injustice Archives - United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities

September 27, 2018

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United Rejects Religious Discrimination in Health Care

On January 18, 2018, the Trump Administration announced the creation of a “civil rights” division within the Department of Health and Human Services that would allow health workers to discriminate against patients and clients by refusing care on religious grounds. United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities declares this policy as sacrilegious, a perversion of civil rights, and un-American. We call for its immediate reversal. (more…)

September 27, 2018

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Readings on Rosh Hashana: Hagar, Abraham, and the Wilderness

This semester I am taking Interpretation as Resistance: Womanist, Feminist, and Queer Approaches to the Bible taught by Professors Alika Galloway and Carolyn Pressler. This week’s reading concerns the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Sarah is unable to bear children, which is unfortunate since her husband Abraham is supposed to father “a great nation” (Gen. 12.2). Sarah comes up with a plan to have Abraham use a surrogate: her Egyptian slave Hagar. Abraham agrees, lays with Hagar, and Hagar conceives. The Bible then tells us that Hagar “saw that she had conceived [and] looked with contempt on her mistress”(Gen. 16.4). Sarah responds by being so cruel to Hagar that she runs away to the desert. Upon finding a spring of water, Hagar meets an angel of God who gives her an ambivalent message: go back and submit to a life of cruelty but also your son Ishmael will be the father of nations. A mixed bag, for sure. (more…)

August 3, 2018

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On Repentance and Glass Houses: A Response to Charlottesville by United President Dr. Lewis P. Zeidner

Many in our United community have waited with frustration as I have struggled to pen a response to the events of the last week. My challenges have not been about renouncing the events of Charlottesville or the comments of our misguided President but seeking a level of clarity about how we are called to respond. (more…)

June 21, 2018

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A Statement on Trump’s Executive Order from the Faculty of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer (more…)