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‘Let me stop there. I’m getting ready to start preaching’

Anytime two deans and a seminary president are gathered for conversation around “Womanist Herstory, Womanist Hope,” those privileged to listen in can count on a thoughtful and thought-provoking hour. Listen to their conversation, recorded last week, by clicking here.

Making real the promises of democracy

“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said during his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, capping the March on Washington. Almost six decades later it’s well past time. But two leaders engaged mightily in the struggle said during Monday’s online forum “God and Division” hosted by the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership at Union Presbyterian Seminary said religion has a significant place in the battle.

Breaking free from purity culture

The second Linda Kay Klein heard that the gunman in the March 16 shootings at three Atlanta spas considered his victims “stumbling blocks,” she knew he had been raised in purity culture.

‘Keep a sense of wonder’

With each of his guests on the podcast Leading Theologically, the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty opens with the same question: what is making you come alive? On Wednesday, the Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz, a PC(USA) pastor and the assistant dean of Admissions, Vocation and Stewardship at the Vanderbilt University School of Divinity, had a ready answer.

Gelling too soon

In Gail Godwin’s book “The Finishing School,” which features an older woman and a 14-year-old girl, the woman tells the girl she can tell by looking whether a person has congealed. That person will have no more surprises, the woman tells her young friend, and to avoid the trap she must constantly be on guard against gelling too soon. It’s a valued vignette in one of the Rev. Dr. Lib Caldwell’s favorite books.