses that talk about the orphan and the widow and the lonely. I would say I’m identifying with the historic theme of biblical faith. [What kind of commitment does it take to provide sanctuary to an undocumented family?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/when-a-sanctuary-becomes-a-home-undocumented-woman-marks-1-year-inside-church/2019/12/24/3d5e5152-2280-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html) A hallmark of “compassionate conservatism” is that religious communities and institutions should deliver welfare services, not the government. Read this article with that claim in mind. See what it takes for 1 congregation—a large congregation—to care for 1 family with a prolonged need. > From the article: Meanwhile, the church’s 1,000 or so members have learned to practice what the Rev. Abhi Janamanchi, the senior minister, calls “the fragile art of hospitality.” More than 200 volunteers, from Cedar Lane and 26 other D.C.-area congregations, help facilitate the day-to-day lives and logistics of Gutierrez Lopez and her family. [New name for a Christian Right advocacy organization operating in a state near you.](https://www.politicalresearch.org/2019/11/07/project-blitz-any-other-name?fbclid=IwAR0LElnf9fNhsCco7LSTKx9bDEqdELA7n5CyloWS7xULu-JRJMGsynBQYEo) > From the article: “They started talking about Project Blitz,” Carawan laughed as she tried to show how CPCF had buffaloed the opposition. “And as soon as we understood that they knew they were onto us, we changed the name; shifted things around a little bit; now they’re talking about something that nobody else is really even talking about, we’ve renamed and moved on.” > > Carawan said they now call Project Blitz, “Freedom for All” –– although that name does not appear on the CPCF web site. This rebranding, which seems to be more of a *debranding*, may have been wise in the wake of the disastrous public response to Project Blitz. But the move was neither as nimble or as swift as Carawan claims. [The President, God, and “anointed one” are connected on the Christian Right. Now Baby Boomers have joined the connection.](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jeremiah-johnson-god-raised-up-trump-to-issue-an-emancipation-proclamation-to-end-abortion/?fbclid=IwAR3Fh5z_m6LDiOlvxaTELBOAYp2nwkvOAan6pSELKk8uLAViVUPDQPWN6U0) > From the article: “I believe that God revealed to me that he raised up Abraham Lincoln in a unique time in history,” Johnson said. “What God used him to do was to issue an Emancipation Proclamation concerning the slaves. I believe that God has raised up Donald Trump to issue an Emancipation Proclamation concerning the millions of babies that have been aborted.” > > Johnson claimed that God also told him that “the future of America is in the hands of the baby boomers” because “this demographic of people has been anointed by the Lord” to assist Trump in this effort. [Partisan Prayer](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-movement-2020-prayer-warriors-mobilize-for-2020-tent-events-to-bring-gods-government-to-earth/). > From the article: Groups mobilizing for mass public prayer and worship, like participants in Movement 2020, exist alongside other prayer projects like [Intercessors for America](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/intercessors-for-america/), [POTUS Shield](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/potus-shield/), and Paula White’s [One Voice Prayer Movement,](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/one-voice-prayer-movement/) which distribute conservative talking points in the form of prayer suggestions and “prayer points.” In the Summer 2014 issue of The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, scholar Cynthia Burack, who has examined the uses of prayer projects by the Christian right, noted that the use of “devotional rhetoric” and softer political messaging can make prayer projects less immediately identifiable as vehicles for the advancement of conservative political strategies than the efforts of traditional religious-right political groups like the Family Research Council. [The weaponization of religion. I expect we’ll see a lot more of this.](https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-former-christian-policy-adviser-says-presidents-supporters-are-spiritual-weapon-god-1480920?fbclid=IwAR31rmmMT8jr34oAWE6Xq-q4661ou_5ABEICj0RPWsnKrs3uKFiN6DPTs6I) > From the article: Amedia went on to take aim at the president’s opponents. “God may allow them to have some life for a short while so that then he can bring his disaster on those forces that are against the call of God,” he said. Discussing the escalating situation with Iran and Trump’s [controversial decision](https://www.newsweek.com/republican-senator-slams-trumps-iran-policy-says-attacks-americans-much-more-likely-after-1480879) last week to order a military strike that killed military commander Qassem Soleimani, Amedia said this was in line with what God wanted. “God is a man of war,” he maintained. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [Let’s Display “In God We Trust” in Every Classroom, and…](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/lets-display-in-god-we-trust-in-every-classroom-and/) **Published:** March 3, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![Symbols commonly associated with six of the religions labelled "world religions": clockwise from the top, these represent Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Christianity](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/interfaith-800px-Religious_syms_bw.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/lets-display-in-god-we-trust-in-every-classroom-and/interfaith-800px-religious_syms_bw/)I’m thrilled that the Oklahoma Legislature remains so interested in supporting religion in the state. In recent years, bills have been submitted (not all passed or will pass) to put “In God We Trust” everywhere except washrooms (slight exaggeration), proclaiming the Year of the Bible, and to display the Ten Commandments held by an angry-looking statue of Charleton Heston (OK, not really). In addition, legislators have debated rules regarding who opens the legislature with prayer, whether limited to clergy in congregations of which they are members or not, and if they should walk out if the clergyperson mentions Jesus and a society’s obligation to the poor (which they did to the Rev. Lori Walke). And then there are those legislators who don’t think churches are doing their jobs unless they are doing all the social welfare work a society needs. Great! So glad religion means so much to them. But if the legislature would like to show its full support for religion in Oklahoma and the people who practice religion, then I’d like to propose the following measures. Let’s open each school day and every football game with prayer. There are classic prayers from the world’s religions and from indigenous peoples’ ways of life. In addition, there is deep wisdom available in non-religious philosophical traditions. Schools can make space for such prayers. Whether or not the space is used, and making choices regarding what might fill that space, is up to students. A Year of the Bible is a fine proclamation—as long as other years include similar proclamations to study the Quran, Tanakh, the Vedas, the Analects, the Tao Te Ching, and the like. What a rich education in the humanities would be developed through exploring the content and function of multiple religions. Can’t you see national news reporters’ stunned expressions in reporting that 2022 is the Year of the Quran in Oklahoma? There is nothing wrong with displaying the Ten Commandments, as long as other law-giving wisdom from other religions have space. There is a lovely [Native American version of Ten Commandments](https://www.indigenouspeople.net/tencomm.htm) (I could not find the origin of the text). The Beatitudes from Matthew’s gospel are different in tone and content from the Commandments. One might include Hindu dharmas and Buddhism’s Eightfold Path. And while we’re at it, maybe something from Islamic law that is not the stuff that Christian conservatives proffer as Islam (I will forever recall an NPR reporter asking me how prevalent sharia law was in Oklahoma, since a large majority of the population had recently voted to ban it). In public spaces, let’s encourage saying Merry Christmas to Christians, and Happy Hanukkah to Jewish neighbors, and Ramadan Mubarak to Muslims, and “wishing you a Diwali that brings happiness prosperity and joy to you and all your family” to Hindus. In every public square, let’s make spaces for ALL our neighbors to see themselves reflected in holiday displays—maybe including representations for the non-religious: question marks, exclamation points, a globe encircled by people, a circle of life. And while we’re at it, let’s show how religious we are not only in displays and proclamations or in the vow to protect the lives of the unborn. Let’s show how religious we are and vow to protect and nurture the lives of the *born* by fostering a richly compassionate society full of opportunity for all children that is supportive of their families (including adequate wages and ending mass incarceration). Create and fund robust systems of public education (pre-school through college and trade schools), accessible and affordable health care, and 21st century job-energy-transportation creation. I would LOVE to see our legislators’ religious and moral commitments invested in these ways! Invested in creating hospitable public spaces and a rich sense of “neighboring” for all our citizens and resident guests, and especially for raising children. And stop the Christian Right defensive (and sometimes outright offensive, as in “go on the offensive”) legislation, [seeded](https://www.blitzwatch.org/) by [Project Blitz aka Freedom for All](https://www.politicalresearch.org/2019/11/07/project-blitz-any-other-name?fbclid=IwAR0LElnf9fNhsCco7LSTKx9bDEqdELA7n5CyloWS7xULu-JRJMGsynBQYEo) and [Wallbuilders](https://wallbuilders.com/), that both discriminates against some Oklahomans and does nothing to improve the quality of life for ALL the people who live in Oklahoma. IMAGE CREDIT: [Zscout370](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Zscout370 "User:Zscout370") – [Star of David Symbol](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Star_of_David.svg "File:Star of David.svg") ; [Boris23](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Boris23 "User:Boris23") – [Christian Cross Symbol](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christian_cross.svg "File:Christian cross.svg") ; [Ttog](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ttog&action=edit&redlink=1 "User:Ttog (page does not exist)") – [Allah Script Symbol](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Allah.svg "File:Allah.svg") ;[Rursus](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rursus "User:Rursus") – [Hindu and Buddist Symbols](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Religious_syms.svg "File:Religious syms.svg") – Various religous symbols found on Wikipedia Commons. Symbols commonly associated with six of the religions labelled “world religions”: clockwise from the top, these represent Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Christianity. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Why E Pluribus Unum Is a Better Motto for Today than “In God We Trust”](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-e-pluribus-unum-is-a-better-motto-for-today-than-in-god-we-trust/) **Published:** October 30, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** On July 30, 1956, President Eisenhower signed the bill that made “In God We Trust” the national motto. This was the first official national motto and replaced the unofficial one, which goes back to the Franklin-Jefferson-Adams era, “E Pluribus Unum”: “Out of many, one.” I wish the nation would revert to “Out of many, one.” “In God We Trust” is an aspiration at best, a lie at worst, for any nation, especially one with history’s largest military, economy, and worldwide media influence. Then consider the the insane number of guns (estimated at 393 million) owned by U.S. citizens, including *unregulated* “militias,” and the protections afforded nearly any adult’s capacity to own a weapon of mass destruction. These facts beg the question of who or what functions as the nation’s ultimate concern. In my opinion, saying “In God We Trust” is making a false oath and taking God’s name in vain. Don’t number me among those who want to excise religion from public life. I’ve spent much of my career thinking about, teaching, preaching, and now writing about how people of faith do and should exercise their faith in public. But I don’t buy the “return to God” language invoked by Billy Graham in the 1950s and echoed by many others since then. From the late 1940s and up until 1989, godless Soviet socialism was the enemy against which “In God We Trust” was part of the national defense (and sometimes an offensive weapon). Today, the phrase is used in America’s internal moral conflict. Religious conservatives invoke the motto against those they cast as radical secularists. However, I’m not buying this invocation. I cannot see the connection between trust in God and support for retributive justice, inhumane immigration policies, and discriminatory legislation premised on an alleged priority for the right of religious liberty, understood conservatively, over every other right. This apparent contradiction between professed belief and action/policy leads me to call “In God We Trust” an aspiration or a lie. Our foremost challenge as a nation is not to trust God. I’m not sure any nation CAN, in practice, do that. Who is for using prayer as the nation’s only shield from those seeking to harm the U.S.? During the Civil War (April 1863), President Lincoln was pressured by Northern evangelicals to declare the Union to be a Christian republic, akin to the claim the Confederacy made about their nation. Lincoln allowed “In God We Trust” to be printed on coins. He also said, “The Almighty has his own purposes.” Does the U.S., does *any* nation, trust a God with his/her own purposes? “Out of many, one” is more aligned with the nation’s challenge to become the kind of nation we’ve aspired to be, when thinking and acting according to our best morally and spiritually-shaped selves. Our challenge is to form a more perfect union—of the most diverse collection of persons ever in human history seeking to be one democratic nation—for the sake of justice, defense, the common welfare, the blessings of liberty, and peace (you’ll recognize these public virtues from the preamble of the U.S. Constitution. Out of many, one. That is our aspiration, and that is our challenge. It has *always* been our challenge. But since the 1965 immigration law (which overturned a highly discriminatory immigration law from 1924), the turmoil fueled by U.S. policies that drives many Central Americans to the border, the broadening knowledge of previously suppressed ugly and shameful truths and stories, and the ways that markets and post-colonialism and technology and conflicts/wars/prejudices have moved people from their homes and around the world—real oneness may now be more elusive than ever. The U.S. has never truly been one nation. We were colonies with different origins, representing 11 nation-like founding cultures, each of which has lasting effects on geographical regions (see [Colin Woodward, *American Nations*](https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw6eTtBRDdARIsANZWjYYT2qOcKmb0RS0PMg-RCVfq_t22PlxRIWXU_Ev443k6VmY9QUyCEk8aAoNPEALw_wcB&hvadid=241588516936&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9026550&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=14837919613416300644&hvtargid=kwd-37390624067&hydadcr=15334_10336120&keywords=american+nations+by+colin+woodard&qid=1572446045&s=books&sr=1-1)). We are comprised of nearly as many skin tones, body types, and facial features as there are on the earth; and, historically, we’ve made racism and ethnocentrism out of these differences. We have more religious diversity, with higher percentages of religious practice, than any other developed nation. While there is a great deal of churn and signs of institutional decline in the American religious landscape, and some erstwhile church buildings are now home or restaurants or condos, religion in the U.S. is a long way from being mostly museum-vintage. We came here over the Bering Strait many millennia ago, in ships-planes-and-by-foot in recent centuries, and crammed into slave ships on the Middle Passage for over 200 years. Today, we are Red or Blue, with relatively little Purple. We distinguish ourselves from one another by race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, gender identity, religion (with **legions** of subdivisions, as well as a growing number of “don’t need it”), Trump enthusiast/traditional conservative/progressive/democratic socialist, big city/small town, insured/uninsured, poor/wealthy. I’m sure I’ve omitted a bunch of other salient divisions. Reflect on that list regarding how we distinguish ourselves from one another. Is there a category that includes more divisions than religion? I don’t think so. “In God We Trust”? We who are religious do not trust in the same God, even within our own houses. “We don’t trust your God, and sometimes I’m not sure about the One we claim” might be more realistic. We religious persons have plenty we could contribute today without doubling down on “In God We Trust.” We could cultivate a more perfect union in which diversities are accepted and celebrated. We also have much we could offer to the “unum.” We could contribute to a culture that more strongly values: - Common humanity. - Common human dignity. - Common mother earth. - Human beings created as persons for community, not as individuals to maximize their self-interest and net worth. - Golden Rule living. - Discovering, speaking, and holding ourselves accountable to truth - Restorative justice. - Accountability to a moral/ethical power greater than the state and its laws. - Meaningful penance and forgiveness in public life (and not one without the other). - Bridgebuilding to other communities. We could show, by word and example, how to value the Many *and* the One. We could. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Lessons from the Christianity Today Dust-Up](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/lessons-from-the-christianity-today-dust-up/) **Published:** January 8, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Excerpt:** The current danger, for religious people, is that we baptize political and partisan stances with “God’s” holy waters. However, those stances are not thereby cleansed; to the contrary, holy waters used for partisan purposes lose their sacramental power, and God becomes god or simply irrelevant. If individuals and community of faith cannot do, say, or imagine differently from the options represented by today’s political positions, then we are dangerous if taken seriously, for the sword of the spirit and the sword of the state are wielded again as one. **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Mark-Galli-286x300.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/lessons-from-the-christianity-today-dust-up/mark-galli/)Mark Galli As is the case with many observers of religious folks and political matters, I’m wondering how representative the recent [*Christianity Today* editorial](https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html) is of evangelical opinion. To summarize: the editor of *Christianity Today* (Mark Galli), a magazine founded by Billy Graham and others to counter the liberal *[Christian Century](https://www.christiancentury.org/)* and to provide a reasoned evangelical opinion-shaping publication, wrote that President Donald Trump is unfit for office and should be impeached and removed. Given survey data indicating near unanimous unbroken support for the president among white evangelicals, editor Mark Galli’s stance was truly remarkable. Condemnation from the president’s religious allies was swift and predictable. The president dismissed CT as a “far left” publication, an “allegation” that made me guffaw. Billy Graham’s son Franklin, who has earned a substantially less-respected public persona than his father enjoyed, said that CT was not worthy of his father’s reputation (to which I thought: “Ah, your dad was turned on the impeachment of Nixon by the tapes, tapes that proved both that he lied and used foul language; with today’s president, how much the more so…”) A member of the Christian Post (a conservative Christian news outlet) editorial staff took a similar position to Galli’s; he resigned when he learned the Post would attack CT and support the president (follow the story [here](https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/12/23/christianity-today-called-trumps-impeachment-why-it-could-cost-magazine/)). Two observations. One. Galli’s editorial expressed the kind of opinion I would have expected from evangelical leaders about this president and, indeed, *were* expressed by such leaders at least until the president became THE Republican candidate in 2016. Here is the core of Galli’s statement: > \[T\]his president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused…. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character. The president’s immoral behavior with women and in business is appalling. Using his office for personal gain, at the nation’s expense, is inexcusable. That opinion used to represent, or so I thought, mainstream evangelicalism. Other interpretations—that the president is like Cyrus the Persian, anointed by God to liberate *real* Christians from their captivity during the Obama administration, that he is Nehemiah who should build a wall, that he is King David who is immoral but useful to God, that he is specially chosen by God—requires a pretzel logic that was once associated with anti-intellectual theological fringes of conservative Christianity. If one does not live in such narratives, then what Galli said, from an evangelical viewpoint, is perfectly reasonable. But how widely is that opinion really shared? \[Note: thus far, subscription cancellations have been far outstripped by new subscribers to CT.\] As is the case with the Republican Party looking greatly different today than it did 40 years ago, so may what is now mainstream in white, middle-aged and older evangelicalism. Second. Galli is concerned that evangelical support for the president is eroding the credibility and power of evangelical Christianity. > To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern. We are hearing lots of “soul” talk these days about the American experiment in democracy and society, or at least I’m picking up a lot in my reading. One could argue that “the souls” of lots of institutions and ideas are at stake: the soul of the Democratic Party, the soul of the Republican Party, the soul of democracy, the soul of the nation, the soul of Christianity. Galli recognizes the soul moment for evangelical Christianity, and the real possibility of losing it. In theological terms, there is an ancient dyad of transcendence and immanence. A completely “other” God is unrelatable. A completely “here” God who is not also “other” may become simply a projection of whatever we want. (Note: I am grossly simplifying complex arguments and insights. And sociologists in the school of Emile Durkheim believed that the second option—group projection—*is* what religion is.) In this political, historical moment, I’d judge that the Christian Right, and sometimes religious progressives, are heavily tilted theologically toward collapsing God into the immanent pole—in one party. [Lilliana Mason](https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo27527354.html) demonstrates how political identity has swallowed up all other identifies, including religious identities. The current danger, for religious people, is that we baptize political and partisan stances with “God’s” holy waters. However, those stances are not thereby cleansed; to the contrary, holy waters used for partisan purposes lose their sacramental power, and God becomes god or simply irrelevant. If individuals and community of faith cannot do, say, or imagine differently from the options represented by today’s political positions, then we are dangerous if taken seriously, for the sword of the spirit and the sword of the state are wielded again as one. And, eventually a political house of cards collapses, and its court prophets and their religion(s) fall with it. Mr. Galli was speaking to evangelicals, but his point about credibility is apt across the theological spectrum. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Why religion and politics are inseparable](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-religion-and-politics-are-inseparable-feed/) **Published:** November 11, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** \[In the following essay, by “politics” I mean the value propositions that feed public policy, rather than electoral politics or public policy per se. I mean the “stuff” that in-forms public policy and how we vote.\] Religion and politics—a pairing related to but different from church and state—are inseparable. While sometimes they taste sour together, like vinegar-tainted water, they are really more like two kinds of vinegars swirled together. The mixture may or may not be a tasty combination, depending on one’s palate. Using another metaphor: religion and politics travel the same neural pathways in society. Those pathways create a neural mesh expressed in story, boundaries of belonging, the permissions and prohibitions of moral order, and how we define obstacles and the means to overcome obstructions. Story, belonging, moral order, and obstacles/empowerment are building tools. Each combination of these four tools, whether religious or political, constructs a meaning-laden worldview and set of rules in which and by which a nation lives. It is important to pay attention to how these tools work together—or compete. Let me illustrate. *Story*. Story is fundamental to religion and to politics. The stories offer a dramatic depiction of where a people came from and from whom they come, where and who they are now, and where they are or ought to be headed. Examples (note: I’m going to use examples from Christianity both because I know that religion best and because Christianity has dominated public discourse about these four tools of social construction): - In religion: Christianity’s Apostle’s Creed tells a story (e.g, God created, Jesus Christ was conceived via the Holy Spirit, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate). Scholars who highlight the contrast between the “politics of Jesus,” as evident in the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer, with the Roman Empire’s social hierarchy tell another. - In politics: One story frame for the U.S. is that the nation is exceptional and chosen. Another story frame is that the nation grew from a soil “fed” by dreams of liberty and happiness (social virtue) but deformed by the toxin of white supremacy. - Interplay between religion and politics: Christianity has both provided elements of the chosen people story and, especially through the Black Church, has been a prophetic critic of the chosen, exceptional people narrative. To paraphrase Langston Hughes: America must become America, but America has not yet been. *Belonging*. Who belongs? How does belonging happen? Who is included or excluded, by whom, and why? Every social group, every religion, every nation lives their answers to these questions. Examples: - In religion: Some communions/denominations practice a “closed table” for the sacrament of communion, meaning that only the “family” (e.g., those in communion with the Catholic Church, those who are members of a particular Missouri Synod Lutheran congregation) are allowed to partake. Others practice an open table. In addition, many congregations are torn regarding if and how LGBTQIA persons belong. - In politics: one of the chief manifestations of polarization in the U.S. today is illustrated by how different partisans answer the question of who belongs in the U.S. Immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees are contested groups. In some circles, shouts of “get out, Socialist” and “go back to the \[lousy\] places you came from” greet those citizens who disagree with President Trump’s administration and policies. - Interplay between religion and politics: The President has surrounded himself with advisers who believe the nation is for Christians and who invoke Jesus as they tighten the southern border. People of faith who leave food and water in the desert for immigrants and refugees, in the name of their faith, are being fined heavily. In the culture, the need for people of faith, and people who do not profess a religious faith but are of moral people of goodwill, to play together well in the public sandbox for the sake of a more just and inclusive nation has never been greater. *Moral order*. Nearly everyone associates religion with morality. Even cynics do so as they highlight the all-too-available examples of immorality and hypocrisy committed by the allegedly religious. But politics also offer a moral order. Every legislated policy is an expression of political moral order. Essentially, moral order is the network of obligations expected of persons in a social group by others in the social group. A moral order defines who is neighbor and what is owed to neighbors. A moral order also defines the gap between what “is” and what “ought” to be, as well as what should be done to close the gap. - In religion: The Ten Commandments define a moral order, as do the Beatitudes. The Golden Rule, which is present in some form in most of the world’s religions, is perhaps the most well-known example of a teaching that shaped moral order. “An eye for an eye” also suggests a kind of moral order. - In politics: Pay close attention to how politicians talk about what members of a society owe to each other, and who is responsible for what in order to foster prosperity and alleviate suffering. At the national level, Democrats, Tea Partiers, pre-Trump Republicans, current Republicans, and libertarians assert very different moral orders. A moral order in which separating children from families entering the country illegally is a moral practice expresses a very different moral order from one that claims illegal immigration should be a misdemeanor and that separating children from their families is an evil practice. - Interplay between religion and politics: Which narratives, values, and social practices shape a society’s moral order, in-form public policy, and lead us to vote for A rather than B? Where do those narratives, values, and social practices come from? They will come either from a religion or from whatever in a society functions like religion. *Obstacles/empowerment*. In order to become the people we (we, people of faith; we, people of the U.S.) could and should be, there are obstacles to overcome, and there are sources of empowerment to overcome those obstacles. - In religion: Christianity asserts that sin is an obstacle. Sin might be defined as pride, as lack of self-respect, as blinding self-interest, as failure to love, as disease, as participation in the brokenness of life. Some Christians see the obstacle of sin purely in personal terms. Others see sin primarily in systems of oppression. Others see sin in both personal and systemic terms. The antidote to sin is God’s grace—available through faith in Jesus Christ, available through sacraments, available through hearing the Word, available through works of social justice, available through turning around (repentance), available through baptism by the Holy Spirit, available through prayer, and/or available through corporate worship. - In politics: think of the obstacles to being the nation we should be according to the Republican party’s narrative versus the Democrats running for president, as well the different understandings of how one is empowered to succeed. Are the obstacles: liberals, socialists, white evangelicals, white supremacists, immigrants here illegally, government schools, mass incarceration, the denigration of the Founders, the inability to tell the ugly parts of the truth about ourselves, too much spending on the military, social programs that create dependencies, Roe v. Wade, Citizens United, Supreme Court and federal judicial appointments, the President, the former president, the Clintons? And on and on. Is empowerment gained through American First policies in the world, building a wall, de-regulating businesses, appointing conservative Christian judges, a presidency that is superior to the courts and congress in power, overturning society’s enfranchising and liberalizing policies going back to the Civil Rights Act, and favoring the Second and Tenth Amendment above all others, except for the “free exercise of religion” part of the First Amendment as it applies to conservative Christians? Or is empowerment gained through laws and practices that lead toward equity, social justice, reparations, the Dream Act, community policing, accessible and affordable medical care for everyone, better funded and imagined public schools, ensuring clean air-clean-water-healthy soil, responding to climate change with urgency, and otherwise persuading everyone to participate in the work of living into our reality of becoming the most multicultural, multireligious experiment in democracy that the world has yet known? Do you see how the social construction tools of story, belonging, moral order, obstacles/empowerment connect—internally and between religion and politics? Story grounds our practices of belonging and setting boundaries, of who deserves to be treated as equals and neighbors (and who is not deserving), and of who or what we must overcome in order to thrive. Therefore, the story we tell about who we are, were, and should be—we as people of faith, we as US Americans—deserves our attention. And we can’t pay attention without talking about the inseparable swirl of politics and religion. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Fred Rogers, Best of the Protestant Mainline](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/fred-rogers-best-of-the-protestant-mainline/) **Published:** November 26, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FredRogers-208x300.jpg)Fred Rogers, known to generations of children and their parents, as Mister Rogers, was a Presbyterian minister. His show, begun in 1968, embodied much of old mainline Protestantism at its best. Without naming the Name, he walked the walk, in public spaces, and taught more what the way of Jesus by living it than most of us preachers do when we preach. If the old mainline had modern saints, then the Rev. Fred Rogers is among them. Fred Rogers opened himself to forming a relationship with each member of his audience. He actually behaved as if each child watching was his neighbor, his friend. A visitor at the seminary asked me about a poster in my office, the ad for a Trialogue series in Tulsa (sponsored by Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice; I am a board member). The theme was “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” She immediately reminisced. “When I was a kid, I loved Mister Rogers. I always thought he was speaking directly to me.” The focus on relationship was facilitated by the low-tech nature of the show. The show operated on a shoestring budget in its opening years, and that might have been a blessing. But even as the budget grew, the use of ancient devices such as obvious models of villages and puppets to tell stories never gave way to sophisticated animation or the latest in attention-grabbing tech. The show was as rich in imagination as it was low in its use of eye-popping technologies. Fred was an educator who grounded his teaching in the relationship he sought with his audience. He understood his audience. He never talked down to children. He did not avoid sensitive subjects. From dealing with race relations to death to anger to disabilities, Fred’s stories and characters talked about difficult matters that often silence adults. A teacher once told me a teacher teaches primarily students—content is secondary. Fred sought to friend and neighbor his audience, to form relationships. That relationship gave him permission to teach. Fred taught behaviors and values rather than beliefs. He did not use his show to teach propositional Christianity: the inspiration of the Bible, the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus. Each character and story and segment was not an object lesson for a particular Christian truth. Rather, he called his viewers “neighbor” and taught them to see differences as interesting and positive, to accept and learn how to deal with anger, disappointment, grief, to be curious about the world, and how to express joy. Like the old mainline, Fred embraced the arts and sciences as central to human life. Fred introduced his audience to all kinds of musicians (e.g., Yo-Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis) and himself wrote nearly 300 songs for the show. In addition, he invited his audience to dance and paint. Modern science was featured often. Through and with his artist and scientist guests, he demonstrated curiosity and love of experimentation and observation. In the old mainline point of view: all knowledge and practices that build up human beings are godly. Fred’s exuded kindness, unfailing kindness. Kindness is easy to parody, especially in today’s toxic Christian and national cultures that are marinated in fear of the other. But being unfailing kind is so difficult to imitate. A person who is unfailing kind is exceeding rare. Finally, Mister Rogers aired on *public* television and his show promoted a broad and deep sense of “public”—a public full of difference, tensions, and opportunities to neighbor someone who may not look like me but who is like me in desiring to be loved, cared for, respected, and to belong—as well as how to neighbor and befriend. In this public, neighbors of any particular faith would share public spaces with those who differ from themselves, would seek to engage in public and influence the public but not control the public. In order to be good neighbors, we have to recognize differences, practice emotional and social intelligence, show respect, know ourselves, be curious about our world, do something to make the world better or more beautiful through arts and sciences, and accept every opportunity we can to neighbor. More Fred Rogers, please. Christianity will be on the right track in this country when it forms more like Fred Rogers. Perhaps more of that kind of Christianity would do a better job in showing the public, by how we live, what it means to be neighbors. *This blog is a slight revision of a blog Gary Peluso-Verdend published on the seminary’s website on May 29, 2018.* \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ PBS has assembled an [excellent resource base](http://www.pbs.org/parents/rogers/) in this year of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show. Among the video links: If you’ve never watched Fred Roger’s testimony before congress in 1969, watch it. PBS aired a one-hour special called “[It’s You I Like](http://www.fredrogers.org/frc/news/mister-rogers-it%E2%80%99s-you-i-premieres-march-2018-pbs)”. And, [A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood](https://www.abeautifulday.movie/) is now playing in theaters. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [It's the Economy, Not the Children](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/its-the-economy-not-the-children/) **Published:** July 21, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** What has the pandemic revealed about whom or what we U.S. Americans most value? Whatever the answer, it can’t be “our children.” In a “values clarification” exercise from many years ago, I heard the speaker say something like this: “If someone stretched a tightrope between two buildings in your city, would you walk it? Most people would decline the action as too dangerous. But then imagine someone or something of great value to you is stuck on that line—let’s say it or they have been stolen or kidnapped and the thief/kidnapper managed to set that object or person of great value out on the line. Now, would you walk the line to save them?” Whomever or whatever is out on that tightrope that is most worthy of risking our lives to save, it is not our children. One of the most durable and profound theological insights I was ever given came from a book I read before starting college. The book was a collection of sermons theologian and professor Paul Tillich preached in Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago when he taught at the Divinity School in the 1960s. The insight: whatever or whomever is your ultimate concern, that is your true god. Whomever or whatever is our U.S. American ultimate concern (of course, I know there is not one for all Americans), it is not a god who cares about our children. The Columbine shootings in 1999 functioned then as the pandemic does now in revealing we value something more than our children. Columbine, and then a horrific and insane number of other school and public shootings, reveal that our children are collateral damage when it comes to preserving gun rights. Oh, we develop bullet-resistant backpacks and install security systems on buildings where people have money to protect our kids. But elected officials, threatened by lobbyists who must invoke the fear of god as deep as the Spanish Inquisition did, have not made our children safer. A god who demands sacrifices is beings served. What is the name of the god being served during this pandemic? Is it the economy? Is it the publicly traded markets? Is it the fear of losing arguments about the necessity of small government, that government is incompetent to do anything to help except defend borders and contracts and punish criminals (talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy)? Is it some god whose first commandment is “Don’t tread on me?” ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Museo_nazionale_del_Cinema_-_Cabiria_Turin_crop.jpg)Moloch statue from Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914), National Museum of Cinema (Turin) Hear, Moloch, ancient god of child sacrifice. We are giving our children to you. For the sake of gun rights. For the sake of the economy. For the sake of a president’s re-election, and for all those who have umbilical-corded themselves to him. For the sake of a philosophy of government. For the sake of my freedom to go maskless during an aerosol-spread pandemic and drink until dawn or worship a god who demands I be in a packed church listening to a preacher whose ego is stroked by attendance numbers. If the god we serve was a god who cared for our children and really wanted to see in-person classes in most communities this fall, if we really valued the life of every child and every teacher and staff person, we would not have public officials or everyday citizens denying the science of the matter. (Or perhaps our god values only MY children and MY school’s teachers.) The push to get children in the classroom is for their development, yes. And, for some children, school is a safer place than home. But the urgency for in-person classes this fall while the virus ascends is to serve the god of the economy. The public school system plays a significant role in allowing working parents to work. Government responses to the pandemic reveal that schools serve the economy. Those underfunded, over-crowded classrooms where teachers are expected, by local needs and government mandates, to handle all kinds of situations today that were not even recognized a few decades ago—those schools are acolytes to the economy. (And, if we really cared about our children, classroom size, especially in elementary school, would be capped at about 12 students.) What if, back in May, our nation’s leaders at all levels had said, “The number one priority is getting teachers and children back to school with very little risk?” It is so clear that this was neither the explicit nor the implied message. The economy—and whatever it represents to those in power—was to be served at the expense of children. (Oh, and also the elderly, according to one Texas official.) We could have mobilized resources to close much of the digital divide and to provide reliable broadband access in rural areas. Officials would have required masks when the science showed that masks work and would have supported mask-wearing by precept and example. But, in way too many places, we did not. I’ve recently begun learning more about the [Haudenosaunee Confederacy](https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/), also known as the Iroquois Confederacy. That governance arrangement among indigenous nations, still practiced today, was one inspiration for the U.S. Constitution. One of their governing principles is the Seventh Generation principle. The Seventh Generation principle means when making major decisions, consider the sustainability and consequences seven generations into the future. Surely, no one has a crystal ball or the algorithm that would make accurate predictions. But considering the impact of decisions today, seven generations forward (let’s say 150-200 years). Seems like a humane, profound, disruptive, useful, and beneficial exercise. In a nation that makes decisions based on this quarter’s earnings or this presidential election, the Seventh Generation principle would be revolutionary. Nothing like it has been considered in the U.S., well, maybe ever. Certainly not today. Moloch is waiting to be fed. We don’t have to feed it. We don’t have to serve it. We don’t have to sacrifice our children. We can serve a god who values our children. But serving another god would, as changing gods always does, require repentance, turning around, and living differently. Those actions involve soul-searching and discomfort—and our U.S. American capacity for soul-searching and discomfort, from the White House down, is currently too limited to meet the profound calls for transformation and offering ourselves to more life-giving gods. *IMAGE CREDIT:* [Jean-Pierre Dalbéra](https://www.flickr.com/people/72746018@N00) from Paris, France; cropped by [Beyond My Ken](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Beyond_My_Ken "User:Beyond My Ken") ([talk](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Beyond_My_Ken "User talk:Beyond My Ken")) 04:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC) – [Le musée du cinéma #Turin#](https://www.flickr.com/photos/72746018@N00/2872424637/) --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Irresponsible Claims](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/irresponsible-claims/) **Published:** August 24, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** My erstwhile mother-in-law was a heavy smoker and adamantly cared more for her freedom to smoke than for accepting responsibility for the ill-effects of her second-hand smoke. A powerful memory for me is watching my uncoached toddler walk up to her while she drew on one stick of her 2-3 packs per day. He waved his hand, made a face, and said, “Yucky, GranGran.” I don’t recall her words of rebuke. I do remember the long draw on the cigarette, the pronounced exhale of her smoke, the movie-classic hand and arm of how she held the cigarette prior to pulling on it again, and her face: cold, narrow-eyed rage. It is an ugly memory of sheer irresponsibility, exercised in the name of personal choice, and disregarding the health of a child barely old enough to speak. She insisted that, if we were to visit her, we had to breathe her smoke. Two instances (there are more, but I’ll stay with these two) of misusing the word “responsibility” in public disturb me today. The claim to be exercising personal responsibility during a pandemic while dismissing concern for the health of those around you is irresponsible. There are several reasons why an adult might decline the vaccine. That choice may or may not be responsible. I have regard for those who are immune-compromised and fear a severe allergic reaction. But I would then assume a person who declines the vaccine would protect themselves and others from spreading the virus. Here, I think, is the moment of *social* responsibility, that companion to personal responsibility: doing one’s part to diminish the spread of the virus. A person seeking to be responsible would limit their contact with the public. And, they would mask. [![](https://images.globalindustrial.com/images/enlarge/708507.jpg?t=1628284637494)](https://images.globalindustrial.com/images/enlarge/708507.jpg?t=1628284637494)In fact, masking is perhaps THE marker today of who accepts or rejects the claim made by multiple religions and philosophies: human beings are social beings, community is every bit as essential and important as the person when considering what responsibility means. This is not to say that everyone who masks in public is religious, but maskers understand they are connected in some way to everyone they see—at least that we all are breathing each other’s exhaled air. Individualism without social regard is a heresy. The claim to absolute freedom to do as one pleases without regard to the effects on others is idol-worship. The other problematic claim to be exercising responsibility comes from elected leaders. I don’t know whether to call this time of national and Christian racial reckoning a weather system or a new climate. Time will tell. But in this season of racial reckoning, the question arises regarding what the present living generation should do about past wrongdoing. This question comes up in regard to reparations, in particular, but also in regard to non-monetary forms of social repair. Often, I hear a confusion between responsibility and guilt, as one can read in anti-critical race theory legislation (in Oklahoma, that would be [House Bill 1775](https://legiscan.com/OK/text/HB1775/id/2387002)). The claim to be not guilty of, say, what one’s family did 150 years ago spills into the stance that “and we, especially we who have benefited from racism, are not responsible for racism today.” The first claim is legitimate. The second claim does not follow. When I became president at Phillips in 2009 (a role I served until 2018), like any elected leader of an organization of any size, I inherited treasures to steward and problems to be addressed. (One could, in fact, think of one’s generational role in a family or a society in the same way: treasures and problems.) I could accept no credit for the treasures and no guilt for the problems. However, it was my job to accept the *responsibilities* to steward, to reckon with, and to do whatever I could to leave the school in better shape than I found it. For the good that happened during my tenure, I could accept some credit. For the problems I addressed insufficiently or which I created, I must accept guilt. Credit and guilt for what happens on one’s watch and for how one handled one’s inheritance are companions for anyone who serves an office. What one does in one’s tenure becomes the next leader’s inheritance and their responsibility to address. The fact that the generation who is guilty of Tulsa’s 1921 Race Massacre has passed from the scene is irrelevant to the reality that a debt—financial and social—was incurred that has been passed, irresponsibly, from generation to generation of the city’s civic leadership. The fact that the Boomers and Sooners are long gone, except as college chants and mascots, does not cancel the debts owed to the native peoples forcibly displaced. The nation racked up huge debt to “pay” for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without raising taxes on the war generations. The nation will be paying for those wars for many years, and every family dealing with death by combat or suicide of a veteran, or PTSD or traumatic brain injuries have incurred debts. As Greta Thunberg forcefully reminds her audiences, generations of decision-makers have passed the debts incurred by a fossil fuel economy onto her generation. Future generations will not be guilty of what our generations have done. That guilt is ours. But they will be responsible to address what they need to, for their being and well-being. Just as was and is the case for us. Today. There are good moral reasons to decline to feel guilty about the actions of past generations. There are no good moral reasons to reject responsibility to do what one can to address the debt which otherwise just keeps rolling forward. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Glued to a Mirage](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/glued-to-a-mirage/) **Published:** August 17, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** This blog is for anyone still trying to make sense of life, maybe especially for when the times defy good sense. Since my late teens, I’ve experienced several major deconstructive educational experiences, each of which left me breathless as if I’ve run a race out of shape. Sometimes the breathless experience is exciting, and sometimes the feeling is a panic, a gasping for life. My first New Testament course in college evaporated a layer of childish, Sunday-school beliefs. A unit of clinical pastoral education (hospital chaplain internship) in seminary presented me with numerous opportunities to learn I am not always an “A” student in human interactions; and life will never be tidy and tight as a well-written and edited term paper. As a young pastor, I conducted a funeral service for a newborn baby. The University of Chicago PhD experience poured the “acids of modernity” all over another layer of parochial assumptions. My divorce 27 plus years ago. My time as president at Phillips: I improved some aspects of the seminary’s systems and culture and failed at bettering others—in addition to not taking decent care of myself and re-experiencing that lesson about the contrast between a perfectible term paper and imperfectible human community. The last three years of reading, especially American stories and histories that are either new or stunningly new to me, caused me to complain frequently, “How the hell did I not know or see that until now?” In my personal beliefs and in my work, I am trying to make sense of religion, culture, politics, and public morality during one of the most fraught periods in the past century. I’m breathless again. This time, my attention is glued to a mirage (yes, I mean that to be a contradictory expression). What do I mean when I say “God” or attempt to pray? Traditional Christian language feels empty to me. Or maybe the language just highlights the absence I feel. Christian mystics through the centuries who experienced and wrote on the [“dark night of the soul”](https://cac.org/dark-night-of-the-soul-2017-09-07/) would say: “Good! The God you can name is not God.” Can I take comfort in that insight? I’m still trying. At least, I know I am not alone. So, because gasping for breath can induce panic, I’m looking for a way out or forward or through. And here is my mind’s path—at the moment. All of the thoughts below swirl when I invoke the word “God.” The [cosmic calendar Carl Sagan and others (e.g., Neil deGrasse Tyson)](https://www.businessinsider.com/cosmic-calendar-from-cosmos-premier-2014-3) popularized locates the emergence of human beings on earth about 14 billion years after the Big Bang and about 4 billion years after this planet in the complex, life-generating Goldilocks Zone took shape. After five massive extinction events, here we humans are, showing up just minutes before the end of the first cosmic year. What an incredible—truly incredible—privilege it is to be alive along with the billions of other living things on the earth (as well as who-knows-what in the rest of this fabulous universe). Not everything on this planet is made for us or is here for our use. We are not the center of the planet nor the measure of all things. The earth’s ecosystem has awesome healing power. The sentient, tech-making human species is the only one currently on the planet that can overwhelm the power to heal. Everything eats and expels stuff something else uses to sustain life. Creatures eat creatures eat creatures. Everything depends on good, live, healthy soil to produce the plants that produce the calories and the O2 necessary for everything else to eat and breathe. What smells putrid to human noses may just be decomposition making way for new life, including when our bodies are added back to the earth or the seas from which we came. I don’t follow Augustine of Hippo very many places, but I think he is right that bad or evil is love desiring, attaching, and being twisted and deformed by desiring and attaching to the wrong object—a bottle, a relationship, a fear, a demagogue, a skin color, a false self, a false deity. The way the human race has behaved is not fitting for the future of the planet. Human life has been partisan and tribalist throughout our six minutes of cosmic history. But if we do not increase our capacity for tolerance, equality, and compassion for all living beings really soon, Hobbes’ line about life being “brutish, nasty, and short” will become, for a great majority of the planet, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The moral calling for those alive today—to till and keep the earth, to work with God to complete and repair, and to care for one another—is insufficiently developed throughout the world. The U.S.—and the state in which I live—are very much not excepted. The old individualistic wineskins and I-don’t-care-about-you claims about what freedom means are rupturing. Acts of loving kindness, of compassion, of making life better for someone else—I’ve not seen anything more worthy in life than these. Love, all kinds of genuine love, filled with passion, filled with tenderness, filled with friendship. I picture an old couple, who endured and enjoyed decades together, holding hands. Love is beautiful. Is there anything better than a baby’s belly-laugh, a meal made with love shared with friends or family or a faith community, making love, holding the hand of a beloved or a lonely patient as they die, showing up in a way that makes a difference, or a bite into a garden-ripe tomato with a drizzle of olive oil, a few basil leaves, and fresh mozzarella (my Italian tastebuds; you substitute the food that makes your mouth want to sing opera)? Life really is, and should always be, about love, joy, peace, being present with those who suffer in a way that helps, making right what is wrong, changing what we can and letting go of that we cannot change. Dealing with the fact that we die and, therefore, that what I do, what we do, matters. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/gpv-dark-night.png)My few seconds of cosmic time matters. No, what I do does not likely matter on the cosmic calendar. I’m too old and experience too much vertigo to pilot a spaceship to set a charge and push an asteroid out of a collision path with the planet. (That action would be worthy to note on earth’s calendar!) In terms of cosmic time, I am a single ant in a little hill on a rare, tiny planet circling a so-so star in a spiral galaxy somewhere in one universe. My stage is even smaller than Shakespeare may have imagined. But there are people to whom I matter and who matter to me. Communities that matter. Generations to come who matter. I have the gift of life on a life-generating and sustaining world—to invoke Ben Franklin’s words about our “republic,” *a life sustaining and generating world if we can keep it*. I would not want to equate “what matters” and God. But I will say that God is in what matters. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) --- ### [That Twinkie Wrapper from 1972](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/twinkie-wrapper-1972/) **Published:** August 9, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** You know that allegedly science-based parable about the frog in slowly heated water that will boil to death, not knowing what is gradually happening to it, rather than leap out when the water gets too hot? Well, the parable is false. A frog will jump out when the water gets too hot. But, if you substitute a human being for the frog, apparently you are closer to truth. [The newest climate study is out ](https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/)from a couple hundred scientists working through 14,000 studies. Human-caused climate change is happening faster than anticipated. The consequences are already hellish. Increasingly large fires creating more local weather changes. Floods. Storms on steroids. Drought. Habitats baking, roasting, and boiling. Permafrost melting and releasing carbon plus God-only-knows what kinds of bacteria and viruses. Considering the world’s responses to COVID, most definitely including the U.S., I’m inclined to use language that is inappropriate for theologians not named Stanley Hauerwas or Nadia Boltz-Weber. We inhabitants of planet earth are… in a spot of bother. Broken politics is not the only problem, although that problem is huge. But the lack of a culture of respect for each other, and for what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls “the democracy of species,” is the parent from which our broken politics is the child. Too many of us don’t give a crap about each other, let alone the other living beings or our shared home. University of Chicago ethicist Dr. Laurie Zoloth, on the [university’s “Big Brains” podcast](https://news.uchicago.edu/big-brains-podcast-ethics-covid-19-vaccine-distribution), said regarding societal responses to COVID: “To live outside of our sense of duty to one another is a sort of horrifying prospect.” She was reflecting on the pandemic as the first time in history the whole world was dealing with the same problem. Our sense of duty to each other? We are boiling ourselves alive and making the planet worse for successive generations to the extent that we are threatening the prospect of there being future generations. [Climate activist Bill McKibben](http://billmckibben.com/articles.html) wrote about how inadequate the call to personal responsibility is. Necessary, but not sufficient. He thought about those who accuse him of leaving a carbon footprint, whether through his air travel or using a plastic pen. It is nearly impossible not to participate in economic and social systems based on petroleum products. The governments and businesses of the world, and yes each one of us, is/are addicted to petroleum products. What is required to save the planet from homo sapiens is massive systemic change. Fast. And we the nation, we the people, we the *oikoumene* (whole inhabited earth) are not mentally ready. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/plastic-wrappers-in-plastic-bottle.jpg)At home, my wife is fine-tooth-combing through our plastic usage. I already bring reusable bags when I shop for groceries, including mesh bags for produce. Cheri found and purchased soaps, hair products in cake form, laundry and dish detergents as tabs and delivered in cardboard, and toilet paper not wrapped in plastic. Toothpaste tabs that neither leave a tube nor microplastics that foul the oceans and marine life. She has even begun to take all the plastic that can’t be recycled (and we are suspicious about the amount of plastic actually being [recycled](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/announcement/frontline-and-npr-investigate-how-the-plastics-industry-used-recycling-to-help-sell-more-plastic/)) and making [bottle bricks](https://www.greenmatters.com/p/how-to-bottle-brick). Seeing the bits of plastic she is compacting into the bottles, and hearing her say frequently to our daughter “that single-use wrapper will still be here in 400 years,” reminded me of one of my high school eating habits. Nearly every day, along with the bologna and cheese sandwich on white bread (how am I still alive?), my mom included a package of Hohos, cupcakes, or Twinkies. (Thankfully, as a track and cross-country runner I burned through whatever calories I consumed!) The shelf life of Twinkies is a longstanding social meme—[another fiction, actually](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/07/09/200465360/the-science-of-twinkies-how-do-they-last-so-long). But its wrapper, that will last half a millennium. Lunchtime dessert for one day. Wrapper in the environment for 20 generations. If you are sick of the “resistance” to “government overreach” regarding the pandemic, of hiding behind the partial truth of “personal responsibility,” or angry cries of “freedom” as an absolute for the unmasked who are demanding that the rest of us suck in whatever they are expelling from their lungs—just wait until the day when a government declares a state of emergency when tens of millions of human beings are roasting on the inside or their cities are disappearing like Atlantis. I expect resistance akin to what I imagine would happen if the Second Amendment was deleted. We are connected to each other. My actions affect you and vice versa. There is only one human race and we have only one home: the earth. When it comes to climate action, there is no place to hide. There is no America First or China First or Whatever First. We need to see and act on our sense of duty to each other. As Dr. Zoloth said, otherwise, the consequences are horrible. Ready for massive systemic change, chosen or not, at a speed the human race has never experienced? Ready or not, here it comes. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Immorality of Politics as War](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/politics-as-war/) **Published:** August 3, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** One might think the world should have learned from the so-called Crusades, from the religious wars that devastated swaths of 16th and 17th century Europe, from genocidal acts of the 20th century, or from the “where empires go to die” conflicts in Afghanistan that a state of perpetual war creates hell on earth. And hell is an awful place to live. The strategy of acquiring property through purging and purifying a land of whoever is determined to be dirt soaks the earth with blood and rots the soul of a people. One might think. But clearly we continue to behave as if war makes life better. Our nation today evidences the consequences of politics conceived as war. Politics conceived as war a failing moral strategy. [Lakoff and Johnson](https://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lakoff+and+johnson&qid=1627996733&sr=8-1) wrote that we all live in our metaphors. Framing conflict as battle rather than “I don’t know your dance steps” is more than linguistic choice. The difference opens and closes options and strategies. Politics as war guts the spirit of democracy and closes the doors to a more just and compassionate future. Politics as war is brutal on truth and integrity. The truth is whatever the leaders say it is. Lying is expected. Deception, double-dealing, digging up dirt—all good. I concur with historians who draw a direct line from then House speaker Newt Gingrich’s jeremiads in the 1990s that politics is war and 1/6. [Gingrich railed against politics as compromise](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/), that the other side is an opponent or worthy adversary. No compromise. The other is the enemy and must be utterly defeated. Now, no idea takes on a life of its own all by itself. An idea requires a receptive ecology to grow into a movement and cultural agents to spread, amplify, and perpetuate the idea. Speaker Gingrich was a powerful cultural agent but the idea of politics as war, to change the metaphor, just needed a spark. There was plenty of kindling. [![](https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/graphic/xlarge/sumner_caning_xl.jpg)](https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/graphic/xlarge/sumner_caning_xl.jpg)Between America’s nearly perpetual shooting wars and the hopes of generations of millenarian Christians who never liked democracy nor religious freedom in the first place, America has never lacked a receptive soil and cultural agents to keep fighting. Consider this. The U.S. and its colonial forebears warred against: the nations which lived here for millennia; the French; the British twice; the Spanish and the Mexicans; each other (Civil War); the Kingdom of Hawaii; enemies in two world wars; Korea; Vietnam and Cambodia; Iraq; terrorists (with enormous numbers of civilian victims); Grenada. Add to this (I’m sure partial) list: Jim Crow-era war on Black Americans; war on poverty; war on drugs; bombing Guatemala City (and then training those who from 1960 to 1996 killed nearly 200,000 Mayans) to protect the interests of American fruit companies. Then there are those estimated 400 million guns held by the civilian population readying to protect and defend… Surely, we the American people are in love with the metaphor of war and the smell of gunpowder. Liberal Christians who embraced the power of language and who joined President Eisenhower in his call to reject the military-industrial complex have moved away some from their evangelical ancestors who employed and employ war imagery gladly. Evidence: [conflicts when “Onward Christian Soldiers” was being considered for new denominational hymnals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onward,_Christian_Soldiers). For the most part, you won’t find liberal Christians calling themselves “prayer warriors” or serving as team chaplains for professional sports. For generations beginning with the Vietnam War, more liberal Christians eschewed military chaplaincy. Several liberal/progressive seminaries have recently begun programs to address the unintended consequences of a mostly conservative, [and dangerously millenarian](https://truthout.org/articles/air-force-pulls-jesus-loves-nukes-ethics-training-after-publication-of-truthout-report/), Christian chaplaincy. Millenarian Christians live in the metaphor of Christianity as battle. They believe God will someday soon rend the curtain of history and begin to enact a version of the battle-soaked visions of Revelation. Today–in addition to the traditional “all other religions, and probably a lot of Catholics and Orthodox and mainline Protestants–the target populations are liberals, secularists, humanists, communists, homosexuals, feminists, Democrats, and pandemic restrictions. Oh, and critical race theory and BLM and antifa. Sound familiar? A multicultural, messy, loud democracy has no place in a war-positive, millenarian world. Only the Elect, not to be confused with “the elected,” have a right to rule. It is a righteous action to lie and deceive in order for the Elect to rule as regents of the coming King. Use democracy to undermine democracy to prepare for the coming kingdom. For all of us—who believe in the inherent dignity of every person, who believe we are created for community, who believe freedom for one entails protecting the freedom of all as well as sorting the inequalities that rob some people of their freedom, who believe that shalom is based on justice and love, and who believe that politics should be the art of addressing problems for the sake of a better world for all living beings—for all of us, politics as war (a war often aided by religion, or maybe even politics as the tool of millenarian religion) is immoral, and maybe an abomination. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Pandemic of Loneliness](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/pandemic-of-loneliness/) **Published:** July 27, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** About a century ago, there was an Edenic community in Roseto, Pennsylvania. No crime. Little heart disease despite the fact that residents ate fried meats, smoked stogies, and drank wine like it was the last day on earth. People lived long and good lives. In the latter part of the 20th century, researchers took note of this community of Italian immigrants to study “the Roseto Effect.” [Here is what they found](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-mystery-of-the-roseta_b_73260): > Rosetans, regardless of income and education, expressed themselves in a family-centered social life. There was a total absence of ostentation among the wealthy, meaning that those who had more money didn’t flaunt it. There was nearly exclusive patronage of local businesses, even with nearby bigger shops and stores in other towns. The Italians intermarried in Roseto, from regional cities in Italy. Families were close knit, self-supportive and independent, but also relied… in bad times… on the greater community for well-defined assistance and friendly help. No one was alone in Roseto. No one seemed too unhappy or too stressed out. And the proof was a heart attack death rate almost half of everyone else around them. Wealthier towns suffered from heart disease though their medical facilities, diet and occupations were either better or at least equal than available in Roseto. As the 20th century “progressed,” Rosetans began to adopt more “normal” social practices: consumerism and class differentiation rose, those three-generation households became nuclear families, where and from whom they bought goods and services widened. Were there gains? According to most of us, probably. But everything about the place and people began more and more to resemble “the real world.” Crime rose. Heart disease developed. Why? Fundamentally, loneliness took up residence. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/vivek-book-scaled.jpg)German sociologist Georg Simmel thought leaders must give people something important to fight about or they will fight over something picayunish. Or they might fight over something minor because they can’t set their faces to deal with a big issue. (I suspect every religious community and nation know that avoidance tactic: argue about the carpet because they can’t deal with the empty pews.) Simmel’s point is that conflict in human life is inevitable. It is also true that people must belong to something bigger than themselves. If they don’t belong to a worthy someone or something in a good and real way, they may seek connection in ways that damage themselves or others. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, referring to an article written by Michael C. Bender in the Wall Street Journal, [wrote](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/opinion/trump-covid-extremism-loneliness.html): > Bender’s description of… Trump superfans… captures their pre-Trump loneliness. “Many were recently retired and had time on their hands and little to tie them to home,” writes Bender. “A handful never had children. Others were estranged from their families.” Throwing themselves into Trump’s movement, they found a community and a sense of purpose. “Saundra’s life had become bigger with Trump,” he says of a Michigan woman who did odd jobs on the road to fund her obsession. There are many causes for the overlapping dysfunctions that make contemporary American life feel so dystopian, but loneliness is a big one. Even before Covid, Americans were becoming [more isolated](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/23/798676465/most-americans-are-lonely-and-our-workplace-culture-may-not-be-helping). And as Damon Linker [pointed out recently in The Week](https://theweek.com/politics/1002095/the-politics-of-loneliness-is-totalitarian), citing Hannah Arendt, lonely people are drawn to totalitarian ideologies. “The chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships,” Arendt concluded in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” describing those who gave themselves over to all-encompassing mass movements. American loneliness is a problem. A big problem. It has been for a long time. Loneliness is, of course, not just an American problem. A few years ago, England established a Ministry of Loneliness. But America’s core ethic, built on capitalism’s cultural fracking, rewards individuals free to work, buy, move, consume, and to pursue themselves. The U.S. also might be the world’s prime example of what sociologist Emile Durkheim predicted: a society infected with anomie, a rootlessness that issues in anti-social behaviors such as crime, violence, and suicide. As the nation’s conflicting social, political, and religious responses to the pandemic make clear, the answers to the questions of whether or not we belong to the same nation and recognize our social ties are something between “it depends” and “no.” We must belong to something greater than ourselves. Culturally, we get that message in nearly every Christmas movie, which are mostly about belonging to a family (from which someone in the movie was previously estranged). In *The Lion King*, Mufasa introduces Simba to the circle of life. People join cults and dive down the rabbit holes of conspiracy theories to be part of something bigger than themselves. Religious communities should be experts both in belonging and in connecting people with someone bigger than themselves. Indeed, many, many religious communities do one or both of these reasonably well. Some do this core religious work extremely well. That said, the “Bowling Alone” phenomenon of “spiritual but not religious,” claiming spirituality apart from religious institutions, grows. **Religious communities are meaningful places of belonging for a smaller percentage of the population than was the case in recent past decades**. Why is that?—and the answer should not simply name attractions elsewhere rather than looking square-shouldered at our own deficits. Religious communities could do better in ameliorating the pandemic of loneliness. There is a telling saying about belonging in Baptist circles that introduces the question of who and what any particular attendee actually belongs to. “Those that come on Sunday morning love the church. Those who come on Sunday night love the pastor. Those who come on Wednesday night love the Lord.” People belong for different reasons, and those reasons deserve assessment. In our religious communities, to whom and what do we invite people to belong? Is that *who* or *what* sufficiently true, real, beautiful, and powerful to draw persons out of their loneliness and thaw their frozen hearts? Is there anything more and better we can do to diminish the public health crises growing from this nation’s deep-rooted loneliness? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Phillips professor Dr. Annie Lockhart-Gilroy](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-phillips-professor-dr-annie-lockhart-gilroy/) **Published:** July 29, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In September 2020, Center for Religion in Public Life director Gary Peluso-Verdend interviewed [Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy](https://ptstulsa.edu/annie-lockhart-gilroy/), Assistant Professor of Christian Education and Practical Theology. Besides introducing her work generally, Dr. Lockhart-Gilroy talked about the book which she co-edited and to which she contributed: From *[Lament to Advocacy: Black Religious Education and Public Ministry](https://www.amazon.com/Lament-Advocacy-Religious-Education-Ministry/dp/194593574X/ref=sr_1_3?crid=24QVT7VHA1QR4&dchild=1&keywords=annie+lockhart-gilroy&qid=1615920882&sprefix=annie+lockhart%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-3)*. She is also the author of a more recent publication, *[Nurturing the Sanctified Imagination of Urban Youth.](https://www.amazon.com/Nurturing-Sanctified-Imagination-Urban-Youth/dp/1949625230/ref=sr_1_2?crid=24QVT7VHA1QR4&dchild=1&keywords=annie+lockhart-gilroy&qid=1615920572&sprefix=annie+lockhart%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-2)* She joined the Phillips faculty in 2018 and is a newer voice in the work of taking theology into the public realm. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Change the Culture](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/change-the-culture/) **Published:** July 21, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Some years ago, there was a social media phenomenon that was centered on people holding up signs that were responses to the question, short-handed as “WDYDWYD?” Why do you do what you do? People responded by putting a few words on a signboard and holding the board. Signs such as, “Because I beat cancer and I’m not wasting a moment,” or, “Because everything changed when I became a dad,” or, “Because I am the one I’ve been looking for.” [![_DSC4595](https://live.staticflickr.com/4146/5007167616_cb07d83661_z.jpg)](https://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnmac/5007167616/in/pool-wdydwyd/ "_DSC4595") WDYDWYD is a great question to ask oneself. Digging deep to find the well-spring of the answer is worth a person’s or an organization’s time. The following is my answer, specifically thinking of the work of the Center I am privileged to direct. The answer would not fit on a signboard, but it is not far off. I believe: The U.S. is one of the nations of the earth, not God’s chosen people. The nation is “we the people,” not a church. The nation’s heart is morally complex, ambiguous, and messy—not simply all good or all bad. There is great beauty and profound ugliness in our history and in our present. The president is an elected leader, not a messiah or savior who can deliver us from ourselves Elected leaders are neither angels nor demons but are influenced by and can amplify the nation’s angels and demons. The Constitution is an evolving document, neither eternal dogma nor inerrant scripture Laws and policies permit, forbid, and channel behavior but do not form or change hearts. Culture is the womb from which purpose, morals, leaders, policies and practices are born and selected. Hearts are formed, broken, corrupted, healed, and changed at the level of culture. If you want to change hearts, change the culture. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with the Rev. Dr. Lisa Barnett](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-the-rev-dr-lisa-barnett/) **Published:** July 15, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Committing-Faith-in-Public.png)One of the most unfortunate pieces of data from graduate seminary graduating student interviews is which courses graduands wish they had fewer of: history. In this pivotal era of the churches’, the nation’s, and the planet’s lives, there is a great deal of re-imagining and re-telling history happening; and that work directly feeds our current sense of what is necessary today for faithful living. The Rev. Dr. Lisa Barnett, Assistant Professor of American Religious History at Phillips Theological Seminary, knows the critical importance of knowing history: learning what we did not learn in public schools, re-learning to correct the fictions that served the interests of the ruling classes in another time, and mining history for models of resistance and ally-ship. Dr. Barnett sat down with Center for Religion in Public Life director, Gary Peluso-Verdend, on a tropical summer day in Tulsa to talk about her background, her love of history, her call, her teaching, and answering the persistent question, “So what?” **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Split Realities](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/split-realities/) **Published:** July 13, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://screengoblin.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/funny.jpg)](https://screengoblin.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/funny.jpg)We live in weird times. Really weird, akin to alternative or split reality shows. When dyed-in-the-wool United Methodist Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, her religion—was clearly (I thought) evident in her public positions. Yet her religion seemed irrelevant to voters, many of which dismissed her as not religious. She ran against one of the most non-religious presidents in modern times. And some of the most church-going, fervently-believing religious people imparted righteousness to him and compared him to biblical figures who did great things. Weird times. In 1960, John Kennedy received a halo from Catholic laity and hierarchy, despite his known-but-not-reported womanizing. Joe Biden is, in so many ways, the exemplar of a blue-collar Catholic layperson from yesteryear. Devout, family-oriented, motherhood-admiring, mass-attending, hard-working, no-baloney tolerating. Mixed with a strong dose of social justice from the deep Catholic tradition often taught and embodied by women religious (nuns). The man’s DNA includes a Catholic gene. But Biden is not celebrated as the second Catholic president nor as the more Catholic of the two. JFK lived before Roe v. Wade. He did not have to incur the disdain from his bishops of opposing abortion personally but not believing that position ought to be the only legal one in the nation. A recent, massive (500,000 interviews) survey by one of my favorite research organizations, the [Public Religion Research Institute](https://www.prri.org/research/2020-census-of-american-religion/), presents data on religious identity (not church-going, just self-identified identity) that held surprises. Namely, self-identifying as an evangelical Christian dropped nearly 50 percent in the last several years, and identifying as a mainline Christian now peeks up over evangelicalism. I’m not celebrating for my people, the mainline. We are simply not shrinking in public support as quickly. Perhaps Christian nationalists’ fealty to the former president and embrace of QAnon repelled legions of evangelicals away from that identity—especially younger people. Speaking of the mainline. With the flux of American religious life, with the category of “the nones” the largest single category of religious identification, with less than half the nation affiliated with any religious congregation, it is important to remember that the mainline was never the mainline in terms of numbers. The denominations that comprised the mainline (Presbyterians, Congregationalists \[later United Church of Christ\], Methodists \[later United Methodist\], Disciples, American Baptists, some forms of Lutheran, Episcopalians, and sometimes the three Black-founded/split from white Methodist denominations) were not, in the 20th century, larger than the Catholic Church, on the one hand, and the evangelical, fundamentalist, Pentecostal, and charismatic churches on the other hand. The mainline was always about cultural location. The mainline did not choose to become the mainline. They may have lobbied for the statuses of counselors to power and consciences of the nation, but the culture chose them. How does a religion become chosen by the culture? There are many agents. But, in the case of the erstwhile mainline: I suspect the major newspapers and TV networks were populated with executives, editors, and anchors who were raised in, if not adult adherents of, mainline churches. And those networks were clearly dominated by the coastal and Northern norms and mores. Southerners were required to lose their accents and adopt Northern habits of the heart. I suspect that print and TV media were an important factor in selecting the mainline as the mainline. And the spread of cable TV and multiple local networks were factors in the mainline being sidelined, culturally. The upstarts allowed previously unnoticed, by Northern and Eastern cultural agents, claimed the spotlights. Martin Marty said that, when Jimmy Carter was running for president and called himself “born again,” Marty’s phone rang repeated with calls from reporters asking him what Carter was talking about. An example of mainline being more about cultural power and a matter of who is paying attention than about demographic dominance: on a recent podcast I heard that Oral Roberts’ annual televised Thanksgiving celebration was viewed by more people than the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Who knew? Not this kid raised in a Chicago-area, Methodist, three-network watching home. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [With Apologies to Mr. Lincoln](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/with-apologies-to-mr-lincoln/) **Published:** June 29, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/gettysburg-address-sign.jpg)Twelve score and five years ago our forebears brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, Bondage, and Theft, but dedicated to the proposition that all human beings are created equal. Now in the 21st century we are engaged in a powerful cultural battle, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can actually grow into its full potential, with liberty and equality and justice for all. Around us, from social media to houses of worship to the stairs of the Capitol to voting booths, we have fashioned battlefields. We have come here to dedicate a day of remembrance, celebrating those who have struggled to birth our nation into reality. We celebrate and remember those who gave their lives for freedom, equality, and justice that the proposition of the nation may live–and grow up. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow – the promise of this nation. The brave Americans who lived and died in service of a free, equal, and just nation have consecrated this promise, far above our poor power to add or detract. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which others of blessed memory have nobly advanced. Our task is this: that from our honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, equality, and justice — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall be realized–and then not perish from the earth. (Author’s note. Abraham Lincoln was steeped in the words, stories, images, and cadence of the Bible. In the Gettysburg Address, he uses the plotline of birth, death, and new birth. This is also the plotline of baptism, which is a dying to the old self and coming up out of the water as the new and true self. His hope: rising from the death of that blood-soaked battlefield would come a new birth of freedom, a version of freedom in which all human beings would be included. In my homage to Mr. Lincoln’s words, I tried to preserve the core storyline of birth, death, and rebirth into a new, truer life.) --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Change Is Possible](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/change-is-possible/) **Published:** July 6, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The 4th of July fell on a Sunday this year. The congregation I attend, the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, has a tradition of making July a “revival” month. Most years, that means more singing and less liturgy. But for the 4th, the normal three-service schedule was replaced by a “unity” service. The church set up an open-sided tent, large enough to cover several hundred people. I could not smell sawdust but the gentle breeze did bring a bit of musty something from the tent, and one could see bits of daylight through wear-holes on that, thankfully, not rainy Sunday in the church park. So, we had some elements of a tent revival. The playing and singing of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” captured my attention and imagination as I sat on the folding chair, genuine funeral home fan in hand. The congregation sang more lustily than many hymns they sing (these are gentrified Methodists rather than the brush-arbor sort once known as “shouting Methodists”). Being accompanied by a small, fine orchestra added energy and volume to the singing. Despite my seminary-learned hesitancy to embrace war images, I couldn’t help it. My emotions swelled. And here is where my imagination went. Here at 13th St. and Boston Ave. in Tulsa, on July 4, 2021, is a congregation founded by the slavery-defending, Jim Crow upholding Methodist Episcopal Church, South, singing the song that rallied Union troops to fight a righteous war against the congregation’s ancestors. I doubt the founders would have smiled at the irony. On the Sunday after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the congregation heard a sermon from the resident bishop. He castigated the Black community for causing their own destruction. A century later, the congregation has formed a serious relationship with one of the churches whose building was destroyed but whose people re-built and continues to this day. In addition, the congregation made a definitive, substantive commitment to work over the next several years to becoming a more anti-racist, pro-reconciling congregation. The annual Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration service is hosted by Boston Avenue. A senior pastor from a few generations ago who went from the congregation to the episcopacy (an erstwhile common circumstance for the congregation’s senior pastors) railed against homosexuality. As a bishop, he damaged the cause of full inclusion in the church. He died of AIDS contracted from his own extramarital, unsafe sexual relationships. Today, the Boston Avenue congregation–including both its pastoral and lay leaders– is known as one of the best religious friends of LGBTQ persons in Tulsa and is committed to a future in which sexual orientation and gender identity are irrelevant to membership and ministry. The entire church complex is the staging ground for Tulsa’s large, boisterous Pride Parade. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/210706-GPV-blog-image.jpg)The immediate past senior pastor, who served for over three decades, was named for the bishop who preached the “you-brought-it-on-yourselves” 1921 sermon. But he ministered differently from his namesake. He is highly respected and admired in the Tulsa community for his interfaith outreach, especially for his contribution to Jewish-Christian relations. The sculpture in the church park of three children—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—dancing in a circle is one testament to his work and his legacy. Tulsa would be much-the-poorer if one withdrew all the members who are interfaith and social justice leaders, influencers, and line-workers in the holy task of moving Tulsa toward a more just and compassionate future. I see the current lay and pastoral leaders calling the congregation to even more change, and I see many congregants responding with their voices and their feet. Yes, Julia Ward Howe, God’s truth is marching on. It may take a lot longer than we’d like, for we prefer to run a sprint rather than a marathon. And the marathon we’re running is multigenerational. We hand off the baton to each new generation to further the work. The course for truth, compassion, and justice is zig-zag, with switchbacks, sometimes random. Truth and true living do not emerge all at once. Not everyone is or will be a convert. Some hearts will remain stony, unmoved, caged by fear. Some still prefer white, cis-gendered, male cultural dominance. But change is possible, I reflected from my chair as I joined the applause at the end of the Union’s anthem. Change is possible because I know this congregation has changed from the congregation that was here in 1921. As have so many others. Changed for the better. Not changed enough, for sure. But, because we know we have changed, we know we can change. God’s truth is marching on. We are invited to join the parade. It is our turn—to turn. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [God Blesses… and Condemns](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/god-blesses-and-condemns/) **Published:** June 16, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *This is the third of four sermon starters for the 4th of July weekend. I’m taking common Christian religious claims about the U.S. and re-examining them.* *Readers are free to use these ideas. In each sermon starter, I endeavor to interpret the nation’s life in light of the nation’s value claims, history, and Christian scriptures and theology.* Woody Guthrie was no fan of Irving Berlin’s feel-good “God Bless America,” as sung by Kate Smith. Guthrie believed America was richly blessed already. In response to Berlin’s anthem, Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land.” An NPR piece on the story of “This Land” said: He was irritated by Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” sung by Kate Smith, which seemed to be endlessly playing on the radio in the late 1930s. [So irritated, in fact, that he wrote this song as a retort, at first sarcastically calling it “God Blessed America for Me” before renaming it “This Land Is Your Land.”](https://www.npr.org/2000/07/03/1076186/this-land-is-your-land) The alternative title came from a verse he wrote but never recorded: > One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple, > by the relief office I saw my people. > As they stood hungry, > I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me. In American public life, and in legions and legions of American-flag-displayed-stage-right churches, “God bless America,” both the declaration and the song, function akin to the “Amen” at the end of a prayer. Audiences expect to hear those words close a political speech or civic occasion. And congregations expect to hear that declaration-prayer petition on the nation’s high holy days, both the scheduled ones (4th of July) and occasional ones (memorial services after national tragedies). But there is another storyline, in addition to God bless America, that must be heard if we are going to be honest about our past and if we really care about justice, forgiveness, and conciliation in society. Guthrie hinted at that story. It is the story of God condemning America. I’m not referring to the jeremiads from the Religious Right who blame any problem in America, from hurricanes to 9/11, on liberals and LGBTQ+ persons, whose ideas and behaviors are lightning rods for God’s wrath. No, there is a long tradition—a long American spiritual tradition, a long Hebrew-Bible-prophetic tradition—of challenging “God bless America” as a sufficient “ask” of the Almighty. Furthermore, sometimes it is simply the wrong ask. Many readers will know Frederick Douglass’s powerful 1852 message he delivered as the keynote speaker at a white people’s 4th of July celebration. Here is an excerpt: > [Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America.is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse”; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html) In recent years, many of our neighbors and co-religionists have awakened more to the reality that, while slavery is no longer legal, racism is still in the water, the soil, and the air of American culture, still very much alive in our laws, policies, policing, in our schools, houses of worship, and families. At times, saying “God bless America” could be accepted as more of a plea for change than as a blessing for who and what we are as a nation. But there is that other tradition, the Frederick Douglass and Woody Guthrie and Ida B. Wells tradition of calling on Americans to condemn what God condemns, of damning what God damns. ![](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/05/c1/29/05c129513376549d5980f44fd68e0128.jpg)You will remember the huge whirlwind that spun around presidential candidate Barack Obama when a few words and sound bites from a 2003 sermon preached by his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, hit the news. Wright said—multiple times—“God damn America.” Have you ever listened to his whole sermon, or even the lead-up to those words? [Here is a goodly excerpt, the context ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYqrXVNfYUI)for what became a viral sound bite: > Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, … Pontius Pilate – the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from east to west. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Guyana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian decent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them in slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no. Not “God Bless America”; God Damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God Damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme! In the Bible, how a nation treats it most vulnerable citizens and visitors is the measurement of justice. When a nation does what is right in God’s eyes, the people are blessed with peace, with real shalom. When they do what is wrong in God’s eyes, when some exploit the vulnerable for their own benefit, God withholds peace, thereby condemning them to living in and with the consequences of their actions and attitudes. It may be hard to find a more biblical message for any July 4th in America. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with the Rev. Dr. Charisa Hunter-Crump](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/charisa-hunter-crump/) **Published:** June 11, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “What were the challenges of doing and being church during a pandemic? How prepared was your congregation? What were the learning curves you embraced? What did you learn about church that you might not have known or that became more or less important? What did you start that you will continue doing?” These are some of the questions host Gary Peluso-Verdend (executive director, Center for Religion in Public Life) asked the Rev. Dr. Charisa Hunter-Crump. Charisa is the pastor of [Cairn Christian Church in Lafayette, CO](https://www.cairnchristian.com/), a small but growing theologically progressive congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Canceling "Chosenness"](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/canceling-chosenness/) **Published:** June 8, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *This is the second of four sermon starters for the 4th of July weekend. I’m taking common Christian religious claims about the U.S. and re-examining them. Last week was “In God We Trust.” Next week will be “God bless America.”* *Readers are free to use these ideas. In each sermon starter, I endeavor to interpret the nation’s life in light of the nation’s value claims, history, and Christian scriptures and theology.* It is sometimes helpful to run this exercise: imagine that something (rather than someone, please) was truly canceled. Imagine you had a powerful magnet and something you wanted to remove from life for examination was as moveable as metal filings. For example, what would the American diet, the content of grocery shelves, and restaurant menus be without many tons of readily available, cheap, processed sugar? Or, if the Gulf Wars had never happened… Let’s take that magnet and extract from the American story everything about being chosen by God, everything that was borrowed—misappropriated—from the Bible in regard to ancient Israel and used to interpret the meaning of America. Magnet employed. Filings drawn out. Imagine the U.S. if the Exodus narrative was not used by colonists to position themselves as the children of Israel seeking freedom against the Egypt-like, more powerful British empire. Neither was the narrative available to justify conquering from sea to shining sea, according to God’s promise to conquer the Canaanites (American Indians); or where the raging fire of God’s final act would spark American revivals, take over the earth, and bring down the curtain of history. So, our higher purpose for rebelling against Great Britain would have been… what? There would be no Manifest Destiny to claim the West and Southwest and Pacific Northwest for God’s chosen white race. White Christianity, the chosen of the chosen, could not position themselves as the pinnacle of religions for America. The men who first drilled for oil, pre and post-Civil War, would not have claimed (as, in reality, they did) “God put these vast deposits in the ground just for us to discover, just for Americans to build the most prosperous civilization ever. God chose to reveal oil to us in this time and place.” As we run this “what if we did not/could not claim a chosen people status” exercise, we see how much of U.S. history is tied into stories of being chosen. Being special. We are by no means the first nation to make this claim. And we are not alone in today’s world in thinking we are God’s favorite (at least when we “behave”). But we have, arguably, employed the Exodus—freedom—conquest—Promised Land saga more extensively than any other modern nation. Many readers will know that [Abraham Lincoln warned the nation away from such claims](http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/trenton1.htm). A people whose origins include the embrace of slavery could not be God’s chosen. But Lincoln’s words about being an “almost chosen people,” while brilliant and eloquent, fell on mostly deaf ears. After his death, Jim Crow, rooted in a Lost Cause/chosenness theology, replaced Reconstruction. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/chosenness.png)Native peoples were hunted into near extermination by a government flying the banner of “this land is our land” because God said so. In the Spanish American war, we obtained colonies and justified our overlordship by the claim that the White Race was bringing civilization to the dark corners of the earth. And no small amount of chosenness continues to fuel America’s and Americans’ actions, right into the Gulf Wars and their aftermath, and on to the insurrection at the Capitol, in the name of God. Now, here is a slightly different magnet. What if we Christians withdrew every filing of our *support* for the appropriation by the nation of “chosenness”? Setting aside what this withdrawal would mean for the roles of Christians within U.S. society, where would stripping out chosenness and its stories and symbols leave American history and society? I think we’d have a much more clear-eyed opportunity to embrace and reckon with the whole of our history. We might also see our uniqueness and purpose can still lift our eyes and strengthen our backbones. We are the world’s most ethnically and religiously diverse attempt to form a nation and govern that nation, in large part, as a democracy. We remain in the vanguard of the post-Babel-ing of the earth’s population where persons speaking hundreds of languages might learn to see each other as neighbors rather than strangers. Despite the real, horrifying, maddening, and tragic lives too many migrants, immigrants, asylum and refugee seekers have found here, the U.S. is still a destination. And here, the descendants of colonist-invaders-settlers, of invaded peoples, and of immigrants and asylum seekers are all in this land together. This land that is more the wilderness in which any “promised land” will be *built together where we* are rather than the place in which we organize to conquer someplace else. We tried that, and the so-called promised land for some came at the cost of great injustices for many. There is still that *e pluribus unum* thing. Maybe we leave a smidge of “chosenness”: America is a place to demonstrate that “from many, one” is either a fantasy or really possible and, therefore, really is “the last, best hope of humankind.” --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [In God We (Don't) Trust](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/in-god-we-dont-trust/) **Published:** June 1, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *This is the first of 4 sermon starters for July 4th weekend. Preachers are free to use them. In each sermon, I endeavor to interpret this moment in the nation’s life in light of both the nation’s value claims and Christian scriptures.* I ran for the cross country team my first year in college, until my knees pleaded “no more.” I remember running against Wheaton College, the school made famous by Billy Graham. All the teams brought locks for their use of guest lockers—except for Wheaton. The Wheaton harriers placed a Bible on top of their valuables. While the rest of us trusted in MasterLock, the Wheaton team trusted in God (or, at least, that the guilt a would-be thief incurs while moving the Bible to get to the valuables would be sufficient to stop the act). To this day, to secure a locker, I’ll choose a lock over a Bible. What does it mean for a nation to “trust in God”? Not for a church. Not for a cross country team. Not for an individual or a family, but for a nation to trust in God. The American claim embedded in “In God We Trust” puzzles me. Some people see our official national motto as an aspiration, as a place we desire to be. I can’t go there. I am categorically suspicious of any nation’s claim to trust in God. When a nation connects itself to God and claims to operate out of trust in God, I keep my eyes pealed for how God is held captive to the nation’s ambitions. The history of the motto makes the claim suspect for me, too. Northern preachers importuned Lincoln to add God to the Constitution, just as the Confederates had done to their governing constitution. Lincoln, steeped in biblical knowledge, with a keen sense of the Hebrew prophets, knew that neither side of the war could or should claim God was on their side, for “the Almighty has His own purposes.” Lincoln sees hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed and can’t see the truth of “in God we trust.” So, he agrees for the motto to be minted on a coin, the 2-cent coin. On money. Was Lincoln doing this tongue-in-cheek or even sarcastically? Placing the words on a symbol of mammon? (Harry Stout’s excellent book, *[Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War](https://www.amazon.com/Upon-Altar-Nation-Moral-History/dp/0143038761/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WC61WHRN30XA&dchild=1&keywords=upon+the+altar+of+the+nation+a+moral+history+of+the+civil+war&qid=1622552349&sprefix=upon+the+altar%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1)*, addresses this topic.) The motto was not officially adopted until 1956. At that time, the U.S. employed an array of Cold War weapons against the Soviet regime, including words. The U.S. was a godly nation. The Soviets were Marxist-Leninist atheists. The adopted motto was weaponized to distinguish us from them. At the same time, we and they were building and installing nuclear weapons of sufficient power and quantity to “make the rubble bounce,” to bring about a human-made end of the world that God made. In God we trust? Our nation’s defense budget is far larger than any other nation, by a multiple of three. In God we trust, or in Lockheed Martin? ![](https://www.militaryworldsrl.com/pimages/KIMAR-92-BLACK-9-mm-IN-GOD-WE-TRUST-SPECIAL-EDITION-extra-big-10016-825.jpeg)Collectively, we own about 400 million guns, more than one per every human being in the 50 states. In God we trust, or do we trust in Ruger and Smith & Wesson? What does trust in God mean in the most heavily armed nation—for the most heavily armed civilian population—on the planet? The U.S. is still locked in battle with Russia, but we no longer employ “In God We Trust” against them. Now, we use the motto as a weapon for a civil war. Why are lawmakers in so many states, including Oklahoma, mandating that the national motto be placed in every classroom? And why are we religious people who are suspicious of a government claiming God on high alert for turning the nation into either a church or a deity? My hunch is because we smell the gunpowder of God being weaponized. I am fundamentally uncertain as to what it means for a nation to trust in God. In which God do we claim to trust? A Christian God, whatever that means? Would that be the loving version or the quick-draw punishing version? A god who is in control at all times? A god who will make all things right? A god who will clean up all our messes, regardless of how irresponsible we are? A god who is the source of love, truth, goodness and beauty? A god who will bless what America blesses and curse those whom America curses? Certainly these are not the God of the classical Hebrew prophets or of the Sermon on the Mount. Trusting in God might be closely related to doing what God asks. “He has told you, human one, what is good and what the LORD requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8, CEB) I can’t imagine a humble walk, a just walk, a loving walk when burdened with tons and tons of armaments, guns, prison cells, and all else that points to trusting in some other god than the one in which we claim to trust. It is time to get honest about the national motto and ditch it. Or, repent and turn. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [As Sick as Our Secrets](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/as-sick-as-our-secrets/) **Published:** May 25, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/1200px-TulsaRaceRiot-1921.png)Flames across the Greenwood section of Tulsa during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. United States Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95517018/ There is a true truism among family therapists and recovery groups: a family is as sick as its secrets. In this week during which the eyes of national reporters, and beyond, have turned to Tulsa, the insight about families is being employed to reflect on Tulsa’s history of keeping secrets, of nearly complete silence, for much of the century since the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Families, congregations, cities, and nations are also only as healthy as how they deal with their secrets. A grandparent left trouble in Europe and came to the U.S. to escape. Keep the secret or you might be in danger. A pastor commits suicide in the church office on a holy day. Keep it secret or the reputation of the congregation is ruined. A nation is founded on high ideals but also theft and violence. Talk only about the high ideals; about the rest, keep silent or change the story. [In 1970, a retired National Guard brigadier general decided to dig into a story about what was then called the Tulsa Race Riot](https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/racemassacre/50-years-ago-the-1921-tulsa-race-massacre-was-a-taboo-subject-when-tulsan-ed/article_58c4ad0c-918c-11eb-a5f5-8bb30424d29b.html)—nomenclature used by journalists around the country referring to racial violence in the post-World War I era (1919 was known as Red Summer for the nearly 40 episodes of White on Black violence). He received death threats. He moved his family away from Tulsa to keep them safe. When he tried to interview survivors, he encountered a great deal of fear of retribution, as well as unaddressed trauma. When he attempted to interview White people who lived in Tulsa in 1921, he was met with closed doors, silence, and sometimes anger. In reflecting on why he received those response a half century after the event, the writer noted timing: White men in their teens and twenties in 1921 were city leaders in 1970. Were they feeling shame? Guilt? Doubling down on hate, as one KKK member told him about regretting they did not “finish the job?” Silence and secrets. Recently, I organized [a panel](https://youtu.be/IMpSCfTQh3M) of White and Black, Jewish and Protestant religious leaders in Tulsa to talk about race and religion in Tulsa today. Among them were leaders of congregations active in 1921. Two of the predominantly White congregations have records of the sermons preached after the massacre, blaming Black people for the violence. Several other congregations conducted board meetings soon after the event. In the minutes of those meetings, there is no record of the massacre in their own city, the death of maybe 300 people, destruction of many hundreds of buildings (including by representatives of the city), and the displacement of thousands was not mentioned, let alone addressed. Silence, the beginning of the secret. Black and White people in Oklahoma taking Oklahoma history were kept ignorant about the massacre for most of a century. There is all that trauma in the city’s soul. Blood crying out from the soil. Sometimes a secret is formed and kept by changing the story to eclipse the truth. We see an attempt at such in real time today regarding the January 6 insurrection. One of the nation’s two ruling parties is rejecting a deep investigation. Some propaganda networks are pushing the story that the invaders were from the political Left disguised as the Right. One lawmaker, who is photographed barricading the doors against the mob, claims the crowd looked just like any normal tourist group. Change the story to hide the truth. Growing up in the North, I did not know about the Lost Cause. The Civil War was fundamentally about whether the practice of slavery would advance to new states or be contained. As the war progressed, so did the cause, pushing toward emancipation and the elimination of chattel slavery. But some Southerners, including Christian clergy, claimed the issues were Southern honor, Southern ways of life, and political matters such as states’ rights versus a tyrannical federal government. The war’s outcome was a God-ordained cleansing for the South’s incomplete righteousness. Slavery—it was not so bad, the Lost Cause voices said. It was in keeping with God’s racial and patriarchal hierarchies. The South will rise again. Textbooks influenced by Lost Cause advocates in textbook-influential Texas focus on the lost graciousness of Southern living and the war of Northern aggression. Thus, the Big Lie of 19th century America still lives. Change the story. Keep the secret. For a nation birthed with high ideals but also founded on violence, land theft, and bondage, we have a lot of reckoning to do. While body cams, cell phone videos, exhuming hidden stories, and breaking silences “disrupt” the patina of peace, these disruptive acts are necessary and good. It is these acts which give us a chance to fix that which can be fixed. For that which cannot be repaired, religious communities have some worthy tools to share: rituals and actions of confession, repentance, penance, restitution, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We also have the knowledge, when we remember, that when silences are broken and secrets uncovered, communities cannot get to forgiveness and reconciliation without taking the other steps first. Break the silence. Exhume the secret. Reveal a truer story. Muster the collective courage to deal with the truth. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Creating Hell One Punishment at a Time](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/creating-hell/) **Published:** May 18, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** We live in a punishing society. We are a society that supports and tolerates a great deal of inflicting pain for moral reasons. Lots of us feel justified in pronouncing “I need to teach you a lesson,” and we’re not talking about math or grammar. If a system is organized to get the results it is getting, then our society is organized to punish. Punishment is the morally-justified infliction of pain by some individual or entity (such as a government-authorized agent) on a person or persons who have done something wrong according to a law, norm, social more, or personal code. Allegedly, if someone experiences the punishment deserved, their subsequent memory of the punishment and accompanying fear and shame will “keep them in their lane.” That is, unless the punishment is ultimately to satisfy the sense of righteous offense felt by the agent of punishment. Then punishment is not so much about deterrence as it is about satisfying the punisher. Punishment always includes a moral claim. A wrongdoing incurs a societal debt that must be paid. The infraction causes a tear in someone’s life and/or in the fabric of society. The alleged purpose of punishment is to satisfy the debt and mend the social fabric. But does punishment pay the debt and repair the tear, or does it worsen them? Note how “tough on crime” is a punishment-laden phrase. The choices are “soft on crime,” which means low levels of punishment, or “tough on crime,” which means to up the pain inflicted by the state in response to the criminal act. The alleged logic is deterrence: if we make the pain great enough, we will deter this person from committing a crime again and deter others from committing that crime. However, think of the different conversations and arguments if the problematic was not soft or tough on crime but centered on victim compensation, reformation of the perpetrator, and social restoration (where desirable and possible). To my Facebook friends and members of the Center for Religion in Public Life Facebook group, I asked how they understand the difference between punishment and “logical consequences.” [The shared thoughts are excellent reflections](https://www.facebook.com/groups/CenterForReligionInPublicLife). First, we must differentiate between natural consequences and logical consequences. Natural consequences are based in physics. If I walk in front of a speeding car, I am going to be injured or killed. If I eat a 500-calorie donut three times a day for a year, I will look more like the donut at year’s end than I do now. The logic here is true cause and effect, action and reaction–without a human agent determining the logic. Logical consequences involve a logic which is played out by either the creator of the logic (a parent; a board of directors) or the agent of the creator (a judge or law enforcement officer; an HR officer). Saying “logical consequences” is another way of saying “practical reason:” reasoning about matters that could be other than what they are. Logical consequences, therefore, may or may not be logical to the one receiving the consequences of an action, which almost any child suffering logical consequences can tell you. “If you do the crime, you do the time” sounds like a logical consequence statement, as inevitable as a natural consequence. But determining what constitutes a crime (everything from murder to possession of a joint or driving with a broken taillight) and what is the debt that must be paid to satisfy the imposed consequence may or may not seem logical. If an oil tanker breaks open and pours millions of gallons of crude into pristine waters, to me, it seems a logical consequence (and not a punishment) if the company was required to repair the damaged ecosystem for as long as it takes and to pay whatever court fees the state incurred in pressing the company to do the right thing. Now, if the company were also shut down, would that be a logical consequence only or a punishment? That depends on the logic imposed. Logical consequences can be smokescreen language for punishment. I’m sure that, whatever was in Officer Derek Chauvin’s mind when he slowly, publicly, murdered George Floyd, the officer thought his actions were morally-justified logical consequences for Mr. Floyd. Given the human propensity to mask less-good intentions of our actions from ourselves, to justify our decisions to ourselves to sustain the image of being the good people we are, we on the political-religious left should be suspicious of punishment lurking in our own “logical consequences” judgments. Some responders to my question on Facebook opined that logical consequences denotes a restorative approach that punishment does not. After a person or the society has been wronged, what are the alternatives to “an eye for an eye” or “I’ll take two eyes because you took one” that allow for the possibility of repair? Ours is a highly individualistic, non-communitarian society—as most recently evidenced by the various logics regarding mask wearing and punishments meted out for not wearing masks or for asking someone to wear a mask. We, as a society, have not acted as if we are “all in this pandemic together.” I wonder about the relationship between our individualistic, “I don’t need you” society, and crime and punishment rates. Do societies with a stronger felt connection to each other, a stronger sense of what we owe to each other, commit fewer crimes? In such societies, do they punish less and seek to restore relationships more? ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Last_Judgement_Michelangelo-scaled.jpg)What influence do religious, spiritual, and theological teachings have in creating a high punishment society? Every society has a moral order, a sense of right and wrong and what we owe to each other. But not every society or religious group believes in hell in the [high percentages we see in the U.S.](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/10/most-americans-believe-in-heaven-and-hell/) Not every society is as awash in apocalyptic rhetoric of God bringing history to a close through high-punishment events leading up to an ultimate sorting between the saved and the eternally damned and punished. I’d wager that among Western nations, no other society has as high a percentage of politicians and appointed leaders who believe they are called by God to their post. And, as called, they are agents of both divine mercy and divine retribution. God may have said “vengeance is mine,” but in the U.S. we have legions of people who believe they are deputized agents of God’s vengeance. It is no coincidence that states with larger percentages of theologically conservative Protestant Christians are states that are “tougher on crime.” \[[I’ve not yet read this book but it is now on my reading list.\]](https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Law-Order-Punishment-Evangelical/dp/0674238788) Hell is a place of punishment. No restoration. No purging. No repair. No forgiveness. The time for all that is past. However, to what extent have we U.S. Americans already created hell? And what would it take to dismantle our creation? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Will Finding Our Roots Change Us?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/finding-roots-change-us/) **Published:** May 12, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [“Finding Your Roots”](https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/) is a PBS series hosted by Harvard historian Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In each episode, Gates interviews celebrities while he presents to them always-revealing information about their families. Somewhere in every interview, after a new reveal, Gates asks: “How does knowing this change how you understand yourself?” This is exactly the question the nation needs to be asking as more and more is revealed about the fullness of who and what this nation has been and, therefore, who and what we are and might yet be. Gates’ team of researchers does fabulous work. They dig into dusty archives, flaking record books, microfilmed newspapers and manifests. In addition, they do DNA analysis. Surprises for the guests include: who their enslaved ancestors were or that their ancestors enslaved others; family names were changed to escape revengeful person from the Old World; their ancestors were murdered in the Holocaust; they have living relatives of another color because, somewhere in their family history, persons of different races had babies. Nearly everyone finds they are descended from people who went through a terrible ordeal, who were oppressed—but who were also resilient. Sometimes there is a scandal revealed by DNA: Dad is not one’s biological father, or great-great grandpa had two families at the same time. [![](https://image.pbs.org/contentchannels/WbCWmdw-show-mezzanine16x9-4JfM804.jpg?crop=512x288&format=jpg)](https://www.thirteen.org/programs/finding-your-roots/)As the celebrities turn page after page of the book Gates’ team assembled to reveal the guest’s roots, the guests express a range of emotions: joy, deep sorrow, anger and rage, gratitude. Seeing pictures and names of people, sometimes going back centuries, about which one knew nothing prior to the show—wow! Coming to understand the pain that one always knew was part of the family’s history but which one did not understand until now—oh, my. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t remember anyone saying on camera, “I wish I did not know this,” no matter how painful the revelation. Sometimes, though, it is clear the guest musters up their courage before turning a page at Dr. Gates’ invitation. Bringing one’s family history from darkness into light can be scary. I so wish we U.S. Americans would collectively muster up the courage to turn the page on our collective history, learn what the next page reveals, and ask, “How does this information change how we understand ourselves?” Too often, in too many states, houses of worship, schools, and homes, the page is not turned. In places such as Oklahoma, the dominant political party is trying to legislatively excise the fuller story—or so the smell test of people I respect indicates. The older, seriously misshapen, truncated story rules understanding. I am not a fan of the term “white fragility” (for several reasons), but darn, I think the term applies. Why can’t we, the American people, pair 1619 with the English importation of enslaved people, with the Declaration of Independence and write a story that includes both? Why can’t we both admire the courage of Lincoln in producing the Emancipation Proclamation and deal with his widely-shared prejudice against free White and free Black people living together? Why can’t we tell the stories of both our off-and-on openness to immigration and our sometimes mean-spirited rejection and isolationism? What if we could both boast of being the most multi-religious nation on earth while also reckoning with white evangelical Christianity’s predominance and, in nearly every generation, its quest for dominance? What if we could weave a “from many, one” narrative not by reducing the multiplicity of ethnicities and cultures into the equivalent of a monoculture McDonalds (same look nearly everywhere), but by both celebrating the cultures AND sitting with their generational traumas? What if we could embrace the facts regarding both the generosity of many Americans and the nation’s relative stinginess when it comes to foreign aid? In our assessment of religion, why can’t we both recognize the enormous good religious institutions have contributed (e.g., health care, education, feeding the hungry and sheltering the unsheltered) as well as the violence (spiritual-emotional-physical) with which some expression of religion is allied—or which is caused by religion? Any political or religious community which tells only the story of America as going from the quest for religious freedom, to being God’s New Israel, to being God’s exodus people, to being God’s manifest destiny people, to being God’s chosen people into the 21st century is bearing false witness. We must also include, embrace, and understand *as our stories* slavery, genocide, land and wealth theft, exploitation of immigrant labor, racism, greed, imperial wars, Jim Crow, and a moral order established to provide freedom for some and suspicion—and sometimes rejection—of the value of equality. There are legions of excellent histories which give all of us—us religious people, us Americans—the opportunity to turn a new page and learn something we did not previous know about ourselves, including who is included in “ourselves.” We can learn to tell a new story which includes all the relatives we did not know we had, and all their stories of from where they came and what their experience of America has been. But, *now that we know them*, the American people is being asked repeatedly today, “How does knowing this change how we understand ourselves?” Right now, the nation, and many religious congregations, are stuck in a vicious spiral of pursuing and suppressing this question. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Phillips professor Dr. Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-phillips-professor-dr-lisa-davison/) **Published:** May 5, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In October 2020, Center for Religion in Public Life director Gary Peluso-Verdend interviewed [Dr. Lisa Davison](https://ptstulsa.edu/lisa-davison/), the Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Denominational Formation. Dr. Davison joined the Phillips faculty in 2010. Since coming to Tulsa, she has continued her work of teaching in many settings—academy, church, training programs, civic organizations. Her work on the Bible and sexuality, sexual expression, and gender roles, as well as speaking against the many tentacles of supersessionism (that Christianity eclipsed and replaced Judaism), are among her public theological contributions. She is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Cartoonist Marlin Lavanhar](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-cartoonist-marlin-lavanhar/) **Published:** April 23, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/marlin-2.png)Many listeners and readers will know the Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanhar as the senior pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Marlin is well-known in Tulsa and, in UU circles far beyond Tulsa, for his preaching, leadership, and for his community work in matters of race and of race and policing. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/marlin-5.png)But Marlin is also an amateur cartoonist. His topics range from the religion to the political and social—just the kind of material we love to feature on “Committing Faith in Public.” Gary Peluso-Verdend, executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary, interviewed Tulsa on April 9, 2021. An album of Marlin’s work is available on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marlincartoons/). ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/marlin-1.jpg) ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/marlin-4.png) **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Disappointing Civil Religion](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/disappointing-civil-religion/) **Published:** April 20, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In researching a [book on campus ministry](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1555408923/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i6) at the beginning of my academic career, the lead author (the [Rev. Dr. Sam Portaro](https://www.amazon.com/Sam-Anthony-Portaro/e/B001JS67CW%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share)) thought about calling the book *The Dis-appointment of Campus Ministry*. For, to “disappoint” can mean “to lose an appointment, to be set aside.” In that vein, I believe civil religion has been dis-appointed. Civil religion refers to religious interpretations of a nation’s origins, purposes, and destiny. A civil religion is expressed through one or more founding stories, the sense of what it means to belong here, the moral order of what citizens owe to each other, and the source of strength to overcome obstacles. Being “as a city on a hill” is an expression of civil religion. Arlington National Cemetery, resting place of those who gave “the ultimate sacrifice,” is sacred ground in the civil religion. The Constitution, the Declaration, and speeches such as Lincoln’s Second Inaugural are sacred texts in the civil religion. Border policies and laws, and confidence in “we the people” to govern ourselves and solve problems, are manifestations of the civil religion. In the 1960s, sociologist Robert Bellah wrote about civil religion and its problems at the time. In an essay, and later (1975) a book, he wrote that civil religion in the U.S. was built on the Bible’s historical importance, particularly the concept of covenant. Covenantal understanding of America plus Euro-American concepts of civic republicanism provided the frames for the how nation understood itself. The religions of the nation gave warrant to both covenant and a democratic republic. However, Bellah’s book was entitled *[The Broken Covenant](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo3633018.html)*. Civil religion in the 1960s and 70s was already in danger of being dis-appointed. The primary religious traditions that fed and supported the civil religion were the denominations previously known as mainline Christianity: Presbyterians, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, Disciples, Methodists (including historically Black Methodist denominations), and some Lutherans. Unitarians and Reform Judaism were often close-by. ![](https://resizing.flixster.com/sCF1JeP_grgZWgj1FCZS9OgcWso=/799x1066/dkpu1ddg7pbsk.cloudfront.net/movie/11/20/71/11207139_ori.jpg)One point on which most parties seem to agree today: the current level of polarization cannot go on forever. What will resolve or lessen the tensions? I don’t know. I used to think an external enemy on the level of an alien invasion, or warning such as “The Day the Earth Stood Still” would work. These denominations fed the civil religion through tolerance, and sometimes acceptance, of “others.” They were, and mostly are, pro-democracy. These denominations provided the leaders in the ecumenical movement and then in interfaith dialogue and relations movements that widened the circles of who belongs and what we owe to each other. These are the religions that, at least by the mid-20th century, stood for labor rights, equal rights for women, the end of racism, peace through justice, denouncing the Doctrine of Discovery, and ecological justice. In recent years, most of these religions, with the exception of the Methodist traditions, embraced LGBTQ+ persons (we United Methodists are going to split over our understandings of LGBTQ+ persons), including as ordained leaders. The UCC ad line, “God is still speaking,” expresses the progressive direction of what was mainline civil religion. America could be more than it has been: more hospitable, more just, more compassionate, more of (to use Dr. King’s phrase) a beloved community. Holiness is pure love. And then arose the Christian Right, first stirred in opposition to civil rights as an instance of what they believed was federal overreach into the states and into private life (such as religious justifications for racially-segregated schools), and then galvanized by opposition to abortion, by a Christian-nation patriotism, and by the felt need to defend “the family” against perceived assaults on the natural, godly, patriarchal and heteronormative standard. The social and policy expressions of Christian Right civil religion are evident in working to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, championing the Second Amendment, limiting or abolishing legal abortions, bringing about peace through military and police strength, and protecting the right to exclude based on one’s religion. Compromise is the language of the devil. Unclean and disloyal groups and persons are to be silenced, rooted out, cut out, and/or expelled. Holiness is purity. God’s appointed servants are authorized to be agents of God’s wrath. Do you see a vortex of polarizing forces swirling at the deepest emotional-moral-spiritual levels, forces both echoing and reinforcing the nation’s current fault lines? Now, add to this picture the recent Gallup poll which indicates slightly more than half of the U.S. population, for the first time in polling history, is disaffiliated from religious institutions. So, if questions about religion are asked one way, the “nones” are 23 percent of the population. But when you add in all those persons who were raised in a religious tradition, consider themselves Catholic or some kind of Protestant by tradition, but are not affiliated with any religious institution, we’re up over 50 percent “none.” How supportive are the nones of any version of civil religion? To come back to Bellah: the civil religion is not merely broken. It is either dead or dis-appointed, when it comes to uniting a nation of persons from so many different nations, so many histories. Civil religion without cohesion is no civil religion. Competing civil religions amount to another form of sectarianism, the kind that produced the Reformation-era wars. One point on which most parties seem to agree today: the current level of polarization cannot go on forever. What will resolve or lessen the tensions? I don’t know. I used to think an external enemy on the level of an alien invasion, or warning such as [*The Day the Earth Stood Still*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still) would work. Now, I think we’d find a way to fold an alien into our battle stories rather than unite in purpose save the nation, or the planet. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Mind the Virtue Gap](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/virtue-gap/) **Published:** April 13, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** These attributes distinguish a democracy from a mob—at least according to the American defenders of democracy around the time of the nation’s founding: - Respect demonstrated by the majority for the rights of political minorities - A well-informed, virtuous public. Now, as is evident in today’s “we live in separate universes of facts and meaning” polarization, the rights of political minorities and a “well-informed public” are both deficient. For example, Oklahoma’s legislature is completely dominated by one party which needs and engages the opposing party for, basically, nothing. And, surveys indicate an astonishing percentage of the U.S. public, especially in the party that lost the election, continues to believe their candidate won more votes than the actual winning candidate. But for today, I will focus on the other deficiency: a virtuous public. What “virtuous” means is, of course, contested, as one would expect in a democracy! However, walk with me a moment. Virtuous refers to public virtues, the kinds of character strengths and moral commitments in citizens a nation needs in order to maximize self-governance. What if we distilled virtues into just this one: personal responsibility? That may be the virtue which elevates moral agency to the level necessary to become a well-functioning democracy. How is personal responsibility expressed? Personal responsibility is manifested—or its absence is evident—in work, in relationships, in what one does when one makes a mistake, and in the depth of a commitment to mutuality. Does a person work, whether in the for-pay economy or raising children or volunteering, to the best of their abilities, to make a positive difference in society? Does one participate in personal and social relationships in healthy ways? Does one acknowledge mistakes and seek to rectify errors and damage? Does one acknowledge and act upon the insight that one’s own freedom is bound up in, and also constrained by, the freedom of others? I imagine most people on both sides of conservative-liberal debates would affirm the virtue of personal responsibility and the four ways through which taking responsibility is expressed. If, as the U.S. Supreme Court in *Citizens United* wrote, corporations are “persons,” then apply the virtue of personal responsibility to corporate persons, too. *Now, in your judgment, what is the gap between being a virtuous public and the one we are now?* My take is: the gap is large, for both individuals and corporations. And the places to learn the virtue of personal responsibility and its attendant expressions are few. And growing fewer. The urgency of addressing this virtue gap is accelerating while the places for moral education are either diminishing or highly contested. Consider that maximizing the morality of personal responsibility is difficult in a relatively homogeneous society, where individuals recognize each other as “same.” How much the more is it challenging to recognize others as kin in: - A nation of nations, and of states which sometimes would rather be untied than united. - A collectivity of peoples of many, many different local and regional cultures. - Our long history and present practices of creating racial hierarchies and tolerating economic inequities. - A time when no unifying national narrative rings true. Many societies utilized religion as a unifying force and a teacher and guardian of social virtue. With more than 250 recognized expressions of religion in the U.S., and with the barriers to an established religion in the Constitution, the whole category of religion is more of a gladiator game than it is social glue or moral academy. [![](https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/1mlbpqjqyuma9i2skgqowa.png)](https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx)[Moreover, a very recent Gallup poll finds that less than 50 percent of the American public is affiliated with any religious congregation. And the downward trend continues.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx) This means religions will be less and less important as sources for morality, person and public. So, it is no mystery that, in the absence of a religious glue and of a dominant religion functioning as teacher and guardian of public virtue, we see: - Some Christians claiming Christianity as the nation’s true identity and doing everything in their power, including through legislatures and courts, to defend against what they see as the ungodly onslaught of secularism and liberalism. - Presidents using executive orders to steer public virtues in one direction or another. - Federal court rulings, increasingly from judges appointed by the Bush and Trump administrations, functioning as moral adjudicators. - State legislatures spending their time and attention on flash-point social issues and comparatively less floor time on matters such as the budget and all the programs a budget serves. In other words, these are attempts to serve as social glue and public morality; and we should all be worried about the results. These attempts at shaping, and sometimes coercing, public virtue are played out in public schools. Among all the other huge challenges facing public education in the U.S., let’s add the polarized public morality contests of adults who can’t see their way past the win-lose scenarios they/we created. The U.S. has become an incredibly complex, multi-everything society. By the mid-2040s, there will be no racial-ethnic majority. We are a society that, in terms of human brain development, is extremely challenging. Human beings are wired to be more wary of strangers than of “like us.” This fact, along with the absence of transcending religious commitments or true-ringing national narratives, make a virtuous public, filled with and led by individuals and corporate persons who exercise exemplary personal responsibility, maximally difficult. If religious affiliation continues on its downward course, religion will be a weaker influencer of public morality than it is now. I don’t know anyone who sees the polarization evident in presidential elections, court decisions, and state legislatures diminishing soon. Are there current or potential schools of public virtue that are or could be, up to the task for the challenges we face? I am sure there are legions of examples and experiments. Consider the social justice actions taken and inspired by Black Lives Matter, Stoneman Douglas students who survived mass murder, Moral Mondays, and Greta Thunberg. But I think we need a movement on the scale and energy of a revival. Scale and energy, yes, but we do not need a return to “old time religion” or any past era. We need something we’ve not yet seen for the nation we’ve not yet been. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [When We Take Off the Masks](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/when-we-take-off-the-masks/) **Published:** April 6, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** On Easter Sunday morning, shortly before sunrise, I attended an in-person worship service for the first time since the March 2020 shutdown. The service was outside. Everyone masked. It was lovely to be around people I’d not seen in a year, except on Zoom. During the service, an imaginary scene briefly passed through my mind. The scene was of unmasking. I imagined what it would be like, being in a group of people I care about and who care about me, who together are told, “Okay, face each other. You may unmask now.” In slow motion, we each reach up, gently pull those blasted straps off our ears, and behold the face of another.” I felt a fleeting surge of joy as I imagined the unfolding of a group unmasking. Maybe because it was Easter morning, and in the recesses of my memory, I remember lighting the first fire of Easter at a midnight vigil—light unmasking darkness. Or the time when my boss took me to an Easter vigil in an Episcopal Church where the triptych was shut all during Lent, and at midnight it was opened with a joyous pealing of bells and everything the pipe organ could give. Joy unmasking grief. It is not time to unmask yet in public settings, but what a joy it will be when that time arrives. [![](https://64.media.tumblr.com/22eed7557ca97f726effbed08b6f4ec0/tumblr_inline_p7yu6jzky71se0g5i_400.jpg)](https://ancientgreekmasks.tumblr.com)Then masks can go back to their normal uses. Protection from dangerously cold weather. Hiding faces during social justice protests from ubiquitous surveillance technology. Having fun, whether for Halloween, Mardi Gras, or on “The Masked Singer.” As a personal protective measure during surgery, or to filter out noxious odors and allergens. And, of course, to conceal one’s identity during the commission of a crime or to hide something from the public’s view. You know, socially normal uses of masks. During my college and seminary years, we talked about masks a lot: the masks we wear in public. The masks with which we hide our “true selves,” including how we hide ourselves from ourselves. The masks that shape our faces, strapped on us by parents, social norms, formative (including traumatic) experiences. Those conversations about the masks we wear created or invoked in us a longing to see ourselves “as we are” and others as they are. In theological conversations, the topic was seeing ourselves as God sees us rather than through the prejudiced and socially-distorted categories with which we mask. The longing to see and be seen. To behold ourselves and others. By today’s psychological theories about the self, we in the 1970s were quite naïve. We presumed the possibility of a stable self, of a core self, rather than “masks all the way down,” which is a simplistic way of portraying some contemporary theories. Take off one mask, there is another underneath. I continue to believe—yes, perhaps naively—that there is a self that is not simply layers of masks. A responsible self. A self that can, more or less, be known and to which we each can be held accountable. To paraphrase Maya’s Angelou’s famous, provocative words, which don’t make sense without some kind of self, “when someone shows you who they are—with or sans mask—believe them.” In our nation, haven’t we been talking, arguing, voting, and fighting over what “when someone shows you who they are” means? One effort at masking or unmasking ensconces the norm of a white, Christian national identity. A counter effort is to mask or unmask that narrative and deal with the racism underneath. In a bygone era, doctors and rugged cowboys promoted the health value of smoking, a value now (mostly) unmasked. On a recent episode of [“Last Week Tonight”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiu9GSOmt8E) (HBO), John Oliver profiled/unmasked how the plastics industry touts the virtue of recycling plastic by masking how little is or can be recycled and how much plastic each of us eats in our food (about a credit card per week). Don’t you long to see the matters unmasked for which we, individually and collectively, are responsible, especially when you suspect or know that a promoter, pastor, or politician is manipulating you through the use of a mask? Can you imagine hearing these statements: “Oil is a tremendous source of energy per ounce—but has to be replaced for the sake of sustaining life on the planet.” “If everyone votes, my party will have to move left/move right or we’ll never be elected again.” “When you want great tastes and don’t care about the calorie or sodium counts, eat here!” Our current reality—or, rather, what passes for a construction of reality—might be expressed in the classic line from *A Few Good Men,* “I want the truth!!” And the retort, “You can’t handle the truth!!!” Paraphrased, and changed into a question, “Can you handle the realities of a world where problems, possibilities, and people are unmasked? And why are we, the public, so often presented with a masked reality?” It is not yet time on the pandemic calendar, instructs the CDC, to unmask in public places. But it is long past time to unmask in order to have any chance of addressing the moral and ethical issues facing our faith communities and our nation. One can imagine, and hope. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Which Myth Comes After a City on a Hill](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/after-city-on-a-hill/) **Published:** March 30, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In religious studies, “myth” does not mean “not true.” A myth is not history, as today’s historians try to write history. Names, dates, an observable sequence of events. Rather, to say it paradoxically: myth is about the meaning of life that plays out again and again, that makes sense of the data of our lives. Myths proffer archetypical stories that play out in history. Regardless of the historicity of the biblical Exodus event (Red Sea or Reed Sea, shallow or deep water, hundreds of people or Cecil B. DeMille’s cast of thousands), the mythic truth of a God who hears the cries of the oppressed and sides with them against the gods who are served by social hierarchies and empire plays out in history again and again—for those who put their faith in that myth. Somewhere I read about a wise old Southern preacher who was asked where the Garden of Eden was. In reply, he gave his home address where he lived as a kid. The person who queried him retorted in surprise, “I thought it was somewhere in Mesopotamia.” The preacher replied: “Well, all I know is that at 1234 Mayberry Place (I’m making up the address here) when I was 10 years-old I stole candy from a store and ate it in hiding. I felt so guilty. My mother came looking for me calling out, ‘Where are you?’” A true story, yes. A story given meaning by a myth that plays out again and again. Among all the many challenges facing the U.S. as a nation—and, regardless of your perspective, we can all name a legion or two—is the challenge presented by a national myth that is incapable of serving as our archetypical story moving forward. Manifest Destiny. American exceptionalism. Christian nation. New Israel. Promised Land. As a city on a hill. The myths invoked by these words and phrases—and the legitimated culture, behaviors, and policies—do not ring true to an increasing percentage of the nation. The good news is that myths can change. We know this because they have changed. Manifest Destiny was declared by a newspaper editor in the 1830s who advocated for taking Texas from Mexico. American exceptionalism may originate with Alexis de Toqueville, a Frenchman who traveled the U.S. also in the 1830s. (Or with Marx! Marx thought the U.S. was exceptional in not developing a proletariat the way his model predicted it should.) Religious claims about particular colonies, e.g., Puritan Massachusetts, were not shared by all the colonies; and even those colonies such as Pennsylvania and Rhode Island founded on religious visions did not share the same visions. The Pilgrims were not much remembered in U.S. until centuries after they landed (and the stories we 60s children were told about them were myths passing as history). Virginia, and not New England, was the mother of four of America’s first five presidents and was much more influential in the first decades after the Revolution than was New England. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/as-a-city-on-a-hill.png)Consider that phrase “as a city on a hill.” This is a phrase from a “sermon” entitled “A Model of Christian Charity,” written by John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts colony. [Daniel T. Rodgers](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691181592/as-a-city-on-a-hill) wrote a (for me) page-turning, eye-opening history of the use of this writing—and its utter neglect for nearly 200 years after its composition. Winthrop’s original purpose was to plead for the rich associated with the colony to remember their duty to those who are poor. Mentioned only occasionally until the middle of the twentieth century, the image—the myth—became foundational *history* for Ronald Reagan, for whom it meant promise more than the peril of potential failure. Rodgers on the history of the myth: > Most likely “A Model of Christian Charity” was never delivered as a sermon at all. Although copies of Winthrop’s text circulated in England during his lifetime, by the end of the seventeenth century they had all literally vanished from memory. One of the long-forgotten copies was discovered in a bundle of old sermons and documents of New England history in 1809, but it was not put into print until 1838. And then it lapsed from sight again almost as completely. …Through the 1970s mention of “A Model of Christian Charity” was a hit-or-miss affair in standard histories of the United States. It was only in the decade of the 1980s, three hundred and fifty years after its writing, that the incongruously parallel work of a conservative Cold War president, Ronald Reagan, and a radical, immigrant literary scholar, Sacvan Bercovitch, combined to make Winthrop’s text and metaphor famous. “A Model of Christian Charity” is old, but its foundational status is a twentieth-century invention. (quote from pp. 4-5) Winthrop thought he was writing primarily to the colony’s wealthy backers, and to the colony’s wealthy citizens, regarding their special obligation as people of wealth to those who are poor. He used the “as a city on a hill” (the word “as,” by the way, is entirely important to evoke God’s promise to Israel without claiming to be the successor to that promise) to say: Pay attention! Everyone is looking at us. If we don’t succeed, God and the world will judge us harshly. Claiming a special blessing without special responsibilities to each other and thinking of the whole history of the nation as one shining city on a hill: no, that was not Winthrop. That was a myth divorced from Winthrop’s context, a myth that fundamentally changed his meanings four centuries after his time in order to serve a nation battling both an “evil (atheistic) empire” abroad and progressive, multicultural advocates at home. One of the opportunities with myth-making in a nation as young as the U.S. is that our history is so recent. Excellent historians such as Rodgers render a huge service by untangling history from myth. Their work gives all of us the opportunity to discard myths that no longer serve their role of providing meaningful story arcs to aspire to and to live within. From a faith-based point of view: the moral burden of discarding the old myth that privileged a specially blessed city on a hill and choosing a new myth for a multicultural democracy that needs to be a new kind of world citizen is laid upon us. It is a heavy burden, and the eyes of the world are indeed watching. (Note: much of the historical material in this article is derived from [Rodger’s book.](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691181592/as-a-city-on-a-hill)) --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Consider Who Lives Downstream](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/who-lives-downstream/) **Published:** March 23, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Recently, two weeks after my second vaccination dose, I spent time with relatives in the Chicago area I’d not seen since before my dad died a year ago. Driving around my old haunts often stirs up the silt from the bottom of my soul. This time, perhaps even more so. When I was starting the drive back to Tulsa, Gordon Lightfoot’s “[The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald](https://youtu.be/9vST6hVRj2A)” played on the radio. As he sang the story of the ship that Lake Superior swallowed, I drove over the DesPlaines, Illinois, and Kankakee Rivers. A small deluge of thoughts flooded me, especially regarding the connections all around me, especially the connections between “civilization” and the waterways alongside which we live and move and have our being. - Whoever thought it was a good idea to turn rivers into sewers? Did they care who lived downstream? - What mental blockage allowed tanners and butchers to dump animal tanning chemicals and carcasses in the Chicago River, sufficient to cause the river to catch fire (in the 19th century)? Didn’t they know someone lives downstream and would be poisoned or driven from their homes in search of clean water? - How can any Great Lakes city pour raw sewage into the world’s greatest concentration of fresh water (20% of the entire planet; 80% of North America)? - How in the world did we get to a place where microplastics are found in every layer of the explored oceans, and an island of plastic waste twice the size of Texas (!) fouls the Pacific halfway between California and Hawaii? The oceans, rather than the Amazon, are the lungs of the planet. My, have we clogged those lungs—along with the stomachs of countless ocean animals. ![](https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fscottsnowden%2Ffiles%2F2019%2F05%2FGreatPacificGarbagePatch.jpg) Future generations live downstream from us. Do you remember what the skies looked like in the week following 9/11? While Americans—indeed, most of the world—was reeling from and dealing with grief, anger, trauma, and the like, planes were grounded. The air was cleaner. Skies were bluer. Who thought it was acceptable to belch and spew and pump toxins into the air that show up in food, water, soil—for generations to come? Surely, the inventors of the first coal burning factories or oil well drillers could not have envisioned what they were creating. But we do now. We have exercised our power to block the sun and diminish the stars we can see. Future generations live downstream from us. In the post-World War II era, American farmers took pride in being the most productive farmers on earth. They took pride, with good reason, in being able to feed much of the world. But that productivity came at a cost. One cost is servitude to industrial agriculture: patent-holding seed producers, weed killer and fertilizer manufacturers, banks for the huge machinery to work mono-crop fields. Another cost was slowly killing the soil—and, by runoff, streams and groundwater supplies—with chemicals meant to fertilize the soil. And, future generations live downstream from us. If you don’t know Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, [*Braiding Sweetgrass*](https://www.amazon.com/Braiding-Sweetgrass-Indigenous-Scientific-Knowledge/dp/1571313567/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3RWDAC4P6ORWG&dchild=1&keywords=braiding+sweetgrass&qid=1616189277&sprefix=braiding+s%2Caps%2C269&sr=8-1), I recommend it to you. Dr. Kimmerer is a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a professor of botany. In her book, she braids Western science and a First Nation’s way of paying attention and inhabiting time and place. As a grandchild of immigrants, I’ve returned again and again to her profound question: > [After all these generations since Columbus, some of the wisest of Native elders still puzzle over the people who came to our shores. They look at the toll on the land and say, “The problem with these new people is that they don’t have both feet on the shore. One is still on the boat. They don’t seem to know whether they’re staying or not.” This same observation is heard from some contemporary scholars who see in the social pathologies and relentlessly materialist culture the fruit of homelessness, a rootless past. America has been called the home of second chances. For the sake of the peoples and the land, the urgent work of the Second Man may be to set aside the ways of the colonist and become indigenous to place. But can Americans, as a nation of immigrants, learn to live here as if we were staying? With both feet on the shore](https://in-the-weeds.net/becoming-indigenous-to-place/)? What are we dumping in the river that, in real time, persons who live downstream from us, suffer with today? And, what are we dumping into the river that, figuratively speaking, endangers the lives of future generations? Regardless of one’s religious or political affiliations, these moral questions should be at the forefront of our faith communities and civic deliberations. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Morality of a State Budget](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/morality-of-a-state-budget/) **Published:** March 16, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** A lesson I learned in a church administration class 40 years ago is: a church budget is a moral document. Decisions regarding why and how to ask for money, and which ministries are funded—or not, are all moral decisions. ![](https://images.dailykos.com/images/379797/story_image/budget_moral_document.jpg?1489979974)A state budget is also a moral document. A state budget represents conflicting decisions and interests, cobbled together, seldom pretty and never satisfying. That said, if you want to know how a state views its priorities—including who and what state government is for, and what the state’s role is in ensuring the welfare of its most vulnerable populations—look at budgets. *I invite religious congregations and other interested parties in Oklahoma to join in a project to develop, promote, and encourage the use of a set of moral principles for a just Oklahoma budget.* *This project is the beginning of a long-term effort to influence the culture from which policy decisions and legislation are derived. In other words, the project’s work is upstream of the formal political process.* My opinion as a Christian who has lived in Oklahoma for a total of nearly 23 years is this: Oklahoma’s social fabric is too thin. Too many persons, families, and groups live needlessly in poverty, suffer from poor health, and endure dangerous living conditions. We tolerate systemic racism, toxic individualism divorced from healthy communities, and gross inequities. Historically, we have enabled corporations to extract and export the state’s natural resources without considering the long-term impact of that exploitation on the air, water, and soil on which our lives depend. It does not have to be this way. > **I welcome feedback on the following statements and learning of your interest in the project:** [**crpl@ptstulsa.edu**](mailto:crpl@ptstulsa.edu)**.** ***Our faith traditions require us to be particularly attentive to and protective of people across the lifespan who live in poverty and who are most threatened in difficult times.*** Moral principles for a just budget apply both in times of economic prosperity and of adversity. *The principles are especially important in difficult times when the pressure for austerity and sacrifice can result in greater burdens laid on the backs of the poor and vulnerable.* Decisions to raise revenue, invest, and spend should strive to actualize these four moral principles: **Respect Connections, Protect the Vulnerable, Sustain for Generations, Fund Sufficiently** - ***Respect all persons and our common home***. All persons are treated with dignity and respect. The human community depends upon healthy soil, and clean air and water. The social, economic, and spiritual connections between Oklahomans and the land are recognized and strengthened by a just budget. - ***Protect our most vulnerable populations***. The budget protects and lifts people living in poverty and all our vulnerable neighbors. A just budget provides opportunities for poor and vulnerable populations to participate in the economy and to prosper*.* - ***Make decisions for multi-generation sustainability***. A just budget invests in the lives of the people and the environment by imagining, to the best of our abilities, what is good-just-sustainable for future generations. - ***Fund the state sufficiently to do the state’s work***. A just budget *reflects the state’s responsibility to ensure justice* (social, economic, criminal) and *promote mutual welfare and happiness.* Markets, faith-based organizations, non-profits, and philanthropists are partners with the state in the work of justice and mutual welfare, but they cannot shoulder the state’s responsibilities. **Evidences of a Just Budget** Enacting a just budget creates a virtuous spiral. A just budget, invested and expended over time, would lead toward a prosperous state evidenced by: - *Strong communities*. Strong individuals flourish in healthy communities. Healthy communities are essential for raising healthy children. - *Economic and social equity and equality*. Actualizing the value of freedom for everyone requires the values of equality and equity. - *Habits of lifelong learning*. Formal education for lifelong learning is available through a robust ecology of public pre K-12 schools, colleges, universities, and private and public training programs. - *Clean air, clean water, healthy soil*. A healthy present and a strong future for many generations forward requires a regenerative approach to caring for the earth, our common home. - *A robust infrastructure that facilitates business, education, and cultural exchanges*. A few examples are well-maintained bridges and roads, universally available broadband, meaningful international relationships, and beautiful public spaces. - *Well compensated, meaningful work*. Work is valued and compensated by a living wage (not a minimum wage) that provides individuals and families the resources necessary for health and well-being. - *Strong safety net*. The state’s safety net assures a sustainable quality of living for individuals and families who, temporarily or permanently, are unable to earn their living in the work economy. - *Public trust*. A people’s trust in their government is earned through free and fair elections, truth-telling, ethical behavior, laws and policies fairly applied, transparent transactions, sufficient oversight, and meaningful legislative deliberation and citizen participation in the budgeting process. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Public Religion in the News Digest, December 13, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-in-the-news-digest-december-13-2019/) **Published:** December 13, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** **[![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/public-religion-in-the-news-fb-post/)[Fuller Seminary, LGBTQ inclusion, and the non-discrimination requirements that come with federal student loan programs.](http://www.pasadenanow.com/main/lawsuit-against-fuller-seminary-has-implications-for-religious-educational-institutions-across-u-s-hinges-on-lawful-discrimination/#.XeawZvxMFPY)** I don’t know if this is another issue that may simply be resolved at a local level (see the following article by David Gushee; this case is not unique). But the case illustrates the conflict between public morality which differs from, and is more tolerant/accepting than, a religiously-based morality. This is exactly the type of case that makes conservative religious leaders fearful of the federal government’s overreach and why conservative leaders put so many eggs in the basket of the ideology of federal judges, who they believe will protect their right to “lawfully discriminate.” It is also the case that when a school accepts a federal loan program status in order that their students can borrow (e.g., Title IV), there are many requirements that accompany that program. And the school has a covenant of behavior; whether that covenant is clear or not is one of the matters in dispute. So many issues wrapped around each other, and lives affected. [The challenges for evangelical schools caught between generations regarding inclusivity.](https://religionnews.com/2019/12/03/christian-higher-ed-cant-win-the-lgbtq-debate-unless-it-transforms/) From the article by David Gushee: The challenge facing school administrators reminds me of that facing Republicans in Congress who have problems with the behavior of President Donald Trump.It’s lose-lose. If they break with Trump, they lose their base and might get primaried by a Trumpist. If they stay with Trump, they lose everyone else and might lose a general election. See: Collins, Susan (R-Maine).If college administrators break with the exclusionary anti-LGBTQ tradition, they might lose their donors and trustees. But if they fully practice the tradition, they will lose their students.And so, many are paralyzed.For the administrators, here’s one way forward: Get together a critical mass of leaders at progressive-leaning schools and make the break collectively and simultaneously.For the students, here’s your job: These administrators won’t move without more pressure. Keep it up, young folks. Your leaders need your leadership. [US foreign policy re: the status of women and LGBTQ rights is changing—and not for the better](http://churchandstate.org.uk/2018/11/trump-theocrats-claim-abuses-against-women-and-lgbt-people-are-christian-values/). From the article: Mulvaney said the theocrats in Trump’s administration will no longer encourage countries to abandon their draconian and deadly anti-LGBT and anti-women’s choice laws. Instead, Mulvaney defended criminalizing and punishing homosexuality as an American religious freedom issue, and that abusing and discriminating against women and gays embodies Christian values. According to Mulvaney and evangelical zealots, it is a disgrace that President Obama dared represent America as promoting women’s and LGBTQ rights. [Are we in the midst of the opposite of an awakening among churches? Why are so many churches apparently asleep instead of awake with moral, transformative energy?](https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/great-american-slumber) From the article: Is it possible that we are living through “The Great American Slumber,” a time when too many churches are not pressing for the reform of the nation but lining their pockets, becoming court evangelicals, and traveling around by private jets? Are these churches asleep while the youth of the nation are “woke?” And if that is the case, one can only hope, as this author does, that the number of awakened millennials grows and that they evangelize the slumbering churches. [Ok, Boomer—a Jewish Millennial take…](https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/294499/how-boomers-ruined-american-judaism) A respectful but real complaint regarding the assumptions made by Baby Boomers raised in Jewish families. Given the similarities between what the author describes and what I know of Protestant Christian demographics of the same age group, I wonder how much of what she notes is specifically Jewish and how much is part of the zeitgeist. From the article: Let me use a crass analogy that ought to resonate with an age group approaching or already solidly in retirement, borrowed from my friend Alana: We see Jewishness as $1 million in an escrow account; you can use all of it, some of it, you can use it now or later—the point is that it’s an inheritance that is there for you, to enrich your life. But the boomers taught their kids the exact opposite: that Jewishness, and Jewish life, was someone else’s bank account—one they were expected to make regular payments into, never themselves reaping any particular rewards. [Please take a look at the graph included in this article regarding presidency and divine choice!](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/25/how-many-americans-believe-trump-is-anointed-by-god/) The article presents results of a survey regarding which groups in U.S. society think this president, or any president, is chosen by God. Really. Read this one, please. [Rabbis from Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements call for the president to fire his senior adviser because of the adviser’s white supremacist views](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/22/us-rabbis-from-three-jewish-movements-call-for-stephen-millers-firing/) From the article in regard to senior adviser Stephen Miller: “There was not much debate,” \[Rabbi\] Pesner said. “The rabbis across the spectrum were in agreement right from the beginning. A white supremacist in the White House sends chills down rabbis’ spines.” [With the decline of religious adherence and attendance, will chaplains in public spaces grow in importance?](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/27/3795509/) Article where the author wonders if chaplaincy is becoming a new face of American religion—interfaith, public, present where people are (e.g., work, airports, hospitals) rather than houses of worship. On the one hand, the presence of more chaplains in public spaces makes sense in a population where an increasing number of persons do not identify with a religion. On the other hand, who could/will/should fund chaplains? That already is an issue for some secular community hospitals (less so for religiously-based organizations and the military—where the issue may come up often but where the practice of chaplaincy seems ensconced). [Religious liberty—but maybe only for conservative causes.](https://www.kcur.org/post/church-sues-lenexa-denying-its-request-operate-homeless-shelter?utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-3c12555eb9-400153437&utm_content=bufferb5401&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR2pb_NqZCJKLADXk7VHtQW4Ia-f_7Pc1Y4ggGsjmJm5RrrEDp4U2YZeBR0#stream/0) William Barr’s Justice Department has made “religious liberty” a, and maybe “the” priority, but only of a certain type, e.g., denial of service to LGBTQ persons or the ACA’s birth control mandate. If this suit by the church against the city for burdening their religious liberty is not resolved locally, it will be interesting to see how the courts treat the matter. As noted above in the article on religious people helping refugees, the Justice Department has not signaled it will equally protect more progressive expressions of religious liberty. [And another example of religious witness conflicting with state policies.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/supreme-court-criminalize-immigration-advocacy-sineneng-smith.amp) A Supreme Court case to which to pay attention by people of faith whose religion leads them to provide any comfort for undocumented persons. From the article: It could even put lawyers in an ethical bind, advocates say, threatening them with prosecution for meeting their obligations to provide zealous and correct representation. For example, Vargas says, an undocumented person who marries a citizen can adjust her status to lawful, but if she leaves the United States, she won’t be permitted to come back. Advising that client to stay would be an important part of representing her—but also potentially a felony. [And another reminder that not all religious actors in public are conservatives.](https://religionnews.com/2019/12/03/melissa-rogers-envisions-a-better-way-forward-for-faith-in-the-public-square/) From the article: While noting that political labels “rarely map well on religion,” Rogers said she has seen a tendency in the media and society at large to overlook religious practices and religious liberty claims that come from the political left and center, and in turn, a tendency to overemphasize religious liberty claims that come from the political right.“We have people practicing their faith every day in ways that that don’t fit into a conservative cookie cutter approach,” she said. “We have Native Americans who are protesting the passage of oil pipelines across their land. Catholic nuns [brought](https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/columbia-nuns-take-gas-pipeline-case-to-u-s-supreme/article_37107006-b075-11e8-a0f0-bf6fe23cb90a.html) a lawsuit about that recently, in addition to issues raised around Standing Rock and other free-exercise claims made by Native Americans.”Rogers reeled off a handful of others examples: an Arizona humanitarian worker who successfully [invoked](https://theintercept.com/2019/11/23/scott-warren-verdict-immigration-border/) the Religious Freedom Restoration Act when he was put on trial for providing aid to migrants on the border; a South Texas Catholic diocese [protesting](https://www.king5.com/article/news/nation-now/catholic-diocese-fights-to-keep-historic-site-from-being-used-in-trumps-border-wall/465-186a0f43-e496-4317-8e46-3167275f4a85) the federal government’s efforts to use land on which a historic chapel sits for a border wall; houses of worship [participating](https://religionnews.com/2017/03/19/analysis-new-sanctuary-movement/) in the multifaith sanctuary movement to protect immigrants facing deportation; faith-based groups working with the government to serve as refugee resettlement agencies; resistance to the military draft; Sikhs and Muslims pushing for the right to wear headscarves, turbans and beards while serving in the military. [“But you don’t LOOK Muslim!”](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/insidious-islamophobia-i-experience-white-blond-muslim-how-i-combat-ncna1092871) Delightful, first-person story, by a Muslim woman who does not “look” Muslim who has written a fictionalized version of her life. From the article: As a white-passing Muslim — the daughter of a Jordanian-Syrian immigrant of both Circassian and Western Asian descent and a white, blonde Roman Catholic of Swiss-Austrian descent who converted to Islam when she married my dad — I’ve been privy to Islamophobia my entire life. It’s just that the Islamophobia I’ve been subjected to is a uniquely subtle version. [One might wonder what we *do* feel comfortable talking about in church…](https://www.pewforum.org/2019/11/15/americans-have-positive-views-about-religions-role-in-society-but-want-it-out-of-politics/) Recently released Pew Study. Many matters of note, two of which I’m highlighting. One matter is discussion of politics in church. Large differences between Black and evangelical white Protestants and white mainline Protestants, who are much less comfortable. But does the survey indicate talking about politics from the pulpit mostly, only? The second matter that should concern clergy: most people don’t feel comfortable coming to clergy with personal issues. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [The Lord’s Prayer is Christianity’s Most Dangerous Prayer](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-lords-prayer-is-christianitys-most-dangerous-prayer/) **Published:** June 16, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** This past semester, I taught a class about the relationship between Christianity and democracy in the United States. Since there are multiple practices of both Christianity and of democracy, rooted in different founding narratives and value systems, studying “the relationship” is a complicated task. One of my statements toward the start of the class was, “Jesus created a tension with which all Christians of all stripes must engage when he prayed ‘your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The problem is: there is already a kingdom here that he is praying to be replaced. The current king—or whatever kind of ruler(s) we have—will not like being replaced.’” The Lord’s Prayer may be the most dangerous prayer in Christianity’s prayer books, one that hundreds of millions of Christians recite weekly—and weakly. Inattentively. The prayer is dangerous because we have no idea what we are saying when, I would argue, we are asking that our world be turned upside down. And it is dangerous when we do know what we are saying, because there will always be rulers who don’t want their rule replaced. Some Christians will object, “What danger? Jesus said his reign is not of this world. The message of Christianity is that Jesus is humankind’s universal savior.” Indeed, that is the good news many Christians understand as the core of the faith. The coming of the reign of God, they believe, refers either to a heavenly fulfillment or to a future event, popularly referred to as The Second Coming. But there is that provocative, maybe inciting, phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven.” There is a “Now, right now!” vibe to this prayer that does not point to “someday.” More than two centuries ago, scholars began to note more frequently than Western churches had that Jesus’ messages as presented in the Gospels differed from Jesus the Christ presented to the Roman world by Paul. These scholars saw that Jesus’ core message, like John the Baptist’s before him, was, “Repent—turn around, for the Empire of God is at hand, near, breaking into the present.” (The term in the Greek text of the New Testament often translated into English as “kingdom” is *basileia*, and *basileia* in the first century meant “empire,” the empire of Rome.) Jesus the Messenger, wrote these scholars, was spread through the empire by Paul and his students as Jesus the Message. But Jesus’ message per se was the Empire of God—a close-by reality, quietly, in small ways, often unnoticed—breaking into this world and turning the Empire upside down which, in God’s eyes, is then rightside up. The last are first. The poor are blessed. The prisoner is freed. In the 4th century, when Constantine legalized Christianity, one can imagine it was more likely that an emperor would cloak his realm with an otherworldly salvation religion, one that practiced works of mercy in this world while preparing for bliss in the next, than it would have been to embrace a religion with the central message: “God, please replace my empire with yours.” What if we imagine our way back behind Constantine, behind centuries of spiritualizing prayers that shifted concrete circumstances to non-material goods? What if daily bread means we want bread sufficient for today’s hunger? What if “blessed are, or happy are, or exceeding blissful are” the poor who will receive the Empire of God means just that? What if “forgive us our debts” meant financial debts, as scholars now believe was the case for a people crushed and held in their places by the imperial economy? ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Lords-Prayer-GPV.png)In other words, what if reciting the Lord’s Prayer, which begins with the communal “our” and not the singular “my,” was a prayer for a world which is arranged in a way that does not keep some people hungry and burdened with debt as means of social control, which is very much still the way of empires and authoritarians today? What if this world becomes, even if fleetingly, heaven on earth when everyone is fed, when debts are forgiven, when we resist the temptation to return evil for evil or violence for violence? What if the poor and the humble and the pure at heart really are the blessed ones, and the wealthy and those with dark hearts and those who return every insult tenfold are the lost? Such a prayer would have consequences for one’s participation in a democratic republic. The ways of earthly empires are unreal. That is the implication of praying the Lord’s Prayer. What do imagine you are praying for if you pray the Lord’s Prayer, and how do you understand that prayer vis-à-vis the U.S.? Speaking for myself, I believe I am praying for a world—and a nation—that are not prepared to have their imperial or authoritarian ways challenged. I also believe the reign of God will not be fulfilled “in this age,” but it’s “almost here” presence will keep opening spaces for us human beings to live as if God’s reign of justice, inclusion, compassion, and love is the only real reality. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Candy Boxing and Social Media Gone Wild](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/candy-social-media-gone-wild/) **Published:** March 2, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Nearly everyone over a fairly young age has seen, in reruns or on [YouTube](https://youtu.be/_y0nsN4px10), the TV comedy classic scene of Lucy and Ethel working on the candy boxing assembly line. Ethel and Lucy hide that they can’t keep up with the speed of the line. The supervisor then speeds up the line more. Lucy and Ethel stuff the candies into boxes, their mouths, hats, aprons, and dresses. Still, they are overwhelmed. Candy gone wild! But at least the overflow was candy. Imagine the conveyor line as our social media feeds, and Lucy and Ethel are our brains. What is coming down that line, too fast, and how are our brains handling the content?[![](https://metvcdn.metv.com/y5cC9-1489165263-248-quiz_question_image_-10.jpg)](https://youtu.be/_y0nsN4px10) I use social media, some. I love connecting with geographically distant family, high school friends, seminary colleagues, former parishioners and co-workers, and many great church and community people I’ve been privileged to meet through my 23-year association with Phillips Seminary. But I also share the deep concern with many others regarding what social media—the speed and the algorithm-controlled content—are doing to our brains, our capacity for relationships, and our society. Social media platforms are private, for-profit companies. Their business models serve their interests, and the needs and challenges of a multi-cultural nation struggling with democracy do not count. Neither are the interests of organizations devoted to an inclusive, tolerant, compassionate, socially-just version of the common good high on the companies’ concerns list. I read recently that only drug dealers and social media companies refer to their customers as “users.” Algorithms are mathematical formulas that determine how data are treated. Social media algorithms sort potential posts in our data feeds and show us what they “think” we want to see. However, it is also the case that a programmer can program an algorithm to prefer posts with the most extreme emotional content, with content spreading our divides that will attract attention, clicks, shares, and emoticons. In fact, that is the case. Anger—actually, outrage—is one of the emotions evoked and circulated through social media feeds on many political matters. Look no further than the election cycles since 2016 for overwhelming evidence of social media hitting our brain’s fear-and-anger center repeatedly, exhaustingly. Now, combine anger with fantastical stories, those that were once called “lies” but now named by some people “alternative facts.” Repeat the anger. Repeat the lie. Share. Pretty soon, you get teams searching for pedophile, cannibal Democrats and the claim that antifa stormed the Capitol disguised in MAGA hats. To contradict Forrest Gump and to mash his line with Lucy and Ethel: on social media, life is not a box of chocolates. It is an inhumanly fast conveyor belt carrying both candy and legions of attractive toxins deceptively packaged as edibles. You know the old newspaper truism, “If it bleeds, it leads”? Sensational, emotion-provoking headlines are not new. The lack of human filters and safeties vetting the content, the speed, and the customization of news feeds are new. There is no economic incentive to set algorithms to highlight and feed stories of compassion, social justice, kindness, love, generosity, or perseverance in the face of suffering. In fact, because “news” so often means either the banal or some fear-inducing outrage, I’m sure revenues for any site would decline if they switched to a “good news,” “common good” format. But, goodness, we have to try to divert the energy from the toxins with which the social media conveyor belt is filling the world—and our brains. I resonate with many lines from the letter in the New Testament attributed to James. The author employs creative, provocative images: wind-tossed minds, the wealthy shriveling in the sun or treasures rotting in the ground. Then, in short order, the author strings together conception, a bridled horse, a ship’s rudder, fire, and taming wild animals (chapter three). All these images are in service of the admonition to control one’s own tongue, to not “say evil things about each other” (4:11). I particularly like this verse: > Everyone is tempted by their own cravings; they are lured by them and enticed by them. Once those cravings conceive, they give birth to sin; and sin grow up, it gives birth to death. (1:14-15) Now, the same verse with social media in place of “cravings”: > Everyone is tempted by their social media feeds. We are lured by them and enticed by them to click, to react, to share. Once you repeat the feed, anything in the feed born in fear and dehumanization gives birth to more of the same. Eventually, the births lead to death: dead compassion, dead kindness, dead love, dead tolerance, dead generosity. Social media is a powerful tongue. We, Americans and Christians, are still looking for the moral rudder, the bridle, the tamer’s skill, attention, and perseverance. Without these, the ship and the wild horse are carrying us who-knows-where. Americans should find a rudder for the sake of our democracy. Christians should find a rudder for the sake of our souls, our communities, and our witness. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Not Even Almost Chosen](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/not-even-almost-chosen/) **Published:** February 23, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://nqoceanpaddleseries.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/maxwell-smart-missed-it-by-that-much.jpg)“\[H\]is almost chosen people.” Ever since learning this provocative phrase spoken by Lincoln about the US in 1861, I’ve used it. “Almost chosen” sounds like “nearly chosen” or, in the immortal words of Maxwell Smart: “Missed it by THAT much,” as he held up thumb and forefinger in close proximity. But THAT was always a gross understatement. What if the real meaning of “almost chosen” is, simply, not chosen? Not “we missed it by a little bit” but “we missed it.” We missed it by THAT much. The US is not God’s chosen nation. Americans are not God’s chosen people. Based on the historical record, the claim to chosen-ness is an opening to trouble. Some of you reading this may already have been “there” for a long time. However, permit me to follow a trail of breadcrumbs. That trail leads me to believe that a “chosen-ness” story and vocabulary are far more widespread than Christian nationalist pulpits, pundits, and militias. The claim to being a chosen people is more mainline, and more insidious, than you might think. The breadcrumbs. In Christianity’s nascent decades, the Jesus movement(s) and Judaism separated. Early Christian writings used the stories and vocabulary from the Hebrew Bible. Writers appropriated the claim to be chosen, God’s holy people, and the foundational narratives of Exodus were prominent. Paul, in [Romans 9-11](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=481130316), cautioned Gentile Jesus followers to be humble in their claims, for they were wild twigs grafted onto an already ancient tree. The roots were not theirs. Non-Jewish Jesus followers (Gentiles) are fortunate to be included. However, the Christian movement did not heed Paul’s caution. Christian supersessionism—the claim to eclipse Jews as God’s chosen people—followed. Christianity soon acted as if at the root of Judaism’s tree was their Jesus and Jews had been cut off. In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity. Later, Christianity became the sole legal religion of the empire. The persecuted became the persecutors. Supersessionism gripped the sword. Christians were God’s chosen people. Whether alternately tolerating and banishing Jews or waging crusades against Muslims (as well as against the wrong kind of Christians), imperial Christians were God’s holy people. Enemies of the empire were enemies of Christ, and vice versa. In the 15th century, both before and after Columbus’ voyages, papal bulls declared the right and duty to conquer, convert, and enslave non-Christians and those in any lands “discovered.” The doctrine of discovery benefited God’s chosen people. During the Protestant Reformation, Western Christianity splintered. I’d wager every splinter group clung to the belief that they were chosen. Some of the splinters understood themselves as chosen and set apart from the world; they wanted only to be left alone. Some understood themselves as chosen to conquer and reign supreme. That was absolutely the case for Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. It was clearly also the case for what became British North America. Conquest might have been motivated by naked material reasons—land and cheap labor—or by the desires to evangelize and purify the “howling wilderness” and its “pagan” peoples. But “chosen to conquer” was a motivation abundantly clear. First a trickle and then wave after wave of colonist settlers sailed to the Americas. Whether or not they ever heard of the doctrine of discovery, most understood themselves as superior to, more deserving of, more chosen than the native peoples. The conquering began. And from 1619 forward, they brought enslaved (conquered) Africans for the use of God’s chosen: for white, Christian, Americans. The Exodus narrative became a primary religious warrant to break from England. But it could not have been a proffered reason to rebel against the mother country if the belief in chosen-ness had not been so powerful already. Colonial preachers and politicians located their time in the Exodus event per se: God would help them escape Pharaoh’s bondage. Chosen. Continental conquest would come soon. Jonathan Edwards, one of the leading preachers of the Great Awakening of the 1740s, believed God was lighting a new evangelistic fire to burn across the world for Christ, and America was the starting place. American Methodism’s first bishop, Francis Asbury, thought America was uniquely situated in the world to export Christianity globally. That mindset was carried like a virus by missionaries into the 20th century and, for some churches, to this day. The origins of the modern ecumenical movement included the quest to “evangelize the world in this generation.” Chosen. One of the actual reasons for revolution was that American political leaders wanted more of the continent and British leaders opposed that move. After the revolution, colonist settlers poured over the Alleghenies. They, with the religious warrants they drew from Christianity, conquered, converted, or expelled native nations. The chosen people deserved the land. By the time of the Mexican American war, political and religious leaders declared it was white Christian America’s “manifest destiny” to occupy the continent, shore to shore. Chosen. During the Civil War, fought due to the presence of and conflict over the expansion of chattel slavery and all that institution represented, both North and South claimed to be the true Christians, chosen to defend themselves and their God-ordained way of life against the heretical other. After the Civil War, the white rebellion against Reconstruction, the wars of extermination against native nations, and the Spanish American war were rooted in claims of chosen-ness. White. Christian. American. Chosen. For the sake of time and space, I’m going to jump forward to the present day. Christian nationalism and white Christian supremacy are grounded in chosen-ness—grounded at the level of gut theology. But just as it is a mistake to limit racism to people with white sheets and hoods in their closets, it is an error to confine a sense of chosen-ness to nationalists. Every time a prayer is lifted, a song sung, a sermon preached, a blessing invoked, a U.S. flag given stage-right prominence in a worship space—we should sniff out if there is a smell of chosen-ness. If the ask of God in any way lifts the U.S. above the world, “chosen” has been invoked. I am increasingly troubled by any invocation of chosen-ness, even “chosen for special responsibility.” I say this because the history of Christianity when Christian is the dominant demographic, and the history of the U.S., are clear: the nation has closely tied the claim to be God’s New Israel, God’s Exodus people, with conquest. I’ve written previously that the Exodus-wilderness wandering sequence could hold potential for re-working both Christian and American narratives. But the pervasiveness of Christian nationalism (which blends or merges Christianity with nationalism as if the U.S. is supposed to be God’s successor to the promises and laws first covenanted with Israel), in soft (“and God bless the USA”) and in hard forms (“take America back for God”), is increasingly giving me pause. I am troubled by more than the January 6 insurrection. I am troubled by the tight braid of Christian chosen-ness and American chosen-ness. The U.S. is one nation in a world of nations, all under God. I can back that claim. All the world’s peoples are God’s peoples, no one more than another. Measuring a nation’s righteousness by how they treat the most vulnerable members is a plumbline for all nations. I can embrace that claim. I’m not saying that Amos’ call for “justice to roll down” does not apply to the U.S. But that claim does not apply exclusively to any nation. But any claim to chosen-ness today that carries a gene of authorization to conquer others is a danger to the well-being—and even to the being per se—of the human race. The U.S. needs a new narrative. I hope Christians can contribute to that story in a helpful way. The new narrative has to embody a hopeful purpose that does not include the claim to be God’s chosen. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Christian Nationalism May Be Different, and Closer, than You Imagine](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/christian-nationalism-may-be-closer/) **Published:** February 17, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” [Matthew 11:12](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=480571268) (NRSV) *[Taking Back America for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States](https://www.amazon.com/Taking-America-Back-God-Nationalism/dp/0190057882/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3P5MK7FHJZ0IK&dchild=1&keywords=taking+america+back+for+god&qid=1613478460&sprefix=taking+amer%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1)*, by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry, is promoted as the best book on the topic available. I am about halfway through it. The research base is excellent. The categories they create are meaningful. Their questions are important. Here is the heart of their perspective: > “Simply put, Christian nationalism is a cultural framework—a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life.” But the authors do not mean any particular kind of Christianity. “On the contrary, the ‘Christianity’ of Christian nationalism represents something more than religion….\[It\] includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.” (10) ![](https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/121433.jpg?w=940)Image: Anadolu Agency / Contributor / Getty The authors distinguish Christian nationalism from American civil religion. Along with sociologist [Philip Gorski](https://www.amazon.com/American-Covenant-History-Religion-Puritans/dp/0691191670/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2NEGEUA6VXWXR&dchild=1&keywords=philip+gorski+american+covenant&qid=1613412218&sprefix=philip+gor%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-1), they identify the latter with the prophetic social justice tradition of Hebrew Bible. Christian nationalists derive their biblical mandates from other traditions that view the U.S. as the same in God’s sight as ancient Israel: a place of blessing if the nation follows God’s laws, and a place of wrath if the nation does not. (But I see a connection between the two traditions, on which I will comment below.) Christian nationalists are drawn also to the apocalyptic—end-times wars using righteous violence to vanquish evil-doers and install the right leaders. In terms of morality, Christian nationalism’s exclusive moral claim is “fidelity to religion and fidelity to the nation.” (15) In what might be a surprise or at least new to some readers, the authors claim: - Christian nationalism, while related to, is not interchangeable with evangelicalism, white supremacy, or theocracy. - In terms of stances toward Christian nationalism, there are ambassadors, accommodators, resisters, and rejectors (chapter 1, beginning on p. 23). *Interestingly, each political party, brand of Christianity, and racial-ethnic group includes persons who reflect each of those stances*. Yes, some more than others. - The number of persons who score high on the Christian nationalism scale is in decline. It is an older demographic, and younger people do not share the same loyalties. - One does not have to be a Christian to be a Christian nationalist. Persons who adhere to no faith tradition may also align with Christian nationalism. To oversimplify Whitehead and Perry’s work by some exponential multiple: Christian nationalists believe either that the nation was founded as a Christian nation and must be taken back for God, or that the U.S. was at least supposed to be a Christian nation but no longer acts like it. In either case, declension is part of the story. In Christian theological terms, there was a time in America that was better than now. Currently, the nation is “fallen.” And for the “true believer” Ambassadors, God’s people are authorized agents of God’s holy violence to take America back. The authors argue that support for Christian nationalism accounts for who voted for the former president more strongly than race or religious adherence. For example, it is not white evangelicalism per se that aligns with voting patterns. “It is the fact that there are more Ambassadors and Accommodators among white evangelicals that creates … differences between religious traditions.” (67) Here are some questions and comments the authors have raised for me, thus far: - How did Christian nationalism play out on January 6 at the Capitol? We saw crosses, prayer before violence, lots of “take back America” talk, a significant older white male demographic, and violence in the name of the apostle of their agenda. What else, besides Christian nationalism, was on stage? - I would hope more Christians are thinking sympathetically with the dilemma Muslims have encountered for decades: groups weaving elements of Islam into a violent social change agenda. I wonder how many Christian pastors publicly renounced Christian nationalism (I’ve read some statements, but I wonder about the national percentage), as Christians are wont to do when violence is done in the name of Islam. - What are the common instigating factors in the public pairing of white supremacy and of Christian nationalism, at the present time? The relative numerical decline of the percentage of white Christians in the nation and the numerical rise of the “others”? - For those of us who prefer an updated version of civic faith, with a focus on justice and compassion, is there anything good for either religion or the nation that comes from associating the U.S. with ancient Israel? *That association has been used both to advance social justice and Christian nationalism.* The nation’s public narratives have been profoundly shaped by the biblical stories of blessedness/special calling, captivity, liberation, wilderness, and conquest. *If those narratives were withdrawn from contemporary U.S. life, like iron filings drawn out by a powerful magnet, would there be any basis for American exceptionalism? Or, what would be the reason(s) for applying biblical plumblines of justice and mercy to this nation?* - *Christian nationalism is a heresy. It should be renounced and rebuked by every Christian leader.* But, if and when we all did that, what all would we be renouncing and rebuking? Anything and anyone closer to home than *those* red-hatted storm troopers? I’m thinking about how Christian nationalism shares air and space with white supremacy. White supremacy is not inhabited only by people with a Klan robe in the closet but lives primarily in and through policies, social norms and mores—and also in personal habits and dispositions. Is simply saying “I am not a Christian nationalist” without taking action akin to saying “I am not a white supremacist” but taking no anti-racist action? In other words, what would it mean to act like an *anti*-Christian nationalist, and what are the strategies and tactics Christians should employ in order to dismantle this heretical, damaging “ism”? --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Individualism is a Deadly Delusion](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/individualism-deadly-delusion/) **Published:** February 9, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “God created everything” is an ancient truth-claim. According to this claim, everything and everyone is related, for all comes from the same Creator. Human beings do not exist in the singular, only in the plural. We are not monads any more than ants in a colony or bees in a hive. We are here with and for each other and for the planet given us to keep, repair, and complete. I am because we are. In the beginning, and forever after, are relationships. Modern Western science and many spiritual traditions are converging on this matter of relationship: we and all that is exist in a great chain of related being and beings. Joni Mitchell accurately sang, “We are stardust.” All matter, all that is seen and unseen, extends from the Big Bang about 15 billion years ago. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/us-vs-them-still.png)So, why is American society so rooted in the delusion of individualism, especially when our individualism is killing us and despoiling our home? Many reasons for the fantasy could be offered, and religion and economics are surely implicated. The Christian evangelical emphasis on individual salvation can lead to a “me and Jesus” or “me, my Bible, and my Jesus” frame on the world. The narrative and moral order of consumer capitalism prefers detached, self-interested individuals over the bonds of community, friendship, and family. But the evangelical spin on Christianity and capitalism’s preference for the self-interested individual do not fully account for the delusion of individualism. Yes, I believe individualism is a delusion. Arguably, it has no rational basis in religion, science, or experience. Therefore, I call individualism a delusion. Consider these sayings: - I am a self-made person. - I deserve to keep all the fruits of my labor. - I am unique. - Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Fitting responses to those allegedly delusional claims include: - We do not make ourselves. We rely on other human beings, from the mother who birthed us, to eyes that see us into personhood, to the language and culture that gives speech to our voices. Surely, we make choices, and those choices form us. We are not fully other-made, but no one is truly self-made. - One should be able to keep and enjoy the fruits of one’s labor. However, except in incredibly rare circumstances, one’s labor is dependent on the labor of others. That might include the miners who extracted the neodymium in your cell phone, employees, tool-makers, knowledge-workers, and farmers—to list but a few examples. And, receiving “fruits” depends on markets for buying and selling, transportation to get goods to markets, and a secure and relatively trustworthy internet for nearly every kind of transaction. “My” fruits depend on many other persons and institutions, private and public, doing their work. - Yes, I am unique. There is no one quite like me. Everyone in the world can say that. But that is only part of the story. Not every thought is original. All but a few bits of my DNA are shared with humankind, and we can boast of about a 60 percent genetic overlap with a banana! - Pull yourself up by your bootstraps? Yes, the contemporary meaning is akin to “get your butt in gear, use your willpower, work hard, don’t rely on others.” Not bad advice. However, the original meaning was the opposite! If you take the image literally, the image describes an impossible task. You can’t pull yourself up by pulling on your shoelaces, unless you’ve taken your shoelaces out of your shoes, looped them over a ladder rung above you, and the laces and you are of sufficient strength to pull and lift. Sometimes, the meaning of the original is closer to reality than our individualistic, contemporary take. One can’t, really, pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps. We need others. Sociologists since Emile Durkheim have argued and demonstrated that suicide rates are higher when relationships between persons are slack or severed, when a society’s fabric is too thin. A strong, healthy society can’t be woven on individualism alone. A thin-fabric society is prone to tearing. Along the lines of this blog post, I will confess: my perspective is not unique! I assumed someone had done research and created means of measuring the spectrum of societies, from individualist to collective. Sure enough, there are many options. Here is one set of categories that make sense to me. The additional value of equality makes the categories more interesting still. > [Vertical Collectivism – seeing the self as a part of a collective and being willing to accept hierarchy and inequality within that collective.](https://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/CollectiveOrientation.pdf) > > Vertical Individualism — seeing the self as fully autonomous, but recognizing that inequality will exist among individuals and … accepting this inequality. > > Horizontal Collectivism — seeing the self as part of a collective but perceiving all the members of that collective as equal. > > Horizontal Individualism — seeing the self as fully autonomous, and believing that equality between individuals is the ideal. Imagine how societal matters such as tax policy, wealth accumulation, social safety nets, corporate responsibility, criminal justice, tolerance for social inequalities and inequities, the roles of function of government, public health, the goals of political processes, and religion play out in each quadrant. All around us, we can see, for example, how vertical individualism deeply conflicts with horizontal collectivism in clashes between political parties. When the current worldwide pandemic is over, I wonder what will be evident regarding societies that organize in a collectivist rather than an individualist basis, and what difference the value of equality makes. Which organizational values helped to save lives, and which are based on delusions, on false narratives about what humankind is? The moral claim we heard often at the beginning of the pandemic was, “We are all in this together.” Based on a community/collectivist understanding of human relatedness, that is a true claim. For a society that values equality, all the more so. However, in a vertical individualist society, which may be the dominant culture in the U.S. today, the gap between the claim of “we are all in this together” and our reality is wide. Faith-based communities and people of conscience ought to reject the deadly delusion of individualism. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [How Not to Take Responsibility for One's Actions](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/how-not-to-take-responsibility/) **Published:** February 2, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** There is churn in the news these days about “responsibility” and “accountability,” about how words from one person influence the actions of others—or not. The Bible contains numerous comments and stories related to matters of responsibility. One such comment is: “…fathers, do not provoke your children to anger” ([Ephesians 6:4](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=479276267)). The verse only makes sense if the words of one party can influence the behavior of another. [![The Golden Calf, painting by Arthur Boyd. 1946, oil and tempera on composition board, 84 x 89cm. Art Gallery of Ballarat Collection. Purchased with funds from the Colin Hicks Caldwell Bequest and the Ferry Foundation, 1995.](https://cv.vic.gov.au/media/oldmedia/14761/IMAGE10_BOYD%20Arthur%20-%20Golden%20calf%20-%201995.jpg)](https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/creative-life/an-art-history-of-australia/the-golden-calf-painting-by-arthur-boyd/)The Golden Calf, painting by Arthur Boyd. 1946, oil and tempera on composition board, 84 x 89cm. Art Gallery of Ballarat Collection. Purchased with funds from the Colin Hicks Caldwell Bequest and the Ferry Foundation, 1995. One of my favorite biblical stories is the Golden Calf, a story that could be known as “the leader who refused to take responsibility for his actions.” According to the story in the book of Exodus ([chapter 32](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=479276326)), Moses is on the mountain with God, receiving the commandments. It took a long time, 40 days. God had a lot to say. There were the Ten Commandments, plus hundreds of others and a massive number of instructions for everything related to the people’s life with God. In the camp, the people, never a ruly bunch, grew dangerously anxious. The people, perhaps exuding a mob’s energy, approaches Aaron, who is Moses’ brother, left in charge during Moses’ absence. The mob demands action. “Make us gods.” Aaron replies like one with a plan rather than one taken off-guard. “Take off all your gold and bring it to me.” Aaron proceeds to: collect the gold; build a melting fire; form a calf mold to receive the melted gold; pour the gold into the mold; break the mold when the gold cooled to release the calf. The people proclaimed the calf to be “the gods who brought them out of Egypt.” (How one calf turned into gods, or why the people thought they could make gods with their jewelry—great questions for another venue.) Aaron then builds the altar for the calf and proclaims a festival. Moses returned to camp from the mountain, steamed. Before leaving God, he talked God out of vaporizing everyone for breaking the commandments which, by the way, the people had not yet received. But any fool should know you can’t make a real god from nose, ear, and finger rings. Aaron is up to his armpits in this caper. But you would not know it by his response to Moses. When Moses asked his brother what happened, Aaron’s response, basically, was this: “I don’t know! The people wanted a god, I took their gold and threw it in the fire, and out came this calf!” Ah, Aaron, you did a whole bunch more than that to give the mob what they wanted. Chalk the Golden Calf incident up to a lesson on how NOT to take responsibility. A second biblical story on responsibility, or how to evade responsibility, is about the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. The biblical stories about Pilate’s decisions regarding Jesus do not true-up to what we know about Pilate from historical sources, namely that Pilate was so brutal his bosses judged he was unfit for office. And this decision from a government that lined the way to Rome with crucified bodies. In the Pilate story told in [Matthew’s gospel](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=479276677), Pilate wants no responsibility for Jesus’ death. After Jesus is passed from the temple guards to the high priest and then to Pilate, Pilate turns to the crowd. According the Matthew’s telling, the crowd was not just a headless mob but a mob with instigators, who had a plan. When Pilate asked if the crowd wanted Pilate to spare the life of Jesus or of the insurrectionist Barabbas, the instigators yelled for the latter. Done, said Pilate, assigning Jesus’ death to the crowd and washing his hands, publicly, of the whole matter. Historians and biblical scholars attribute to Pilate the decision to crucify Jesus. Only the Romans could crucify. But, in the gospels, Pilate does his best to duck responsibility. And those who pushed Jesus into Pilate’s attention also washed their hands. Mature adults are not perfect. They made mistakes and bad choices. But when they make a mess, they clean it up. When we take responsibility, the water, soap, and towel come at the end, after the mess is cleaned up and it is time to wash the dirt off one’s own hands. Washing off dirt after cleaning up is much different from washing off dirt from responsibility shirked. “Really, I don’t know what happened. I tossed their contraband jewelry into the fire, and out came this calf.” The words and deeds of leaders matter. They paint pictures, make maps, tell stories that ferment feelings, open windows, close doors, signal “stop,” or “go,” or “proceed with caution.” Years ago, when I had long drives on Oklahoma roads with few radio stations available, I would listen to a conservative talk show host. She asked a signature question after listening to her callers’ attempts to evade responsibility for their actions. The form of the responsibility dodge was, “And then something happened.” The radio host retorted, “Did something happen—or did you DO something?” That is the responsibility question. That would be a great question for every present-day Aaron to answer forthrightly, and publicly. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Lessons on Unity from the Ecumenical Movement](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/lessons-on-unity-from-ecumenical-movement/) **Published:** January 26, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** My dissertation was focused on the modern ecumenical movement, that effort by churches, especially in the 20th century, to overcome centuries of division. The goal was outward and visible unity. The movement achieved remarkable, history-making results. Catholics and Protestants could pray together and scholars could collaborate. Numerous bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements green-lit shared ministries and sacramental occasions. A few denominations merged. Less liturgical traditions reintroduced their adherents to ancient liturgies, and more liturgical traditions expanded to include guitars, folk music, and spirituals. On the local level, leaders from different traditions created shared ministries of mercy and studied the lectionary together. But, aside from mergers within faith families, the goal of outward and visible unity was and is elusive. And one should expect any call for unity in the U.S., at whatever level, to be at least as difficult to hear and heed. Here are two examples from the ecumenical movement that offer lessons for this era in U.S. history. One example is about a centripetal force, pulling toward a center. The other example regards how decisions are made and the centrifugal force, pulling away, that one can expect when some stakeholders are not included until the only decision left is to accept or reject. A centripetal force. Three streams co-mingled to comprise the ecumenical movement: foreign missions, Life and Work, and Faith and Order. In the mission field, the absurdity of exporting European doctrinal arguments to Asia and African slapped a cohort of missionary leaders, along with the realization that they had been agents of colonization. The Life and Work Movement congealed around common social ethics concerns. And Faith and Order dealt with sticky doctrinal differences while search for a genuinely Christ-centered dialogue, rather than playing power games of comparative denominationalism. These efforts led toward led toward something like the World Council of Churches before World War II. But I’m not sure the WCC would have happened, or would have been birthed when it was (1948), without the pressure created by World War II and—perhaps most importantly—the threat of World War III. The possibility of a nuclear exchange between the USSR and the U.S. terrified battle-devastated Europe. The external threat acted as a centripetal force. That force pushed ecumenical leaders closer and generated a sense of urgency to create a religious, moral, and spiritual counterpart to the United Nations. The last such moment in U.S. history, for the nation, was 9/11. The centripetal energy of that event is long-since spent. In the midst of a pandemic, when we hear the moral rhetoric of “we are all in this together,” does that sound like an accurate assessment? A centrifugal force. In the U.S., the Consultation on Church Union was conceived in the early 1960s. The initial inventors were the royalty of several mainline denominations, led by Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake. He and his collaborators imagined a post-denominational church that not only superseded denominational brands. It also would yoke rural, suburban, and urban congregations into unified, non-geographical parishes. Methodists, Evangelical United Brethren, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Community Churches, and Disciples were invited and accepted to the table early. From 1965 through 1967, three historically Black denominations joined: the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Zion. In 1970, a Plan of Union was sent to member churches. The plan was overwhelmingly rejected. There were many reasons for the rejection. One of the bigger reasons, in my opinion, is that the non-geographical parish plan was entirely unworkable. In addition to the obstacles presented by geography, there were the obstacles of race, power, and trust. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/unity-at-the-table.png)The three Black Methodist denominations had to consider if they would trust becoming a minority cohort within a largely white church. That circumstance, by the way, of being a minority—and an oppressed one—is what led to the formation of those denominations around 1800 and again after the Civil War (for the CMEs). And this plan was submitted in 1970. 1970. Black church leaders were negotiating between the future of the civil rights movement and Black Power. Agreeing to a plan that effectively ended Black control of Black churches was impossible, and Black church leaders said as much. The centripetal hopes of a small group of white church leaders were no match for a social fabric torn and fragmented by racism. Trust between leaders was, and is, precious and insufficient. The Plan of Union, largely conceived prior to Black Methodist leaders joining the table, was a centripetal breeze during a national centrifugal derecho created by white supremacy vs. the forces of liberty and justice for Black lives. What happens when threat is felt between one faction and another, rather than outside the two factions? One should expect hardened boundaries and defensive and offensive strategies developed. No unifying centripetal force to unite divided groups. What happens when a call for unity is made from a table when not everyone who has to agree to unity is at the table? The answer is obvious. Where are the centripetal forces today that could power a movement toward unity? What must be done to diminish centrifugal forces and empower centripetal ones? Who is at the table, interpreting what unity means and how unity is expressed? These questions, derived from the ecumenical movement, should be part of the national conversation. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Pain of Healing](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-pain-of-healing/) **Published:** January 19, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Massive_fenway_brawl.jpg)Bench-clearing brawl on June 5, 2008 game between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays A pitcher throws a 99-mph fastball and nails the batter between the shoulder blades. The batter charges the mound and benches empty as the pitcher shouts, “It is time for unity and healing!” A gunman first takes out the school security specialist and then walks through the hallways, shooting teachers and students. Many are killed before the gunman takes his own life. In legislative chambers across the country, lawmakers decry calls for gun control and say, “How dare you politicize this tragedy. It is time for unity and healing.” A patient comes into a doctor’s office with a large gash on their leg. The wound is clearly infected. The doctor stitches up the wound while the patient’s dumbfounded partner asks what in the world the doc is doing. “I’m a healer,” the doc says, “No need to inflict additional pain by cutting away the dead flesh and infected area. It is time for healing.” One spouse diverts a significant portion of the couple’s money into a private account and spends prodigally. The other spouse uncovers the deception and confronts their partner. The offending spouse says, “Well, that’s in the past now, I guess. No need to account for the money or my behavior. C’mon, let’s start the healing, Babe.” A gardener, frustrated with weeds and pests, spreads powerful killing agents across the garden beds and, for good measure, over the whole yard. The gardener does the same, year after year, while yields decline and bees are hardly ever seen. The gardener takes a soil sample to the local university farm program for analysis. “Your soil is dead,” the technician informs the gardener. “Hmm,” they reply. “Well, I guess it is time for healing.” No, no it is not time until we deal with the pain. The desire for healing after injury is understandable, but there are challenging, difficult steps to get there, which often require courage and persistence. Healing in any relationship requires: - Diagnosing what the injury is and devising a fitting treatment plan. Does the wound require soap and a bandage or 10 hours of surgery? Does healing a relationship require a series of intentional date nights or overcoming childhood traumas that derail and steal joy and energy from the present? A fitting treatment requires a correct diagnosis. - More pain. Infections must be disinfected or excised. Dead soil requires an enormous level of work, the addition of healthy soil ingredients, and years in order to be alive again. I saw the docs pulling my daughter’s dislocated elbow back into place while she, sedated, still cried in pain until the maneuver was completed. I know congregations where, generations after a trauma such as sexual abuse or a pastor’s suicide, they have not healed because they have been unable to feel and deal with the pain. Public calls for healing are often tied to an implicit demand for forgiveness, for throwing away the claim that a debt needs to be paid. It is strange that such appeals often come from Christians. In the Bible and in Christian theology, grace is not free and forgiveness is not offered without cost. While we Christians differ in how we interpret the meaning of the cross, we mostly agree that the cross represents a great cost, great pain. In personal and social life, wanting to move from injury to healing, or healed, without incurring more pain on the journey is like moving from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday without going through the pain of Holy Week. Before there can be reconciliation, there must be confession, which is painful; repentance, which is painful; penance, which is painful; forgiveness, which is painful. It would be wonderful if the nation’s healing would begin now. But I don’t think we, the people, are ready to face and experience the layers of pain necessary in order to diagnose, devise a treatment plan, and persist. However, the nation’s denial need not inhibit you or the congregation you know best from facing the pain the nation cannot and leading the way for those who may be encouraged by your courage. --- PHOTO CREDIT: User Kevin Bedell on Flickr, [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0), via Wikimedia Commons [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [White Christianity, Democracy, and the Future](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/white-christianity-democracy-future/) **Published:** January 12, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Siege_at_the_Capital.jpg)Protesters on the scaffolding at the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. “Equality for all” has nearly always taken a back seat to “liberty for some” in America, and white Christianity is the heart of that hierarchy. Whether this nation is of white Christians, by white Christians, and for white Christians or will fulfill the promise of becoming the world’s first and most robust multicultural democratic republic is yet to be seen. The promise is imperiled. The linkage between white Christianity and racism is indisputable. In fact, white Christianity is a dominant carrier of the virus of racism in U.S. society. That reality has been strongly demonstrated. As researcher and author of *[White Too Long](https://www.amazon.com/White-Too-Long-Supremacy-Christianity/dp/1982122862/ref=sr_1_1?crid=10PTEBMM86XKT&dchild=1&keywords=white+too+long&qid=1610458561&sprefix=white+too+%2Caps%2C174&sr=8-1)*, Robert P. Jones writes: [“While most white Christians think of themselves as people who hold warm feelings toward African Americans, holding racist views is nonetheless positively and independently associated with white Christian identity. Again, this troubling relationship holds not just for white evangelical Protestants, but also for white mainline Protestants and white Catholics.”](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/racism-among-white-christians-higher-among-nonreligious-s-no-coincidence-ncna1235045) ([Please note from the research: references to white Christians include the Protestant mainline and Catholics, and not only evangelical Christians.)](https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/896712611/american-christianity-must-reckon-with-legacy-of-white-supremacy-author-says) It is white Christians who: - Stole or bought stolen Africans to work as livelong slaves and who justified slavery as compatible both with God’s moral order and with their original, limited sense of who deserved to have a voice in self-government and who should be ruled by others. - Warred with native peoples to win, buy, defraud, and steal land that made the winners land rich and, after the discovery of fossil fuel sources, mineral rich. - Chose to see themselves as a type of ancient Israel: chosen by God and finding meaning in the Exodus-Conquest story, with liberation from monarchy and then a mandate to conquer the peoples of the Promised Land. [This story fed and feeds the related moral-action-justifying narratives of Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism.](https://www.amazon.com/Stand-Your-Ground-Bodies-Justice/dp/1626981094/ref=sr_1_1?crid=G04G3B0FAXLJ&dchild=1&keywords=stand+your+ground+by+kelly+brown+douglas&qid=1610460128&sprefix=stand+your+ground%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-1) - Began their Revolution-Exodus with the stirring words of God-given rights and equality, then established a Constitutional democratic republic that empowered slaveholders and defended slavers’ property rights, thus setting up a society of social, political, and economic unequals. - [Used papal rulings in legal arguments](https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/what-is-the-doctrine-of-discovery/) on the division of the “New World” to justify lands taken from indigenous persons. - Fought a Civil War over slavery that resulted in the end of Constitution-based slavery and over 600,000 dead. - Immediately after the Civil War passed “Black codes” to continue white supremacy. - [Exported racism into the West which included attempted genocide against native peoples, and various forms of oppression toward Black Americans, Spanish-speaking persons, and Chinese immigrants](https://www.amazon.com/How-South-Won-Civil-War/dp/0190900903/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3J9D8AVUNBKCV&dchild=1&keywords=how+the+south+won+the+civil+war&qid=1610458824&sprefix=how+the+south+%2Caps%2C174&sr=8-1). - [Violently and legislatively undermined Reconstruction and invented Jim Crow, including voter suppression at the polls, the overthrow of a city government, and at least 5,000 lynchings (which were often led by white churchmen and attended by whole families as if they were Sunday School picnics).](https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Lynching-Tree-James-Cone/dp/1626980055/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2LCN56ZNNNBGD&dchild=1&keywords=the+cross+and+the+lynching+tree&qid=1610458885&sprefix=the+cross+and%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-1) - [Consistently put white church unity above the cause of racial equality.](https://www.amazon.com/Reforging-White-Republic-Nationalism-Conflicting-ebook/dp/B0058V15UA/ref=sr_1_2?crid=AEIL7MG5X817&dchild=1&keywords=edward+blum&qid=1610458924&sprefix=edward+blum%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-2) - [Justified the Spanish-American war and the acquisition of colonies (e.g., the Philippines) by asserting the superiority of Anglo Saxons over other peoples.](https://china.usc.edu/us-senator-albert-j-beveridge-speaks-philippine-question-us-senate-washington-dc-january-9-1900) - Enacted the [Red Summer of 1919](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cameron-mcwhirter/red-summer-1919/) and the race massacre in Tulsa in 1921. - [Fought every effort to introduce equality in public education through the establishment of segregation academies, battled with the IRS over their uncharitable actions, and explicitly justified their segregation actions as derived from sincerely held religious beliefs.](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133) - Screamed at Black school children, bombed churches, murdered Black and white civil rights workers. - Redlined real estate transactions. - [Went from preaching “stay in your pulpits and out of politics” to forging an alliance—or perhaps an amalgamation—between white conservative Christians and the Republican Party](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/godinamerica/people/jerry-falwell.html), starting with President Reagan and continuing through whatever it is the GOP has become today. The creation of the Christian Right includes buy-in for the Southern Strategy, which hides racism in dog whistles and policy. - Fueled the Tea Party and the marriage of God and guns. - Stoked the “children of light vs. the children of darkness” narrative, especially during President Obama’s eight years and then roided-up the apocalyptic, end-times rhetoric on websites, social media, podcasts, TV, and in-person to support the current president. - Supported (by most) the [death penalty](https://www.amazon.com/Reforging-White-Republic-Nationalism-Conflicting-ebook/dp/B0058V15UA/ref=sr_1_2?crid=AEIL7MG5X817&dchild=1&keywords=edward+blum&qid=1610458924&sprefix=edward+blum%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-2), mass incarceration, and [family separation](https://www.amazon.com/Reforging-White-Republic-Nationalism-Conflicting-ebook/dp/B0058V15UA/ref=sr_1_2?crid=AEIL7MG5X817&dchild=1&keywords=edward+blum&qid=1610458924&sprefix=edward+blum%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-2) at the southern border. - Were prominently on display on January 6, 2021, at and in the Capitol building of the United States of America, waving Jesus flags (or Jesus+Trump flags), carrying crosses, synthesizing Christianity with the QAnon conspiracy-religion, praying. *White American Christians*: the above statements do not describe ALL of who we are, have been, or want to be. But ALL of the above statements **factually** express what we have done in the name of Jesus. All of this is part of our history, part of our present. Based on solid research, all of this is a big part of who we are, a big part of how we have acted and have presented ourselves to the rest of the world, particularly to the people of color in the USA. *White American Christians*: our DNA is all over this history of racist dispositions, actions, and policies. Our DNA is evident in the nation’s present conflict, just as it was building up to and inciting the Civil War and then in promoting the [Lost Cause myth](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-i-learned-about-cult-lost-cause-180968426/). The close association, the merger really, between “in the name of Jesus” and the history of racism among white American Christians has been detrimental to the nation. Moreover, it has been detrimental to Christianity. *Christianity is as Christians do*. We, white American Christians, as a group, have invented, perpetuated, benefited from, ignored, and denied our racism. The message coming from so many places today is: “The time for reckoning is now.” The times for the U.S. are perilous; I fear January 6 is but a foretaste. And for white American *Christians*, we are in crisis, too, brought about by the combination of racism and alignment with “a man who will make things right.” The legitimacy and truthfulness of white Christian witness to Jesus is just as endangered as is democracy, if not more so. Without a real reckoning—including awareness, acceptance, repentance, penance, a new narrative, and conciliation—our public role in the future of the U.S. is dim. --- PHOTO CREDIT: By Kerstie Bush – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98770607 [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Ecumenical Dialogue and the Journey from Enmity to Community](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/ecumenical-dialogue-enmity-to-community/) **Published:** January 5, 2021 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In the centuries preceding the establishment of the United States, Christians slaughtered each other. Lutherans and Calvinists could not abide Mennonites or Arminian Baptists. Even in the American colonies, Quakers endured deadly persecution for, among other matters, shaking hands in lieu of dipping hats; and Protestant Nativists terrorized the growing Catholic immigrant population in the middle 1800s. Yet, by the mid-20th century, the Christian ecumenical movement was hailed as “the great new fact of our era.” Currents created by Western Christians re-thinking what missions meant, collaborating in the midst of wars to find a common vision for more just and peaceful societies, and seeking to find expressions of the church that expressed unity without uniformity converged. After centuries of mutual murders, anathemas, insults, and persecutions, scores of communions/denominations prayed together, shared scholarship, marched arm-in-arm in civil rights demonstrations, and took steps toward shared communion. Granted, the ecumenical movement in no way involves ALL the churches of Western Christianity and their missionary plantings. Many conservative Protestants rebuked the movement toward visible unity as a modern Tower of Babel (including the people who became the Religious Right). Catholic leaders after Vatican II opened some windows, and guarded the doors. Eastern Orthodox participated vigorously without giving a millimeter on who comprises the One True Church. But, it is remarkable how deeply rooted, centuries’ old traditions of enmity yielded—in part—to a different Spirit. So, I wondered: is there anything learned in this ecumenical journey from enmity to community that might be useful for the U.S. in our era of toxic polarization? Maybe. First, the ecumenical movement was impossible until churches were disarmed. With the power of the sword confiscated by the state, either in the form of toleration or religious freedom, churches could no longer seek to purify society by eliminating their doctrinal foes. The work of persuading free consciences to live and work together is not effectively done at the tip of a sword or the barrel of a gun. The First Amendment is, as one commentator aptly wrote, an article of peace rather than an article of faith. Second, the ecumenical movement moves slowly. There is more than one “frozen chosen” denomination. Efforts toward ecumenical agreements are judged by whether or not they are “ripe” or “mature.” Ecumenical dialogue does not inevitably lead forward; sometimes it fails to produce. It is not for the impatient or those whose horizon is measured in months or years rather than decades or centuries. Dialogue requires persistence and grit. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/brown-ecumenical-quote.png) Third: the movement succeeds when both the grassroots and leaders are engaged. In hierarchical communions, “the faithful” may follow leadership—or not. Matured documents, the results of long years of work, were greeted by yawns from the pews. Laity taking ministry into their own hands and forging local partnerships were sometimes roped in by the hierarchy. Leaders can set a tone and can create temporary leaps by a grand gesture, e.g., sharing wedding duties or con-celebrating communion. But if either laity or the hierarchy remains parochial, then ecumenical (which is the opposite of parochial, meaning “the whole inhabited world”) ventures are inert. Fourth, the practice of ecumenical dialogue over the decades produced guidelines for productive dialogue, based on the requirements of honesty and trust. The set of guidelines I like best were offered by theology professor and Presbyterian ecumenical statesman, Dr. Robert McAfee Brown. 1. > Each partner must believe that the other is speaking in good faith. 2. > Each partner must have a clear understanding of their own faith 3. > Each partner must strive for a clear understanding of the faith of the other. Corollaries: “a willingness to interpret the faith of the other in its best rather than its worst light” ; “maintain a continual willingness to revise their understanding of the faith of the other.” 4. > Each partner must accept responsibility in humility and penitence for what their group has done, and is doing, to foster and perpetuate division…. 5. > Each partner must forthrightly face the issues which cause separation, as well as those which create unity…. 6. > Each partner must seek to make the dialogue a source of renewal in their own church.” Robert McAfee Brown, *The Ecumenical Revolution*. 1967, 70-77. Now, read these guidelines again with a divided nation in mind: 1. > Each elected official must believe that the other is speaking in good faith. \[and based on seeing each other as members of the same nation\] 2. > Each partner must have a clear understanding of their own position 3. > Each partner must strive for a clear understanding of the position of the other. Corollaries: a willingness to interpret the position of the other in its best rather than its worst light; maintain a continual willingness to revise their understanding of the position of the other. 4. > Each partner must accept responsibility in humility and penitence for what their party has done, and is doing, to foster and perpetuate division…. 5. > Each partner must forthrightly face the issues which cause separation, as well as those which create a common good 6. > Each partner must seek to make the dialogue a source of renewal in their own party. What happens if you try to sit down with loaded (political and sometimes real) weapons on the table, expecting to run a sprint rather than a marathon, without alignment between leaders and followers, assuming the worst intentions on the other side and unwilling to see anything wrong with your own position and party? You know what happens, for we see it every day. One could argue that the aspiration of *e pluribus unum* is a kind of ecumenical movement for the U.S. And, by looking at the virtues of what engagement in the ecumenical movement has required, we might conclude that “we the people” have a long road ahead of us if that national motto is going to sharpen into reality rather than fade into history. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [For Those Who Did Not Get the Phone Call](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/for-those-who-did-not-get-the-phone-call/) **Published:** December 21, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/gospel-according-to-peanuts.jpg)Robert Short wrote one of the first theology books I owned: [*The Gospel According to Peanuts*](https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-According-Peanuts-Robert-Short/dp/0664222226/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=). In the Peanuts strip, Charles Schulz introduced readers to many ethical, philosophical, and theological conundrums. The kids might be assembled on the pitcher’s mound debating theology. Charlie Brown and Linus often leaned on the “wall of life” as they probed the deepest questions they could muster. And then there was Snoopy. In one strip, Snoopy was on the phone, laughing hysterically. When Snoopy hangs up and walks away, still laughing, Charlie Brown says something like, “I’ll never know what that was about!” Short wrote the phone call was an example of how revelation works: received by some particular person/people/canine, but not available to everyone. I thought about that strip in reflecting on the many, and unusual, theological interpretations I’ve read regarding the November election. For public evangelical/charismatic/prosperity gospel Christian leaders who voted for the candidate who did not win, the nation is still in the midst of war being waged simultaneously in the spiritual and material realms. God has his (I use the pronoun intentionally) candidate, his prayer warriors, his angels, his loyal human servants. They have all been fighting mightily for, they claim, a fair election, religious liberty, and against the forces of darkness as represented by the other candidate (or those whom the other candidate will unleash on the American public). They believe they are standing with God against secularism, atheism, communism, and totalitarianism as evidenced by “attacks” on campus free speech, pandemic mask-wearing, freedom to worship without COVID protocols, and compulsory microaggression awareness training programs. On this side of the battle, truth is revealed, plainly written in the Christian Bible. God spoke. The writers wrote, without inserting themselves in the middle. The Bible is the source of all truth, for all fields of study. The keys to rightly understanding everything from the age of the earth to godly manhood and womanhood are in the pages of scripture. Ignatius of Loyola wrote in his rule: [“What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.”](https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/02/28/do-st-ignatius-rules-thinking-church-call-blind-orthodoxy) Substitute the word “Bible” for “hierarchical Church” in that quote, and you have the position of and a consequence for Revealed-Truthers. If the Bible says, say, “The sun stood still,” then you can’t claim the earth revolves around the sun. Your eye—your experience—has deceived you. The Bible trumps experience. Experience can include loads of data, scientific study, and the scientific method per se: hypothesize, develop an experiment, run the experiment in a way that can be public/replicated, assess the results, return to/revise/affirm the hypothesis. Whenever a byte or a datum or scientifically-derived results conflict with revealed truth, observation and “the facts” must yield. We who are not Biblicists and who labor to interpret the Bible using an array of modern and postmodern critical tools would be mistaken to label the Revealed-Truthers as stupid, naïve, or uneducated. Entire accredited universities and graduate seminaries are built to be in the service of such interpretation. You might reject the truth of their premises (as I do), but there is a great deal of complex, developed, consequential thinking that can be built on them. Thus, if you believe the Bible is revealed truth, and if you frame this age as a stream of evangelicalism has for centuries—that history is the field of cosmic battle between God, his Christ, and the angels on one side, and the fallen principalities and powers led by Satan and his minions on the other side—then one might see how the election of the world’s most powerful leader at a time of worldwide upheaval must be interpreted cosmically. I might protest, “But they are embracing Manicheism, not Christianity! And God does not arrange every election in every place, for that would subvert the gift and responsibility of human freedom.” But we’d be whispering into a hurricane, for this logic is not their logic. If God worked out the winner of the election before time began, as these ultra-Calvinists believe, then God’s will cannot be thwarted, regardless of what the vote count says. In fact, either the vote count must be fraudulent, or Satan has used the other side to delay the enactment of God’s will. Temporarily. In this way of thinking, God is the kingmaker. Democracy is overrated; the popular vote might be the result of the devil’s wiles. Whatever it takes to install God’s Chosen into office is necessary for God’s will to come on earth as it is in heaven. Remember: revealed truth is not available to all of us, just those who got the phone call. Those who got the phone call ask everyone else to—or demand that we—believe them as God’s prophets. I would say, “White is white and black is black. I trust my eyes, not your authority.” In philosophical terms, we in the nation are dealing with a cosmic clash of epistemologies: how we arrive at what we claim as truth. So-called revealed truth vs. publicly available facts and evidence. In a democracy, revealed truth should be subjected to publicly-available evidence. In a nation ruled by revealed truth, democracy will be held in check by those who received the phone call. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Christians and Illiberal Democracy](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/christians-and-illiberal-democracy/) **Published:** December 15, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** When someone says they are acting to defend democracy, query what they mean by democracy. Christians using the term these days provide sufficient reason to ask. Polarized Christian camps are putting radically different versions of “the democracy we need” on display. White evangelical Christianity has provided the base of the president’s base of support since they held their noses and voted for him the first time. Survey research from [Public Religion Research Institute](https://www.prri.org/research/amid-multiple-crises-trump-and-biden-supporters-see-different-realities-and-futures-for-the-nation/) indicates they did not hold their noses the second time. They are the base of the 74 million people who voted for him a month ago. They and their representatives in Congress, cheer-led by the biggest names in the broadcast and social media fields of the Christian Right, back and promote the claims of election fraud and illegitimate voting. The [Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival](https://www.breachrepairers.org/poorpeoplescampaign), led by Drs. William Barber and Liz Theoharis, is a Christian-led, interfaith, multi-pronged effort to reform the nation’s (as well as many states’) economic system in the direction of more equality and social justice. They and many other Christians at the grassroots organized voter registration campaigns. In some places, these campaigns were factors in the election of a new president. Democracy can be illiberal or liberal.\* ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/democracy-protest-march.jpg)Among some Christians, the meaning of “democracy” is on the “illiberal” side of the measure. Illiberal democrats favor one voting group over another or use the word democracy as a foil for claiming power for themselves. In recent months, one federal office holder opined, in effect, “You can have too much democracy,” when asked about popular voting. There is an old, officially abandoned Catholic teaching that “error has no rights.” The Christian Right has reincarnated this teaching. The yearning for more illiberal democracy is NOT a new position in the U.S. You’ve heard the claim (or, as in my case, the following has been used to scold my alleged ignorance), “The U.S. is a republic, not a democracy.” That is like saying, “This ice cream is white, not vanilla.” “Republic” simply means “not a monarchy; power is shared in some way.” Republics can be democratic republics, such as the U.S. is. For the time being. In local government or a movement (e.g., Occupy), there may be simple democracy where everyone votes on everything. In a large nation, we elect representatives in popular elections who then vote on matters for us—until the next election. Thus, a representative democracy. But some people still prefer the limited liberal, somewhat illiberal democracy from America’s founding. The election of the president by the Electoral College is one residual of “original illiberal intent.” Elections excluding landless white men, all persons of African descent, white women, and Indigenous persons were baked into that original constitution, too. The enfranchisement of each originally-excluded demographic liberalized our democracy. After the Constitution was fundamentally changed post-Civil War with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, white Christians in the South led the charge to nullify the changes through Black Codes, then Jim Crow, and acts of domestic terrorism. For those Christians, inequality was God’s will: men over women, white over Black, white over Red, Protestant over Catholic and Jew. They *did* not favor more liberal democracy, characterized by freedom and equality for all. They *do* not favor more democracy, characterized by freedom and equality for all. One kind of Christian, fearful of being outvoted and then vulnerable to social changes they abhor, is working hard to keep their version of hell from coming. They’re drawing from the toolbox of illiberal democracy. Power should reside in the hands of the more deserving group. Elections should include only persons who vote as the party wants them to vote. The system is corrupt and run by elites. Order, unjust or not, is to be preserved. Freedom is for white people. Words like “equality” and “justice” derive from socialism. Those in error have no rights. Another kind of Christian is working hard for the nation to move forward from the hell of a limited franchise which is reanimated in U.S. history more often than the villain in a horror movie. Find ways for every enfranchised adult to vote and to ensure that every vote counts. Freedom must be married to equality in order for freedom to be real. “Equality” and “justice” are societal expressions of love, rooted in the God-given dignity of each person. I am reading the late Dr. James Cone’s profound book, *[The Cross and the Lynching Tree.](https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Lynching-Tree-James-Cone/dp/1626980055/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TGVPULBYX1AI&dchild=1&keywords=the+cross+and+the+lynching+tree&qid=1607988047&sprefix=cross+and+the%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1)* Cone details the silence of white Christians, including one of my theological heroes, Reinhold Niebuhr, on the subject of lynching. About 5,000 extrajudicial lynchings have been documented, mostly in the South, between 1880 and 1940. Cone tells the story, again and again, of white Christian leaders who believed in an illiberal democracy controlled by white voters and where Black people “stayed in their places,” as determined by white leaders. Anyone “out of place,” for whatever reason, might be lynched, dismembered, tortured, and burnt. The crowd, which could number over 10,000 white people who set up as if the event was a church picnic, watched and took photos for postcards to be sent to relatives. Lynchings were often organized and executed by white Christian community leaders. Voting was one of the instances for which a Black person might be lynched. I am embarrassed, I am ashamed, that the name “Christian” is so closely tied these days—as it has been for so much of the nation’s history—with illiberal democracy. Those of us who affirm efforts such as the Poor People’s Campaign need to get both louder and more effective—for the sake of the nation, of our own souls, and of the name of the religion associated with Jesus of Nazareth. \*The phrase “liberal democracy” has nothing to do with the conservative-liberal political spectrum regarding the size of purpose of government. Liberal democracy means democracy characterized by popular voting that translates into policy, individual rights, and the protection of political minorities. Illiberal democracies dispense with any of these practices and values, if they interfere with the agenda those in power want to accomplish. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) ***Image Credit:*** [Democracy In Turmoil & Election Stress | New Hampshire Public Radio](https://www.nhpr.org/post/democracy-turmoil-election-stress "Democracy In Turmoil & Election Stress | New Hampshire Public Radio") [License details](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) Creator: Ted Eytan Copyright: This material is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Gap Between Charity and Justice](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/between-charity-and-justice/) **Published:** December 8, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** > “We the People of the United States, in Order to … establish Justice…” > > From the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America > > “Invoking the guidance of Almighty God… to secure just and rightful government…” > > From the Preamble of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma > > [‘“Philanthropy is commendable,’ said Martin Luther King, ‘but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice, which make philanthropy necessary.’ Philanthropists and philanthropic advisors who champion equality must work to shift from a framework that grounds giving in “charity” to one that grounds giving in “justice.” A framework rooted in charity alone ignores past realities that forced communities into oppressive situations, and risks reinforcing givers’ lack of understanding with rewards that recognize their benevolence. This sort of charity might relieve guilt and help some people sleep better, but it produces no reflection on either the genesis or perpetuation of inequality.”](https://ssir.org/articles/entry/shifting_philanthropy_from_charity_to_justice#) In an adult church school class recently, we had a powerful exchange. [I had completed explicating my proposals on what people of faith already know (or, in our traditions, we have known) that could foster a stronger social fabric.](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/faith-communities-healthy-society/) One of the proposals is: we know to address and how to address the question, “How much is enough?” That proposal seems like such a beach ball pitch to me, a sure swing and a hit. Not that we throw that pitch often enough. But, other than the heretical prosperity gospel, I don’t know any religious tradition which claims that accumulating wealth is on the path to salvation. Rather, simplicity, seeking to be as unattached to possessions as possible—these practices are on the path. Well, after I completed my presentation, two class members offered the following points of view (paraphrased): > POV #1: “But determining how much is enough is tricky, isn’t it? An individual may determine one level, but the government might judge by a different standard. That is when the principle gets sticky.” > > POV #2: “Asking how much is enough, or how to divide between ‘enough’ and ‘too much,’ is a question that people with an abundance of means and stuff need to ask. But another question is, ‘How little is too little?’” The first point of view implies the distinction between charity and justice. The second point of view implies a question of justice. Being charitable, even generously charitable, is no substitute for enacting just policies and budgets in the pursuit of a relatively healthy society. I still encounter people who believe that Christianity and justice have nothing to do with each other, except for the possibility that morality requires negative consequences for bad behavior. In this way of thinking, social justice belongs more with socialism than with Christianity. Charity is all a relatively free society, with a properly constrained government, can use to rectify economic inequalities. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/mlk-charity-quote.png)When the prophets of the Hebrew Bible spoke of justice, they were not tapping into socialism more than 2,500 years before the term was invented. Their plumb line for justice, based on their understanding of God, was how those with means and power treat those who are vulnerable. Alms for the poor? Sure. But charity is no substitute for justice rolling down the streets and halls of power like a mighty river. In Oklahoma, we rely a great deal on charity to rectify inequalities. Charitable foundations are powerful and generous. They undergird amazing programs, including a premier model of early childhood education, and have built wonderful public spaces. But charity is a not a substitute for justice. The heart of justice is charity for, as some theologians put it, justice is the social expression of love. A society or community would not seek justice without a well-developed charitable disposition. However, voluntary charity cannot be scaled up sufficiently to meet a standard of justice. Charity cannot repair school funding in Oklahoma. Religious organizations cannot substitute for state mental health programs, nor can they find a worthy home for every child or fill every hungry belly. Charity cannot provide adequate healthcare for those without insurance or with burdensome coverage gaps. Charity cannot maintain structurally sound roads and bridges, nor a truly livable-wage job market. Charity, as voluntary action, is incapable of repairing the social damage correlated with gross economic inequality. Yes, charity has a role in repair, but as a supplement to justice rather than the other way around. I did just a little searching and could not find an answer to this question. Perhaps you know the figure: what is the dollar gap between charity and justice? I get it, that this is not a simple math question. Adding up the total charitable dollars in the nation is easy enough. The figure for 2019 for the U.S. was [$428 billion.](https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2019-americans-gave-427-71-billion-to-charity-in-2018-amid-complex-year-for-charitable-giving/) But what is the gap between that $428 billion and what economic justice for disadvantaged and vulnerable persons would require? The answer is a judgment call regarding what is just. That said, the gap is wider than that $428 billion would suggest, because that figure includes everything given to charitable organizations; in churches, a great deal goes to staff salaries and property. If charitable organizations gave away every dollar they received, there would still be a gap between justice and charity. Remember the question: “How little is too little?” That is an acutely critical question today when the COVID economy is devastating state budgets. That is not a question we hear often enough in society, despite the fact that “justice” is a function of government. But that question, or versions thereof, ought to be asked frequently in faith communities that preach and teach moral standards for determining what is just. Then, maybe, justice will flow through our halls and streets with greater power. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [12 More Ways Faith Communities Could Foster a More Healthy Society](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/12-more-ways-healthy-society/) **Published:** December 1, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Faith-Communities-Healty-Society-Facebook-Post.png)This is the second of two blogs to address the question: What do people of faith know that could make for a more healthy society, if we were intentional about making practical and public what we know*? A few weeks ago, I taught a free, online course exploring this topic. (If you’d like to watch any of the five lectures and four interviews that comprised the content of the course, you can do so [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztvu3X0u3zeM6xROh8fQG3Tw).) In the final class session, I offered 24 proposals. Each proposal imagines what people of faith already know, *or have known and could know again*, that could help regenerate the soil of culture necessary for a healthy society. Last week, the blog addressed 12 proposals, and this week I offer the second half. *Please, think along with me.* Other practical conclusions could be drawn from the same theological claims. ***People of faith know:*** 1. **Healthy, functional human community requires a moral code to develop trust, reciprocity, mutuality, relative equality, cooperation.** The Golden Rule, as expressed in various religious traditions, is one such moral claim. A healthy society gleans from the nation’s religious, moral, and spiritual communities to cobble a sufficient moral order. 2. **The value of tribes, and the danger of tribalism**. A healthy society values families and voluntary associations, and guards against any such group trying to become the minority that dominates the majority. 3. **Care for the poor and vulnerable is a chief, or the chief, plumb line for justice and morality in society.** A healthy society will tolerate only a certain level of economic inequality. 4. **How to build trust and brave spaces for dangerous conversations.** A fitting democracy requires a robust swirl of conversations and arguments. 5. **Everyone has a relationship with money.** The love of money, and not money itself, is the root of all evil. A healthy society will not allow civic life to be driven by monied interests. 6. **The importance of the question, “How much is enough?”** Living simply is more holy than accumulating or leaving a heavy footprint. A healthy society dances with an ever-improving, but not an ever-expanding, economy. Consumption is not a sustainable strategy, or an adequate substitute, for the pursuit of happiness. 7. **The need for, and practices and rituals of, reflection, confession, repentance, penance, and forgiveness.** A healthy society will foster like practices and rituals in public life. 8. **The importance of eating together.** A healthy society fosters practices where strangers can become friends and neighbors. 9. **The toxicity of lies, including self-deception, and the healing value of truth.** A healthy society is injured by lies and is healed by the pursuit, acceptance, and consequences of truth. 10. **How to pursue wisdom.** A healthy society constantly seeks *better* living, better decisions, knowing and learning from history—not necessarily living *bigger*. 11. **Work that makes, repairs, and heals is sacred.** A healthy society seeks to create and maintain the connections between human dignity, good work, a truly living wage, and doing good. 12. **Work is important. So is rest, recovery, restoration.** Not only kings and queens should have leisure and enjoy the fruits of the earth. No one tradition or community embodies all of these “knowledges.” Some communities would be hard-pressed to claim ever to have known how to hold brave conversations or to cultivate a moral understanding of money with their adherents. *But what if the faith community in which you participate got really good at generating and sharing even a few of these?* How might your faith community become a more effective leaven for love, compassion, and justice within your neighborhood, town, city, and state? Imagine. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Offering the Better Angels of Faith Communities for a More Healthy Society](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/faith-communities-healthy-society/) **Published:** November 24, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Faith-Communities-Healty-Society-Facebook-Post.png)What do people of faith know that could make for a more healthy society, if we were intentional about making practical and public what we know*? A few weeks ago, I taught a free, online course exploring this topic. In the final class session, I offered 24 proposals. Each proposal imagines what people of faith already know, *or have known and could know again*, that could help regenerate the soil of culture necessary for a healthy society. For this week and next in this blog, I present the proposals. (If you’d like to watch any of the five lectures and four interviews that comprised the content of the course, you can do so [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztvu3X0u3zeM6xROh8fQG3Tw). You can download a [PDF file](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GPV-12-Church-Democracy-Soil-1.pdf) of these 12 proposals [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GPV-12-Church-Democracy-Soil-1.pdf).) Use your imagination. ***People of faith know:*** 1. **There is something/someone greater than ourselves, and greater than any nation.** A healthy society would recognize that “we the people” are not the greatest power on earth. 2. **The universe is creation and not simply “nature.”** A healthy society will consider resource usage in terms of I-thou and not simply I-it relationships. To use a phrase I heard recently: the earth is not our candy store. 3. **How to interpret and keep high the importance of mystery, awe, and wonder.** A healthy society recognizes that no human being or nation is Ultimate, nor can everything be possessed, controlled, or owned. 4. **Human beings are creatures and part of this living planet, we are groundlings, of the earth**. **“From dust… to dust.”** A healthy society is not afraid to talk about limits. The planet is created for all living beings, not simply for humans, or for Americans. 5. **Human beings are equal before the Ultimate. All forms of inequality are human creations.** A healthy society protects rights and limits the level of inevitable inequalities. 6. **Human beings are mortal and fallible. Humility is a virtue.** A healthy society invites correction. Any form of governance could be improved, will fall short, make mistakes, and need to rectify its mistakes. 7. **Life is a gift; gratitude is a logical stance toward life.** A healthy nation does not, except in extraordinary times, require persons to give the gift of their lives—for the nation is not the giver of life. 8. **How to deal with suffering and death.** A healthy society recognizes its limited role in addressing finitude and mortality; but a society can foster compassion for persons and their families in times of suffering. 9. **Love is more powerful than hate. A religious community can be a leaven of love in society—or a leaven of hate.** A healthy society is loath to invoke hate and to suppress love. 10. **The proper definition of peace as shalom (not merely the absence of conflict) includes both inner and outer dimensions.** A healthy society is not, by itself, sufficient to form the personal and public centers from which peace with justice is born. 11. **Community is essential to develop healthy persons.** A healthy society must make and protect a social ecology that is friendly toward healthy communities. 12. **Religion’s ends/telos (to connect with the Ultimate) and the ends/telos of politics (govern, share power) are not the same.** A religious/spiritual agenda should not be identical to a political agenda, and the means to reach an end also differ (persuasion v. coercion). No one tradition or community embodies all of these “knowledges.” *But what if the faith community in which you participate got really good at generating and sharing even a few of these?* How might your faith community become a more effective leaven for love, compassion, and justice within your neighborhood, town, city, and state? Imagine. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [12 Ways Faith Communities Could Improve the Soil for Democracy](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/12-ways-soil-for-democracy/) **Published:** November 17, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** During October and through election week, I taught a free, online course. The topic was how people of faith might foster the regeneration of democracy in the U.S. The course was premised on several assumptions. One assumption is that the cultural soil for growing a healthy democratic society is insufficient and is, itself, unhealthy. Another assumption is that people of faith could contribute to improving the soil. *What do people of faith know that could improve the soil for a democracy that would make for a more whole society*? [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/12-Ways-Facebook-Post.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GPV-12-Church-Democracy-Soil-1.pdf)In the final class session, I offered 24 proposals. Each proposal imagines what people of faith already know, *or have known and could know again*, that could help regenerate the spirit of democracy in the U.S. For this week and next in this blog, I present the proposals. (If you’d like to watch any of the five lectures and four interviews that comprised the content of the course, you can do so [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztvu3X0u3zeM6xROh8fQG3Tw). You can download a [PDF file](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GPV-12-Church-Democracy-Soil-1.pdf) of these 12 proposals [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GPV-12-Church-Democracy-Soil-1.pdf).) Use your imagination. ### ***People of faith know:*** 1. **There is something/someone greater than ourselves, and greater than any nation.** A fitting spirit of democracy would recognize that “we the people” are not the greatest power on earth. 2. **The universe is creation and not simply “nature.”** A fitting spirit of democracy will consider resource usage in terms of I-thou and not simply I-it relationships. To use a phrase I heard recently: the earth is not our candy store. 3. **How to interpret and keep high the importance of mystery, awe, and wonder.** A fitting spirit of democracy recognizes that no human being or nation is Ultimate, nor can everything be possessed, controlled, or owned. 4. **Human beings are creatures and part of this living planet, we are groundlings, of the earth**. **“From dust… to dust.”** A fitting spirit of democracy is not afraid to talk about limits. The planet is created for all living beings, not simply for humans, or for Americans. 5. **Human beings are equal before the Ultimate. All forms of inequality are human creations.** A fitting spirit of democracy protects rights and limits the level of inevitable inequalities. 6. **Human beings are mortal and fallible. Humility is a virtue.** A fitting spirit of democracy invites correction. Any form of governance could be improved, will fall short, make mistakes, and need to rectify its mistakes. 7. **Life is a gift; gratitude is a logical stance toward life.** A fitting spirit of democracy does not, except in extraordinary times, require persons to give the gift of their lives. 8. **How to deal with suffering and death.** A fitting spirit of democracy recognizes its limited role in addressing finitude and mortality; but a spirit of democracy can foster compassion for persons and their families in times of suffering. 9. **Love is more powerful than hate. A religious community can be a leaven of love in society—or a leaven of hate.** A fitting spirit of democracy is loath to invoke hate and to suppress love. 10. **The proper definition of peace as shalom (not merely the absence of conflict) includes both inner and outer dimensions.** A fitting spirit of democracy is not, by itself, sufficient to form the personal and public centers from which peace with justice is born. 11. **Community is essential to develop healthy persons.** A fitting spirit of democracy must make and protect a social ecology that is friendly toward healthy communities. 12. **Religion’s ends/telos (to connect with the Ultimate) and the ends/telos of politics (govern, share power) are not the same.** A religious/spiritual agenda should not be identical to a political agenda, and the means to reach an end also differ (persuasion v. coercion). No one tradition or community embodies all of these “knowledges.” *But what if the faith community in which you participate got really good at generating and sharing even a few of these?* How might your faith community become a more effective leaven for love, compassion, and justice within your neighborhood, town, city, and state? Imagine. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here.](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public: Vic Hunter talks about the contemporary relevance of the Barmen Declaration](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/vic-hunter/) **Published:** November 11, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Committing-Faith-in-Public-1024x1024.png)When the Nazi regime essentially nationalized the Christian churches in Germany, making them one of the legitimizing arms of their evil program, some church leaders capitulated and embraced their roles. Others resisted. One of the most famous expressions of that resistance was the [Barmen Declaration](https://www.ucc.org/beliefs_barmen-declaration). The threat of Christian nationalism in the U.S. today has brought renewed attention to the Declaration. In this podcast, Center director Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend interviews the Rev. Dr. Vic Hunter. Dr. Hunter reflects on Barmen and its relevance to the situation of Christian churches in the U.S. today, especially the threat of churches idolizing any political regime. Dr. Hunter is a retired Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) pastor who was born in Kansas, raised Church of Christ, and educated at Union Theological Seminary (MDiv) and later at Phillips (DMin).He served as a missions publication editor, as the leader of a mission in London, and in Disciples congregations in Colorado and West Virginia. He is the author of several books with his brother, Dr. Lanny Hunter, including *[What Your Doctor and Your Pastor What You to Know About Depression](https://www.amazon.com/Living-Free-Anxious-World-Doctor/dp/0891126805/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=lanny+hunter&qid=1605097629&s=books&sr=1-2)*, *[Living Free in an Anxious World](https://www.amazon.com/Living-Free-Anxious-World-Doctor/dp/0891126805/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=lanny+hunter&qid=1605097629&s=books&sr=1-2)* and *[Stories of Desire and Narratives of Faith](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RHW7M3P/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0)*. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [If We Want Healing, Commit to Struggling Together](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/struggling-together/) **Published:** November 10, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Forty-five years ago this month, theologian and ecumenist Robert McAfee Brown gave a brilliant speech at the opening of the World Council of Churches Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya. His address was a tuning fork for the Assembly. I recently reread the speech and an article published a year before on the same topic. Both the article and the speech shed light on today’s struggles in churches and society. At a time when the call from one side or the other is for “healing” and “unity,” Brown’s words are instructive—and a should give us pause. The Nairobi Assembly theme was “Jesus Christ Frees and Unites.” Brown entitled his article: “Jesus Christ Frees and Unites… and Divides.” It is Brown’s inclusion of *Jesus the Divider*, and the connection between freedom, division, and unity that catches my attention as I reflect on our current day. At Nairobi in 1975, half the delegates were from the Two-Thirds World; the European and North American brands of Christianity were losing their dominance. The carnage of the Vietnam War and the political and social fallout in the non-Western world were fresh. The arms race between the Soviet Union and the U.S. was surging. The gap between the Haves and Haves Not in the world was glaring. Much of the world was unhappy with the U.S. Brown, by his own description of being an educated affluent white male from the U.S., looked at the happy-happy theme of “Jesus Christ Frees and Unites.” He judged his speech would be dismissed as the Oppressing Gospel of the Privileged if he did not also address humankind’s deepest divisions, and particularly his nation’s role in those divisions. So, he decided to speak using this sequence: Jesus Christ frees, Jesus Christ *divides*, Jesus Christ unites. The inclusion of Jesus the Divider means that, if we really want to get to reconciliation, healing, and unity, the path is hard. Jesus the Divider means there is going to be struggle, tension, conflict, and discomforting the comfortable. Then and only then are “Christian freedom” and “Christian unity” going to be meaningful to the majority of the world’s Christians. How does Jesus Christ divide? Brown wrote: > …He divides me from many of my fellow Christians. Where some of them want a Christ who will not stir up trouble, I want a Christ who will challenge the *status quo*. Conversely, when I confront other Christians who want a revolutionary Christ, I discover that my own talk of ‘revolution’ is usually little more than the rhetoric of a middle-class churchman, and I am likely to feel threatened by Third-World talk of the political and economic ‘liberation’ that is an absolute necessity to Christians less advantageously placed than myself. As a result, Jesus Christ easily becomes a cause of division between American white Christians and Latin American or Asian or black North American Christians. (431) Brown argues that the freedom Jesus Christ offers must lead to first to a period of division. The forces that keep persons and peoples in bondage must be exposed and faced for what they are. Unity without the period of division—without the exposure of the systems and powers of bondage, without the struggle, and without change—is not Gospel unity. Brown cautions against facile “All Lives Matter” and “Everyone is Oppressed” sort of claims: > …when \[the response “everyone is oppressed”\] is made too quickly, it defuses and demeans and denies the revolutionary messages of the Gospel. If I can immediately be assured that I too am oppressed and that the message therefore is addressed directly to me, then I can conveniently escape responsibility for the degree to which I *do* serve in Pharaoh’s court, and I can continue to be an instrument of oppression against “the wretched of the earth.” (436) Before concluding, Brown reflected on the concluding commitments of previous Assemblies, such as “We intend to stay together” or “We intend to grow together.” He opined that the Nairobi delegates should consider the commitment, “We intend to *struggle* together.” Please sit with that statement for a minute. “We intend to struggle together.” Brown held out hope for unity after a time of division, based on the uniting power of Jesus Christ that transcends all human-made divisions. But, how long will it take for a church, for a society, to move from division to reconciliation? I am trying to see with eyes of faith and trust, but the realities of polarization and fragmentation and “flocking of like with like” are so powerful and evident. I have been involved in Christian ecumenical ventures since I was a college sophomore and visited ecumenical centers of Western Europe. While in seminary, I took courses at schools of other Christian traditions. When I was a pastor, I participated in ecumenical clergy associations. I wrote a PhD dissertation at Chicago on the ecumenical movement and the nature of the community we seek. I researched local ecumenical and interreligious organizations in the U.S. for the Lilly Endowment. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/struggling-together-2.png)But during all these years, the divide in the world and in the U.S. between *those with* and *those without* has grown. Inequality threatens democracy and diminishes the promise of liberty and justice for all. Stubborn social inequalities, quickness to judge the other, powerful purity codes, and standing with or against the narrative and ethics of American Exceptionalism are but a few of the dividers *within* Christianity. Now take the same perspectives, look to the U.S., and multiply the power of those dividers. Before there can be healing in church or society, we ecumenically-oriented Christians know this much: there will be no “beloved community” or simply a tolerant society, held together by the tension between freedom and equality, without courageously and humbly struggling together to reckon with our past, seeing the present clearly, imagining a future on the other side, and then walking together into the change. --- References: Brown, Robert McAfee. 1974. “Jesus Christ frees and unites . . . and divides.” *The Ecumenical Review* 26, no. 3: 430-438. *ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials*, EBSCO*host* (accessed September 17, 2015). Brown, Robert McAfee. 1976. “Who is this Jesus Christ who frees and unites.” *Mid-Stream* 15, no. 2: 129-145. *ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials*, EBSCO*host* (accessed September 17, 2015). [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). You can watch the 5 sessions and 4 interviews Gary created for the online class, Regenerating the Spirit of Democracy, on [the seminary’s YouTube page](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBfmQTNSPztvu3X0u3zeM6xROh8fQG3Tw). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [A Leap of Faith in God's Time](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/a-leap-of-faith-in-gods-time/) **Published:** November 2, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** On November 2, I am trying to pay attention primarily to my faith commitments regarding my and our time in the universe. Who am I, who are we, what am I/we here to do? Why is there something and not nothing? In the big picture, does this moment matter? I am going to use “we” below, meaning “we” who claim a faith and/or spiritual tradition. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/hubble-eagle-nebula.jpg)We live in a universe that is nearly 14 billion years old, comprised of billions of stars and realities that we have scarcely begun to comprehend or even see. We are all made of stardust, the origin of which is as old as the first moment in space-time. In the universe, there are billions of stars around which orbit perhaps millions and millions of planets circling in a Goldilocks Zone capable of hosting sentient life. We earthlings are not alone in the universe. Our earth home is about 4.5 billion years old. It is an evolving world. The world has undergone 5 mass extinction events in its history. We may well be into the 6th, driven by human activity. Quick work considering that human beings—homo sapiens—have been around for mere seconds of a cosmic year. Human beings evolved to be the dominant species because we learned to use fire to cook food (and thus grow our brains), and because we learned the value of forming groups and cooperating. In the process, we formed cultures. Our cultures are the soil for all our languages, values and institutions, as well as our ongoing conversations and conflicts about who we are, have been, and should be. In the course of time, human beings have tried many forms of group cohesion: family, village, clan, tribe, elders, warrior-king, council, federation, empire, monarchy, republic, dictatorship, police state, pure democracy, democratic republic. And I’m sure I’ve omitted a bunch. But, the larger and more diverse the group, the tougher it is for us to find the glue to cohere. The Bible is a collection of different forms of literature written down over several centuries in a very small part of our—in terms of the universe—very small planet. The Bible’s authors are, on the whole, deeply suspicious of kings, kingdoms, and empires. In the Hebrew Bible/First Testament, there is a long argument between God and the people regarding kings. In that argument, the people claimed they wanted a king like the other nations around them. God cautioned them often that a king will use his power to steal from them, to dominate their lives and enslave them. More often than not, the kings behaved just as God predicted. In the Second Testament/New Testament, the king is a Roman appointee and the real power is in Rome, with the emperor. Jesus and Paul were no friends of the empire. In other words, there is no love in the Bible for empire or for strong man leadership. That deep suspicion was animated in the American colonists’ fight with their king. From Declaration through Constitution, Americans enshrined our opposition to a power higher than “we the people.” We do not submit to Leviathan. On the other hand, we—at least the “we” represented by the Abrahamic faiths—believe there is a God, who is the creator of the universe. We who identify with a Christian tradition claim God is love, that love inheres in creation (not unlike a chef “makes her food with love”), and that love is the most powerful force in human life. Yet, sometimes we the people long for a king who represents power without love, who will set the world right as a segment of us sees the right. Sometimes we do not believe the arc of the universe bends toward justice, and we despair or explode. Sometimes we are so inundated with reports of the worst of humankind and the use of hate as a glue to form an “us” versus a “them” that we can’t sense the power of love and we mirror the hate we’ve received. So, in this particularly anxious time, I am also trying to keep in my attention: the universe is God’s. Love is at the center. God loves the world and each of us. What is the meaning of “today” in this universe so much larger than our world? In terms of the history of this planet, November 3 and coming weeks and months are microscopic events. In a bigger vista, are these days as important as they feel to us? One could read all of the above and conclude, “Then what happens does not matter.” True, one could. But one could read all the above and say, “This moment is precious, because every moment is precious in God’s time. God always needs witnesses who by their lives will testify that love is the core of life. Isn’t it wonderful that, despite the age and scope of the universe—or the number of universes!—God is luring us, here, today, on this beautiful blue speck in this chaotic age, to become a more beloved community? I may not know why I am given the gift of life in this moment, but I have been. And I will use this moment to live as one created in God’s image and to be with others as if they are created in God’s image, too.” I’m fixing to vote for the latter. Or, at least, I’m trying to take that leap of faith. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Come November 4, Consider What Did Not Change](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/come-november-4/) **Published:** October 27, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** At home, we recently watched the staged reprise of “Hartsfield Landing,” an episode of The West Wing, featuring most of the original cast. At the outset of the story, President Joshua Bartlet returned from a peacemaking trip regarding India and Kashmir, bearing rare chessboards as gifts to some of his staff. ![Text with Look at the whole board. You are not seeing the whole board over a chess board.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Not-Looking-at-the-Whole-Board.png)While he played chess with several staff, each in a different room, the tiny hamlet of Hartsfield Landing was casting the nation’s first votes in the presidential election. The president’s remarkable intellect was on display. He was beating each of his opponents at chess by thinking many moves ahead—for each game. Simultaneously, he maneuvered a U.S. response to mainland Chinese aggression toward Taiwan and spouted historical minutia about chess in nearly every scene. No doubt, he is the smartest man in the room (viewers will remember that he is a Nobel Prize winner in economics). His advice to one of his staff before each chess move is so important: “Look at the whole board. You are not seeing the whole board.” I’ve not opened with this illustration to wax on about contrast with current election realities. It is President Bartlet’s refrain that has my attention. “Look at the whole board. You are not seeing the whole board.” For many of us who claim a religious or spiritual tradition, we know that there is Someone or Something greater than any nation, greater than any of us, transcending every national boundary and soul-splitting dualism humankind has devised to distinguish—and pit—us against them. Recall the picture taken from space the first time human eyes saw our awesome home as one world. That world is the whole board. The election of the president and Congress is arguably the world’s most important election. The singular power of the U.S. to make life better and to wield woe is still profound. This particular election will change a lot, in the nation and in the world, and probably not in ways we anticipate. But not everything will change. On November 4, or whenever the nation knows the outcomes of the election, *consider all these circumstances worthy of our attention, worthy of our work, worthy of our humility, worthy of our courage—regardless of who wins.* (By “our” and “we” I mean people who claim a spiritual or religions tradition.) What do we see if we try to see the whole board? - The danger of mistaking my angle on the board as the whole board. - The pandemic and all its ramifications. - Faith communities needing to remind their members that there is an Ultimate Someone in the universe, and that Someone is not to be confused with any elected or movement leader. - The nation polarized into groups, including religious groups, united in their mutual fear and/or hate of other groups. - Racism and every other form of dehumanization. - The spiritual value of trees, grasslands, waterways, cathedrals, and other holy and thin places. - Migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers from Central American countries asking to be treated with justice and compassion on the U.S. southern border. And finding the parents of those 545 children! - China decimating the Uighur people. - The climate disrupted by human activity, threatening the lives of future generations of nearly every species. - Our faith communities aching to gather safely and warmly, even as they are discerning what adapting to the pandemic will mean for the evolution of our lives. - The unlivable minimum wage. - Unsustainable individualism in American life, with an abundance of freedom from and insufficient freedom for. - The beauty of a sunset, and the anticipatory joy of a sunrise. - Gross income and wealth inequalities. - Oceans dotted by massive floating plastic islands, with bits of plastic and microplastics invading everywhere from the surface to the deepest depths. - The conservative orientation of federal and Supreme Court justices. - Teachers and frontline workers in deep distress. - Individual claims to freedom almost completely eclipsing the value and necessity of equality. - The power of gratitude and compassion. - People being left behind by globalization. - Canyons of disconnection between rural and urban populations. - The incomparable pleasure of friendship. - The power of humankind to use technology to make life better and to bring all life to an end. - The need for the assertion “Black Lives Matter.” - The need for affordable, accessible health care for everyone. - The human-forming power of being seen, of being “beheld.” - The strong backbone and soft hearts necessary to regenerate the nation’s sickened democracy. - The shared desires for home, safety, and to belong. - Too many guns and weapons of mass murder among the populace. - City, county, and state budgets looking for budget cuts to match revenue drops, and vulnerable populations becoming more vulnerable. - Our desire to change someone else when the only person we really have the power to change is ourselves. - Each of us standing in need of grace and a heart of flesh rather than stone. - The badly damaged and uncertain role of the U.S. as a world leader in human rights and promoting democracy. - The need to love and be loved, because love is the core of the really real in the universe. - The confusion of being the first modern democracy with being the best democracy. - White Christian religious nationalists warring for supremacy and minority rule, even as—or because—demographic trends are against them. - A new—at once aspirational and honest and inclusive—national story. I could add more. You could add more. The list above is but the partial board. Each of these values, concerns, and circumstances will still be here on November 4, waiting on the board for our attention, our discernment, and our next move. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Literalism, Originalism, and Dynamic Communities](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/literalism-originalism-and-dynamic-communities/) **Published:** October 20, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** > [ “In the very first question put to her in Day 2 of her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Amy Coney Barrett was asked to define, ‘in English,’ the meaning of the legal concept of originalism.](https://www.npr.org/sections/live-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-confirmation/2020/10/13/923215778/barrett-an-originalist-says-meaning-of-constitution-doesn-t-change-over-time) > > [‘“In English that means that I interpret the Constitution as a law,’ she said, ‘and that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn’t change over time and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.”](https://www.npr.org/sections/live-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-confirmation/2020/10/13/923215778/barrett-an-originalist-says-meaning-of-constitution-doesn-t-change-over-time)’ Many of us in church circles hear those words and think, “Well, that perspective on the Constitution sounds a lot like how biblical literalists interpret the Bible.” Indeed, experts and interested others have noted and opined on this matter. And, it is not only observers who see connections. White evangelical, fundamentalist, and Catholic leaders have embraced originalism, allegedly as the perspective that would stop “judicial activism.” They see a connection between conservative religion and conservative judges. Yes, there are similarities, as well as important differences. In the following, I quote extensively from a law journal article you can read [here](https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=faculty_publications). The authors summarize the similarities between originalism and literalism (emphasis added): > Literalism and originalism share a core commitment to the idea that their *relevant texts* have a *timeless, fixed meaning* that is *readily ascertainable*. In addition, both interpretive approaches are in significant part projects of restoration; *both are deeply concerned about the loss of constraint that results from interpretation that is untethered to text*; both have a strong, self-consciously *populist impulse* and an equally strong and self-conscious *disdain for elite opinion*, with respect to both interpretive norms and cultural values; and both maintain that *all other approaches to their relevant texts are fundamentally illegitimate* because they breach a duty of fidelity. Here are two significant differences between biblical literalism and Constitutional originalism: > *The Scope and Jurisdiction of the Text*. The first fundamental difference between literalism and originalism derives from the *starkly different nature, scope, and jurisdiction of their respective texts*. Literalists believe that the Bible is truly universal. Originalists, by contrast, recognize that the Constitution is limited both in scope and ambition. It creates a legal structure and a government that is both geographically and jurisdictionally limited. > > *The Duty of the Interpreter*. \[T\]he idea of *submission in interpretation* is central to both literalism and originalism. To both literalists and originalists, faithful interpretation requires the subordination of individual desires, interests, and even (at times) reason to the demands of the text. But the source and justification of the interpreter’s duty to submit are profoundly different in literalism and originalism. To the *literalist*, the duty to submit to the text arises both from the *divine character of the text* and the specific divine attributes of the text’s author. For most *originalists*, in contrast, the legal duty to submit to the text arises *solely from the character of the document as an authoritative legal text*. The authors also cite many originalist comments regarding a judge’s duty to read the text plainly and without moral judgment; the important matter for a judge is not the rightness, goodness, morality, or justice of the text. The only matter is fidelity to the text. The authors think this a-moral approach should give literalists pause. However, as anyone who has argued with a literalist knows, the retort that “Hey, I’m not judging. God is judging, it is right here in the text,” certainly has affinities with the commitment that the text rules as God’s will, regardless of the interpreter’s moral judgments. ![Does the community serve the text, does the text serve the community, or are the text and the community in a relationship of constant conversation, negotiation, and argument?](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/literalism-originalism-community.png)As I read the article, I thought of one other angle on the relationship between literalism and originalism: what is the relationship between the text and the community? Does the community serve the text, does the text serve the community, or are the text and the community in a relationship of constant conversation, negotiation, and argument? For originalists and literalists, the logical answer would be that the community is constituted by and serves the text. Writing as an interpreter who is decidedly not a literalist, I do recognize there is truth in the claim. A community that uses a constituting text without norms or limits is simply looking for warrants for the actions they want to take. However, it is essential to remember that the early Jesus movement produced the writings that centuries later became the Bible. Followers of Jesus wrote the Bible; the Bible did not create the church. Christian communities, and not the Bible, are the direct links to the first followers of Jesus. But, once the Bible was assembled, Christian communities have been in constant dialogue with it. There is now, or there should be, a reciprocal, symbiotic relationship between Bible and community. It is also the case that “we the people” preceded the Constitution representatives of the people wrote. We the people desired and, one prays, desire to form a more perfect union. For that purpose, we enter a relationship with each other shaped, in part, by the Constitution. The people shape the Constitution, and the Constitution shapes the people. The question of fidelity to a constituting text is always complicated by the text’s location: embedded in dynamic, evolving communities which have submitted themselves to an ongoing conversation and argument with their constituting texts. The texts as standalone documents are dead without communities that want to engage. And, once engaged, the meaning of the texts will be shaped and re-shaped, for texts in a dynamic community will be dynamic. Fixing the meaning for all time is neither possible nor desirable. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Oblivion Is Not the Answer](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/oblivion-is-not-the-answer/) **Published:** October 13, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/obliviate-hermione.png)If you type the word “obliviate” into your search engine, the first references are to the charm in the Harry Potter books that causes an individual to forget. For example, Hermione used the obliviate charm to erase her existence from her parents’ memories in order to protect her family in case the Death Eaters paid them a visit. For many if not most of us, being utterly forgotten—or utterly forgetting—evokes anxiety, if not terror. Who wants to be consigned to oblivion? [“We got to vote these people into oblivion. (Applause.) Vote them into oblivion. Got to get rid of them. So bad for our country.”](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-peaceful-protest-law-order/) So said President Donald Trump, October 10, 2020, speaking from the White House to a “peaceful protest for law and order.” The upcoming presidential election is a heresy trial. The candidates’ grounding narratives, the understandings of who belongs here, what a proper moral order is, and how to overcome the nation’s barriers conflict radically (derived from a word meaning “at the roots”). I wouldn’t say that “the candidates could not be more different.” But once the division between agendas and visions reaches the width of an unbridgeable canyon, further measurements of difference are irrelevant. What will happen to whomever is branded the heretic? Politics in the U.S. have taken on the level of “other hatred” and de-humanization that was once reserved for combatants in foreign wars, civil wars, genocide, and religious wars. Forbearance—not using all the power a political group has to humiliate, enact vengeance against, or punish a politically weaker opposing party—is a fading practice. It feels like a heresy trial is upon us. One needs to look and listen no further than the highest office in the land, along with aligned news outlets, pundits, talk radio, and elected representatives, to see sharp lines drawn between orthodoxy and heresy. As quoted above, the president recently said, “We got to vote these people into oblivion.” “These people” are Democrats. According to recent polls, over half the nation’s likely voters will cast their ballots for candidates the president said should be voted out of memory. Oblivion is a harsh, radical word. To be obliviated means being wiped from memory, cleansed from the historical record. In the word oblivion, I hear echoes of Hebrew Bible texts narrating how one tribe or nation in the ancient Near East sought to wipe the other from the face of the earth in total warfare. [The Hebrew word is *herem*](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124494788). Kill every one of them; spare no woman, child, or baby. Knock down every monument, every stele. Pulverize the clay tablets or burn the written records. Bleach them out of history. Like they never existed. Surely, in a democracy that prides itself on the rule of law and individual rights, consigning a person or a people to oblivion should not be an option. But, if we remember the history of white hatred toward indigenous people here, we know the option is real. It has been exercised. Heather Cox Richardson recently published an outstanding work, *[How the South Won the Civil War.](https://www.amazon.com/How-South-Won-Civil-War/dp/0190900903/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KV1A7UV5W07Y&dchild=1&keywords=how+the+south+won+the+civil+war&qid=1602589929&sprefix=how+the+sou%2Caps%2C192&sr=8-1)* It is a haunting read. In sum: the southern planter oligarchy was disempowered by Reconstruction. But they regained power by aligning with western settler-colonist-invaders. Reconstruction was subverted in the states with Black Codes, Jim and Juan Crow, lynching and other acts of terror, and voter suppression. And all this was enabled by eastern and upper midwestern elected representatives who allowed the argument of “states’ rights” to rule. In addition, [Edward Blum](https://www.amazon.com/Reforging-White-Republic-Nationalism-Conflicting/dp/0807160415/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=edward+blum&qid=1602589868&sr=8-2) shows how white northern Protestant religious leaders hastened the “reconciliation” between northern and southern white Christians through offering cheap grace (not his phrase), which is forgiveness without conversion or repentance. The causes of preserving inequality, of advancing white supremacy, and of hallowing the right to take lands found allies—more or less aware allies—among white Christians from Union states. The rhizome of racism remained highly viable in the soil, even as the above-ground stalks had been trimmed back. Richardson believes the present day is second only to the Civil War for demonstrating the power of a political minority racist oligarchy that seeks to rule the majority. In recent months, I’ve read many social media posts from persons who believe the North should have obliviated the South, that it was a mistake to allow the South to rise again. For those with this opinion, Lincoln’s “with malice toward none and charity for all” was a mistake as wrongheaded as the protagonist in horror movie believing that the vanquished villain is really drowned in that bathtub on the first attempt. But what would obliviating the South have meant? Should the Union have executed every rebel leader? Should Sherman’s burning of Atlanta and *herem*-like march to the sea been the model for how the South was treated all over? Should the North have established re-education programs for Southerners, akin to what Germany did after World War II to “de-Nazi-fy” former party members? So, what does all this mean for the upcoming heresy trial otherwise known as the presidential election? How might a strategy of oblivion be exercised today? One shudders with the thought. I concur with Dr. Richardson: there is a fierce tension today regarding the fundamentals of the nation we’ve not experienced since the Civil War and its aftermath. Consigning one group of human beings or another to oblivion is the wrong endgame. Today seems like an opportune time, a critical time, to learn more. To re-member the previously suppressed stories of the nation’s history. To dig out the remnants of obliviated peoples and their stories, for they haunt this nation. This James Baldwin quote is all over the internet: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” And nothing can be faced until it is seen or remembered. Obliviating will not move “we the people” toward a more perfect union. --- [See a related post regarding memorials and monuments. ](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/reckoning-different-from-erasing-history/.) [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **IMAGE CREDIT:** https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Memory\_Charm **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Doing Theology in Public](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/doing-theology-in-public/) **Published:** October 6, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/10/05/us/04dc-virus-trump-window/05AMBRIEFING-virus-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp)](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/10/05/us/04dc-virus-trump-window/05AMBRIEFING-virus-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp)President Trump briefly left the hospital Sunday to greet supporters. (Alex Edelman/Agence France-Presse; Getty Images) If you want to know the range of what kinds of public theology residents of the U.S. are doing, we live in a glorious time! Here are a few examples of theologizing I see around us, mostly around COVID-19 and the president—a little good, a lot bad, and some really ugly. The president’s recent diagnosis, hospital stay, and personal response to the virus have generated bushels of theologically-infused commentary. The dogma is apparently very strong in us. Regardless of any new events or newly discovered facts, people fit the new into their existing narratives, no matter how tortured those narratives become. Speaking of tortured narratives, there are the QAnon conspiracy theorists. They saw the president’s hospitalization as part of the master plan to root out and destroy Democrats who are child molesting cannibals. The avenging angels would carry out their work while their hero was in the hospital. One pundit proffered that the Democrats infected his microphone at the debate and mused why so many Republicans contracted the virus while Democrats did not. True believers look past stupidly simple answers like mask wearing and that Dems don’t attend the president’s rallies and fundraisers. For the Christian Right supporters, the president is hero or messiah. As hero, the president has unparalleled genetics. Some supporters post memes of his head on the body of someone like the Rock (who, by the way, was knocked to his knees by the virus). The quick release from the hospital proves their point. Pay no attention to the extraordinary level and range of treatments and care available to virtually no other human being. For those who think he is God’s anointed, the messiah: he president is protected by God, although God may have given the president COVID in order to humble him prior to his exaltation after the next election when he will complete the work God has begun in him. For other commentators, the devil, in cahoots with Dems, is working to neutralize the president—but God always has the last laugh. The president himself echoed the angelic messengers in the New Testament when he left the hospital: don’t be afraid of the COVID, as if one had come back from the dead. I wonder how that line plays with the families of the nearly 210,000 persons in the U.S. who have died, or the other 800,000 grieving families worldwide. Lots of weak genes, or a God who cares unevenly? (You can read the sources behind the above comments at [Right Wing Watch](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/).) For those who opposed this president’s policies, I’ve read multiple versions of karma or “an eye for an eye.” Nearly everyone on this side sees logical consequences at work. Organize dense mass gatherings. Eschew, and sometimes ridicule, mask-wearing. What you sow is what you reap. Some people think he deserves to suffer and die. He does not exhibit care for the people around him, so he does not deserve compassion. Others are kinder: they recognize his humanity and wish he would return to health, but only after a prolonged recovery. Perhaps the most generous and theologically responsible (in my opinion) take I read was this: the image of God animates all of us, regardless of how far we’ve fallen or how occluded that image becomes by the way we live our lives. But grace does not mean there are no consequences for our actions. While wishing him a full recovery, that recovery would also allow the time necessary to face the consequences of one’s actions. Finally, I recall a comment from my seminary days. My pastoral care professor spoke about suffering and compassion. He mused about the mystery of suffering. Why is it, he asked, that some people suffer and become hateful, and others suffer and become deeply compassionate. The capacity for compassion is often largest for those who have suffered profoundly, but suffering can also harden one’s heart. And then a fortress of dogma protects that brittle, and fragile, organ. --- Interested in a short-term, online, free course on this and similar topics? Check out [Regenerating the Spirit of Democracy](https://ptstulsa.edu/democracy/). [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Question Not the Beliefs but the Therefores](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the_therefores/) **Published:** September 29, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** The Constitution protects the freedom of religious believing. Citizens should be tolerant of other’s beliefs. The government cannot be used as a tool for heresy hunting or for burning an alleged heretic at the stake—figuratively or literally. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/200929-GPV-Blog.jpg)Yes, there have been seasons in our history where there was deep suspicion of Catholic candidates for office, with President Kennedy being the most famous case. Many religious leaders thought Thomas Jefferson, who did not pass an orthodoxy sniff test for any Christian faction, was an infidel. [As remembered in an article last week](https://theconversation.com/why-teddy-roosevelts-warning-to-lay-off-a-candidates-religious-beliefs-is-still-relevant-today-144899?utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-8507b82846-400153437&utm_content=buffer328e8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer), William Howard Taft’s religious beliefs, whatever they were, came under attack for his alleged Unitarianism. And despite the prohibition in Article VI of the Constitution of there being a religious test for holding office, many Americans continue to get queasy stomachs when considering an atheist for office, starting with the suspicion of one who does not believe in God. This matter of what a candidate believes is alive in public once again regarding both a presidential candidate and a Supreme Court nominee. In this case, both persons are practicing Catholics. Their beliefs, how “alive the dogma” is in them, cannot be matters on which elections or confirmations depend. Whether or not one professes to adhere to a particular religion, whether one can be embraced as “orthodox” on matters such as the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, how conservative or liberal one is on doctrinal matters, or how one reads and interprets a text must not be doors or walls to holding office. However, *religious practices* and *religiously-motivated practices*—those are a different matter. The Constitution does not protect all religiously-motivated actions, no matter how “sincere” the action is. And neither should candidates for public offices be shielded from answering questions about how their beliefs, religious and otherwise, might translate into actions. On the one hand, we should all be careful to understand before drawing conclusions. A judge can believe abortion is wrong and uphold a law which permits abortion. A candidate for office who is not religious can be entirely respectful of religious rights and of the value of religion in regard to promoting works of justice, charity, and mercy. And, it is also possible that a judge searches case for precedents that might nullify a present law, or atheist candidates could be anti-religious bigots who do to religious people what they felt they have done to them. On the other hand, we and our representatives in elected offices are entirely correct to explore the “therefores” of beliefs, religious or otherwise. Therefores matter. For example: A candidate for an environmental watchdog post who believes that Jesus is coming any day now should be questioned on how that belief might inform the candidate’s determination for protecting the planet for the sake of future generations. Any candidate who has somewhere written that monarchy is preferable to a democratic republic because one can’t find democracy in the scriptures but kings are everywhere should be questioned bluntly regarding how they can possible hold an office at any level of government in the U.S. A candidate teaches a class in his congregation’s religious school. In that class, the candidate teaches that men should rule as the leaders of households and public spaces, with women subservient to them. The man shows his students where in the scriptures this teaching is found. That candidate should be questioned in public, not on his interpretation of the texts (that is for adherents of that religion to debate) but on how he could work with female colleagues as equals. To cite one real life example from the angle not of candidacy but from what someone does with a religious belief in a public office: [when Jeff Sessions was the attorney general](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/16/jeff-sessions-bible-romans-13-trump-immigration-policy/707749002/) of the U.S., he was wrong to cite Romans 13, about submitting to the governing authorities. Wrong to cite this text at all, in public, for he offered that text as public justification and legitimization of his actions. The attorney general of the U.S. cannot take his belief in the validity of his religion’s text, insert a “therefore,” and declare a policy. The moral order—the sense of and warrants for right and wrong, good and bad, of what people in the society owe to each other—in a diverse, complex society is not determined by one set of beliefs, one orthodoxy, forming one intellectual highway, moving to a common destination. Rather, there may be many different belief-paths that lead to the same policy outcome; and persons who believe in very similar ways may split when it comes to the “therefore” of their beliefs. Certainly, questioning what a candidate or nominee believes about God or the afterlife, and whether a ritual is symbolic or effects a change in the participants, is not a legitimate line of questioning in confirmation hearings or an election debate. But asking about the “therefore” of beliefs, about how a belief might affect decisions vital to the candidate’s potential office—that is absolutely legitimate and necessary. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). IMAGE CREDIT: *The Providential Detection*. Etching by an unknown artist, c. 1800. The Library Company of Philadelphia (159) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [1619 Plus 1776 Plus 1830 Equals What?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/1619-1776-1830/) **Published:** September 22, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Teach your history in church. It may be one of the most subversive actions a congregation can take. America needs a better story. Nearly everyone agrees on that. What that story should be: now, that’s where things get interesting, and potentially as divisive as the Civil War. The President and allies are massing their power to tell a well-varnished narrative of greatness and freedom, undiminished by slavery and its continuing aftereffects, or by the theft of Native lands. On Constitution Day this year, [he proposed the creation of a 1776 Commission to teach “patriot education” in public schools](https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/914519531/creator-of-1619-project-on-trumps-patriotic-education). ![1619+1776+1830=?](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GPV-addition-post.png)He has rejected the [1619 Project](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html), an attempt by the New York Times to tell a very different history than the one the president prefers. He utterly rejects the Pulitzer-prize winning 1619 Project as teaching a false history of racism and oppression. If the 1776 Commission does its work, I assume they’ll include history as written by [David Barton](https://wallbuilders.com/), a Christian nationalist darling who is completely rejected by historians of many perspectives for his proof-texting use of history to claim the U.S. was founded as, and ought to be, a Christian nation. These and several other perspectives constitute a must-engage ideological battle, the results of which will be real and profound. I am among those who don’t want to live in the land of *1984*—the sales of which, remember, [skyrocketed up nearly 10,000 percent after the 2017 inauguration](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511671118/classic-novel-1984-sales-are-up-in-the-era-of-alternative-facts). And I would argue that Christian churches, especially predominantly white ones, should show leadership in this war of founding stories. Regardless of the outcome of a 1776 Commission, leaders of predominantly white Christian churches cannot be prohibited by the federal government for telling the truth. [That prohibition, as the Southern Baptists are already finding, can come only from within.](https://religionnews.com/2020/06/04/without-annual-meeting-southern-baptists-continue-debate-on-race-womens-roles/) I’ll use my own denomination, The United Methodist Church, as an example. No one could tell our history and not see in it the church’s, and the nation’s, racism. From the beginning. A few examples. John Wesley, English founder of the Methodist movement and the man who sent Methodist ambassadors to the new nation to start a church, was an ardent abolitionist. His emissaries, Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, were, also—at first. No Methodist, either clergy nor laity, should hold slaves. However, as plantations closed to preachers from abolitionist churches, Asbury began to compromise, reasoning that it is better to have access to a soul than to be on record for opposing chained bodies. Issues of race and self-determination led to two of the first splits in Methodism (within 20 years of the church’s formation), with the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion being the results. By the mid-19th century, historians estimate some 25,000 Methodists enslaved 200,000 persons. The Methodist North-South split in 1844, following the withdrawal of the abolitionist Wesleyan Methodists from the “slaveholding denomination” the prior year, presaged what would happen in the nation. During the Civil War, President Lincoln noted that more Methodists fought on both sides than any other denomination. The partisan battles were engaged also from the pulpits. Southern Methodist preachers, along with white Christians of other stripes, defended slavery as God’s will. Many Northern preachers decried slavery but also believed that a society with free Black people was untenable. During and after the Civil War, while some white Methodists defended the rights of Native peoples and worked alongside them, other Methodist leaders bought into and promoted Manifest Destiny. They helped the push all the way to the Oregon Territory. One member of the clergy, a Union officer, led the despicable, shameful, horrible attack on a defenseless group of Native peoples at Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864. The Rev. (Colonel) John Chivington led the massacre, and his men took body parts as souvenirs. While Chivington was a particularly bad actor, he was not unique. When the Civil War ended, it took until 1939 for Methodists North and South to re-embrace. Why so long? Perhaps because, by then, the combatants had nearly all died. Perhaps the work of Northern church leaders to appease Southerners and welcome “brothers” back into fellowship—including forgiveness for the war (which was not theirs to offer)—over the decades contributed. Or perhaps the Jim Crow South provided the “separate but equal” idea behind the cost of white reconciliation in 1939: the creation of a separate, race-based jurisdiction for Black churches. That separate but not equal Jim Crow-appeasing house of segregation lived on until the early 1970s. But its death then did not mean there was racial reconciliation in the newly formed (1968) United Methodist Church. To this day, white United Methodists, as a whole, are far from saying even to ourselves, “Black lives matter.” Only someone with blinders could read these snippets of history from one subset of America and think, “Wow. Those people are and always have been great! They believe God is love, that God loves every one of us equally, that we all have sinned and have access to God’s abounding grace. They have practiced these beliefs throughout their history. Sure, there are always a few bad apples, but there is nothing systemically or foundationally wrong that needs attention and correction. This church ought to form a commission that promotes only the upside of United Methodist history. Any bad stuff is either in the past, with no ill effects today, or the result of individual bad actors who need to be rooted out.” This United Methodist history, its fuller version and in the context of American history, subverts any claim that the U.S. was founded on freedom and kindness, for all. If one were to look at Methodists and immigrants and immigration policy, Methodists and labor, Methodists and women, or United Methodists and sexuality/gender/gender identity/sexual orientation, one would find further evidence of deep ambiguities in practice and in official positions claimed. I would make an educated guess that nearly every predominantly white Christian church in the U.S. could tell a similar history in which the events and symbols of 1619, 1776, and 1830 (Indian Removal Act), with many others, continue to play out in stories that need to be told with honesty. Robert P. Jones, scholar and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, has written a brilliant example of how a personal narrative, a denomination’s history, and the struggles of a nation intersect. *[White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity](https://www.amazon.com/White-Too-Long-Supremacy-Christianity/dp/B081NW7DV3/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=white+too+long&qid=1600780641&sr=8-2)* is the book. He not only tells this intertwined history for Southern Baptists. He includes disturbing examples such as mass murderer Dylann Roof’s connections to the mainline Lutheran world. The consistency of racist perspectives of mainline and Catholic Republicans with their white evangelical co-partisans will surprise many readers. In reality, the president of the U.S. does not have the direct authority to shape local school curricula. But, through a commission, partisan governors, working with legislative partisans to create financial carrots and sticks, and stoking white fear, a president can effect change. That said, a president has no authority—direct or indirect—over the histories white churches tell themselves, nor how those churches link their histories and stories to America’s narratives. I limit that last sentence to white churches—because predominantly Black congregations, Native American congregations, congregations of other faith groups, and many first generation immigrant congregations already know that one cannot honestly tell any story related to 1776 without also telling the stories related to 1619, and 1830, and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Oklahoma Land Runs, and the 1924 immigration act, and the U.S. and the Shoah (Holocaust), and the Muslim Ban… and… and…and…. --- Interested in a short-term, online, free course on this and similar topics? Check out [Regenerating the Spirit of Democracy](https://ptstulsa.edu/democracy/). [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [A Capitalist, a Democrat, and a Right-wing Christian Walk into a Bar](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/a-capitalist-a-democrat-and-a-right-wing-christian-walk-into-a-bar/) **Published:** September 15, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Several spiritualities conflict in the United States. Among the most prominent, sometimes doing battle and often shaping each other, are capitalism, democracy, and Christianity in its incarnation as the Christian Right. Every society has a spirit and, therefore, a spirituality. By spirituality, I mean a set of beliefs and practices that orient persons and communities how to be and act in the world. A spirituality poses and answers questions about who we are and why we are. [Spirituality is expressed in the orienting stories told, in setting the rules and boundaries for who belongs and who does not, in determining what is owed to each other, and in the offer of what the spirituality empowers participants ultimately to become.](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-religion-and-politics-are-inseparable-feed/) Three examples. (There are many variations; please read the following as “types of” rather than as the only versions available.) Capitalism includes a spirituality. Sociologist Max Weber’s most well-known and classic work is *[The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism](https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/protestantethic/summary/)*. He illuminated the affinities between Protestant Christianity, especially the Calvinist sort, e.g., seeking the assurance of salvation with a work ethic and thrift. Today, one might say: capitalism offers the story that it is the only productive economic system that generates wealth and progress in human life. The worth of persons is determined by their ability to create markets and buy and spend within them. Wealth-creators are more valuable than everyone else. If you don’t have something to buy or sell, you don’t belong. Markets rule by their own rules and internal controls, and external intervention is, for the most part, detrimental to good order. Liberty of corporations and of individual actors is of supreme importance. Markets can be brutal. Survival is for the fittest. Creative destruction is necessary for progress and to weed out the weak. The world’s development depends upon those who embrace and are willing to live with the risks and rewards of the profit motive. And, I will note, contemporary finance capitalism and a consumer economy were two developments that Weber did not anticipate, at all, among the thrifty Makers and Savers about which he wrote. Weber might not have recognized the spirit of contemporary capitalism championed by the fictional Gordon Gecko, “Greed is good.” ![Gettysburg Address first draft](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/civil-war-gettysburg-address-l.jpg)Gettysburg Address, First Draft Democracy offers a spirituality. Let’s start with the line from President Lincoln: “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all (persons) are created equal.” In that juxtaposition of liberty and equality, one can see the roots of a story, rules for belonging, a social moral order, and an aspiration for a fully empowered nation. A democracy dedicated to individual liberty resonates deeply with capitalism’s spirit. However, a democracy dedicated to the proposition that all persons are created equal clashes with a capitalistic market spirit which rewards the strongest, the most predatory, the most outstanding, and the most privileged. A nation and its government dedicated to the equality of all persons will constrain individual and corporate liberty when inequality reaches an intolerable level. A nation and its government committed primarily to individual and corporate liberty may use “equality” as a carrot, as an incentive to participate in the market economy, but will not constrain liberty for the sake of greater equality. As we know from the historical context of Lincoln’s classic line from his address at Gettysburg, this nation fought a Civil War to limit the “liberty” of some persons to own other persons. The fight for equality—as evident by policing, incarceration, health disparities by ZIP code, public school funding, mask wearing, Citizens United, and the immoral $7.25 minimum wage—is still not as evident as the maximization of individual and corporate liberty, at the expense of equality. Every religious tradition is embodied and carried forth in a story, rules for belonging, moral order, and vision for empowerment that constitute a spirituality. For the past 40 years, the dominant religious expression in U.S. public life has been the political-religious alliance known as the Christian Right. In this version of Christianity, God sent Jesus to die on the cross from the sins of the world. The saving power of that substitutionary atonement is accessed through the belief and confession that Jesus is Lord. Saving power is available only to individuals. Neither sin nor salvation is systemic. Goodness and grace, evil and damnation, are suffered individually—although damnation could be so widespread among individuals that a nation is imperiled. God is a righteous Father who rewards obedience and punishes disobedience. This Father rules all the nations of the earth as King, and his regents are earth’s fathers and national leaders. There are strong affinities between the Christian Right and market capitalism, rooted in the devotion to individual liberty and choice. Those two spiritualities also share in rejecting government interventions to rectify inequalities. For the Christian Right, only individuals can make change. Bad systems don’t exist; they are a liberal fiction. There are no bad systems, only bad apples. How different is a spirituality dedicated to fostering a more just, equal, compassionate society. A spirituality rooted in the equality of everyone created in the image of God and charged with caring for each other and the whole of the earth. A spirituality that attends to systems and cultures as well as individuals. A spirituality which understands justice as the primary social virtue and the pursuit of happiness in the context of what will help the poor and the vulnerable. No one spirituality is sufficient to ground every aspect of a complex society. There will always be multiple strands woven into the braid that comprises a society. In times of profound social change and unrest, we can bet that the strands of spiritualities are showing and fraying. It is a good time to ask whether some strands need to be replaced. Or, at least, that is what I see. --- Interested in a short-term, online, free course on this and similar topics? Check out [Regenerating the Spirit of Democracy](https://ptstulsa.edu/democracy/). [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Mr. Smith’s Washington, without Destructive Religion](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/mr-smiths-washington/) **Published:** September 8, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Last week, I took an afternoon to watch Frank Capra’s classic film, [*Mr. Smith Goes to Washington*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Smith_Goes_to_Washington). It was a treat! What I saw in this 1939 film was both familiar and foreign, and the absence of religion from the film was among the most striking differences. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Mr._Smith_Goes_to_Washington_1939_poster-686x1024.jpg)To recap the film (I’d say “spoiler alert,” but again, the film was released in 1939): in an unnamed state somewhere in fly-over country, the U.S. senator dies and the governor must name a replacement. The near-mafia boss, big-money kingpin wants the governor to name the replacement. But what Boss Jim Taylor most desired was someone who could be manipulated to serve Taylor’s interests. The governor’s kids suggest he appoint a really swell guy, Jefferson Smith. The kids all know Smith because Jeff Smith runs a wholesome boy’s organization called Boy Rangers. The governor discovers that Smith’s father and the senior senator, Joseph Paine, were best friends. Paine was already in the governor’s pocket and in-step with whatever corrupt money-making project Boss Taylor desired. The governor decides to appoint Smith, who was without guile and who—it was assumed—could be easily manipulated. Jeff Smith, played by Jimmy Stewart, is principled, decent, naive, awkward around pretty women, and totally in love with his image of America and of Washington. In his imagination, this is a nation of high ideals, and Washington should be full of them. He admires Senator Paine because he and his dad fought lost causes together, on principle. Smith assumes both Paine and Washington are worthy of his admiration. The viewer soon learns Smith will be subjected to a very rude awakening. His new colleagues make sport of the rube from the plains. The press is particularly mean-spirited. His assistant, Clarissa Saunders, is jaded and can’t fathom how a decent man even belongs in Washington. That said, Saunders soon comes to admire Jeff’s pure spirit. She mentors him. Her mentorship provides a critical infusion of savvy knowledge regarding how Washington works. Those lessons are vital when Smith introduces a bill to fund a national boy’s camp in his state on land that happens to be targeted by Boss Taylor, in cahoots with the governor and Senator Paine, for a corrupt business deal. Paine leans first gently and then hard on Smith to fall into line with the business deal, which Smith immediately recognizes as corrupt. Smith stands on principle and refuses. Paine accuses Smith on the senate floor of bilking boys of the pennies he is soliciting for the camp because, he claims, Smith is the one trying to make money off the land. At a low point, Smith returns to his favorite monument, the Lincoln Memorial, which both be and the others who enter there treat as sacred ground. From Saunders, he learns he can filibuster the land funding bill and try to demonstrate the truth of his claims. Meanwhile, Saunders and a reporter friend scheme to blanket the media in Smith’s home state in hope that maybe, just maybe, they can turn public opinion against the Boss, the sitting governor, and the revered senior senator. What could go wrong? The Boss demonstrates why he is the boss, shutting down news of Smith’s allegations and of his righteous filibuster throughout the state. The Boy Rangers, however, believe in Smith and mount their own news campaign, which the Boss violently suppresses, even injuring some of the boys. But back in Washington, toward the end of what became a 25-hour filibuster, some senate colleagues began to admire Smith’s idealism. Some were moved by his speech, including the senator presiding over the proceedings. Then, in the dramatic concluding scene, Smith collapses from exhaustion (but will be okay). Paine, overwhelmed with guilt, runs from the senate chamber and tried (unsuccessfully) to shoot himself. Paine returns to the chamber and confesses on the senate floor that he’d been lying and everything Smith said was true. Saunders is thrilled, a cynical reporters has seen a good and honest man in Washington, and the presiding senator smiles. What struck me as similar to our day: - Cynicism in Washington and about Washington. - The battle between wealthy people trying to manipulate the system to serve themselves and, on the other side, a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people which shall not perish” but is always in danger of perishing. - The public’s perception of a press corps more interested in a juicy story, or ruining a career, than in truth. - The willingness of adults to be violent against those who block their interests, including against children. - The media image that the middle of the country is unsophisticated as compared to the East Coast. What struck me as different from our day: - Senators changing their minds. - There was hardly talk about Democrats and Republicans. Our current party divide was not a meaningful division in the movie. - Black people are cast in the movie as porters. There is one Black man who pauses at the Lincoln memorial, and one Black child among the Boy Rangers cub reporters. Otherwise, race is not mentioned. - The portrayal of any adult in the U.S. being as idealistic about the U.S. as Jefferson Smith. - The complete absence of traditional religion from the storyline. In a blog of musings about religion in public life, it is, of course, this last point that led me to write this entry. I heard someone say that history, for most of us, is no longer than one’s own lifespan. One of the chief values of learning history is that we learn so many things we assume to be “the way things are and always have been” are, in fact, relatively new developments. For example, the time between World War I and World War II was a time of religious depression in the U.S. Interest in religion was down. In the post-World War II era, organized religion surged due in no small part to the suburban building boom and strong opposition to “godless communism.” Those days were also marked by spring-like ecumenical cooperation and sharing rather than polarization. The religious, and political, polarization of today is rooted in narratives that diverged from the civil rights movement on, intensified by differing responses to race, gendered relations and sexuality, war, the value of equality, and whether peace is the absence of social conflict achieved through law and order or a result of just relationships. This polarization manifested in and was amplified by Newt Gingrich’s disdain for compromise and transformation of opponents into enemies. And, in religion, from the 1980s onward, historians can document the move to take religious wars of children of light v. children of darkness from the realm of denominational battles into the political sphere. Resist federal intervention into states, especially regarding how discrimination is defined. Elect Christians. Demonize secularists and the wrong kind of Christian. Continue to rail against godless socialism and to support free enterprise as God’s will. Denominate the president as God’s chosen. *Mr. Smith Goes to Washington* was a tribute to the best angels of America’s nature: the possibility of a self-governing people, taking responsibility for themselves and each other, dedicated to both liberty and equality, where politics is pursued to better everyone, and where religious leaders neither volunteer nor are drawn into a war against these angels. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). IMAGE CREDIT: By Illustrator unknown; work-for-hire on behalf of Columbia Pictures. – Scan via Heritage Auctions. Cropped from the original image., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85717591 **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Christianity is Judged in Public by What Christians Do, and That is Good](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/christianity-judged-in-public/) **Published:** September 1, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Protestant Christianity is rooted historically in Martin Luther’s interpretation of St. Paul’s words that followers of Jesus are saved by faith and not works. That theological statement is central to the so-called evangelical confession, to “accept Jesus Christ a Lord and Savior.” That confession is regarded by millions of Christians as the key to salvation. Regardless of how one interprets what either Paul or Luther meant by “saved by faith,” or what anyone who makes the evangelical confession had in mind, these words are nearly meaningless in public life except as a signal for what a person does. In public life, Christians are judged by what we do—or, I should say, by what the loudest and most visible Christians do. What we claim to believe, or who we allege to believe in, is nearly irrelevant in public. What do we do, where do we stand on the issues of the day, with whom we ally ourselves—these are important in public. Whether various Christians claim a common confession influenced by a Roman emperor, as the creeds of the first centuries were, is nonsense to much of the public. The philosopher William James wrote, paraphrasing Jesus: Jesus said you will know his followers by their fruits and not by their roots. By what we do rather than where we come from or what we claim to believe. For example: Many American Christians support the administration’s family separation practice. “The parents did something illegal and it is too bad the kids have to suffer for the parents’ lawlessness.” I stand with the many others, religious and non-religious, who utterly reject the practice as immoral, inhumane, and unholy. Truly abominable. [Which kind of Christianity did the attorney general of the U.S. represent](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/sessions-cites-bible-defense-breaking-families-blames-migrant-parents-n883296)? Some years back when I lived in suburban Chicago, I was getting a haircut and the barber asked what I did for work. I said I was a seminary professor. A female barber sitting nearby spun her head in my direction and stared daggers. While my seminary was in the cohort of seminaries where the student body and the faculty are at least 50 percent women, in the Chicago area, Catholicism is the publicly dominant Christian expression. And stories of priests abusing children and seminary professors abusing seminarians were prominently in the news. For all she knew, the dagger-thrower thought I was *that* kind of Christian. There are, again, millions of Christians who reject anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+ for their “decision” to exercise a “lifestyle choice.” More than a few such Christians greet LGBTQ+ persons with slurs and, on a moral scale, are disgusted with their “abominable” practices. I identify with Christians and others who, for reasons of science and faith, believe that human sexuality is a spectrum and real, holy love is not confined to persons born in one part of that spectrum. For us, marriage equality and full inclusion in society and church are necessities. Which of these stances is understood to be “the more Christian” stance in public? There is a kind of “law and order” Christianity that supports suppressing dissent, that seeks to lock away the guilty regardless of their danger to society. These positions are highly correlated with white supremacy, especially Christian white supremacy (Robert P. Jones’ new book, *[White Too Long,](https://www.amazon.com/White-Too-Long-Supremacy-Christianity/dp/1982122862/ref=sr_1_2?crid=HBU4ES93EK60&dchild=1&keywords=white+too+long&qid=1598964901&sprefix=white+too%2Caps%2C200&sr=8-2)* demonstrates that Christianity has, in fact, been the pole holding up the tent of white supremacy). I stand with Christians and others who cannot find how the Jesus of the parables and the Sermon on the Mount can be squared with “law and order;” and white supremacy must be rooted out for the sake of the nation and for the sake of fidelity to the way of Jesus. Well, here is my problem. I reject what many others, who like me identify as Christians, do. In fact, I don’t recognize what they do as Christian, and they reject what I do and stand for as Christian. If we still hurled anathemas at each other, we’d be inflaming social media. Oh, right, social media posts may be our contemporary anathemas. I don’t want to be judged by the public based on what the most visible and loudest Christians do, unless they are my kind of Christian. However, I don’t get to decide who a public thinks I am if I identify as a Christian. In the language of classical marketing theory, a brand is the sum total of what everyone thinks about the brand. As long as I identify as a Christian, I’ll be grouped with whatever the public thinks a Christian is and does. And, it is the case that “my kind” of Christianity is often a minority position, which means that the public’s perception and my self-perception will often be different. Painfully different. I have atheist friends who don’t believe I’m a Christian because of what I think Christians ought to do, and that doing does not square with the Christianity that both my friends and I have rejected. ![James 2:18 NRSV](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Jame-2_18.png) Here is a fundamental question that emerges from these musings, a question for all of us who identify with a particular religion: is a religion defined in ideal terms or in real terms? Is a religion defined by what it claims its adherents ought to believe and do, or by what they actually believe and do? The most charitable answer is to recognize there will always be some gap between a religion’s vision and what adherents actually do and believe. But the public will not often be charitable. Nor should they be. Christianity ought to be judged in public by how we who claim to be Christian act. On this point, the author of James was right and Luther was wrong. Show me your works. ([James 2:18](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=465986989)) --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Cost of Craving Power](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/cost-of-craving-power/) **Published:** August 25, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** A cautionary tale. Once upon a time, there was a group of Christians who found themselves in the wilderness. I will call them This Group. And in the wilderness, that place of deprivation and longing, The Tempter is extremely powerful. Prior to being in the wilderness, This Group lived in the villages, just like other Christians and everyone else. They won some culture battles and they lost some skirmishes. In a democracy, experiencing both winning and losing is in the nature of things. Sixty years before the present, This Group hated politics. But when they lost the right to treat Black Americans as unequal, at the voting booths and in the schools, they joined the political fray to protect a way of life. Then when they witnessed rebellions in the streets over racism and protests against a devastating war, they rose up to become law-and-order super patriots. When women claimed the right for control of their own bodies, and some other groups of Christians championed that right—along with support for racial equality and the end of the unjust war and of American claims to innocence—This Group roided themselves up into culture warriors. ![Quote from Henri Nouwen which says, "What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life."](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/power-by-nouwen.png)For nearly 30 years, This Group’s political power grew and grew. They stoked a movement. They built legions of institutions, with loads of money, purposed to influence everything from homeschooling curriculum to local elections to candidates for federal judgeships. And they were wildly successful. They tasted the strong drink of being in power. They loved the feeling. But then along came a new regime, led for the first time in history by a Black man. Although he was a Christian, he was not of their brand, and they refused to think of him as other than Other. The new regime leader paid less attention to this group than any regime for the previous 30 years. The leader supported legislation that affirmed civil rights for persons who identify as LGBTQ+. This action, along with many others, plus the feeling of rejection, incensed This Group. In a few short years, This Group of Christians imagined they were sitting in sackcloth and ashes in the wilderness. They longed for a return to their previous privileged position and to taste power again. Remember, The Tempter is most powerful in the wilderness. Each time in history some group of Christians sought more power to rule, they found an eager ear in the wilderness. This Group of Christians had experienced the wiles of The Tempter before, in previous (and shorter) visits to the wilderness. Once The Tempter said to the leaders: “I will give you tremendous wealth, I will build for you the biggest churches the U.S. has ever seen. I’ll increase your market share. You will become the new mainline.” The leaders liked what they heard, but were, of course, suspicious. “Why? What’s the catch? What do you want from our success?” “Nothing, not now. Maybe later, you’ll find some way to thank me.” The leaders took that deal, a deal premised upon a confusion between faithfulness and numbers. But, oh, the numbers were the envy of many other Christians and the darling of media and social surveyors looking for what “true believers” think and do. “Not now, but maybe later, you’ll find some way to thank me.” So, it came to pass after about seven years of sackcloth and ashes and fearing their movement to preserve a patriarchal, white-dominated, Christian way of life that The Tempter came to influential men in This Group of Christians. “It is time for me to receive my thanks, but I’m going to give you even more to thank me for. I know someone who is an ideal candidate who will lead a regime that will forever put you in power. You will never again suffer in the wilderness. You’ll be defended by federal judges, in the halls of Congress, in the most powerful office in the land. You’ll once again be able to live the lives you want to live, free from an intrusive government, free from immoral relationships. You’ll love the ‘two-eyes-for-an-eye’ standard of justice this leader will exact on all your enemies. He will do all your dirty work. You will dominate the morality of everything from the courts to the culture to family values policy more completely than you ever have before.” The leaders of This Group were feeling a bit tipsy but still had their wits about them enough to ask, “And what does all this cost us?” “Ah, well,” The Tempter chuckled. “Here is the trade-off. You can’t have all this power without giving up something, right? If you but give up your principles, if you but sacrifice your integrity, if you forget about character and simply look at the results you want, you will have the power to spread your religion and conquer all others. None of your secular, liberal, or false-religion enemies will ever threaten you and yours again. I can give you a greater good in exchange for these lesser goods. If you want out of this wilderness and a guarantee from me that you’ll never return here, take the deal. Drink the power.” The leaders of This Group talked. For the sake of the power to protect and advance their story about Christianity and the nation, their sense of who belongs and who does not, and their moral order, they took the deal. “You won’t regret it,” The Tempter said to them. “I give you my word. And, I might have neglected to say: this deal will cost everyone who calls themselves Christian a little something. Reputation. Integrity. Soul. But I know you’ll love your new abode. Now, let’s drink that power.” --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [What Kind of Spirituality Does a Healthy Democracy Need?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/democracy-spirituality/) **Published:** August 18, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Every culture has a spirituality, a spirit, a soul. Spirituality used in the context of culture refers to the life energy, the desire, the aching toward something. A true and good spirituality should ground a people, deepen them, make them wiser, keep them focused. Spirituality is evident in answers to the question, “What kind of people are they?” Sometimes spiritualities produce competing goods. But not all spiritualities create paths to public goods. Some waken and clear space for what other perspectives might see as demons. - An individualist culture has a spirituality; it values liberty, self-made person, meritocracy, winners and losers, and government understood primarily in the negative (protect and defend). Its hell is the totalitarian. - A totalitarian culture has a spirituality—public conformity, with almost no sense of private life, control, the collective, the exterior governing authority. It is an instance of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. Its hell is individual freedom that will result in anarchy. - An industrial culture has a spirituality—dominance over raw materials, elevation of society over nature. Its rejects the quaint inefficiencies, the lack of scalability, the expense and the lack of control of cottage work. - A crafts-person culture has a spirituality—working with nature, feeling the spirits of the wood or metals one is crafting into objects of art and use. Its hell is the impersonal, soulless, mass-produced industrial culture. What kind of spirituality is needed for a healthy democracy? The answer, in part, depends on what kind of democracy one has in mind. The spirituality of a consensus form of democracy might be strong on the virtue of discovering and forging compromises. A winner-takes-all practice might value “politics is war, get over it” winners and “good” losers. A coalition government where the rights of political minorities are protected because today’s opponent may be tomorrow’s ally may have strong affinities to toleration and restraint. ![Stack of books on the theme of democracy at risk.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/gary-democracy-book-stack-2-1024x730.jpg)Readers of this blog know that I don’t think the U.S. today boosts a healthy democracy. In fact, I think that American democracy, seriously flawed as it has always been by white supremacy, is slipping into the mouth of an authoritarian hell. (I completely resonate with Michelle Obama’s speech last night about the urgency of this moment.) But this is also an era of reckoning that could transform the nation for the better, if we can develop the necessary “spiritual disciplines” to undergird a “more perfect nation.” I’m still developing my sense of what the spiritual practices per se are that are necessary for a healthy democracy. But, from my point of view and thinking in terms of desired outcomes, a healthy democracy would attentively cultivate: - *Responsible citizens and corporations*. Each person is raised to develop their capacity to govern themselves and to participate in democratic processes. In addition, the capacity to think in terms of *corporate* responsibility is well-developed. Freedom is always exercised in the context of responsibility. - *Equality*. Equality, mutuality, and reciprocity are as highly valued as freedom. (This value is a linchpin in terms of social and criminal justice, as well as how freedom and toleration/acceptance of differences is actually practiced. I agree with the cultural commentators who allege the claim of equality, when considered in terms of peoples of color, is a lie that threatens the entire U.S. democratic experiment.) - *Education/lifelong learning*. Communities fund and support a robust, effective system of public education that prepares people to think critically and reflectively. - *Fairness*. The voting process is characterized by free and secure elections, and attention to ensuring that every vote counts. - *Agency*. Citizen participation—including but not confined to voting, policy, and law-making—actually matters. - *Speech*. The culture of conversation and argument, both in local communities and in legislatures, is sufficient to have the arguments we need to have. High tolerance for conflict and well-developed skills in conflict management are expected. - *Effective government*. Government is large enough and well-funded enough to accomplish its ends. - *Trust through accountability*. The people are governed by officials who earn the public trust daily through practices of accountability, including well-functioning checks and balances. - *Minority rights*. The rights of political minorities are protected by the majority. - *Toleration*. There is a broad and deep tolerance of differences and appreciation for and protection of dissent, as well as for privacy, as well as for discomfort. - *Justice*. The criminal justice system, which is ever-attentive to the virtue of equality before the law, is aligned toward reform and restoration, as well as the protection of victims and the society. - *Correction*. There are well-developed, effective means of dissent, correction, and re-direction. Protests that call out injustice are accepted as essential. - *Other-regard*. “Who is my neighbor and how does one practice neighboring?” are circle-opening questions. People see themselves as members of communities and not simply as individuals. - *Honesty and truth-seeking*. The people and the government of the people tells themselves true and honest stories about themselves, and they develop public practices of social repair to deal with harm. - *Informed decision-makers*. Decision-making includes an effective dialogue of experts and informed local publics. - *Public spaces*. Public spaces are set aside and developed for the public good. - *Social justice*. The equity among stakeholders is sufficient to ensure participation in decision-making and social stability, as well as to evidence the value of equality. - *Well-being*. There is a rich mix of voluntary organizations, non-profits, private initiatives, and government to foster all these outcomes. - *The long view*. In meaningful ways, the past, future generations, and the health of the planet “get a vote” when legislation is conceived and when we cast our ballots. Despite the length of this list, I’m sure I’ve overlooked something of value. That said, look at that list. Surely, it is a list of ideals which mere humans can approximate, more or less. More would be better! Less is where we are. As a lifelong Christian and as a lover of what this nation still could be, I wonder what the disciplines are—the consistent, soul-expanding practices—that would lead toward more public happiness. And I wonder what communities of faith and persons with moral-spiritual depth (who may or may not be members of communities of faith) could contribute to cultivating a spirituality that would undergird a transformed democracy. Because sliding in the mouth of hell is no place to be! We do not have to be here. But if I’m right about the desired outcomes for a healthy democracy, it is going to take a lot of uncomfortable work to create a better place. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). In October, he will offering a free, online, public course dealing with the questions in this blog. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with author of "The Great Oklahoma Swindle"](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/russell-cobb/) **Published:** August 17, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/3D539FA8-66AC-404A-8FDB-198A575D2237-294x300.jpeg) Dr. Russell Cobb, currently Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Latin American Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, is a longtime Tulsan who wrote many essays for This Land Press. Some of those essay and other writings are the basis of *[The Great Oklahoma Swindle](https://www.amazon.com/Russell-Cobb/dp/1496209982/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CJER3HOPTS8M&dchild=1&keywords=the+great+oklahoma+swindle&qid=1597670355&sprefix=the+great+okl%2Caps%2C221&sr=8-1)*, an eye-popping read for anyone interested in what makes Oklahoma the unique and often weird place that it is. Russ’s story ranges from the Black towns to the first Jewish community in Oklahoma in Ardmore, from the immoral and often violent swindling of Native lands and mineral rights by white men to the Tulsa Race Massacre, from the mix of greed-oil-Christianity that is denominated “petro-Christians” to the philanthropy and politics that created The Gathering Place, and more! For this podcast, Russ and Center Executive Director Gary Peluso-Verdend talk about Russ’s deep connections to his hometown and especially the intertwined stories of religion, oil, greed, and culture. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [The Work of Public Health Requires a Public. Do We Have One?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/work-of-public-health/) **Published:** August 11, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Do we have a genuine “public” in the U.S. or has “the public” (or, the publics) been sold to private interests for the sake of private profits? While one can find counterexamples to those I offer below, the preponderance of evidence is that “the public” in the U.S. is more fiction than reality. And a less-healthy populace with tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths is the result. Radical polarization is just the latest assault on the reality of a public. Or perhaps radical polarization is an indicator that “the public” has collapsed. Regardless, individualism and the privatization of public spaces have been ascending for a long time, to the detriment of the public or the public good. The politicization of mask wearing during a global pandemic is only possible because “the public” has been greatly diminished. What is political about wearing a mask to limit the spread of exhaled aerosols potentially containing a viral killer? Nothing, inherently. And if the public were intact as a concept in our minds and in society, mask wearing would be noncontroversial. But when there is only “me” or “me and mine,” mask wearing can be politicized. You’re driving your car and the driver in front of you doesn’t signal turns. You fume that some people think “they own the road” or they act as if “they are the only ones on the road.” Right. No public. You see people parking in handicapped spots, with or without handicapped tags in their vehicles, who walk more swiftly and better than you can into the store. Or, while you circle the parking lot looking for a space, you see a car pull into in a space reserved for short-term business. When you exit the store 30 minutes later, the car is still there. So much for public accommodations designed for people who need them but who can’t use them because someone does not recognize “the public.” Consider those people who throw trash from their cars as they drive. Or who dump grease down drains and car oil into storm sewers. Or who act as if a graduation ceremony was created for their family only. Despoiling or misuse of public spaces for the sake of private interests. Consider, too, a government agency letting contracts to private entities to build prisons and house prisoners, or the federal government using private contractors to fight wars. Both of these sell-offs would be unthinkable if we had a strong sense of “the public.” When a government sells or leases public lands—including in national parks and on coastal shelves—for fossil fuel extraction, public space is privatized, and the public loses. Whatever can be offered for sale is not truly public, for if something belongs to the public, it cannot be sold into private hands without corruption. Imagine the meaning of that statement in the context of corporate money ruled by the Supreme Court ([Citizens United](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/)) to be speech in terms of elections or the push in the Department of Education to defund public schools. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/great-seal-eagle-arrows.jpg)You know that bundle of 13 arrows in the eagle’s right claw on the Great Seal of the U.S.? That symbol may have been inspired by the Haudenosounee (Iroquois) Confederacy, which used one arrow to represent each of the nations of the confederacy. Arrows are bundled because, while it is easy to snap one arrow, a bundle of 5 or 13 is virtually unbreakable when held together. When held together. As a public rather than simply a collection of private interests. Nearly all religions teach that “the people” precedes an individual, that community is essential for the development of persons, that there are no healthy persons without healthy communities, that neighbor-regard is an essential element of faith. But this is one of the many religious/spiritual teachings that is eschewed in a so-called religious nation that worships singularity, liberty, and the freedom to monetize anything rather than to act and sacrifice together for the sake of a common, public good—such as life itself for a maximum number of people during a viral pandemic. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Problems with Saying "the Christian Left"](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-problems-with-saying-the-christian-left/) **Published:** October 15, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Christian progressives should resist the moniker “the Christian Left.” Given the powerful bond to right-left labeling in the culture, the phrase “Christian Left” might be inevitable. But the label is highly problematic. There are two fundamental problems. The first is because the label begs comparison, if not false equivalency, to the Christian Right. The second is because it accepts a political designation that will blinder the “Christian” part of the phrase. *Comparison to the Christian Right*. The Christian Right is a movement and set of institutions that have merged a patriarchal, retributive justice, bare-knuckled, exclusive, predominantly white expression of Christianity with an America-first jingoistic nationalism into which President Trump’s Republican Party has morphed itself. The Christian Right was born from the seeds of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. It grew in opposition to the New Deal in the 1940s and 50s, to Supreme Court decisions on school prayer and Bible reading in the 1960s, to the perceived overreach of the federal government in school desegregation and civil rights (especially after 1964/65), and then to counter-cultural protestors, liberation movements, and legalized abortion (the 1970s). It is comprised of numerous churches, colleges, graduate schools, think tanks, advocacy groups, and training programs for everything from grassroots organizing to home schooling to grooming persons aligned with the Federalist Society for federal judgeships. The Christian Right has embraced every Republican president since Ronald Reagan and been embraced by those presidents in return—none more so than President Trump. From a critical point of view, articulated by some evangelical Christian leaders along with most progressive Christians, the Christian Right has so merged God with America that it either verges on or is guilty of outright idolatry. Labeling progressives as the Christian Left is a reaction to the Christian Right and in tune with political labeling of “right” and “left.” Why would progressive Christians want to be defined in comparison to the Christian Right? Why be compared to a heresy, on the one hand, and to the worst political polarization in the nation since the Civil War, on the other hand? The Christian Right represents a dangerous failure of American Christianity: jingoistic narrative, poor binder for neighboring each other, and morally punishing. The Christian Right demonizes opponents as enemies who need to be converted, exiled, or eliminated. The Christian Right is no friend of a multicultural republic fueled by robust democratic practices of conversation, argument, and compromise. In short, the Christian Right spent decades building institutional bases, donors, networks, training programs, advocacy centers, and aligning itself with one political party. The so-called Christian Left is a light-year away from being as well organized or populated. It is different order of nature from the Christian Right. *My second objection to accepting the Christian Left label is because I fear that the “Christian” part of the phrase will be overshadowing by power of the* political *Left.* Some commentators are calling politics America’s new religion: full of passion, don’t want your kids to marry someone of the other party, deeply polarized into incommensurate moral universes. America’s religion of politics is Manichean, dominated by the winner-take-all and consequentialist strategy and tactics articulated in the 1980s by Newt Gingrich and perfected by Donald Trump. President Trump and his elected allies have broken the rules of engagement to the extent that the political left is leaving behind, as naïve, Michelle Obama’s line (“When they go low, we go high”) in favor of Eric Holder’s volley (“When they go low, we go lower”). When Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson said in the Democratic debate that love will defeat fear and Donald Trump, common reactions ranged from raised eyebrows to scoffing laughter. But do Christians not preach and teach that love is the most powerful force in the universe because God is love? I wonder if congregants silently scoff when they hear this message in church. When I think of what progressive Christianity *should* have to contribute to public life in the U.S., I imagine increased capacities for practicing conversation, argument, negotiation, toleration, acceptance of differences, kindness, restorative justice, reckoning, penance, generosity, forgiveness, love, and forbearance. As the political Left is being pilloried repeatedly by the President and his allies and the Left is fighting back, I don’t see these core Christian values on the agenda or in the strategies of tactics of the political Left. Without such values and practices on display in public, the so-called Christian Left will be swept up and blended into the current of the political Left, to the further detriment of a Christian witness. It will take a great deal of creative, imaginative thinking and prayerful attention for progressive Christians to be publicly engaged as Christians, making allies and being allies, and not find themselves trapped in a fragile political bubble on the political battlefield. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Public Religion News Digest, October 18, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-18-2019/) **Published:** October 15, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [Islamophobia: A Bipartisan Xenophobia in American Politics](https://religionandpolitics.org/2019/10/08/islamophobia-a-bipartisan-xenophobia-in-american-politics/?utm_source=R%26P+Master+List&utm_campaign=e6f901e7e3-Weekly_RSS_Campaign_2017_12_15_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_05ad9d7d17-e6f901e7e3-84174213) Liberal Islamophobia? Not as bad or as explicit as on the Right, but it is there. [The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/evangelical-christians-face-deepening-crisis/593353/) “\[A\]s a starting point, evangelical Christians should acknowledge the profound damage that’s being done to their movement by its braided political relationship—its love affair, to bring us back to the words of Ralph Reed—with a president who is an ethical and moral wreck. Until that is undone—until followers of Jesus are once again willing to speak truth to power rather than act like court pastors—the crisis in American Christianity will only deepen, its public testimony only dim, its effort to be a healing agent in a broken world only weaken.” [For Churches, a Temptation to Sell](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/realestate/for-churches-a-temptation-to-sell.html?searchResultPosition=1) “Facing a shortage of conventional parcels, developers are taking aim at structures with stained glass and bell towers, whose owners are often saddled with mounting bills and declining membership.” [The President’s Twitter feed where he sounds as if he is claiming superhuman, if not divine, attributes](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1181232249821388801) Note both the claim to unmatched wisdom and his ability to completely destroy the economy of Turkey. [It’s 2040. We Need to Keep Abortion Legal in New York.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/opinion/roe-vs-wade-abortion.html) Do you think that Margaret Atwood’s fictional Gilead is too frighteningly close to current trends? You’ll have more to support that concern in this “op-ed from the future.” [Governor proclaims a day of prayer, humility, and fasting.](https://twitter.com/GovBillLee/status/1180202427133431810?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ffox17.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Ftennessee-gov-bill-lee-calls-for-official-day-of-prayer-fasting-this-week) The Tennessee governor declared a day of prayer, fasting, and humility for October 10th. In modern times, we yawn at a presidential proclamation for Thanksgiving Day. But thanksgiving days in earlier times were staggered with days proclaiming fasts. It is interesting that we don’t think of thanksgiving proclamations as violating the First Amendment but with do with a fast declaration. \[Although, it is also interesting to compare contemporary Thanksgiving proclamations. [Here is one from the Obama years](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/presidential-proclamation-thanksgiving-day), and [here is from Trump in 2018](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-thanksgiving-day-2018/).\] [Trump White House Opens Doors to Christian, conservative colleges](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trump-white-house-opens-door-to-christian-conservative-colleges) One of the huge success stories on the Christian Right is their building, over decades, a massive farm system for preparing like-minded persons for civic and government positions. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [Public Religion News Digest, October 25, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/) **Published:** October 23, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** **[![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/public-religion-in-the-news-fb-post/)[Dallas Officer Convicted of Murder, Victim’s Brother Offers Forgiveness, Judge Gives a Hug](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/03/judge-botham-jeans-brother-hugged-amber-guyger-igniting-debate-about-forgiveness-race/)** Who can offer forgiveness? Does forgiveness require that the offender ask for it? These and other questions are raised, once again, in the extraordinary scenes in the courtroom of a Dallas police officer convicted of murder and the actions of the victim’s family and of the judge. [**Did you know that some Christians called for a day of prayer and support for the impeachment inquiry?**](https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2019/10/10/20908102/trump-jesus-christians-evangelicals-religion-jim-wallis-steinberg) Red Letter Christians sponsored a call for a day of prayer on October 13 and for Christians to support the impeachment inquiry. Both socially progressive and conservative Christians have recently called for a day of prayer, for different reasons. Seems it is time to keep A. Lincoln’s words from his Second Inaugural in mind: “The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” [**Ilhan Omar’s Deeply American Message**](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/ilhan-omars-deeply-american-message-to-cair/587131/) This article interprets Rep. Ilhan Omar’s speech to the Council on American Islamic Relations and brings a really important, religious minority perspective to what it means to “belong” in the U.S. “Omar’s core argument was simple: *We Muslims are not guests here. We are as American as everyone else and, thus, we should bring our full selves into the public square.* ‘For a really long time in this country,’ she said, ‘we have been told that there is a privilege that we are given and it might be taken away. We are told that we should be appropriate. We should go to school, get an education, raise our children and not bother anyone, not make any kind of noise, don’t make anyone uncomfortable.’ “Many Jews who have lived outside the United States will instinctively understand what she meant.” [**Seven years after losing it fight with the Episcopal denomination, the Falls Church Anglican opens its new home**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/seven-years-after-losing-its-fight-with-the-episcopal-denomination-the-falls-church-anglican-opens-its-new-home/2019/10/13/b351168c-eded-11e9-b648-76bcf86eb67e_story.html) An update on what happened to a church that split over biblical orthodoxy/acceptance of LGBTQ persons in Falls Church, VA. This was a prominent property case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Shades of things to come for large, white urban/suburban United Methodist congregations? [**Beto O’Rourke’s church taxation proposal would hand Trump reelection**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/beto-orourkes-church-taxation-proposal-would-hand-trump-reelection/2019/10/14/4fbde20c-eeac-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html) The Twitter post is from CNN when Mr. O’Rourke was asked on the presidential debate state if churches that oppose same-sex marriage should lose their tax exempt status. The article is by Michael Gerson on this post. Note: the IRS revoked the non-profit status of Bob Jones University in 1976 (a decision upheld by the Supreme Court for universities in 1983, but a narrow ruling that applied to universities but not churches) because of the university’s racist admissions policies. While the university is not a church, the courts determined that a religious objection to the government’s non-discrimination laws was illegal. [**Latest research from the Public Religion Research Institute**](https://www.prri.org/research/fractured-nation-widening-partisan-polarization-and-key-issues-in-2020-presidential-elections/) As one might have predicted, there is little about the nation’s partisan divide that has changed, except to grow worse. Other than health care, there is no agreement on the America’s most important issues. And, even if you look only at the charts/graphs (all of which tell a story), you’ll see how America’s racial/ethnic and religious identities are absorbed into partisan political perspectives in everything from climate change to racism to support for President Trump. [**Latest research from Pew regarding the decline of Christian adherence in the U.S.**](https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/?fbclid=IwAR07TvvXnA8DtjAkV8de8gMaER2WxUc-FKubMv1OP9x6m10_cx6ZAhlweTQ) There are many informative charts within this article. But trends continue: a less institutionally religious nation; a less religious Democratic party, especially among its white members. I’ve wondered how immigration of Christians (which predominate in legal immigration) would affect, and maybe slow, the pattern of de-congregating. Maybe it is slowing that phenomenon, but it is not reversing it. [**You may have heard about AG William Barr’s speech at Notre Dame. Here is the full text.**](https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics) This is the text of the speech that Attorney General William Barr gave recently to the law school at the University of Notre Dame. If you have the time and inclination, it is a worthy read; I say this because it is often better to form one’s own opinion about a matter rather than relying on what a reporter concluded by reading or listening. In this case, the alliance between natural law, conservative/traditional moral order, and the ranking of religious liberty (with “religious” meaning “conservative Christian”) as a trump card over any other human right, is worth noting. [**Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s theological anthropology on display.**](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/politics/pompeo-christian-policy.html) This is an older article (March 2019) but, taken together with AG Barr’s recent speech at the Notre Dame law school, one sees powerful examples of how a public official’s faith can and does inform their political positions. And you’ll also see the intersection between a kind of Catholicism and a kind of Protestant dominionism that fuels the Christian Right. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [Committing Faith in Public--The Rev. Shannon Fleck](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-the-rev-shannon-fleck/) **Published:** October 31, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Welcome to the first podcast of Committing Faith in Public! This is the podcast for people who want to be inspired by individuals and communities of faith doing good work in public. Our guests tell stories of their work to weave a more just, kind, and diversity-inclusive society. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ShannonHeadshot-214x300.jpg) Our first guest is the Rev. Shannon Fleck, executive director of the [Oklahoma Conference of Churches](https://www.okchurches.org/). If you have any questions, write to me, Gary Peluso-Verdend, gary.peluso@ptstulsa.edu. **Categories:** Podcast, Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Religion in Public, with the Rev. Dr. Ray Owens](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-religion-in-public-with-the-rev-dr-ray-owens/) **Published:** November 15, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![Image result for ray owens tulsa](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/tulsaworld.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/4/6d/46d29432-2da6-579f-9954-274c3f8675a3/57b5e2ca5230d.image.jpg?crop=597%2C663%2C423%2C0&resize=400%2C444&order=crop%2Cresize) What leads a congregation to start what became Oklahoma’s first public partnership school, and what has been their experience with the venture? The Rev. Dr. Ray Owens, senior pastor of [Metropolitan Baptist Church in Tulsa](http://metropolitanbc.org/#), addresses these and other matters related to the [Greenwood Leadership Academy](http://greenwoodleadershipacademy.org/). Links mentioned in the podcast: [The Metcares Foundation](http://themetcaresfoundation.org), [Greenwood Leadership Academy](http://greenwoodleadershipacademy.org), [Metropolitan Baptist Church](http://metropolitanbc.org). **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Public Religion in the News Digest, November 15, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-in-the-news-digest-november-15-2019/) **Published:** November 15, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** **[![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/public-religion-in-the-news-fb-post/)[Nicholas Kristof’s review of Karen Armstrong’s The Lost Art of Scripture.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/books/review/the-lost-art-of-scripture-karen-armstrong.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage)** Karen Armstrong is a well-known scholar who writes books for an educated laity. I’m sure the book will be a good read. And the review per se, includes some wonderful lines. Here is an example: The ancient Chinese scholar Xunzi complained about an early version of what today we might call [religious blowhards](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/26/opinion/sunday/christianity-united-states.html?module=inline). “The learning of the petty man enters his ear and comes out of his mouth,” Xunzi protested, adding that the words have affected only “the four inches between ear and mouth.” Instead, the aim for a wise man should be that learning “enters his ear, clings to his mind, spreads through his four limbs and manifests itself in his actions.” **[Do evangelists have a right to approach us anyplace in public?](https://www.chicagotribune.com/investigations/ct-met-millennium-park-hearing-20191107-l6uci5xqbncg7hfkzo2j55i6xe-story.html?utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-5051333768-400153437&utm_content=buffer88584&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR29UpUxKlugzfBnHbgKMFADs7yTltLM7bflWBA4zHlTSpKD3XVeevDRK8s)** Do we have a right not to be evangelized and politicked? The right to be left alone in public spaces? The park has a speaker’s corner, but the evangelicals thought it is not the best place for evangelizing. Personally, I like the old British model of a Speaker’s Corner, a remnant of which still exists in [Hyde Park, London](https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park/things-to-see-and-do/speakers-corner). **[ Inflammatory speech and profit](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/06/report-blames-major-us-corporations-for-global-spread-of-anti-muslim-violence-2/?utm_content=bufferf9ec5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR1qT7yXkH48kvk2ChIQOzELlqrN8ZfrkR5ZipYEdw4SlN9_WADYgeAIDtQ)** Where is the line between government protected speech, a corporation’s social responsibility, and between speech I find offensive but which represents a point of view that should not be censored? One of the problems is that these corporations (either social media platforms or those with a large social media footprint) are not government, public entities. However, they have become so ubiquitous and interwoven with such a significant cohort of society that they serve a quasi-public function. “We’re really trying to pierce through this idea of ‘free speech’ that corporations use to defend themselves,” Bhatti said. “Free speech applies to governments not telling people what to do. You’re still making a decision about what is and isn’t OK. All of these corporations do censor, so they’ve made the decision that they’re willing to make money off of this particular type of bigotry because they believe the profit outweighs the damage it would do to their brand.” **[Art, religion, and discovering/creating common ground.](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/11/with-interfaith-exhibit-bostons-abrahamic-faith-groups-revisit-their-shared-roots/)** What a wonderful idea, spearheaded by an Episcopal Church. An example of how the arts can foster gatherings and bonds between those who might not otherwise intersect. The book the authors reference, by Phyllis Trible and Letty Russell, is [*Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children*](https://www.amazon.com/Hagar-Sarah-Their-Children-Perspectives/dp/0664229824/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1D6Z2HNUMO3N3&keywords=hagar%2C+sarah%2C+and+their+children&qid=1573568899&sprefix=hagar%2C+sar%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-1.). **[Video clip: FOX News interview on public schools with a Christian homeschooling advocate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=241&v=YoZM-dxtRBQ&feature=emb_logo)** I have nothing against homeschooling per se. I do object to homeschooling advocates who aggressively seek to undermine and de-fund public schools. There are SO many issues with what this interviewee says. It is unfair to compare public school teaching today with the way it was 30 years ago (or, for some of us, 50 or 60 years). Schools, teachers, school administrators do not want to keep expanding services and hours; they want to teach children. But, in order to teach children, there need to be more support services in order that kids are teachable. Yes, so many kids come from families that are struggling, and, yes, it would be great if government policy better supported (or, at least, did not hinder) families. But this interviewee does not want to see public schools, period. **NPR interviews with evangelicals, black and white, in North Carolina** This is a two-part episode. Audie Cornish interviews evangelicals at a Baptist church in North Carolina. In the *[first episode](https://www.npr.org/2019/11/11/778343677/evangelical-christians-on-faith-and-politics)* is more general in nature, as the members discuss faith and politics. In the [*second episode*](https://www.npr.org/2019/11/12/778632578/evangelical-voters-in-n-c-discuss-trumps-divisive-comments-on-race), Ms. Cornish digs into race. Black and white evangelicals share opinions about matters such as abortion and LGBTQ rights. However, on President Trump, they are polar opposites, with over 80% of white evangelicals supporting the President and the same percentage of black evangelicals not supporting him. **[Churches: use excess property to build affordable housing:](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/12/yes-in-gods-backyard-to-use-church-land-for-affordable-housing/)** This is an excellent use of land these days. Many possibilities for reducing homelessness, the need in high-rent areas for excess spending on housing, and for creating a revenue stream that can keep a core worshiping congregation going—with a strong mission. **[Resistance to a church-sponsored homeless shelter in a Chicago suburb](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/12/chicago-suburb-seeks-to-block-churchs-winter-homeless-shelter/)** I know this village. I have relatives who live there. If there are code violations that really pose a safety risk, sure, they need to be fixed. However, since NIMBY is so prevalent in more affluent suburban areas, a suspicion of motives is justified. **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [The ethic of "first, do no harm" would require major changes](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-ethic-of-first-do-no-harm-would-require-major-changes/) **Published:** November 18, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** There are laws, and there are ethics. Corporations in the U.S. have been granted legal “personhood” when it comes to matters such as [political speech and campaign contributions](https://www.britannica.com/event/Citizens-United-v-Federal-Election-Commission). Some [“closely held” corporations, such as Hobby Lobby, are allowed to extend their founders’ religious convictions](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf) to take precedence over laws that otherwise would apply. But what are the ethics of corporate personhood? What would it mean for corporations to live by the ethic that many professions claim, not only doctors: first, do no harm? Sometime in the course of raising children, I concluded one very important marker of maturity is not that one does not make a mess. The marker is that one cleans up the messes one makes. In my version of “common sense,” cleaning up one’s own messes should apply everywhere from individuals to families, from corporations to governments. It is an ethic, akin to “do no harm.” Perhaps the ethic reads like this: “When you do harm or make a mess, work to clean, heal, or rectify the situation.” I am heartened by stories such the one about J-M Farms in Oklahoma. Upon learning there was a hole in a liquid compost (which is gold to gardeners but toxic to fish) pipe, and the compost polluted the local creek, the company took immediate and extensive action to [clean up its mess.](https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/miami-based-mushroom-plant-tackles-cleanup-of-compost-tea-spill/article_9adda4ae-013b-5013-ab2a-0c6862804e5a.html) There are some companies that have consistently been good citizens in their communities and for the world. But, is an ethic of corporate adulthood the norm? Consider: - A [recent editorial by (my pastor) the Rev. David Wiggs in the Tulsa World](https://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/columnists/david-wiggs-gun-law-defies-common-sense-increases-danger-and/article_11e863ea-8162-56b4-b3c6-fb80fd609674.html): “constitutional carry,” otherwise known as permit-less carry, is now the law in Oklahoma (and over a dozen other states). For houses of worship that can afford security measures and personnel, there are costs incurred due to the high rates of gun ownership, gun violence, and the unknown threat level of someone walking around public spaces with firearms. For congregations that can’t afford security systems and personnel, they live with the cost of increased fear. Who pays for security? Not the gun manufacturers, nor the state. - When children and families deal with unspeakable trauma for the rest of their lives after being among the survivors of a mass attack, who pays? - When homes are damaged by earthquakes or water tables have become salinized due to fracking wastewater injection wells, who pays to repair the homes and for digging new wells? Not the energy companies. - In heavy cancer zones, economically poor communities living in deltas where carcinogenic residues accumulate both in the deltas and in the people’s bodies, who pays for medical care? Not the fertilizer companies or anybody else up-river. - When public spending on roads and bridges is woefully inadequate for decades, and car repair bills average some multiple of four figures annually, why do we opt for paying repair shops rather than higher taxes to reduce the repairs (and spilled coffee stains from pock-marked roads)? In lieu of taxes, we pay repair shops or drive with shaky vehicles. - There are pipelines which feed the industrial prison complex. We know there are factors—such as quality of schools, family support, societal equity and fairness, and economic development—that are upstream of prisons. Why are we so willing, so often, to pay for more prisons than to deal effectively with the upstream issues? Again, who pays? - Facebook has made an enormous amount of money providing a platform that “connects” more human beings that any other “communication” platform in history. It has a quasi-public function, but it is not a government entity and, therefore, is not required to abide by federal “free speech” laws. When Facebook knowingly aids violence-inciting groups and completely fictional political advertising, they make money. But who pays for Facebook’s profit? - Venice, Italy was sinking before modern climate change (it is built in a lagoon). Now, between sinking, rising sea levels, and the notorious corruption associated with Italian public works projects that has delayed a flood-control system, it is likely that Venice will become the modern Atlantis, underwater by the end of the 21st Venice is just one city that will be affected by climate change. Billions of human beings’ lives are being changed by the changing climate, with much more damaging change to come. Yes, climate change can’t be laid only at the feet of corporations; whole developed societies have colluded, including our own. Who will pay? A huge burden is being laid on future generations. - Global health and life expectancy have been improving over the past 30 years. However, that trend is changing. A [new study](https://www.vox.com/2019/11/13/20963481/climate-change-kids-health-asthma-air-pollution) points to a dimmer future for our children and their children. Who pays for today’s decisions? - The Catholic Church in the U.S. has paid out over $3 billion to pay settlements to survivors of sexual abuse by the clergy. [That figure represents only a third of identified survivors](http://www.bishop-accountability.org/settlements/). Who pays (the Church, yes, but from where and who did the Church receive its money?), and who is going to pay? Apparently, “first do no harm, and if you do, work to remediate the harm and clean up the mess you made,” is an ethic that would fundamentally change a great deal about our lives, and the lives of generations to come. It is also apparent: there is another ethic at work that allows harm to be done by one party and borne by another, for the sake of short-term gains. If we were thinking about equity and justice today and for future generations, we’d be demanding—of ourselves and others—an ethic of “first, do no harm.” **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast with the Rev. Chris Moore](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-the-rev-chris-moore/) **Published:** November 22, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![The nativity scene at Fellowship Congregational Church in Tulsa, Okla. Pastor Chris Moore said the holy family is sitting behind a chain-link fence because he wanted to start a conversation about immigration policies in the United States.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/12/21/us/21xp-nativity/merlin_148330923_b25818a6-3b60-4d28-abd0-532a93ecd615-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale) A trip to the Southern Border. A nativity display on the church lawn. A chain-link fence. An act of contrition that is misunderstood. A signboard message connecting the words “Jesus” and “Migrant.” How it all became a national story during Advent and Christmas 2018. The Rev. Chris Moore, pastor of [Fellowship Congregational Church](https://ucctulsa.org/) in Tulsa (United Church of Christ) tells about the church’s public liturgical art display and responses to it. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Public Religion in the News Digest, November 22, 2019](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-in-the-news-digest-november-22-2019/) **Published:** November 22, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** **[![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Public-religion-in-the-news-FB-POST-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/public-religion-news-digest-october-25-2019/public-religion-in-the-news-fb-post/)[New White House employee Paula White has asked each of her followers (she is a prosperity gospel preacher) to give her $229](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-pastor-paula-white-prophetic-instruction-defeat-enemies-1471978). In return, she will give instruction in how to defeat one’s enemies.** From the article: White tells believers that in exchange for their money they will receive a “teaching series” on how to defeat their enemies. This series, she says, contains knowledge on the “legal maneuvering of the spirit realms.” Believers will also receive a bottle of anointing oil that White says she has prayed over personally. “I need you to apply the anointing oil to your head, loved ones, house, vehicle, even your checkbook- anywhere you feel attack!!” the email says. **[Former Christian Coalition Director, and huge President Trump supporter, has a new book coming out, with an audacious title.](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/09/ralph-reed-trump-book-040920) According to the book’s description, obtained by POLITICO, the original title for the book was “Render to God and Trump,” a reference to the well-known biblical verse, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” The message from Jesus in Matthew 22, has been used in contemporary politics to justify obedience to government — or in the case of Reed’s book, to Trump.** From the article Regnery Publishing confirmed the book’s existence but said the title is “For God and Country: The Christian case for Trump.” The publisher declined to comment on the reason for the title change. In his book, Reed will “persuasively” argue evangelicals have a duty to defend the incumbent Republican leader against “the stridently anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and pro-abortion agenda of the progressive left,” according to the description. He will also rebut claims by religious and nonreligious critics that white evangelical Protestants “revealed themselves to be political prostitutes and hypocrites” by overwhelmingly backing Trump, a twice-divorced, admitted philanderer, in 2016. **[A bi-critical take on America’s partisan Jesus, according to Michael Bird, an Australian clergyman and New Testament scholar.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/11/13/jesus-isnt-interested-americas-two-party-division/) One might accuse him of writing a version of a false equivalency. However, I am reading this as how one Christian views American Christianity from a non-American perspective.** From the essay: It is far more likely that Jesus, historical man and exalted Lord, does not neatly fit into any side of the political spectrum. The Jew from Nazareth cuts across traditional political lines. No party owns him — as if the Lord of the cosmos could be owned. Jesus does not answer to political super PACs and cannot be made to utter political endorsements on cue. Jesus cannot be mapped onto, let alone owned, by the American political divide. **[Do we need an institutionally-based Christian Left to counter the Christian Right?](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/opinion/church-religion-2020-democrats.html?searchResultPosition=9) I concur with Bianca Vivion Brooks’ opinion regarding the weakness of “spiritual but not religious” when it comes to organized power and generating movements (e.g., Civil Rights) capable of persisting. However, as I wrote [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-problems-with-saying-the-christian-left/), I think there are major issues about lining up on the opposite side of a spectrum defined by the Christian Right.** From Ms. Brooks’ essay: I fear that absent the structural and rhetorical power offered by organized religion, it will become increasingly difficult for the left to fight the growing ideology of right wing extremism, an ideology that has always been heavily undergirded by its own religious dogma. Religion has long been crucial to the right wing in pushing its legislative agenda. In the early 1960s, for instance, the Supreme Court decisions restricting teacher-led prayer and Bible reading in the public schools helped ignite the religious right to political action, and their influence within the Republican Party has grown steadily ever since. **[Mister Rogers personal faith practices.](https://religionnews.com/2019/11/15/joanne-rogers-on-her-husband-fred-rogers-commitment-to-prayer-church-children/?utm_content=buffer435cd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR3eugnwfdirnBuR6t6HM4TVH594fOZTH-TKnH1OBJsgMuOC6eEOmRiG1T0) I am a Mister Rogers fan; I think he was an exemplar of what it means to be a Christian. With a new movie about Fred and one of his relationships (a well-shielded reporter) just released, Religion News Service interviewed his widow, Joanne. She talks about some of his faith practices in which he found sustenance.** From the interview: *The movie depicts your husband as someone who asked for prayer for himself. Did he ask you to pray for him?* It’s more complex than that. He would ask people who were very disabled, challenged. He would ask those people to pray for him. And, Tom Junod, who was the real journalist in the story, asked him: “Oh, are you doing that just because you want to make them feel good?” And he said, “Oh, oh, not at all. Not at all. I just feel that people who have gone through as much as they have are very close to God.” **Categories:** News Digest --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast with the Rev. Clark Frailey, public education advocate](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-the-rev-clark-frailey-public-education-advocate/) **Published:** December 12, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Excerpt:** There are not many organizations these days that are able to create coalitions that cross partisan divides. But the Rev. Clark Frailey, pastor of Coffee Creek Church (Southern Baptist) in Edmond, OK, has found a way to do that on the issue of public education in Oklahoma. The Rev. Frailey is one of the founders of Pastors for Oklahoma Kids, which has done excellent work in a short time to keep faith leaders informed about legislative matters that affect ALL our public school children and families in Oklahoma, and to advocate with legislators for public education. Pastors for OK Kids participants run the theological gamut. Gary Peluso-Verdend interviewed Frailey. **Content:** ![5aa1b0348cf8c.image.jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5990f831914e6bba68bc7817/1520827791751-MEXOD4ZZS1WC6XXB0OR5/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kARtnclF1aIxo8VF_fqoSxkUqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKcXE6-KKZ2WgSqy8Zp3dkU4fDccpdSwdauWmhwWtdY_1jtwumrr1ArmYj--5AHzcRf/5aa1b0348cf8c.image.jpg?format=1500w) There are not many organizations these days that are able to create coalitions that cross partisan divides. But the Rev. Clark Frailey, pastor of [Coffee Creek Church](https://www.coffeecreek.church/about-us) (Southern Baptist) in Edmond, OK, has found a way to do that on the issue of public education in Oklahoma. The Rev. Frailey is one of the founders of [Pastors for Oklahoma Kids](https://www.pastorsforoklahomakids.com/), which has done excellent work in a short time to keep faith leaders informed about legislative matters that affect ALL our public school children and families in Oklahoma, and to advocate with legislators for public education. [Pastors for OK Kids participants run the theological gamut](https://www.pastorsforoklahomakids.com/declaration). Gary Peluso-Verdend interviewed Frailey. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Musing about Impeachment in Advent](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/musing-about-impeachment-in-advent/) **Published:** December 17, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/levels-276x300.jpg) Rather than essaying a sustained opinion-piece today, I’m going to muse about impeachment in the “light” of Advent—or, maybe, the darkness of Advent. I’m not going to weigh in directly on the matter, at least not in the way that some Christians on the Right have done; they have [declared that the President is God’s anointed and that impeachment is Satan-driven](https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/touch-not-the-anointed-lance-wallnau-prays-against-the-effort-to-impeach-trump/). I rebuke this theological ilk, those court prophets (or is that profits?) who believe themselves to be the Children of Light and persons such as myself are Children of Darkness. Here, I’m going to muse about the darkness of this moment in the nation’s history, using the season of Advent as my interpretive lens. *For Christians, Advent can be a season of reflection, discernment, and even judgment as we reflect on how prepared we are*—we meaning congregations, we meaning families, we meaning also “me”—*to receive the Christ into our lives*, and the required changes in character and behavior. Advent is a season of darkness in contrast to Christmas light and serves as a reminder that while darkness can never overcome light, one or one’s people might walk in darkness a long time before the light dawns. *“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,”* reads Isaiah 9:2. But how long had the people been walking in darkness before seeing light, and was Isaiah seeing the dawning light or was he given a vision of the light that would be coming… someday? Regardless, the darkness of exile for the Hebrew people lasted a long time and was not overcome by light in a day, a year, or even a generation—and certainly not within the span of an American election cycle. Many people I read and to whom I speak are not optimistic about the near future. Neither am I. But hope is different. Hope requires courage and resilience. *When one is in counseling and dealing with a perceived threat or fear, a counselor will often ask, “Have you faced anything like this previously?”* If the answer is, “Yes,” then the counselee has evidence that they are stronger than they think. Has the American people been through troubling times in relatively recent history? (Surely, some of our nation has seen hardly anything but troubling times.) Of course, history does not repeat itself precisely, but some of the rancor today feels familiar. > “This is the early evening edition of the news. > The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing > section of the Civil Rights Bill. > Brought traditional enemies together but it left the defenders of the > measure without the votes of their strongest supporters. > President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination > by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start > and everyone in Congress knew it.” These are the opening lines of a newscast played as Simon and Garfunkel sang “Silent Night” (listen to the full song, “Silent Night/7 O’clock News” [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNyqlx0--i0), or go to the *Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme* album from 1966). The contrast between “Silent Night” and the year’s events can still haunt. The dearth of moral and ethical leadership in Congress. Racism in Congress and infecting whole cities of white Americans. The Vietnam War escalating. Protesters being targeted by the government and conservative media as un-American. On the one hand, one can say, “Darn, blindness has descended again.” Or one might say, “We survived some very difficult periods previously, and we can again.” *Irony. Irony is a term that applies to an action that results in the opposite of the actor’s intent, e.g., a peace overture that sparks a war.* Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr reminds us of the ironies of American history and to be mindful, as Abraham Lincoln was, that God has God’s own purposes that do not align with partisan positions. American history does not move straightforwardly in any direction, and intent does not alone determine outcome. There are purposes at work in this time before dawn that are larger than either party or both parties together. God has God’s own purposes. *I have no clue what the words “true” and “truth” mean anymore.* I used to think discovering “truth” was like taking a level and a plumb line to a wall: to be true meant to accurate, level, sound, useful. A true and plumb wall will not tip over because of gravity. It is sound to build upon that wall. Then I encountered post-modern thinking and all so-called truth being true only from a point of view (I often wonder about the limits of “from a point of view” when I contemplate climate change, or a speeding car coming at me that will kill me if I don’t move or if I am unable to allow the atoms of the car to pass through me). But even post-modern thought allows the possibility of overlapping perspectives, common ground discovered in conversation and argument. However, as evidenced in the impeachment hearings, truth seems to mean a self-chosen, exclusive, warring narrative that one uses as a Procrustean bed to chop off any “fact” or claim, or demonize any opponent, that does not fit the narrative. I would have thought such narratives are houses founded on sinking sand and, in the long run, they are. But today, these narratives rule. Even if one narrative is mostly true and the other is mostly false, truth will not necessarily win out. Today. *Pundits, partisans, and prophets want to usher in judgment day*. Who will be judged, and for what? There is no overlap between narratives regarding who the real person or persons on trial are. Each side, trusting in their own righteousness and unwilling (understandably so) to show the slightest vulnerability to the other side, believes that judgment day will vindicate them. But let’s not leave out the fullness of what judgment day means. During Advent, churches using the lectionary hear some of the toughest judgment scriptures the Bible can offer. It might be well to remember that judgment day in the Hebrew Bible is a terrible day (read Joel) and that judgment begins in one’s own house. *If religious people have nothing different to say about any political matter, from rhetoric to narratives to policy to practices, then either religion or politics has been co-opted by the other, or each by the other.* And at least one of these ways of walking is superfluous. While Christmas comes on the calendar in just a few days, it may remain Advent in America for a long time to come. How will our religious communities help people walk in darkness for an unknown length of time, even as we cling to hope? **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast with Aliye Shimi](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-aliye-shimi/) **Published:** December 20, 2019 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/aliye-shimi-image-300x295.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-aliye-shimi/aliye-shimi-image/)Aliye Shimi is the executive director of Tulsa’s oldest ecumenical/interfaith organization, Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry. In that role, and in the MANY volunteer hours Aliye gives, Aliye is among the fiercest and kindest advocates for justice, dignity, compassion, and basic human decency in Tulsa and everywhere. She lives her Muslim faith, in public, for the sake of a better Tulsa, a better Oklahoma, a better nation, and a better world. In this interview with Gary Peluso-Verdend, Aliye tells of the difficult national and personal events that propelled her into public life. Listen as she constantly takes a negative experience and uses it to fuel positive change. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Committing Faith in Public Podcast with State Senator George Young, Sr.](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-state-senator-george-young-sr/) **Published:** January 10, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/george-young-240x300.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-podcast-with-state-senator-george-young-sr/george-young/)State Sen. George Young The Rev. Dr. George Young, Sr., is well known to Phillips’ audiences as a double alumnus (master’s and doctoral degrees), adjunct instructor, and former trustee. In addition, we know him as a long-time pastor who cultivated links between the congregations he served and the civic community. When Dr. Young retired from pastoral work, he took up another form of service. He was elected to the Oklahoma State House and then to the Oklahoma Senate. In this podcast, George talks with Gary Peluso-Verdend about his career, the transition from pastorate to legislature, and what it is like to represent his constituents at this time in the state’s life and in troubling times for the causes of equality, justice, and a healthy democratic society. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [Christmas Is Over, Herod (Thinks He) Won](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/christmas-is-over-herod-thinks-he-won/) **Published:** January 15, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** *+* *Editor’s Note: The following is a fictional narrative, relating [Matthew chapter 2](http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=446118863) from Herod’s point of view.* [![The adoration of the Christ-child by the Magi](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/the-adoration-of-the-christ-child-by-the-magi-84487f-222x300.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/christmas-is-over-herod-thinks-he-won/the-adoration-of-the-christ-child-by-the-magi-84487f/) Did those Persian astrologer no-good liars think they got away with something? Those guys were clowns. What a mess they caused, and they made me do something awful. But, hey, that’s how the game works. Cause and effect. So, I’m lounging around one of my palaces (I love seaside properties, and I’ve got the best), and my secretary of state bursts in, interrupts my goat burger, and shouts, “There is a newborn King of the Jews!” Now, this sentence, it’s not right. It can’t be right. For everyone knows that *I’m* the King of the Jews. Best friend the Jews ever had in a king. Duly selected by my Roman patrons. That’s how one becomes King of the Jews. The Romans make it so. I keep them happy and, in turn, they keep me happy. That’s the way it works. So, I had no idea what my secretary was saying. “What is the source of this fake news?” I inquired. “I don’t know if it is fake news, my lord, but several men from Persia arrived in Jerusalem yesterday and made straightaway to your palace there. They traveled all the way from their home because they said they were reading the skies and saw a new star, which they believe is a sign that a new King of the Jews is born.” Well, that got under my skin a little. I’ll admit, I am a bit superstitious, and I sneak readings of signs and omens from locals, whenever I can. Given the intrigue and—ahem—regime changes common in Roman politics, one can never be too careful. So, I decided to leave my seaside resort and travel to Jerusalem to meet these exotic message bearers. I arrived at my palace. But before meeting them, I decided I should do some homework—or, rather, ask my people to do some homework. That’s what you have people for! You see, I’m not much of a reader. Scrolls are cumbersome. I often go by my gut, regardless of what my advisers say. However, sometimes you need some actual info. So, I gathered my council of religious advisers and asked them, “Is there a prophecy regarding where the king of the Jews is to be born?” “Yes,” they replied, “but can you tell us, our lord, why you are asking?” “Okay,” I said. “But keep it to yourselves. If this info leaks out, a lot of people are going to be disturbed.” They agreed to keep quiet—yeah, right. More on that in a minute. The advisers gathered together, re-read their scrolls, and came back to tell me that one interpretation would be that a child from David’s royal line would be born in Bethlehem. David’s line, really? Oh, that could be an issue for me. There are always people who don’t think the nation is free enough or Jewish enough. A Davidic child would appeal to them. But those folks who dream about rebellion also have a taste for losing; ANYONE who opposes Rome loses. Whatever the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does in history, he has not stopped the Romans from controlling the whole earth. David’s time is long gone, it is not coming back. The Romans are winners, and I’m not a loser. My lot is with them. Well, I don’t know who leaked the news, the religious advisers or someone else in my administration. Man, I hate leakers. But leak the news some good-for-nothing did, and soon all Jerusalem was troubled. For, you see, lots of people owe their livelihood to me, and not just that huge new temple I’m building. Which means I had to take some action to quiet people down before someone got their own ideas. With the scholars’ info in hand, I received the astrologers. Those guys were weird. Dressed funny, twitchy, sniffing around as if they were smelling the anxiety among my people. I asked them what they knew, they told me, I told them about Bethlehem. Then they thanked me and began to leave. I stopped them and said, “I’d like a favor, though, and if you grant me the favor, you’ll have safe travels as long as you’re in my realm. Please, stop back here after you discover the child’s whereabouts. If he is who you think he is, I must meet him and pay my deepest respects! And I’ll want to bring that child under my protection, for there will always be someone who would want to take advantage of him and his family.” The astrologers thanked me and agreed to return. Well, they did *not* return. My anger built. I knew I should have sent a spy to follow them, rather than trusting those clowns. They probably looked at tea leaves or the stars or frog guts and discerned that my intentions were different from my words. Whatever. I was mad. I called together a few members of my administration and asked them, “Based on when the astrologers said the star appeared, when was the child born?” They thought about two years ago. Well, you hate to order men to slaughter children, but sometimes keeping power and showing your supporters who is in charge requires cruelty. So, I called my captains and gave them orders: go to Bethlehem and the surrounding regions. Any child two or under you find, kill it. No mercy. Sometimes in my role, you have to do nasty deeds, or order nasty deeds to be done. It is the way of the world. How do you control people? Keep them fearful. Keep them hungry. Keep them divided. Show them your power and strength. When necessary, cull them. If you instill enough fear, and then nurture that fear, you’ll keep enough people cowed sufficiently that insurrection is less likely. And my overseers require me to keep control. I don’t know what kind of king that baby would have been, but he would have grown up and either taken me out or been a loser. There was no other choice. No matter. He’s dead. I’m alive. I win again. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Why Oklahoma's "Year of the Bible" Bill is Both Inappropriate and Wrong](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-oklahomas-year-of-the-bible-bill-is-both-inappropriate-and-wrong/) **Published:** January 21, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![Christian Bible on an American Flag](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bible-on-flag-300x200.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/why-oklahomas-year-of-the-bible-bill-is-both-inappropriate-and-wrong/bible-on-flag/)It is good to know from whence your food and your legislation come. [I’ve written previously about Project Blitz](https://ptstulsa.edu/2018/06/05/religious-interests-and-legislation/), which is now known as “Freedom for All.” Project Blitz/Freedom for All is an effort of the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation to do for hot-button Christian Right religious issues what ALEC does for other matters: provide templates of bills that can be used in state legislatures to advance their agenda. See this very helpful article by [Frederick Clarkson](https://www.politicalresearch.org/2019/11/07/project-blitz-any-other-name?fbclid=IwAR0LElnf9fNhsCco7LSTKx9bDEqdELA7n5CyloWS7xULu-JRJMGsynBQYEo), who is my “go-to” author, along with the New York Time’s [Michelle Goldberg](https://www.nytimes.com/by/michelle-goldberg), on Christian Right legislative agendas. If you are reading about putting the “In God We Trust” motto in every public school, or limiting adoption to heterosexual couples, or authorizing the Ten Commandments to be installed on capitol grounds (regardless of how the second tablet is heeded by the supporting legislators, especially “do not bear false witness”), you are likely reading a story which includes efforts by Project Blitz/Freedom for All. One such bill that makes me suspicious is a recent effort by an Oklahoma state senator, included below. This bill is about declaring 2020 to be “The Year of the Bible” in Oklahoma. Here are my annotations on the bill and why I believe it should be opposed. *Italics are my emphasis; the thoughts in brackets are my additions*. STATE OF OKLAHOMA 2nd Session of the 57th Legislature (2020) [SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 7](http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2019-20%20INT/SRES/SCR7%20INT.PDF?fbclid=IwAR13g4nOS0t87pQyJK8tzoH2byk6vY-Idc6wjoEPK6GOivv9qLdRtVBh_t4) By: Nathan Dahm WHEREAS, the Bible, *the word of God*, \[Hold it! Right there, the bill moves from the historical importance of the Bible in American life to a faith claim—a faith claim on which the government per se must remain neutral.\] has made a *unique contribution* in shaping the United States as a *distinctive and blessed nation and people* \[a unique contribution, yes, for no other religion has dominated the people and the national narrative as Christianity has; but attributing national distinctiveness and blessing to the Bible—that is a borderline claim. If the claim is that America is blessed because of the importance (or is that lip-service, [given the level of biblical ignorance in the population](https://lifewayresearch.com/2017/04/25/lifeway-research-americans-are-fond-of-the-bible-dont-actually-read-it/)?) of the Bible here, that is another inappropriate claim in state legislation.\] WHEREAS, deeply held religious convictions springing from the *Holy Scriptures* led to the early settlement of our nation \[Again, “Holy Scriptures” is not a term the government should use. And, while it is true that the Bible inspired some early colonists to seek a new life in America, not all colonies were founded for religious purposes.\]; and WHEREAS, *Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States* \[I’d like to know which concepts of civil government the author has in mind! The only one I know for sure is that James Madison was Presbyterian-educated and his teachers had a robust understanding of sin. The suspicion of concentrated power and the need to balance power with power in different government branches is certainly in the founding documents. But not the most heeded of restraints today! Overall, this “whereas” is a weak claim.\]; and WHEREAS, many of our great national leaders, among them *Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and Wilson,* paid tribute to the surpassing influence of the Bible in our country’s development \[Other than Lincoln who was more thoroughly shaped by the Bible than perhaps any other president, despite not being an orthodox Christian or a consistent church-goer, the other three presidents referenced the importance of the Bible, yes, but so what? Washington was a land speculator who became wealthy at that scheme, which included native people’s lands. Jackson used his military leadership and his elected office to take land from native peoples and then buy land cheaply, make money, and enslave. [And Wilson, while a great thinker, also was a segregationist who loved the movie “Birth of a Nation” that glorified the beginnings of the KKK](https://www.history.com/news/kkk-birth-of-a-nation-film).\] WHEREAS, the *history of our nation clearly illustrates the value of voluntarily applying the teachings of the Scriptures in the lives of individuals, families, and societies* \[I can agree with this, as long as the reading of scripture emphasizes how to be a good neighbor and includes ALL scriptures from the world’s religions—but I doubt this is what the author has in mind.\]; and WHEREAS*, this state and nation now face great challenges that will test us as we have never been tested before* \[Oh, I agree with this one, mostly, and formally, rather than agreeing in what I suspect the author has in mind. The “mostly” is that the nation underwent a Civil War during which 600,000 persons died. That seems like a greater test than anything today—thus far. I suspect the bill’s author thinks the great challenges are presented by liberalism, while I think the great test is whether or not the nation can full the promises of liberty and justice for all, within a noisy and lively multicultural democracy that the world has not yet seen and from which the Christian Right and its elected allies are pulling strongly the other way.\]; and WHEREAS, *renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through Holy Scripture can strengthen us as a state, nation and a people*. \[This is a faith statement, inappropriate in a state bill.\] as in the words of President Jackson that the Bible is “the rock on which our Republic rests” \[To repeat somewhat differently what I wrote above: this is an empty claim coming from one of the most immoral presidents in US history.\]; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE 2ND SESSION OF THE 57TH OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRING THEREIN: That the Oklahoma Legislature hereby authorizes and requests the Governor, Executive branch and all subdivisions of this state to designate 2020 as the “Year of the Bible” in the State of Oklahoma in recognition of both the formative influence the Bible has been for our state, and *our national need to study and apply the teachings of the Holy Scriptures*. \[Appropriate for a preacher/teacher within a religious congregation. Completely inappropriate in state legislation.\] I would recommend a substitute bill as one that is more appropriate for a state legislature and fitting for the Oklahoma that should be: WHEREAS the Bible has exercised a unique shaping influence in American public life from colonial times through much of the 20th century, and WHEREAS the US is now the most religiously diverse nation on earth, including communities of many faiths and persons adhering to no religious or spiritual tradition, and WHEREAS Oklahoma represents a unique mix of indigenous cultures whose very way of life is spiritual/religious, WHEREAS understanding and appreciating how religion shapes personal meaning and the moral order of communities (including how those communities believe that the US should reflect their understanding of moral order) can contribute to fulfilling America’s promises of equality, liberty, opportunity, and justice for all, and WHEREAS in the words of a [great scholar](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Muller), \[whoever\] knows one \[religion\], knows none, THEREFORE, be it resolved that the Oklahoma legislature encourages that the sacred literature of Oklahoma’s religious communities be studied in public schools, because of the increasing need to understand *many* religious traditions and in order that citizens of Oklahoma can be *good neighbors* to one another and *work together* for a more equal, just, and compassionate society in Oklahoma. --- Photo Credit: Pastor Robert https://www.flickr.com/photos/129529998@N05/ Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [If You Don't Like What You're Harvesting, Pay Attention to the Soil](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/if-you-dont-like-what-youre-harvesting-pay-attention-to-the-soil/) **Published:** February 4, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![Green shoot sprouting from rich soil.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/plant-sprouting-in-soil-300x200.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/if-you-dont-like-what-youre-harvesting-pay-attention-to-the-soil/plant-sprouting-in-soil/)Culture is like soil. Life on the entire planet depends on healthy soil to create and sustain the necessary matrix for life. Similarly, good life in any human community requires healthy cultures that contain the nutrients for desirable elements to grow and flourish and that discourage the growth of undesirable elements. Growing religion is not among the stated purposes of the United States. From the point of view of the Constitution, religion is not a crop the government is supposed to grow. However, from the point of view of the Constitution, religion provides a potential soil nutrient for the thriving of democracy and public life. Let me unpack these claims. ***Soil*** Without healthy soil, life on earth as we know it would cease. A teaspoon of healthy soil contains up to a billion microorganisms. Yes, a billion. In addition to microorganisms, healthy soil is composed of minerals, organic materials, air, and water. There is a movement today among some farmers and gardeners to practice regenerative agriculture because of the amount of death with which industrial agriculture has toxified the soil. Regenerative agriculture pays attention to a longer calendar and the health of the soil instead of measures such as crop yield in a given year. The heavy use of petroleum-based chemicals to “enhance” soil in order to increase yield will, over time, kill or nearly kill the soil. Farmers practicing regenerative agriculture work to regenerate the health of the soil, which in turn increases the health of everything and everyone that depends on that soil. Healthy soil does a lot of work. It composts dead animals and plants and turns all of us back into the building blocks of life for something or someone else. Healthy soil grows plants that sequester carbon. That means plants draw carbon from the atmosphere and send the carbon into their roots. The looser the soil, the deeper the roots, the deeper the carbon is sequestered (some scientists think re-planting deep-rooted grasses—NOT the kind we grown on lawns in the U.S.—can reduce global warming significantly). A soil’s total ecology creates the hospitable environment for all kinds of plants, desirable and undesirable. But establishing a good crop of healthy plants in healthy soil makes it more difficult for undesirable plants to invade. Still, the farmer needs to watch… ***Culture*** Culture is a term we give to the webs of meaning human beings weave to assign value to life. Culture is the communication-ritual-story-meaning-spirit-soul dimension of a family, group, organization, or society. Human beings are social animals; we require care from and interaction with other human beings, over a long period of time, in order to develop into a healthy human being, into a person. Relationships with caregivers are essential for human development, but culture is essential, too. There is no human life without culture, and healthy cultures create and sustain life worth living. ***Culture as Soil*** Culture is like soil. Cultures are complex biosystems. There are healthy, life-giving cultures and there are death-dealing and nearly dead cultures. There are cultures full of nourishing plants in which a wide variety of people thrive, and others invaded by noxious elements with much death and few who thrive. Some cultures benefit from composting the past and allowing the new to grow. Some cultures would benefit from a lot of compost. Imagine that every culture is an ecology that encourages the growth of some “plants“ (ideas, movements, practices, moral values, and institutions) and discourages others. Which crops are we trying to grow in the culture of the U.S.? If we call to mind the Declaration of Independence, we might say we want to grow life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But since “life” is an all-encompassing word, let’s say the Declaration of Independence names liberty and the pursuit of happiness as two plants to grow in American cultural soil. Then, the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution might add these social virtues to liberty and the pursuit of happiness: a more perfect union, justice, domestic peace, security, the general welfare. All these are the intended American “crops,” according to our better angels. If these are the crops the U.S. cultural soil is designed to grow, then consider the nutrients and protections necessary for these crops: - families which, with the aid of other organizations, have the ability to form responsible, self-governing persons who also thrive in relationships; - particular practices of democracy, such as free and fair voting and elections, and offering an informed electorate valid and healthy choices; - an economy that encourages both wealth and relative equality; - robust education for an informed electorate, for the pursuit of happiness, and for a well-trained workforce; - a quality of public conversation and argument sufficient to deal with differences, conflicts, and challenges; - sufficient social cohesion; - the moral and legal guardrails, evenly applied, to encourage some behaviors and discourage others; - institutions to support health and well-being; - adequate safety and protection from enemies, foreign and domestic. One might also imagine some weeds and toxins that might invade the soil and undermine desirable crops, such as: - public leaders giving encouragement to white supremacists and other political/social positions once considered “extreme;” - the potential of gun violence, at any time, in homes, workplaces, schools, and in other public spaces; - hidden and suppressed histories of violence and injustice; - disease; - fear, amplified and promoted by turning people and ideas and change into enemies; - tipping “liberty” rights to privilege particular groups and interests (such as religious free exercise rights trumping all other rights) with no concern for mutuality, and in a time span that privileges “today” rather than also considering “posterity” (such as considering the energy base for today’s economy); - a strictly punitive criminal justice system. ***What About Religion?*** I did not include religion either as a crop or as a soil element. Which is it, in the U.S. polity? The answer depends on one’s point of view. From the point of view of the Constitution, religion is not a crop, or certainly not a crop with the prominence of justice, general welfare, and liberty. Growing religion is not among the stated purposes of the United States. However, from the point of view of the Constitution, religion has a role as a potential soil nutrient. It may feed the American cultural crops and thus profoundly affect the nutrient value and the taste of those crops—negatively or positively. Imagine what justice, liberty, domestic tranquility, or common defense looks like if fed by a “punishing god” religion rather than a “loving god” religion. Imagine what a religion that promotes the exploitation of any and every natural resource (human beings have dominion, so “drill, baby, drill”) adds to the soil, as compared to a religion that treated the earth as a divinely blessed miracle and home for life as we know it. If, constitutionally, religion is a nutrient, then religion can influence the taste and nutritional value of a crop but cannot itself be a government-grown crop. In fact, the more a Constitutional crop looks like a particular religion, the closer to an established religion that crop becomes and, therefore, the more protests will arise against that crop. But there is another point of view. From the point of view of religion, religion may be its own plant and requires a friendly ecosystem in which to grow. Religion seeks free exercise, meaning a cultural soil ecology *that allows the religion to flourish*, either by leaving it alone to form its own fenced gardens (think Amish) or by encouraging the nutrients and plants and discouraging the seeds and toxins that are incompatible with the religion. In this perspective, public spaces must be made hospitable to the particular religion. One might interpret the current controversies in which religious liberties are asserted (refusing service, eluding the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act) and the appointment of religiously conservative judges and justices as efforts to change the cultural ecology, to plant religious crops and provide the soil necessary for those crops to flourish. ***Two Conclusions*** One. If we are not getting the crops we want or need, then we need to pay close attention to the soil. Is the cultural soil healthy? From my point of view, no, the cultural soil is full of toxins, low on its ability to recycle death into life, and choked with invasive plants. In the U.S., we are harvesting the public life and the democracy that we’ve planted, that have grown in soil hospitable for the harvest—and not in soil that is able to grow a multicultural, shared-power, democracy that can deliver on America’s promises for the vast majority of citizens and guests. Two. We religious and spiritual types should pay closer attention to the nutrients and toxins our religions are providing to the soil. We are responsible for what we contribute, and we have contributed both nutrients and toxins. We should work on the side of those who are trying to regenerate this soil into a culture that grows the public virtues of the Declaration and the Constitution for *all* America’s people, and care less about rendering the soil fit primarily for us. --- Photo Credit: [Image](https://www.flickr.com/photos/23090509@N02/2927871803) by [iwannadance](https://www.flickr.com/photos/23090509@N02) is licensed under [CC BY-SA 2.0 ](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=ccsearch&atype=rich) **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [A Parable: The Pastor Who Can Do Anything He Wants](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/a-parable-the-pastor-who-can-do-anything-he-wants/) **Published:** February 7, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![People backlit in worship.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/golden-cross-evangelical-worship-300x251.png)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/a-parable-the-pastor-who-can-do-anything-he-wants/golden-cross-evangelical-worship/)I’m called by God to the ministry, I’m called by the people to this pulpit, and I can do anything I want. Called by God. And successful. Believe me, I’m successful. I don’t care what data points one wants to assess me with. No congregational stats are more compelling than attendance and money. Look at our services! Have you ever seen so many people? Attendance is HUGE. Never in the history of this church have so many attended and gotten their needs met. And you can prove that by revenues! Our offerings are also HUGE, better than any previous pastor has delivered. Historic highs. So, I can pack them in and they pay up—offerings, tithes even. No one here used to tithe. Now I’ve convinced dozens of families to tithe. How? A little charm, a soft-sell version of hell, a touch of guilt, and a few quid pro quos. Killer combination. Really, I can do anything I want. No one wants to mess with success. This congregation has endured so many losers over the years. Social gospel warriors. Doctrinaire liberals. Guilt-soothing (air quotes) “diversity hires.” “Nice” so-called leaders who had no idea how to cut the right deals, put the right—fiercely loyal—people in the right seats, and get results. Sure, I’ve had opposition. There is a small group of vicious so-called progressives that I’ve not yet managed to drive out. But they won’t be around much longer. I have a handful of special loyalists who will do anything I ask them to do—think of them as the Navy Seals of the congregation. And those progressives are going to go through some bad stuff, and then they’ll walk. Man, I don’t know that any other pastor could have stood up to the pressure and the trouble these people have caused me. They’ve been out to get me ever since the search committee called me. They don’t like my language. I’m not politically correct enough for those self-righteous prigs. Most people find me authentic and refreshing. I am a man of the people. The progressives don’t like my theology, either. You see, I’m not a professional theologian, and I did not go to the cemetery—er, ah, seminary. (I love telling that joke in the front of my clergy colleagues with their inflated degrees and shrinking congregations.) The progressives want me to preach about politics. inclusivity, social issues, and other nonsense. Everyone knows people come to church to find God, be soothed, to get help with their families, find peace. You tell people what they want to hear and they eat out of your hand. It does not matter if you have facts or the right theologians to back you up. I speak from my gut, my instincts are outstanding, I read people well, I know what they’re buying and how to sell what I’m selling, and I know the stories that resonate with them. I have the best stories, and the progressives are jealous of what I’m selling and my talent for selling. They keep claiming I’m selling a false gospel. Well, believe me, my gospel is not false! People are buying it! That’s the only “truth” that counts. Don’t those stupid liberals get it? If no one is buying what you’re selling, you’re selling the wrong thing, or you don’t know how to sell. Look at progressive churches, weak and small. Look at my congregation! It’s HUGE and getting bigger!!! My opponents include some women who have it in for me. I mean, come on. Everyone knows that spirituality and sexuality are highly related. I probably am the most spiritual person anyone has met in real life. I just reek of spirituality. Believe me, that also means I attract women like flies to honey. I have helped SO many women who come to me, weeping, troubled by bad marriages or ungrateful kids. And, well, the relationships, they’re all consensual. But some women, you know, they get jealous, or they feel guilty and want to go back to their husbands, or they get selfish and think about their kids. Some of those women have accused me of taking advantage of them, some crap about the violation of my “fiduciary responsibility.” That’s nonsense. Thank God I’ve not let any but my hand-chosen loyal followers hold leadership positions at this church. I’m surrounded by a great group of defenders who, well, let’s say they know how to counter rumors with rumors in ways that neutralize my enemies. It is always a righteous act to protect God’s anointed. Yes, believe me, I am called, not only by this congregation but by God. No one has the kind of relationship with God like I have. God chose me to grow this congregation by all means available to me, to make it solidly conservative, wealthy, and unified by the homogeneous unit principle—like attracts like. He (and God is a HE, just like the scriptures say) has made me their lawgiver. Regardless of what the rules were, I have been given the keys to the kingdom, I get to determine who is forgiven and who is not, what is moral and what is not, what is true and what is not. When I say believe me, that means believe ME! You know how Ignatius Loyola said that if the church were to say that what I think is white is actually black, I would believe it? Well, *I’m* God’s called leader, and I declare, and it is so. As the Lord’s regent in this congregation, I love those whom God loves and hates those whom God hates. None of that fictional liberal theology that God loves everybody the same. Where does the Bible say THAT? My character is beyond reproach, because I get to set the bar for what good character means. And, like I said earlier, I’m packing them in and people are paying up and this congregation is HUGE and only getting bigger. If I had any character flaws, and I don’t, my results would cover a multitude of sins. Because I’m called, I’m God’s anointed, and God has blessed me like God has blessed no pastor before. I’m here 4EVA! \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ ***Would a congregation of any size tolerate with this sort of anti-Good Shepherd (John 10: 10, 12)? How much the more so a great nation…?*** **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [One from Many: Exercising Faith in Public](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-exercising-faith-in-public/) **Published:** February 12, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/One-From-Many-Text-with-Outline-294x300.jpg)***By Gary Peluso-Verdend*** On July 30, 1956, President Eisenhower signed the bill that made “In God We Trust” the national motto. This was the first official national motto and replaced the unofficial one, which goes back to the Franklin-Jefferson-Adams era, E Pluribus Unum: Out of many, one. At the same time in the 1950s, America was building a nuclear arsenal to counter godless Soviet socialism—an arsenal big enough that by the 1980s everyone acknowledged the full use of it would “make the rubble bounce.” In God we trust? I don’t know how any nation can make that claim, let alone the republic with the world’s greatest military and economic power. Now, please don’t number me among those who want to ban religion from public life. I’ve spent much of my career thinking about, teaching, preaching, and now writing about how people of faith do and should exercise their faith in public. But the “in God we trust” motto has always been either a shield or a weapon. Today, with the “godless” Soviet Union decomposing in history’s dustbin, “In God We Trust” is used in America’s internal identity and moral conflicts. In these conflicts, “Christians” of a certain kind cast themselves on the moral side and progressives (religious or not), adherents of other faiths, and atheists lumped together on the immoral side. The Religious Right wants to ensconce “in God we trust” in classrooms, courtrooms, and license plates. They argue that progressives and secularists want to banish God from public life. And the hidden argument is: *anyone else’s God* ought to be banned. However, I don’t buy that we, the American people or our government, trust in God. I cannot see the connection between trust in God and support for retributive justice, inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants, discriminatory legislation, the fear represented by over 300 million guns in the hands of citizens, and casting opponents as evil enemies. This contradiction between professed belief and action/policy/practice leads me to call “In God We Trust” a false claim. During the Civil War (April 1863), President Lincoln, in response to those who claimed God for partisan purposes, wrote wisely, “The Almighty has his own purposes.” Does the U.S., does *any* nation, trust a God with his/her own purposes? “In God We Trust”? “We don’t trust your God, and sometimes I’m not sure about mine” might be closer to the practiced truth. “Out of many, one,” E Pluribus Unum, rather than “in God we trust” is more aligned with the nation’s challenge to become the kind of nation we’ve aspired to be, when thinking and acting according to our best morally and spiritually-shaped selves. Our national challenge is to form a more perfect union—of the most diverse collection of persons ever in human history seeking to be one democratic nation—for the sake of justice, defense, the common welfare, the blessings of liberty, and peace (you’ll recognize these public virtues from the preamble of the U.S. Constitution). Out of many, one. That is our aspiration, and that is our challenge. It has *always* been our challenge. It was a challenge when the franchise was limited to propertied white males, with all others excluded from democratic participation. Then the franchise was broadened, always by struggle, to include other white men, then persons of African descent, women, indigenous persons, and persons of Asian descent. But the fear of practicing democracy in a “one from many” nation resulted in Jim Crow, with its many modes of voter suppression, discrimination, and domestic terrorism. And in 1924, a completely white Congress got very nervous about the “thinning of the white racial stock” and passed a highly discriminatory immigration law that held until 1965. Then, in 1965, a new immigration law opened the nation to a wider range of nationalities than ever before. Between that law, the end of the Vietnam War (and refugees from the war coming to North America), and the turmoil fueled by U.S. policies that drove many Central Americans to the U.S. southern border, the demographics of the U.S. have radically changed in the short period of 55 years. Add stories to the demographic changes. Stories of previously suppressed ugly and shameful truths about our past, and beautiful stories from marginalized communities being told more often in more places with more listeners. Today we Americans are comprised of nearly as many skin colors, body types, and facial features as there are on the earth. Today we have more religious diversity, with current adherents of those religions, than any other developed nation. While there is a great deal of churn in the American religious landscape, and some erstwhile church buildings are now homes or restaurants or condos, religion in the U.S. is a long way from being mostly museum-vintage. We are religiously diverse. We do not have the same origin stories. We came here over the Bering Strait many millennia ago, in ships-planes-and-by-foot in recent centuries and crammed into slave ships on the Middle Passage for more than 200 years. And our history books and Thanksgiving fictions are just now cracking open to telling more complicated and inclusive stories. Today, we are Red or Blue, with relatively little Purple. We distinguish ourselves from one another by race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, gender identity, religion (as well as a growing number of “don’t need it”), Trump enthusiast/traditional conservative/moderate/progressive/democratic socialist, big city/small town, insured/uninsured, poor/wealthy. I’m sure I’ve omitted a bunch of other salient divisions. Divided we are. And religion has certainly contributed to our divisions, especially Christians’ radically different visions of what Christianity is and what the nation should be. However, despite the divisions among religious people, those of us who claim to be religious or spiritual *have plenty we could contribute* toward “one from many” without doubling down on “In God We Trust.” We could cultivate a more perfect union in which diversities are accepted and celebrated. We could contribute to a culture that values: - Common humanity. How many races are there? One. The human race the one where each of us shares 99.9 percent of our DNA with others (3 million genetic variations, yes, but 99.9 percent in common). - Inherent human dignity—a dignity that is not granted by any nation but is to be respected in every nation, regardless of one’s status as citizen, refugee, asylum seeker, immigrant. - Humility—I love the Muslim teaching that human beings need to pray five times a day as a constant reminder that we are mortals, and not God. - Common earth, a common home—taking the long perspective, generations long, making decisions by considering our children and our children’s children, times five. - Human beings created as persons for community, not as individuals to maximize their self-interest and net worth. - Joining compassion with the Golden Rule as standards for how to treat each other. - Learning how to practice restorative justice more than giving in to our brain patterned disposition for retribution. - Accountability to a moral/ethical power greater than the state and its laws. There is a higher law that is part of the universe’s long arc bending toward justice. - Meaningful penance and forgiveness in public life (and not one without the other). - Bridge building to other communities. We could show, by word and example, how to be and value the Many and the One. We could. Over this 2020 year, Phillips Theological Seminary and the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice have created the One from Many services *as one place* to do that kind of sharing—and, we hope, to en-courage each of us to find ways to be more of the people we are called to be. Over the past several years, and especially after the past few weeks, my optimism about the near future of America has diminished. But I keep being hopeful that we who consider ourselves spiritual or religious will draw on the wells of our traditions to support the “one from many.” I hope we witness. I hope we teach. I hope we will live our stories of compassion, social justice, equality, upholding human dignity, humility, asking for and being granted forgiveness, tolerance (if not acceptance), and love. We could. I hope. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Morality of the Endgame](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-morality-of-the-endgame/) **Published:** February 18, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/america-804300_1280-300x300.jpg)](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-morality-of-the-endgame/america-804300_1280/)Let’s imagine that the end justifies the means to get there. The assumption of that statement is that the end is a good or that the end is morally good—for someone or some group. In our acutely polarized era, considering the good of the ends toward which we drive seems essential but I’m not seeing much discussion of ends, and that worries me because I don’t like where the means seem to be headed. What is the endgame, the trajectory, the direction that a particular political agenda drives us toward, and how does that endgame align with either the nation’s purpose or core values? I think of my own denomination, The United Methodist Church, this church I’ve been a member of nearly my entire life, and my father and Italian-immigrant grandfather before me. This denomination has experienced only mergers and reunions since Grandpa Emilio immigrated in the first decade of the 20th century. But soon my church is going to split, in at least two pieces, quite likely more before we’re done. We will follow in the paths of the ELCA Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians which have also split in recent years over interpretations of scripture and understandings of human sexuality. At some point in The UMC since 1972, our leading voices went from “this marriage is troubled and needs work” to “let’s divorce, stop harming each other, and use our lives more productively.” The endgame changed. There is one kind of endgame implied when “the other side” of an issue is “our worthy opponents” rather than “the enemies of all that is good.” And while one might argue that American politics—secular or religious—have always included a mix of the two, the formula is now weighted heavily toward the use of “enemy” language. The endgame has changed. What is the implied endgame when our opponents are enemies and where a contemporary Abraham Lincoln would be mocked mercilessly (as he undoubtedly was in his own day, but now he’d be “cancelled” by social media after being mocked) by saying things like: > [“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” First Inauguration address, on the eve of Civil War. ](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp) Silly, naïve man… In the present-day White House, and surrounded by a sufficiently large crowd of defense attorneys in the House and the Senate, is a president who has declared that the [following categories of persons and institutions are among the enemies deserving insult and other forms of degradation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/20/expansive-repetitive-universe-trumps-twitter-insults): - Judges who disagree with him. - The press as represented by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR. - Immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers from Southern Hemisphere nations. - Watch-dog and regulatory agencies that, well, watch and regulate. - Cities that refuse to become extensions of ICE. - Former staff. - Various celebrities. - Ordinary citizens, including Gold Star families. - Fact-checkers. - Decorated veterans and career civil servants. What is the endgame of this unchecked culture of turning opponents into enemies and assaulting them with repeated insults? Banishment. Prosecution. Silencing. Threats. Exclusion. Demotion. Bullying. Elimination. It is so difficult for opposing sides not to respond in kind. Former President Obama has been criticized, sometimes bitterly, from the political left for not using the first two years of Democratic majorities to pass legislation unilaterally, as well as for his failure to respond in kind when Republican leaders explicitly declared war on his administration. When a brave (or naïve) soul on the Left calls for building bridges, seeking a broader coalition, and even simply listening to another side, they risk ostracism. Regardless of one’s political position, it seems we all see a grave risk and potential harm to ourselves posed by the Other Side. I’m not making light of this risk and potential harm—because I should say potential *further* harm. Real, realized harm is already evident, as statistics on school bullying, hate crimes, and attempts to halt and reverse LGBTQ rights indicate. But the Right currently has the reins of power at the federal level and [in the majority of the states](https://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/Elections/Legis_Control_2019_Post-Election%20Nov%2022nd.pdf.). Taking cues from White House rhetoric and admiration for authoritarian regimes, the appointment of two Supremes and scores of conservative federal judges, and the trumping by religious rights (conservatively-interpreted) of countervailing rights, I wonder about what might be coming. A *church*: it is a voluntary organization, and it can split as many times and ways as it wants and the nation is not fundamentally changed. One of the great assets of the American religious landscape is that there is always room for more. But what about when a *nation’s* powers and principalities categorize whole groups as enemies, or dangers, or “not real Americans,” or apply any other labels that are meant to de-legitimate either one’s opinion, one’s national status, or one’s humanity? Really, then can splitting, or re-education camps/schools, or distinctive clothes, or exile, or border checkpoints moving from Red to Blue states, or walled cities, or constant surveillance, or punishment, or loyalty oaths, or new categories of second-class citizenship, or an underground resistance, and/or revolt be far behind? Those seem to be the logical conclusions. What’s the endgame? What I see makes me shudder. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public: Talking Reconciliation is Not Enough with the Rev. Robert Turner and the Rev. David Wiggs](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-talking-reconciliation-is-not-enough-with-the-rev-robert-turner-and-the-rev-david-wiggs/) **Published:** February 29, 2020 **Author:** Kurt Gwartney **Content:** ![Boston Avenue United Methodist Church](https://www.bostonavenue.org/application/themes/BostonAvenue/images/boston-avenue-logo.png)In this special collaborative edition of the [Boston Avenue United Methodist Church](https://www.bostonavenue.org/) podcast ASCENDS, its hosts are joined by co-host, Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend from the Committing Faith in Public podcast. The guests are the Rev. Robert Turner and the Rev. David Wiggs to discuss the relationship between [Historic Vernon AME](http://www.vernoname.com/) and Boston Avenue UMC and why talking reconciliation is not enough. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [In Praise of Our Communities](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/in-praise-of-our-communities/) **Published:** March 24, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** “In the beginning was the relationship,” said a former colleague at Phillips. Not the individual, but the relationship is the fundamental building block of human life. Contemporary understandings of physics and biology largely share the same perspective: individual elements and entities are separate only for analytical purposes. In reality, relationships and community are of first-order importance. The connection Christians have to Jesus of Nazareth and to the Risen Christ is the community, not the Bible. The community (or communities, but I’m going to stick with the singular) wrote the Bible and continued its telling, reproduction, and then (after the printing press) production. The Bible represents a community of communities. ![The handwritten word community in blue with a hand holding the marker which wrote it.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/community-hand-writing-300x200.jpg) Christian communities embody and express their understanding of Jesus. Yes, there are malformed persons who refract Jesus through a sick soul. And there are heroic persons, prophets, who declare that the community has become distorted and risk the community’s ire to say, “No! Not the way! Here, here is the path.” But both the malformed and the exemplars are rooted in community. Theologian and ecumenist Albert Outler wrote that community precedes doctrine. I understand this to be a teaching akin to “the sabbath is made for humankind and not humankind for the sabbath.” Anthropologists remind us that humans take longer than most (if not all) other species to mature, and we cannot mature properly without being enculturated and without being held and beheld—face to loving face—by others. It takes a community to raise a child. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution begins with “We the People,” not “I and other self-interested and self-made individual consumers.” The reasons (common welfare, justice, defense) for forming “a more perfect union” are community goods and belong exclusively to no individual. Trinitarian Christians understand God as a community of three distinct yet interwoven Persons engaged in an eternal unbroken dance of love. Love makes no sense apart from community. Neither does truth, goodness, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, forbearance, patience. Liberty, the freedom and the power to shape one’s own life and world, is not a standalone value. Liberty exists in relationship to other values such as equality, mutuality, equality, and equity. Liberty as practiced must be understood, then, within the framework of a community of other persons and is thus tempered by other values. One can and should advocate for a richer sense of public in the U.S. because of these understandings. That is what I am doing. Based on these understandings, the social philosophy to which I most closely align is [communitarian](https://icps.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs1736/f/downloads/Communitarianism.Etzioni.pdf)ism. I believe that community, relationships, and moral ties are fundamental to the formation of persons. The isolated individual per se is a fiction. Rights belong to individuals but are interpreted, delimited, and exercised in a community of persons. My understanding of communitarianism is based in my religious values and in the observations of contemporary sciences: in the beginning was the relationship. None of this means I am a socialist, if by socialism one means massive government control of industry and control of who profits from what. (As the Senate and House debate the support package to help the country get through the pandemic, one might be forgiven for gagging on the contradictions of capitalism and capitalists SO on display.) I am a communitarian, and that does not fit tidily into pre-formed political or economic molds. The combination of overpowering partisan political identities plus faith communities that either provide a sacred canopy for the status quo or function with voices too small to be heard means we are experiencing a failure of spiritual/religious rhetoric. We can’t imagine a political, social, economic language to deliver ourselves. (As I’ve said in these blogs a time or two, there is [one outstanding exception to my statement](https://www.breachrepairers.org/poorpeoplescampaign).) I am a person of Christian faith who is looking to my faith tradition, as well as the traditions of other faith communities, for strands of a different way. To sum up what I’ve written above: strong, resilient societies require many strong, resilient communities in which persons are formed into decent human beings. Decent human beings pay attention to the moral question of what we owe to each other and to the mutuality of our civil rights. Community life is supremely important for living a good life. I am reminded of this importance as I see empty houses of worship, deserted streetscapes, silent ballparks, darkened offices, unappreciated art, and shuttered restaurants. Life is relationship-based. Let us praise and strengthen our communities—and which communities are included in “our.” --- IMAGE CREDIT: [The Blue Diamond Gallery](https://www.thebluediamondgallery.com/handwriting/c/community.html) under Creative Commons 3 – [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) license. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [The Myth of American Exceptionalism is Dying, and that is a Good Thing](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-myth-of-american-exceptionalism-is-dying-and-that-is-a-good-thing/) **Published:** March 31, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In the study of religion, “myth” does not mean “untruth” or “false.” It is a word associated with the deep story in which a people live, the well-springs of a culture. One of the founding, and maybe the most powerful, myth of American life has been exceptionalism. That is the story of being a unique people, a people set apart from the monarchs and superstitions of the Old World by a great ocean, a people more divinely blessed than any other nation, a people defined both by virtue and by greatness. According to this myth, an action is good because we do it and because we only do good in the world. Our motives are always pure. According to this myth, the U.S. has been called by God to global leadership. While presidents and presidential candidates buy into this myth more or less (and the current president is on the extreme edge of “more”), it is difficult to imagine a candidate being elected without embracing something of the exceptionalism of the American people, way of life, and role in the world. Such is the power of the myth of exceptionalism. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/the-end-of-the-myth-book-cover-197x300.jpg)It is a myth that needs to die. Indeed, it is dying, and its death-throe is a major undercurrent in our society’s polarization, conflict, and other-hatred. Greg Grandin begins his excellent book, *[The End of the Myth](https://www.amazon.com/End-Myth-Frontier-Border-America/dp/1250179823/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1585660484&sr=8-1)*, with a haunting quote from Anne Carson, “To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.” In the U.S. today, there is plenty of peril. The myth of exceptionalism is not simply white supremacy by another name but, in practice, it is shamefully close. The myth of exceptionalism was used to do violence against America’s indigenous peoples. It was one of the essentials of both Yankee and plantation states practicing the triangle trade and a slave-labor economy. It was utilized to war against Mexico, acquire colonies, march indigenous peoples hundreds of miles from the lands their myths told them they were eternally connected to, and close borders and immigration several times to persons who were either non-white or not white enough. The myth was reinforced by our genuine role in saving the world from totalitarianism during World War II, and many in my parents’ generation cling to the myth. I hoped that Vietnam would shred the myth, put the lie to the claim that America is always on the side of good and right, and always innocent of the atrocities other nations commit during wars. But President Reagan promoted the myth effectively, and President George H.W. Bush covered the nation in the myth’s mantle when he said the first Gulf War was a “just war.” And the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s wounded the myth, but it survived. The myth cannot hold. Despite the direction the nation has taken under its current leadership, white supremacy and American exceptionalism are being challenged like never before in my lifetime. Scholarship, street protests, history books (the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves), diversity-equity-inclusion trainings, racial bias awareness training for law enforcement, pipeline protests on Native lands, the election of persons of color, the nation’s demographics as we move toward a no racial-ethnic majority nation—all these are challenging the myth and chipping away at it. Oh, and let’s not forget what the federal government’s pandemic response might do to a myth of exceptionalism. Best in the world, are we? The nation’s Christianities are choosing sides. Christian nationalist religion and the Christian Right are fiercely defending the myth. They are trying to create a forcefield, a new sacred canopy, over the myth of exceptionalism. They have power, and they’ve appointed a huge number of federal judges who will defend the myth. But I smell whitewashed tombs. Progressive Christian communities, not a few Catholic congregations, and America’s other faith groups smell the tombs, too—as do the growing number of non-religious folks (with the exception of white nationalists). We don’t believe the U.S. is a Chosen Nation. We are the world’s most powerful nation that has and will use our power to protect our interests. Sometimes we play well with others in the world’s sandbox, but often we play only when we can set the rules. And we religious peoples claim the world’s nations are all human beings and creatures of the planet’s ecosystem first, and citizens/residents of particular nations second. This claim drains the life from American exceptionalism. Now, there is an element of American exceptionalism that is worth attending to and nurturing. Some interpreters of what the U.S. is (and could be) point to the promises of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the matrix of a religiously, ethnically plural society that strives to incarnate liberty, equality, and justice for everyone. Add to this incarnation the spiritual consciousness of a shared humanity in a shared life-sphere we call Earth. A democratic republic based on these values, of our size and demographics, would be exceptional in the history of the world. Such a vision has mythic possibilities. As one myth ends, we move through the peril, in large part, by embracing another myth. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Imagine Ourselves as Living in the Wilderness Rather than Defending a Promised Land](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/imagine-ourselves-as-living-in-the-wilderness-rather-than-defending-a-promised-land/) **Published:** April 7, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![A Thomas Jefferson-designed seal for the United States depicting the Israelite's exodus in the wilderness.](https://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/JeffersonDesign.jpg)](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/30912/rejected-designs-great-seal-united-states)Both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson embraced the U.S. as a new Promised Land—for white people. But in pitching designs for the Great Seal of the United States, they chose differently. Franklin chose a scene of conquest, the children of Israel triumphing over tyranny as the Red Sea swallowed Pharaoh’s forces. Jefferson chose a scene from the Exodus, too; but he chose the wilderness. I believe Jefferson left us something that might be usefully recovered and reinterpreted. Last week, I opined about the need for the myth of American exceptionalism, of Manifest Destiny, to die. (Myth in the study of religion is not an untruth or falsehood but is a deep story about the nature and destiny of a people.) But every people needs one or more useful myths. Which myth should replace it? In this season of liberation stories—when Jews celebrate Passover, Western Christians mark the death and resurrection of Jesus, and Muslims enter the month of Ramadan—imagine America as a wilderness where the rules of captivity need to be unlearned and how to be a free and strong people together is our life-or-death challenge. Let us acknowledge that the white male Founders did not build the nation we need today. They threw off their English overlords and celebrated God’s blessing of America while turning the U.S. into a new version of Egypt, with themselves as Pharaohs, for other inhabitants of the land. However, the desires to build a nation of self-governing persons, each recognized in law and society as a human being endowed with conscience and dignity and with a responsibility to respect the conscience and dignity of their fellow citizens, to build a nation where each works for a society which respects and protects life, liberty, and the pursuit of public happiness—these remain powerful and admirable desires. As [Langston Hughes wrote in his critique and hope for America:](https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again) > O, let America be America again— > > The land that never has been yet— > > And yet must be. Although in the present moment we are hearing the call to return to the fleshpots of Egypt, I suggest we make our peace with living in the wilderness. The wilderness is our starting point for whatever comes next. In the Bible, the wilderness was (and consider how many of these experiences are common today): - Uncomfortable (both change and transition) - Fraught with ambiguities and much anxiety, and with the crazy-making behavior that accompanies anxiety. - Marinated in fear of how the people were going to survive together. - A space and a time with whole lot of unlearning to do, and a whole lot of learning. Why the 40-year period? The people needed to unlearn the ways of slavery and learn the ways of freedom, including how to exercise freedom within the context of responsibilities to God and to neighbors. - A time of conflict, rebellion, and potential splintering. Think of leadership needs if we are defending threats to “our” Promised Land or if we are living for an indeterminate time in the wilderness: If we are defending threats: turn to a strong man. - Allow the strong man a great deal of authority to keep the beasts of chaos at bay. - Play on nostalgia: there was a past Golden Era from which the wrong-headed children of darkness led us astray. - Silence the histories in textbooks that do not support Manifest Destiny. - Stoke fear. - Suppress the vote among populations that might challenge the power base that supports Manifest Destiny. If we are looking for wilderness leadership for indeterminate time, we would seek persons who can: - Foster relatively safe and brave spaces to keep diverse parties “locked together in argument” (John Courtney Murray)—for learning and for discovering enough common ground to thrive together. - Deal with fears and anxieties. - Help people have productive conflicts. - Keep a vision in front of us of the people we could be and the world we could enjoy by making it together. - Enable public versions of confession, penance, and forgiveness—because remember, those who Manifest Destiny served and those who Manifest Destiny harmed are all in the wilderness camps together. Living in the wilderness does not sound like a fabulous national purpose. What is on the other side, if not a new land to conquer? Step back from the nation for a moment and consider the globe. What do you consider the biggest global challenges facing humankind (not just the U.S.) today? Candidates might include: - The pandemic. - The sustainability and health of planet earth. - The protection of the dignity and rights of political minorities. - How we are going to achieve as much prosperity and justice in global commerce and national lives as we can. - Defining who is my neighbor and how to be a neighbor. - How to negotiate life-life agreements between opposing groups (life-life, not win-win, because it makes clear that the opposite of “winning” is not “losing” but is often some form of death). - Fitting protections from the parties that don’t care to live in a world inhabited by anyone who does not want to live as they live. The myth of Manifest Destiny will not get the planet, or any nation, to where we need to be. It will not get the U.S. to what our role should be in meeting global challenges. It is a morally bankrupt narrative and must be abandoned. If there is to be conciliation among individuals and peoples in the U.S., and indeed in the whole world, sufficient to practice democracy, with enough “neighbor regard” to enjoy a prosperous, just, and compassionate society, we U.S. Americans need a narrative that includes honest histories and that cultivates a more just and inclusive democratic republic. That could happen—in the wilderness. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Taking the Long View, Farmers and Scientists are Attending to the Health of the World's Soil](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/taking-the-long-view-farmers-and-scientists-are-attending-to-the-health-of-the-worlds-soil/) **Published:** April 16, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** ***EDITOR’S NOTE:** The following was written by the Rev. Heather Coates (and before the pandemic). Rev. Coates, ordained in the United Church of Christ, is currently serving out her call to ministry by teaching World Religions to middle school students. She received a masters degree in Theological Studies from Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and has served churches in both urban and rural settings. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas with her husband and two dogs. If you visit her there during gardening season, she will offer to cook you up something from her garden. Or just sit on her front porch and stay awhile.* Just 60 harvests remain… this is one possible scenario presented in 2014 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. If we continue degrading our farmable topsoil at the current rate… just 60 harvests remain. (Before the pandemic, and one assumes also in the “new normal,”) with overflowing food at supermarkets and new restaurants opening daily in our cities and towns, it’s a difficult scenario to imagine. We don’t seem to be in crisis. But travel a little further out into the countryside, into the places where our food is grown. Talk to the farmers. The farmers that know the earth’s soil is rapidly losing its fertility. The farmers who see the urgent need to focus not just on growing our food, but on the lasting health of our soils. The people who are working outside the bounds of conventional agriculture to save our land. These farmers will tell you a story. They might tell you about an alternative method of planting seeds they are using called no-till. They might talk about their work in “soil regeneration” or tell you about their involvement in a “soil health movement.” In the face of this impending crisis, one that will affect humans at every level of society, what these farmers offer is both a word of hope and a way to make that hope a reality. Let’s first take a very quick look at how the situation became so grave. Since the creation of the plow (a long, long time ago) farmers have turned and tilled the soil to grow their crops. It’s an old story. One we all know and few have questioned. What we have learned, however, is the repeated tilling of the soil does things like expose and harm the earth’s nutrients, releasing the vital stored carbons in the ground. It makes the soil vulnerable to erosion, displacing topsoil. Today, this practice of tilling is partnered with monoculture farming—the practice of clearing a field of all other vegetation to plant and grow just one kind of seed. The combination has proved disastrous. As a response, no-till practitioners are working to write the next chapter of the story, seeking methods of farming that will both feed the world and maintain our earth’s fertility. What they have found is that the healthiest way to grow crops is to mimic the natural systems of the earth. Left to its own devices, the earth will always go toward life and diversity. So along with planting seed with minimal disruption (no-till), farmers plant cover crops instead of letting their field lay fallow. Instead of growing just one crop at a time, companion plants are introduced. The same field might be used for crop land and animal grazing—a practice unimaginable on most modern farms. Practitioners have discovered that no-till farming methods can offer amazing results, such as curbing carbon emissions, retaining groundwater and minimizing soil erosion. Their fields are often able to withstand extreme weather events better than their neighbors. All of this leads to high yields, while spending less on soil inputs, such as fertilizers. If no-till farming is so beneficial, such a story of hope, why are these farmers so hard to find? I spent some time talking to Steve Swaffar, the executive director of an organization called No-till On the Plains. This is an organization that supports no-till farmers from Colorado to Iowa, North Dakota to Texas, bringing them together to share ideas and support each other in this alternative way of farming. Mr. Swaffar, is a professional biologist who grew up in Oklahoma working on his grandfather’s farm. Today he lives just south of Topeka, Kansas, where he has converted a large swath of his yard into a garden. If possible, you should try to find him in the summer months, as he loves to grow and give away food. He says when people see his garden they often comment about how weedy it is. He tells them, “those aren’t weeds, they’re helpers.” He always carries a shovel in his car, just in case he gets a chance to dig in the dirt on someone’s farm and see the progress they’ve made towards soil health. On a cold, snowy couple of days in January, Mr. Swaffar organized a No-till On the Plains conference in Wichita, Kansas. As one might expect at a farming conference, the parking lot was full of pickup trucks. There were lots of hats of both the baseball and cowboy variety. The people in attendance looked like they have spent a lot of hours working outside. What was happening inside was anything but conventional. The speakers were “regenerative farmers” and “soil health specialists.” They gave talks on topics like “the benefits of cover crops” and “how to develop a regenerative ecosystem on your farm.” There were no big ag companies in the building. As I listened to a presentation by a successful farmer who had been using no-till methods since 2001, a grey-haired man sitting next to me leaned over and said, “All of this has made farming fun again.” Mr. Swaffar said this optimism and excitement about farming is the norm in the no-till world. Sadly, this hope is not the norm for today’s farmers. Farming demands hard work and long hours, while offering continual struggles. Extreme weather events are on the rise, profit margins are shrinking, the infertile soil is demanding more additives, the cost for equipment is rising. In 2019, bankruptcies of family farms hit an eight-year high. The profession has seen a huge spike in depression rates and suicides, and is facing a mental health crisis. When I asked Mr. Swaffar why more people weren’t involved in the soil health movement, he talked about how the system is set up for monoculture farming. The government incentives, crop insurance, the seed and fertilizer companies, even the work being done at universities—it’s mostly organized around monoculture farming. While no-till farms can produce just as much yield as conventional farms for less cost with the added bonus of not having to rely so completely on big ag companies for things like fertilizer and sprays, the reality is that getting to the place of productivity doesn’t happen quickly. Every farmer I talked to said it takes from three-to-five years to convert a farm to no-till, with a lot of mistakes and not a lot of income along the way. It takes time, determination and money. In a profession where the average age is over 50 and many family farms are one extreme weather event away from bankruptcy, time and money are in short supply. Karen Willey is a no-till farmer in rural Douglas County, just outside of Lawrence, Kansas. Her background is a doctorate in geomorphology. She and her husband moved out to their land more than 10 years ago. Even her 11-year-old daughter is involved in farming, raising a flock of turkeys to sell this year for Thanksgiving. When Dr. Willey talks about soil health, you quickly see that she’s on a mission to heal the earth. You might also think she is describing a person struggling with a drug addiction. She will tell you that after being fed chemicals for so many years, soil, like people, will become addicted. And like any addiction, it can’t be broken overnight. The wisdom she offers has the ring of a mantra, “First you need to heal the earth, then you can ask it to grow your food.” When she talks about starting her farm, she first talks about all the mistakes she made. How for years her family has eaten from their farm but not seen a profit. She will tell you that she is only able to do this work, because farming is not her family’s only source of income. She will also tell you that even with her background in earth science, she has struggled to find good information and support to guide her. Most of the information isn’t coming from universities, but from other small farmers who do experiments on their land, and then share this information with their neighbor. For the most part, no-till, has spread slowly, farmer to farmer. It is a quiet revolution that is on the rise. When asked where she sees hope, Dr. Willey talks about the lessons she and her fellow no-till neighbors have learned and are now able to offer their neighbors. In recent years, their area of the world has seen historic amounts of rainfall. On the conventional, monoculture farms, the rain has brought erosion and unwanted trenches in fields. But her farm and other no-till farms in the area, that are consciously designed to mimic the area’s native prairies, have not been affected in the same way. She points down the road to her no-till neighbor, who never allows his fields to lie fallow, “When he’s not growing a cash crop, he grows a cover crop. And when the rains came, that field didn’t ditch,” she said. “It was in corn like everyone else’s corn, but it had had this rotation for so many years, that the soil was offered enough healing. Everyone else was getting gullies from the rains, but not his.” The other farmers in the neighborhood have taken notice. This is indeed a story of hope. How does all of this affect you and me? How can we embrace this story of hope, and help these farmers write the next chapter of the farming story? In the end, farming is about eating. In the previous decades, there has been a push for consumers to buy organic. But no-till advocates say that organic farming is not necessarily the final answer. As organic farms have become big business, they have become similar to monoculture farms, tilling the earth and displacing other life. This is not a long-term solution for soil health. Karen Willey encourages people to buy their food from people you can look in the eye. Even if they aren’t all organic, it doesn’t mean they aren’t working to heal their soil. She encourages people to find and support the farmers who are working to heal the land. When asked what he really wants people to know about no-till farming, Steve Swaffer offered this, “We all eat. The food that we produce is the food that we eat. If you have the ability to care enough to buy organic, the next step is to care about the soil. The soil is where it is coming from.” --- ***A Reading List for Soil Health/Regenerative Farming*** David R. Montgomery, a Berkeley trained geomorphologist teaching at the University of Washington. He takes a long view of farming and our soil. > Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, David R. Montgomery > > Growing A Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life, David R. Montgomery Wendell Berry, I believe it’s all good. I haven’t read any of his novels. But here are some of his collections of agrarian essays (there are more), > The Art of the Commonplace > > The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry > > Our Only World > > *The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays, Cultural and Agricultura*l (I believe his breakout work from 1981) And he writes poetry—this is the collection I have read the most from > Sabbaths Books that I have heard are good… > Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture, Gabe Brown > > Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth, Charles Massy > > The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet, Kristin Ohlson > > Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth, Judith D Schwartz **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Committing Faith in Public with Toby Jenkins, Oklahomans for Equality](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/committing-faith-in-public-with-toby-jenkins/) **Published:** April 18, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Excerpt:** On this podcast, Toby Jenkins, executive director of Oklahomans for Equality, talks about his richly-textured background in conservative circles (despite being raised by progressive parents) and his movement from that world into the caring and advocacy work of OkEq. **Content:** ![](https://www.oklahomacenterfornonprofits.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/toby-jenkins-214x300.jpg) Oklahomans for Equality is a state-wide 40-year old organization that seeks equal rights for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) individuals and families through advocacy, education, programs, alliances, and the operation of the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. It is led by Toby Jenkins. On this edition of Committing Faith in Public, Toby talks about his richly-textured background in conservative circles (despite being raised by progressive parents) and his movement from that world into the caring and advocacy work of OkEq. While he is no longer a Free Will Baptist minister, Toby does a great deal of ministry-like work every day, especially in such times as these. **Categories:** Podcast --- ### [One From Many Online Session 1](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-online-session-1/) **Published:** April 21, 2020 **Author:** Center for Religion in Public Life **Content:** # **One from Many Readings, Songs, and Reflections** One from Many was envisioned to be a monthly public gathering throughout 2020, sponsored by the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Seminary and the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice. One from Many welcomes people of spiritual and moral conviction who want to work side by side to ensure the U.S. motto *E Pluribus Unum* (One from Many), the Golden Rule, and the universal values of compassion and justice are more evident in American life. **We will gather—but after it is safe enough.** In the between times, event leaders have solicited readings, songs, and reflections that we are sharing here. Each video is about 3 minutes long. So, in about 10 minutes, you can experience hope, challenge, inspiration, and fresh ideas! We hope to post two trios each month until the monthly public gatherings resume. **Reading—Be Not Defeated by the Rain** Jahaziel “Jazi” Hiriart is the Associate Director of Social and Emotional Learning and Impact at The Opportunity Project, Tulsa’s intermediary for expanded learning. She is an OCCJ Board Member. Jazi shares her favorite poem by Kenji Miyazawa titled “Be Not Defeated by the Rain.” The poem is a reminder that the rain has the ability to wash away noise and weariness, leaving behind a calming and revitalizing stillness. **Reflection—Rights and Responsibilities** Dr. Marcia Beauchamp has been studying and teaching about the world’s religions and the proper role of religions in public schools for over twenty-five years. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies and a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard University. For six years Marcia was the Religious Freedom Programs Coordinator for the First Amendment Center. During this time and the years that followed, she has presented the material found in Finding Common Ground to school districts across the nation. Marcia’s passion is working with educators to find ways to protect the conscience of each student and parent, while passing on our most deeply held values and principles as American citizens to our youth. **Song—”What a Wonderful World”** Mark Bruner, a native Oklahoman, has been a part of the Tulsa music scene for 30 years. The hallmark of his playing has always been his “chameleon like” diversity. A blues player extraordinaire for sure with a penchant for low tunings and evocative slide guitar…..but his ability to shift musical styles from R&B to Jazz, Pop and American roots has him in constant demand. His sound, touch and “groove” have earned him critical acclaim, as well as eleven Oklahoma State fingerstyle guitar titles. A soulful, stylistic vocalist as well, he is truly one of Oklahoma’s outstanding musicians. Mark shares his cover of “What a Wonderful World.” **Categories:** One From Many --- ### [The Best and Worst of Religion in Public During the Pandemic](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/the-best-and-worst-of-religion-in-public-during-the-pandemic/) **Published:** April 29, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![Hospital chaplain at Hartford Hospital wearing a mask and holding a book.](https://www.courant.com/resizer/J69Rjy5_coOuy4gh_s2ow9JXp-0=/800x791/top/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/LHE7AZY75JDF7NOPZOGYNVGNM4.jpg)](https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/hc-news-coronavirus-helping-hartford-hospital-chaplain-20200412-mnqtqls66ra2bfde365ulpjtbe-story.html)Jeanne Pedane is one of six full-time chaplains and seven per diem chaplains at Hartford Hospital who are trying to help patients and their families despite not being able to be with them physically. (Brad Horrigan/Hartford Courant) The pandemic highlights the worst and the best of humanity and of religion. Examples of the worst of humanity include selling personal protective equipment at World Series scalpers’ prices and manufacturing shoddy tests and ineffective sanitizers. Examples of the best of our species include medical teams “leaving it all on the field” to save lives, neighbors helping neighbors, and towns and neighborhoods stopping, albeit briefly, to show their gratitude in song, applause, and signs. Then there’s religion, one of the meaning-making resources for humanity. The worst of religion. Ah, the worst of religion. Is it because of Christianity’s dominance or because of my ignorance that all the examples of the worst of religion in the U.S. implicate Christians? Maybe it is dominance, for in Hindu-dominant India it is Muslims who are persecuted, and in China is it is some religious minorities, yes, but also anyone who looks “foreign.” But here in the States, it is self-identified Christians who show us the worst of religion in public. - A small number of highly visible pastors elevate church attendance to the status of a life or death decision. Martyrdom. The priorities of “do no harm” and of public health, which includes an ethic of protecting the vulnerable in society, are superseded by a pastor’s ego or really lousy theology that Jesus will protect them or reward them in heaven, should it be your time. - Since political identity is today’s mega-identity, we should expect issues to be tacked onto the virus like self-serving pork barrel amendments to legislation. And our expectations are not disappointed. “Prophets” on the fringe Right thunder that the virus is a satanic plot to destroy the economy with which God has blessed God’s anointed (the President). I suspect the President’s spiritual advisers planted the thought he expressed, very early, that cases would decline and then disappear; there would be a “miracle.” A much broader group of grievances have grown in the petri dish of “religious liberty” claims. In this case, the religious liberty claim is that the right to assemble for worship is absolute. It is not. - Jews are still being blamed for worldwide plagues and economic calamities, as are Muslims. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are up during the pandemic. How Christian. - How do we think theologically about this virus? One theological term embedded in insurance law is “Act of God.” Oklahoma’s Governor Stitt asked President Trump to declare the virus an Act of God, meaning a disaster over which we have no control. It would not be fair to make anything theological of Mr. Stitt asking Mr. Trump to name the pandemic an act of God. Tempting, very tempting, but not fair. But a legal term from a prior era associating a disaster with a capricious deity enacted on a blameless (in the case of this virus) humanity is poopy embedded theology. The best of religion. I am grateful there are SO many evidences of religion at its best today. Let me restate that: not the best of religion, but the best of people committing their faith in public. Religion, as should be clear, can be employed for good or for ill. Blessed and worthy of praise are: - The connections that are the arteries and veins of congregations. Imagine how much more lonely millions of us would be without the connections of our religious communities. We are persons who live in communities, not self-interested individuals. - All those leaders, lay and clergy, who climbed a steep learning curve very quickly to continue ministry, care, teaching, worship, and connection. Technology is not inherently friend or enemy of religion. But now many more people know that it can be a friend, and worked overtime and got uncomfortable to develop that friendship. - Those religious leaders who create welcoming spaces online not only for members but for friends and new participants. I have not yet sat in on a virtual fast-breaking dinner during Ramadan—but there are invitations. I did observe a Passover meal/story offered by a Tulsa synagogue. - Finding ways to relieve suffering and comfort the grieving without unduly risking themselves or their staffs. (My father died right as states were shutting down, and I know the limitations of technology to make connections, too. Notice how many obituaries say either “service at a future date” or “online viewing.”) - In addition to the legions of health care workers who are inspired and motivated by their faith to care for suffering humanity, there are hospital chaplains. Hospital chaplains are public ministers, bringing spiritual care to all who will receive—all faiths, patients and families, as well as hospital staff. I spoke with a chaplain yesterday. Imagine the on-a-dime turns they have made: wearing scrubs and masks rather than civilian dress clothes and showing their faces; delegating themselves to the staffs and patients on nearly empty floors (non-elective surgeries cancelled) and ultra busy hot zones; furloughed staffs, with the attendant grief, survivor guilt, and stretching to cover the hospital with fewer chaplains; caring for the virus-response frontline teams. - Those who practice the belief that the lives and health of their congregants are more important than gathering, at the present. Worship was made for humanity, not humanity for worship (or for the ego of a minister). - All of us religious folks who have been reminded: our strength is not a building. Our strength is our community, the connections per se, the ties that bind, the shared stories, shared sense of belonging, shared sense of right and wrong, good and bad. Now, if those who are showing the best of religion in public find ways to sustain the efforts to connect, to welcome others, to care for a person regardless of their identities, we’d have something to offer that the nation—indeed, the whole inhabited earth—really needs: practices evidencing that “we are all in this together” is a reality and not a “yes but” fiction. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Using the Language of “Sacrifice” Can’t Hide the Rotten Smell of “Unnecessary”](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/using-the-language-of-sacrifice-cant-hide-the-rotten-smell-of-unnecessary/) **Published:** May 5, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Regular readers of this blog know I believe it is imperative for religious people to develop their capacities to relate politics and religion. Politics and religion share the cultural spaces and work of offering founding stories, defining belonging, setting moral order, and imagining what it would take to be a fully-empowered people. But politicians dealing with death show a limitation of politics to address a fundamentally religious topic. Politics has few ways of giving meaning to death, and politicians should pay close attention to their deeds and words. Two political ways of dealing with death are to create monuments/memorials and to employ the religious rhetoric of sacrifice. Politicians create monuments for dead public figures they want to keep alive in public and memorials to events the people “should never forget.” For monuments, think Mount Rushmore, the temples of Jefferson and Lincoln, and the Washington obelisk. Memorials. There are so many memorials—from the cemeteries at Gettysburg and Arlington to markers for 9/11, the silent seats in Oklahoma City, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (dedicated to the victims of white supremacy) in Montgomery. The religious language of sacrifice, as used in political rhetoric, is most often applied to the people who died in war. The most well-known such speech in American history is Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, given at the dedication of the cemetery. Lincoln told his hearers that the blood of the fallen had consecrated that place and hoped that their sacrifice would lead to a new birth of freedom. It is good to recall that even Lincoln—maybe especially Lincoln—was the target of disdain for all the “sacrifices” that those who lost loved ones did not accept as sacrifices. [![An impassioned attack on Abraham Lincoln and the human toll of the Union war effort. Columbia, wearing a liberty cap and a skirt made of an American flag, demands, "Mr. Lincoln, give me back my 500,000 sons!!!" At the right, Lincoln, unfazed, sits at a writing desk, his leg thrown over the chair back. A proclamation calling for "500 Thous. More Troops," signed by him, lies at his feet. He replies, "Well the fact is--by the way that reminds me of a Story!!!" The artist refers to the false report published by the "New York World" that Lincoln joked on the battlefield of Antietam.](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Columbia-Demands-Her-Children-image-1-e1588705227767.jpg)](https://lccn.loc.gov/2008661676)Published in 1864. Artist: Baker, Joseph E., approximately 1837-1914. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. I wonder. Years from now, in whatever “after the pandemic” means, will politicians build monuments and memorials to front-line medical workers who died providing care for the ill, often due to inadequate protections? How about for delivery drivers and grocery clerks who worked in unsafe conditions, for they too lacked gloves/masks/sanitizer, and while working for less money than any adult (or “essential employee”) in the U.S. should make? How about for the elderly who were asked by a particularly insensitive politician or two to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the economy we should leave to our children and grandchildren? Maybe such categories of persons will be honored under the “never forget” banner. But if “return to normal” means “return to the inequalities of the before times” then maybe not. The persons who gave of themselves may be thanked for their “sacrifice”—and then we move on. And, if return to normal means the continued reign of “negative freedom”—freedom from, “it’s a free country!” type of freedom—then there will not be the will to do anything but keep our unsustainably thin social covenant and move along. Sacrificed for the economy. Sacrificed for a politician’s re-election chances. Sacrificed because some anti-social hyper-individualist decides he has the right to go anywhere he wants, without a mask (thus risking the lives of others), and threaten with words, spit, and weapons anyone who hinders him. What an abominably profane and disgusting misuse of sacrifice, to demand or accept the “ultimate sacrifice” of people on the altar of the economy or power. The image that comes to my mind is the biblical Abraham as a politician, with a bound restaurant worker or elderly person lying on a stone altar. In Abraham’s hand is a knife, and a voice from the sky egging him on. “If you want to retain power, strike!” And the deed is done. Give your life for the sake of the economy and for the retention of those in power. What kind of moral claim is that? A really bad one. But I suspect that politicians who are pushing for such “sacrifices” can’t find another language that gives them moral cover for deaths that are, in fact, unnecessary. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [One From Many Session 2](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-session-2/) **Published:** May 8, 2020 **Author:** Center for Religion in Public Life **Content:** One from Many was envisioned to be a monthly public gathering throughout 2020, sponsored by the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Seminary and the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice. One from Many welcomes people of spiritual and moral conviction who want to work side by side to ensure the U.S. motto *E Pluribus Unum* (One from Many), the Golden Rule, and the universal values of compassion and justice are more evident in American life. **We will gather—but after it is safe enough.** In the between times, event leaders have solicited readings, songs, and reflections that we are sharing here. Each video is about 3 minutes long. So, in about 10 minutes, you can experience hope, challenge, inspiration, and fresh ideas! We hope to post two trios each month until the monthly public gatherings resume. **Reading – *God’s Dream*** The Rev. Eva Marie Herndon Campbell is the Associate Minister at Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma. She works with families with children in 1st through 5th Grade, Adult Christian Education, and the United Methodist Women. “I chose the book, *God’s Dream*, by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams. This book speaks to my heart of the value of all persons as beloved children of God, offers examples of how to treat each other, and acknowledges all range of emotions from anger, sadness and happiness. Throughout this range of feelings, God is with us.” **Reflection** The Rev. Dr. George E. Young, Sr., is a state senator for Oklahoma Senate District 48. He is an ordained minister who earned two graduate degrees from Phillips Theological Seminary. “When one accepts a call to ministry or a call to a vocation, the expectation can never match the reality of the call because of the lack of experience to describe what might occur. I was glad to participate in this endeavor because it gave me an opportunity to consider my hopes for our country and community and the reality of the state of our country and community.” **Song – *Crystal Silence*** Sandy Shapoval, Dean of the library at Phillips, is also a part-time professional flutist in Tulsa where she teaches and performs. Dean Demerritt is a professional jazz and classical bassist. He performs throughout the region and is adjunct faculty at the University of Tulsa. With “Crystal Silence,” composer and vibes artist Gary Burton, and renowned keyboardist Chick Corea redefined the scope of jazz duo work. Sandy and Dean have always loved this beautiful piece. **Categories:** One From Many --- ### [No Government Deserves (or Can Handle) a Sacred Canopy](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/no-government-deserves-or-can-handle-a-sacred-canopy/) **Published:** May 13, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** > “There have been religions intimately linked to earthly governments, dominating men’s souls both by terror and by faith; but when a religion makes such an alliance, I am not afraid to say that is makes the same mistake as many might; it sacrifices the future for the present, and by gaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks its legitimate authority…. Hence any alliance with any political power whatsoever is bound to be burdensome for religion. It does not need their support in order to live, and in serving them it may die.” Alexis de Tocqueville, *Democracy in America*, 1848 edition ![One Ring to Rule Them All One Ring to Find Them One Ring to Bring Them All and in the Darkness Bind Them Gandalf the Grey | Gandalf Meme on ME.ME](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/81/13/3c/81133cfce1f8f93d4c5900aed7b6bffb.jpg) In the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, why is the freedom of religion bundled with freedom of the press, assembly, petition, and speech? One might argue that these are freedoms of conscience, freedoms of opinion. That seems correct. But I note that the last four of these freedoms are freedoms to dissent. The press shall not be a propaganda outlet for the state. “We the People…” must be free to express our grievances against the government through speech, petition, and assembly. In fact, to use another word, these four freedoms give the right to *criticize* the government. (The pandemic provokes a reminder, though: no right is absolute or functions outside of a relationship with other and other’s rights.) Is the freedom of religion also a right to dissent from and to criticize the government? Yes. Absolutely. An obsequious state-beholden media outlet is a danger to a constitutional democracy. In like manner, religion in the state’s hands is a tool of control and oppression. I might argue that state religion is worse than the state as puppeteer of news. Covering anything the state, or an elected official, does with a sacred canopy sets the state up as a god or, at least, as god’s instrument. Historical examples of why that cloaking is a terrible idea are legion. Legion squared. Religions in a democracy work better as critical, transformative forces than they do as priests of any administration. We religious people should set watchers who will sound the alarm when the state wraps itself in divinity—or when a religious spokesperson does the same. In my lifetime, I don’t think any administration has been so god-wrapped as the present one. In this particular historical moment, white evangelical and Christian nationalist leaders have bestowed the mantle of heaven on this president and his administration. Sure, on the progressive side, there has also been a too-close alignment of Social Christianity with particular policies, whether in the Franklin D. Roosevelt, Johnson, or Obama administrations. When identification between public policy and a particular kind of Christianity becomes so strong and predictable (e.g., the close overlay of religion and partisan agenda), one must wonder if the political or the religious (or both) is using the relationship for its own ends. When a government action is baptized, then I fear that the Reign of God has been collapsed into a particular regime, and the Gospel will be rejected when the regime is eclipsed by a successor. But these identifications from progressives are mere momentary breezes as compared to the storm of messianic praise white Christian evangelicals have heaped on this president and his policies. From moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem to promising a Nehemiah-like border wall, from appointing conservative judges to likening the president to King David and to Cyrus the Persian, from carving out wider spaces for shop owners to refuse service for religious reasons to allowing religious institutions access to government funds to pay salaries, and from demonizing opponents of the administration to circulating conspiracy theories, white religious right leaders have become court priests and prophets. And the adjective “white” in “white evangelical Christian” may be the most salient word of the three. Whether or not one is convinced by the argument that the U.S. was founded on white supremacy, that tainted water floods our history. Slavery. The triangle trade. The Declaration (read the whole document). The Constitution. Indian extermination and removal. Land-stealing. Manifest Destiny. The Civil War. The failure of Reconstruction. Jim Crow. Lynching, the KKK, and other forms of domestic terrorism. Immigration policies and practices. Voter suppression. Dogs, firehoses, assassinations. Vietnam. The war on drugs. Mass incarceration. Racial bias in policing. Stand your ground laws and killing black people who are “out of place.” “Constitutional carry.” Look at that lengthy and yet incomplete list of institutionalized racist beliefs and actions. And, in every case, white Christians blessed the beliefs and actions as what God requires. Makes sense, if you have a white supremacist, segregationist, law and order, America-First, Christian God who is just itching to rain fire on sinful humanity and unleash his righteous Son to punish evildoers. And if that is God, then I’m an atheist. Every government needs legitimating myths. But the Christian white supremacist myth must be swept to history’s dustbin if the promise of Lady Liberty is to become true, and if American Christianity is to be redeemed. It is time, it is well past the time, to strip the mantle of heaven from government officials and policies. Minimally, we need to disavow it whenever government looks to religion to bless its actions. And I don’t mean religious leaders should hold onto the mantle to bestow to an administration we like better. No, to change images: the mantle of heaven is more like the ring in Lord of the Rings. The ring needs to be destroyed, for no one can wear it without being corrupted. [Check out the new posts in the One from Many project](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-session-2/). Food for the journey—in about 10 minutes. **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [One from Many Online Session Three](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/one-from-many-online-session-three/) **Published:** May 26, 2020 **Author:** Center for Religion in Public Life **Content:** One from Many was envisioned to be a monthly public gathering throughout 2020, sponsored by the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Seminary and the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice. One from Many welcomes people of spiritual and moral conviction who want to work side by side to ensure the U.S. motto *E Pluribus Unum* (One from Many), the Golden Rule, and the universal values of compassion and justice are more evident in American life. **We will gather—but after it is safe enough.** In the between times, event leaders have solicited readings, songs, and reflections that we are sharing here. Each video is about 3 minutes long. So, in about 10 minutes, you can experience hope, challenge, inspiration, and fresh ideas! We hope to post two trios each month until the monthly public gatherings resume. Jameelah Stuckey is the Social and Emotional Learning and Implementation Fellow at The Opportunity Project, Tulsa’s intermediary for expanded learning. She is a California native and recently moved to Tulsa, she currently serves as the OCCJ TYPROS board intern. Jameelah shares a poem written by one of her favorite authors, Maya Angelou, entitled “Equality”. The poem uses metaphorical language to describe inequalities and challenge readers to boldly proclaim “Equality and I will be free.” The Rev. Dr. Kathy McCallie is Associate Professor of Ministerial Leadership and Ethics and the Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Phillips. She has been on the faculty for seven years. Her research focuses on ethical issues, social and transnational justice movements, and intersections of church and politics. She reflects on remaking America so that we see ourselves among the community of nations, living as good stewards of the earth, and a place where equality is as important as freedom. Avery Marshall (He/Him) is the Program Director for the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice. At the Anytown Leadership Institute, OCCJ uses A Change Is Gonna Come during an activity called Eye To Eye. The song speaks to the weariness and hope that working for a better world entails. **Categories:** One From Many --- ### [Let’s Imagine a U.S. American Holy Week](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/lets-imagine-a-u-s-american-holy-week/) **Published:** June 23, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** What is the relationship between Juneteenth and the 4th of July? I’m going to address that question by referring to Christianity’s Holy Week. Church goers hear a combination of admonition and lament from pulpits as Holy Week approaches: “You can’t understand and experience the meaning of Easter unless you attend to the stories of betrayal, suffering, and crucifixion.” In many, perhaps most, congregations, attendance on Palm Sunday (a week before Easter Sunday) and Easter Sunday spikes. But Thursday (Last Supper), Friday (crucifixion), and Saturday (waiting) services are much thinner. “Too many Christians want to move from the seeming triumph of Palm Sunday to the celebration of Easter without the pain, anger, sadness, and despair of Holy Week,” is an oft-heard clergy reflection. I thought about these Christian holy day experiences during the lead-up to and then the celebrations of Juneteenth this year. (And, as an aside, I offer my deep thanks and profound admiration for the Black leaders in Tulsa. They offered a tremendous witness to the best of America this year, between the celebration per se, their savvy in dealing with an unwelcome visit, the non-violent protests, and attention to the eyes of the world being on Tulsa.) I don’t think I’ve experienced a 4th of July, except maybe in 1976 during the celebration of the Bicentennial, when there has been more reflection on what U.S. America is and should be. And I’m sure there has been no 4th that offered reflections on the nation as helpfully critical as were proffered this year during Juneteenth. ![](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/juneteenth-us-flag-combo-1-e1592937944641.png)The U.S. flag with the Juneteenth flag. What is the relationship between Juneteenth and the 4th? Certainly, the story of the 4th requires Juneteenth as the compromises made among our white Fathers to rebel against England and write a constitution included the institution of slavery. One can’t tell a simple story about freedom in the U.S. The U.S. American story as told on July 4th is incomplete. The story requires other holidays/holy days in order to flesh out the fullness of the story, and to tell a truer story. Celebrating the 4th without Juneteenth is akin to celebrating Easter without walking through passion week, with its defeats, betrayals, and suffering. Just as a thought experiment: what would happen if every year we U.S. Americans celebrated a national holiday/holy week? Which holidays *together* would tell a truer, more inclusive, more nuanced story about which we U.S. Americans might reflect and come together? Which holidays might contribute to an “Out of many, one” experience? As a thought experiment, imagine this cycle (and please set aside the objections to moving holiday dates that are wedded to a calendar day): - Day 1—Indigenous People’s Day - Day 2—Immigrants’ Day - Day 3—Labor Day - Day 4—Memorial Day - Day 5—Golden Rule Day - Day 6—Juneteenth - Day 7—A day for fasting, reflection, repentance - Day 8—July 4th—Freedom and justice for all day Can you imagine the power of a July 4th preceded by celebrations of and reflections on the histories, cultures, and current realities of: original peoples and lands of the Americas; all the immigrant experiences; the labor (paid and unpaid) that built and sustains the nation; the spiritual and voluntary communities that teach us to extend our circles of care; the wars which we’ve thought so important (whether or not they were) that we sent our people to die; and more? Can you imagine the opportunities to be reminded both of aspirations for equality, equity, self-rule, and freedom of the people who make up U.S. America *and* the ongoing consequences of colonialism, wealth inequality, and racism? The holiday times must include opportunities for honest storytelling–the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful. Oh, I suspect that putting together a week like this is impossible, nothing more than a fantasy. Can you imagine the nasty politics that would shape or derail plans for the week? Can you imagine that week not devolving into campaign wars? I can see the idea for a U.S. American “holy/holiday” week dying a death of a thousand cuts. Quickly. But the thought experiment does beg essential questions about the meaning of and relationship between American holidays. Besides creating opportunities for retailers to manufacture sale periods and for Americans to buy more stuff, how do we mark our holidays? How do we think about them *together*? Imagine all the potential for education and for changing hearts as well as minds that, with the right leadership around the country, might be enabled by a concentrated holiday week. I leave you with one example of where this thought experiment touches my mind and my heart. Using the comparison to Holy Week, is the 4th or is Juneteenth more akin to the triumph of Easter? I’m still pondering the answer. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [What if Christians Hid Our Symbols from Public Life?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/what-if-christians-hid-our-symbols-from-public-life/) **Published:** June 30, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** [![](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/tulsaworld.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/42/742b179f-af86-5679-807f-fe35b5ba53d3/5eee701fa4970.image.jpg?resize=400%2C300)](https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/government-and-politics/black-wall-street-memorial-covered-to-protect-against-presidential-photo-ops/article_a3b0abd6-eee2-56d1-9747-4fa65bd60a9e.html)Residents cover portions of the Black Wall Street mural with messages, saying it is on sacred ground and an inappropriate place for a political photo op. KENDRICK MARSHALL/Tulsa World Leaders in Tulsa’s Black community used what I thought was a brilliant strategy during the president’s campaign rally. They did not think it was fitting for visiting dignitaries to appropriate markers such as the Black Wall Street mural or memorial monument as photo ops. [Greenwood’s leaders tarped the monument and papered over the mural](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/stay-away-black-tulsans-urge-pence-not-visit-historic-greenwood-n1231650). They judged they were protecting sacred sites from persons who might want to use them for their own purposes. The result: no photo ops. That strategy prompted me to think more about how to protect Christianity’s sacred symbols from being misappropriated in public life. Yes, I know. That train left the station LONG ago, and too many Christian leaders have, in fact, freely given over our symbols to the state, in exchange for policy favors and cultural privilege. Although the exchange of symbols for power is about 17 centuries old, there are still cringy moments where that exchange turns stomachs. Akin to the way he [awkwardly hugged the American flag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOSaJhRDCDI), the president [held up the Bible like a fly swatter in front of St. John’s Church](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oRQF68psdY). I would judge these acts as cringy, or worse, even if the president was named Lincoln. So, I’ll proceed with my thought experiment. What would happen if Christians tarped our symbols from public use—and abuse—for at least a year? It does not take a PhD to understand that the U.S. has reached a critical crossroads moment in our history. Will the nation’s myth (its deeply rooted story, regardless of the historical veracity of that story) continue to be used in the service of white Christian dominance with “liberty for all” used as a carrot? Or will the myth either morph into or be replaced by a myth that lays the foundation for a multicultural democracy? Or will the republic collapse into the black hole that democracy’s 18th century critics warned it would: into an authoritarian, illiberal state? The matter of which narrative we U.S. Americans use to frame ourselves—and which symbols, rituals, and moral principles re-enact that narrative in public life—is critical. The choice means life or death, both for ways of living as well as for who lives, who dies, who lives well, and who struggles to survive. How could we Christians keep our symbols from being abused, misused, or misappropriated in public life? Here is the exercise in imagination. What if Christian leaders consistently, publicly, respectfully, and yet loudly made demands and took actions such as: - “We ask the Village of Riverside not to display a creche on city hall property. The nativity story has been co-opted for consumer capitalism’s chief holiday, and we need to re-teach the meaning of Jesus’ birth to our own people.” - “For one year, all public officials and candidates for office should refrain from concluding a speech with, ‘God bless America.’ This exercise would force the speakers to choose closing words that might express their intentions more clearly than this reflexive—and mindless—use of ‘God.’” - “Elected and appointed officials, and court witnesses, will not place their hands on a Bible or conclude their oath of office with ‘So help me God.’ Since we are about to lose the Quaker-inspired tradition of shaking hands (which was an egalitarian substitute for doffing hats), let’s adopt their teaching that a person’s promise to tell the truth should stand on its own.” - “For the sake of Christians getting a clearer understanding of that for which we need to repent and repair, and to reveal motives that were cloaked in religion but whose substance was/is greed: Every strand of the Jewish and Christian traditions that strengthened and flavored the narrative of American Exceptionalism, especially those strands that were plucked from the Exodus-Promised Land-Conquest story cycle, shall be stripped from the national narrative.” - “The national motto for one year is not ‘In God We Trust.’ What should be the national motto, a short saying that is both real and aspirational? That question would open an interesting debate.” - “For one year, in public debate and discussion, elected officials while speaking as elected officials shall not refer to what God wills when speaking on the topic of human sexuality. What would cultural and policy debates look like if we acted as if we did not know in advance what God willed but had to claim the positions we take as *our* best reasoning?” - “And, while we’re at it, for every congregation in which the U.S. flag is displayed, the flag should be moved to stage left rather than stage right in order to avoid the appearance of idolatry in placing the state in the position of preeminence.” (I’m sure I’ve left out some juicy examples. And there is a whole other set of works of religion-rooted compassion that I’m not including in this thought exercise because they are in a different category.) Just thinking about this exercise should call this truth to our attention: many Christian denominations in the U.S. traded control over the meaning of our symbols for cultural influence and political power. Even in some progressive communities, I hear a hankering for a return to the days of Christian cultural dominance, when youth sports and movies did not compete with church. But there are particularly fraught moments when we Christians ought to be asking ourselves about the meaning-power exchange. Like now. The exercise of withdrawing Christian stories and symbols from culture raises a host of questions about how religion is used to justify and even whitewash base motivations and behavior. [Jonathan Haidt uses the images of an elephant to represent what our minds often want to do, and a rider as the reasoning part of the mind that justifies what the elephant wanted to do, that rationalizes where the elephant wanted to go.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24adApYh0yc) Religion often functions like the rider on a culture’s elephant. Greed—which one can see in lands stolen, persons enslaved, nature despoiled, and wealth inequality— has been the elephant in American culture. Christianity has been the rider. Time to get off the elephant, which is only soiling our name. No photo ops. No dressing up self-interest or discrimination or violence in Christian clothing, using “Look it up! God said it, I’m only reporting it!” to justify punishment. No “buy expensive gifts to show you love them” when the foundational reasons for buying are to keep the economy going, or because we are selling diamonds that make a lot of money for the seller. If we Christians could withdraw our symbols from public life, could figuratively tarp over them temporarily, what would be revealed—both in our witness and in the nation? Maybe more than we’d like to see and know. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Negative Freedom is Killing the United States](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/negative-freedom-is-killing-the-united-states/) **Published:** July 7, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In the first theology class I took in seminary, near the start of the course, the professor, lecturing on the Apostle Paul, said: “Christ sets us free. But there is freedom from and freedom for. Protestant Christian theology claims that, in some significant way, Christians are freed from the power of sin. But what are Christians freed for?” A Unitarian-Universalist minister mused how difficult it is to create a positive UU identity, “Most of the people in this congregation come from other religious traditions. They pushed away from something, from a form of religion they found oppressive. But many of them don’t really know what they’ve embraced.” I wish I had ten bucks for every time I’ve heard either a United Methodist or a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) layperson say, “What I like about this church is no one tells you what to think. You can think whatever you want.” Several decades after the “freed from/freed for” distinction I learned in that seminary classroom, I learned about the *philosophical distinction between negative freedom and positive freedom*. Negative freedom is freedom from, as expressed in “leave me alone” or “you can’t tell me what to do.” Negative freedom is independence from external control, whether by a king, any form of government, or a dominating spouse. Positive freedom is the ability to choose a path, to embrace—say—pursuing happiness. Positive freedom is making a commitment and embracing the attending responsibilities. Positive freedom means accepting the responsibilities, duties, obligations, and interpersonal connections that are integral to the path one chooses. In the U.S. today, we are seeing a frightful abundance of negative freedom play out in public life. That pushing off, pushing away, leave-me-alone, you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do freedom is killing us. ![](https://www.ksat.com/resizer/OyW7vEshGdDwc7dr63ViWHKPsgc=/1600x1068/smart/filters:format(jpeg):strip_exif(true):strip_icc(true):no_upscale(true):quality(65)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-gmg.s3.amazonaws.com/public/EZ5MMUCOF5E53POMHXXZX3SIFQ.jpg)AUSTIN, TX – APRIL 18: A protester holds up a sign protesting wearing a mask at the Texas State Capital building on April 18, 2020 in Austin, Texas. The protest was organized by Infowars host Owen Shroyer who is joining other protesters across the country in taking to the streets to call for the country to be opened up despite the risk of the COVID-19. (Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images) (2020 Getty Images) This idiotic controversy about mask wearing is the most prominent current example of death-dealing negative freedom. In using the word “idiotic,” I have Aristotle in mind: the human being is a political being, meaning a relational person, related to the *polis*, a collective or community greater than oneself. An idiot is one who stands apart from the *polis*, who claims to be a law unto oneself. Mask wearing, according to negative freedom claimants, is: unnecessary because the novel corona virus is no worse than the flu; unnecessary because everyone is going to die of something; state oppression in the form of a muzzle; part of a Democratic plot to undermine the president. All of these claims miss the central point about mask wearing. It is an action that protects other people more than oneself. It is an action that signals, besides compliance with the law in many places, “I know I am a member of a community, of a society, and I have a responsibility to manage my own behavior in order that I do not inflict harm on others. I wear a mask because, should I be infected but pre-symptomatic, my breath will not be the cause of someone else becoming ill, or worse.” The refusal to wear a mask is an example of negative freedom being a vehicle of death. And it is far from the only example one can find of death-dealing negative freedom. The ongoing experiment of the United States of America is whether or not we, as a people, can corporately and individually govern ourselves, take responsibility for ourselves and embrace our responsibilities for others sufficiently to keep the state as small as possible, and maximize positive freedom (the pursuit of happiness). A successful experiment would mean our corporate pursuit of happiness, of virtuous living (Jefferson may have reflected Aristotle’s understanding of happiness as a life consistently lived according to virtue—and, yes, I know about the contradictions regarding virtue in his life), included a critical common good, a robust embrace by individuals of their responsibilities for themselves and their neighbors, and corporate responsibilities premised upon an ethic of “do no harm.” How is the U.S. American experiment going as measured by *that* yardstick? Just one example from corporate America. In fossil fuel rich states such as Oklahoma, who pays for the long-term costs of fossil fuel energy extraction, refinement, and usage? Is it the corporations which frack, extract, and refine? Is it those of us who pay relatively little for a product which demonstrably has degraded the entire biosphere of the planet? The answer in both cases is “no.” Contrast U.S. America’s negative freedom/low responsibility examples with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, sometimes known as the Iroquois Confederacy—which is a thing of the present and not only the past. Faithkeeper Oren Lyons [said](https://www.pbs.org/warrior/content/timeline/opendoor/roleOfChief.html): > The Peacemaker taught us about the Seven Generations. He said, when you sit in council for the welfare of the people, you must not think of yourself or of your family, not even of your generation. He said, make your decisions on behalf of the seven generations coming, so that they may enjoy what you have today. Judged by a Seven Generation yardstick, U.S. American society is choking on the practices of negative freedom. The refusal to mask is but one deadly symptom of the larger issue. Until we, the people of the U.S., learn to exercise positive freedom in a manner that maximizes the practices of taking personal and corporate responsibility, along with pursuits of personal *and* corporate happiness, we and our descendants will suffer the severe consequences of too much “freedom from” and way too little “freedom for.” --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Which Civility do You Want?](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/which-civility-do-you-want/) **Published:** July 28, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** In Western Europe, the 16th century Reformation and its long aftermath broke the Christian churches’ hope for concord in church and society, if by concord we mean peace based on unity grounded in religious belief and practice. While some leaders are hardheaded and have delusions of returning to a religious-based unity, Christian churches cannot claim, through doctrine and right worship, to provide the *vinculum societatis*, the bonds that hold society together in harmony. We can’t even keep unity or unbroken community in the visible body of Christ. So, what ensures enough social glue, a sufficiently strong *vinculum societatis*, to hold a diverse society with unceasing disagreement together? This is an eternal problem for democracies. For several centuries, we’ve been trying something called civility. But what civility is and what civility requires are, themselves, matters of disagreement. Before I expand on what civility might mean, here is a list of the strategies that have been used in modern societies to deal with social disagreement and conflict. One can find examples in the U.S. of all but maybe two just since the 1940s. - Conversation, dialogue, persuasion - Argument - Toleration - Legislative action - Court action - Executive order - Boycott - Comedy/satire - Jeremiad - Shame-inducing shunning, ghosting, canceling, marginalizing, silencing - Civil disobedience - Violent protest against property - Violent protest against persons - Forced conversion/re-education - Voluntary withdrawal/succession - Excommunication/expulsion - Extermination - Containment—camps, walls, reservations - Revolution To which of these does civility apply? The first four. And as one reflects on those four, we might infer there is something very difficult about being civil, for change and conflict in U.S. society are not being addressed effectively through conversation, argument, toleration, or congressional deliberation. So, when talking about civility, we mean just one, highly limited form of dealing with conflict. ![The cover of the book Mere Civility](https://ptstulsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/mere-civility-book-cover-685x1024.jpg)After reading Teresa Bejan’s brilliant book, *[Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration](https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Civility-Disagreement-Limits-Toleration/dp/0674241649/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2C69LXSRZSR68&dchild=1&keywords=mere+civility&qid=1595943162&sprefix=mere+civi%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1)*, I am pondering anew what civility in the U.S might mean, in theory and in practice. Bejan holds up a 17th-18th century mirror for us. She examines the philosophical roots of civility as the *vinculum societatis* in post-Reformation Europe as according to the writings of Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. To jump to her conclusion for a moment: Williams is the hero of her story, and Locke is the villain. In brief, this is her argument. ***Thomas Hobbes—civility is keeping your silence in public when you disagree with your neighbors or the state; unity in public and with the sovereign is the social bond.*** To avoid a war of each against all, persons give up some of their liberty to form a social compact, governed by a sovereign. Church and state are two sides of the same entity, both governed by the sovereign. The sovereign decides what and who is to be tolerated and what and who is not. Among the public, citizens may disagree with their fellows privately. In public, they are to seek agreement or remain silent. For, to disagree is itself an offense, as one is claiming the other is in error. “Difference without disagreement required complaisant individuals to voice only those things that united them, rather than using their cutting tongues to tear the members of the commonwealth apart. The sovereign, too, must discipline citizens’ civil worship and speech so as to realize the virtue of civil silence on a social scale.” (107) ***John Locke—civility is tolerating differences in belief in order to build trust, for trust is the social bond***. Keep your fundamentals that must be believed few and large and your “things that really don’t matter fundamentally” many and small. Exercise mutual respect. Approach the table with love and charity. Argue in an honest, loving, sincere way and thereby strengthen the bonds of trust with each other even as we disagree. One must believe in “God, the Duty of Toleration, and the Golden Rule.” (138) Oh, and Catholics and non-Christians can’t be trusted. For Hobbes, one might believe differently from one’s outward actions; keep your disagreement to yourself. For Locke, the inner beliefs and dispositions and outer behavior must align, or there is not sufficient trustworthiness in negotiating conflict. ***Roger Williams—civility is the toleration (non-persecution) of disgusting people, beliefs, and practices in order to be free to try to persuade them—repeatedly—of their error; and they can do the same with you!*** Playing off of Hobbes, one might call Williams’ position “the evangelization of each against all.” Williams’ did not assume mutual respect, at all. Insulting each other is fair game. One tolerates the other because of a sense of one’s own partiality and fallibility, but also in hopes of eventually converting the other. This toleration extended to all forms of Christianity, and all religions, even the most disgusting sort (for him, that included Quakers, who were so uncouth that they refused to doff hats and insisted on shaking hands). Civility means practicing the prevailing social customs, following the laws, respecting society’s hierarchies. One can voice one’s disgust with a practice, but tolerate it nonetheless. Williams also drew a wall between civility and spirituality. Civility is strictly about “bodies and goods,” and excludes worship and soul-matters. He was the most careful in dividing between community as it ought to be in a *church* and community that is possible in *civil society*. Williams’ “mere civility,” as he called it, required that everyone who engages in public disputes needs a very thick skin and “patience and indifference to offense” (79). So, in summary (and not doing full justice either to Bejan’s work nor to the men she studied): *Hobbes—keep silent about disagreements and defer to the sovereign.* *Locke—tolerate beliefs, love and respect others if the other shows themselves to be trustworthy.* *Williams—observe outward customs, hold your nose in the presence of those who disgust you, but stay engaged and fight with words to convert the other (never, ever coerce), and ensure that everyone else (well, nearly everyone else) is accorded the same right.* Bejan’s discussion concludes by contrasting Locke and Williams. Locke, she argues, expects too much. One must agree to the rules of the game in order to engage. Modern critics of a Locke-type position claim disputants have to agree on nearly everything but their point of contention in order to sit down and talk. Such agreement is unlikely in real life apart from an academic colloquium (she was educated at Oxford) or the white rhino of “the ideal speech condition.” Marginalized persons who are not in a position to be “civil” by this standard, or whose very status is evidence of the incivility with which the dominant culture has treated them, are excluded by the rules of the game. She ends by claiming Williams offers the most realistic option, an option radically different from contemporary thinking and practice. Conflicts can be managed, not solved. Society needs less agreement than we think it does, and we should NEVER confuse the rich level of fellowship we expect in spiritual community with the thin soup we should expect in civil society. Remember we all see in part, even as we argue to convert others. Never, ever involve the state in coercing the beliefs of another. Hold your nose. Develop thick skin. Practice mere civility. Bejan is not attempting to offer the last word on the subject, but she does provide a distant mirror in which we can look and reflect on how we, as religious communities and as participants in the nation, see our conflicts and *vinculum societatis* anew. And remember: if we don’t practice civility well, whatever it means, the defaults for dealing with conflict will be one or more of the last 15 on my list above. What do you see? [(Bejan did an engaging, 13 minute TED Talk on her work](https://www.ted.com/talks/teresa_bejan_is_civility_a_sham). Title: “Is Civility a Sham?”) --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ### [Reckoning with History is Very Different from Erasing History](https://ptstulsa.edu/rpli/reckoning-different-from-erasing-history/) **Published:** August 4, 2020 **Author:** Gary Peluso-Verdend **Content:** Throughout history, religious-political regimes have frequently tried to erase conquered rivals from history. Jumping from era to era, and citing just a few examples: - Scholars have no idea when Jesus of Nazareth was born. But the early Roman church wanted to erase the festival of Saturnalia and picked December 25 in order to smudge out that pagan festival (and the church is still trying—but that is another matter). - The Great Mosque in Turkey was, until recent days, known as Hagia Sophia: Holy Wisdom. Before it was Hagia Sophia, it was a mosque. Before it was a mosque, it was the grand Christian Church of Constantinople, the eastern capital of the empire meant to eclipse Rome. And, the first imperial church in Constantinople was built to erase a pagan temple. - The Taliban provoked international outcry in destroying centuries-old Buddhist monumental art, erasing what they considered to be pollution in their land. - The Protestant Reformation’s iconoclastic destruction of Catholic art—windows, reliefs, statuary of saints—and ransacking and blowing out the walls of monasteries were complex actions of anger, resentment, the triumph of “the word” over “idolatry,” and (with the monasteries) stealing the wealth of one institution by another. - How many indigenous people’s holy places in Ireland or throughout the Americas were co-opted and outright stolen by one Christian mission or another, or (in the Americas) by fossil fuel companies “exercising dominion” and backed by the government? Legions upon legions. A few years ago, by invitation, I participated in a community committee called by the Tulsa Public School Superintendent, Dr. Deborah Gist. The charge of the committee was to research the names of all TPS schools, about 100 if I remember correctly. The issue of naming was alive in the Tulsa community and the nation. Several buildings were named for individuals who owned enslaved persons. Many honorees expressed bigoted opinions about people of color. After some training in equity, diversity, and inclusion, and with the guidance of facilitators and historians, the committee dug into the historical records and wrote up short summaries of what we found. We were not tasked with recommending changes to the Board of Education; simply, do the research. We learned about how other institutions had handled the matter of naming (such as [Yale University](https://your.yale.edu/report-outlines-principles-renaming-campus-buildings)). As a group exercise, we deliberated and debated the values embedded in building names and the reasons for re-naming buildings. Overall, this was a good exercise, both as a group and for me personally. The exercise was organized, thoughtful, honest, sometimes painful and difficult, and enlightening. I spent about two full days in the public library looking through Tulsa newspapers searching for information on the founding of the schools to which I was assigned. There was relatively little in the papers or in Board of Education minutes regarding why a particular name was chosen—with one exception (see below). In addition to newspapers, research also included perusing scholarly articles and encyclopedia entries about names such as Patrick Henry, Walt Whitman, and Christopher Columbus. It was not hard to find that Henry owned scores of persons, knew slavery was wrong, but could not imagine how he could live without them! Whitman’s statements on race were sometimes bigoted. And Mr. Columbus: while some historians still claim he was heroic, more argue he was a lousy human being. Robert E. Lee was not on my list of schools, but we all learned the purpose of that school’s naming, clearly stated in the historical record: the choice of names was a Jim Crow era expression of white supremacy meant to honor both the man who led the Confederacy’s rebellion and to keep alive the Lost Cause for which they fought. At the end of the process, I said to the group: “Almost all the schools in TPS were built prior to the early 1970s. They were named by all white or nearly all white officials, and schools were largely segregated still in the late 1960s. School naming seemed based on a desire to honor local philanthropists and educators, some number of national figures, and a few persons of color deemed acceptable to white majorities (no Malcolm X school in Tulsa). In fact, I’d say the whole naming scheme is built on white supremacy, most evident by the fact that white people almost exclusively were in the position of power to choose the names.” Now, the committee was doing our work while public schools were struggling mightily with being defunded. Teachers and staff were not paid a living wage. One teacher made national news by standing on street corner to beg for supplies. Whom we choose to honor with a name on a building is important, and I would not want to walk into a building daily named for a person whose resume includes genocide or enslavement, but the whole enterprise of public school education in a place like Tulsa is a battle. And there is only so much attention and energy to be given to any project that may be really important but not urgent. Well, in the end, the Board of Education received our report. Several school names were targeted for change, including Lee. Although renaming that school presented the clearest evidence the school was named to strengthen white supremacy, Lee parents and alums pushed back hardest. They had already renamed Robert E. Lee School in their heads as just “Lee.” I was really disappointed that the clearest moral example of why a name should be changed evoked the most controversy. It is important to note that the larger community did not have the opportunity to engage in a learning process as the committee did. Therefore, one could anticipate a-historical, gut-based responses. On a national basis, we are faced with the responsibility to learn history and check our gut reactions. We in the U.S. are not at a *moment* of reckoning; we inhabit an *era* of reckoning. I am no fan of mobs of persons pulling down monuments or defacing public architecture, both because a mob is an immoral form of democracy and because the public is deprived of a deliberative or educational process. But there will be a reckoning with our whitewashed history through which the bloodstains are, well, bleeding. We should be reckoning with names and public honoring of names and causes. Changing a name is NOT erasing history in the same way that redecorating a pagan temple and calling it a Christian basilica or carving the heads of four presidents into a mountain sacred to indigenous peoples WERE efforts to erase history. [![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbKTNooXQAInkXM?format=jpg&name=small)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbKTNooXQAInkXM?format=jpg&name=small)Statue of Christopher Columbus wrapped in plastic in Chicago’s Grant Park. (Photo from Marrisa Parra, Chicago CBS news @MarParNews) Reckoning is not erasing. It is learning the history that was previously suppressed. Columbus Day was created in the 1930s as a way to honor Italian culture and accepting us (my grandparents were immigrants) in the nation that called us vile names and which had recently shut its doors to more of us immigrating (the 1924 immigration act). But Columbus was greedy and genocidal, facts that were left out of history books from my era. I don’t want him representing me, and his statues don’t deserve public spaces. (I’d love for another figure to represent the contributions of Italians to American culture, maybe someone more like [A. P. Giannini.)](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/giannini_hi.html) The Lost Cause of the Confederacy bleeds from every building and statue and public depiction of their heroes. That “Cause” represents a dishonest, immoral, eclipse of history by a myth that perpetuates the Civil War, which may have been won by the North but from which we as a nation have never really freed ourselves. Until the latter part of the 20th century, Christianity in the West has been the consummate iconoclast, with Protestants arguably trumping Catholics in our desire and ability to erase other cultures. Learning suppressed histories, including suppressed histories in how we see ourselves, reckoning with the more inclusive history, and then extending reckoning to the naming of art and place, and re-considering whom we honor and why—all this is not erasure or iconoclasm. These actions could be preludes to more compassionate, inclusive, just democracy. --- [Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdend](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/) is president emeritus at Phillips Theological Seminary and is the executive director of the seminary’s Center for Religion in Public Life. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. Learn more about the Center’s work [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/center-for-religion-in-public-life/) and about Gary [here](https://ptstulsa.edu/meet-the-director/). **Categories:** Blog Posts --- ## Announcements ### [Photo of the Month Contest!](https://ptstulsa.edu/announcement/photo-of-the-month-contest/) **Published:** August 22, 2018 **Author:** anderj37 **Content:** Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Viverra tellus in hac habitasse. Aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit. Et tortor at risus viverra. Adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in. Metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed. Placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus. Eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae. Porttitor massa id neque aliquam. Lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim. Ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis. Aliquam vestibulum morbi blandit cursus risus. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis. Sed vulputate mi sit amet. Arcu non sodales neque sodales ut etiam sit amet. Turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent. Bibendum at varius vel pharetra vel turpis nunc eget lorem. Tincidunt eget nullam non nisi est sit amet facilisis. Eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla. Maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget. Hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non tellus orci ac. Luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac ut consequat. Quis blandit turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque. Vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Augue interdum velit euismod in pellentesque. In est ante in nibh. Est ultricies integer quis auctor elit. Diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet. At ultrices mi tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames. Amet luctus venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna. Amet facilisis magna etiam tempor. Vitae semper quis lectus nulla at. Cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque adipiscing commodo. Dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue. In nibh mauris cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at. Convallis tellus id interdum velit laoreet id donec ultrices. Quis viverra nibh cras pulvinar mattis. Mollis aliquam ut porttitor leo a diam. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit. A lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio euismod. Aliquam faucibus purus in massa. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum. Nibh tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec. Porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse. Massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis vel eros donec ac. Semper quis lectus nulla at volutpat diam ut venenatis tellus. Senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas sed. Ut ornare lectus sit amet. Quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar. Faucibus et molestie ac feugiat sed lectus vestibulum. Sem nulla pharetra diam sit. Ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant. Volutpat blandit aliquam etiam erat. Sollicitudin ac orci phasellus egestas tellus rutrum. Sed nisi lacus sed viverra tellus in hac habitasse. Platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit. Pellentesque sit amet porttitor eget dolor morbi non arcu risus. Risus feugiat in ante metus dictum at. Tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices gravida dictum fusce. Quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien. Eget lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum. Erat nam at lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus id. Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur. Convallis posuere morbi leo urna molestie at. Mi eget mauris pharetra et ultrices neque. Odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla. Leo duis ut diam quam nulla porttitor massa. Arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean et tortor at. Commodo quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Aenean sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing. Enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis. --- ### [Current Job Postings](https://ptstulsa.edu/announcement/current-job-postings/) **Published:** August 18, 2018 **Author:** anderj37 **Content:** Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Viverra tellus in hac habitasse. Aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit. Et tortor at risus viverra. Adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in. Metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed. Placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus. Eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae. Porttitor massa id neque aliquam. Lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim. Ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis. Aliquam vestibulum morbi blandit cursus risus. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis. Sed vulputate mi sit amet. Arcu non sodales neque sodales ut etiam sit amet. Turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent. Bibendum at varius vel pharetra vel turpis nunc eget lorem. Tincidunt eget nullam non nisi est sit amet facilisis. Eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla. Maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget. Hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non tellus orci ac. Luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac ut consequat. Quis blandit turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque. Vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Augue interdum velit euismod in pellentesque. In est ante in nibh. Est ultricies integer quis auctor elit. Diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet. At ultrices mi tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames. Amet luctus venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna. Amet facilisis magna etiam tempor. Vitae semper quis lectus nulla at. Cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque adipiscing commodo. Dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue. In nibh mauris cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at. Convallis tellus id interdum velit laoreet id donec ultrices. Quis viverra nibh cras pulvinar mattis. Mollis aliquam ut porttitor leo a diam. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit. A lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio euismod. Aliquam faucibus purus in massa. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum. Nibh tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec. 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