January 23, 2019
Response to the Supreme Court’s Decision on the Transgender Military Ban
(more…)
November 20, 2018
The “What Is” and “What If” of Chaplaincy
Conscious and deliberate acts of caring are a unique human attribute. The need to care and to be cared for is essential to the survival of all human groups. We create communities, cultural norms, ethical frameworks, social constructs, and beliefs that help guide our choices, to make our lives meaningful and understandable. We make commitments, form families, and care for family members by nurturing their growth and development. We develop shared interests and identities with other families, seeking to sustain our wellbeing, survival, and flourishing. Yet, when we are baffled, suffering, scared, fearful, or engulfed in physical pain or moral dilemmas, we have traditionally sought care from religious and spiritual institutions. It is here, that we bring the full palette of our human spirituality to be acknowledged and addressed, seeking love and authentic relationships. We bring our desires for forgiveness, mercy, and autonomy. We bring our claims of faith to help us make meaning in the midst of the limited and fragile security of a human life. We bring our need for hope and vision, to satisfy the self-consciousness of our finitude. We want to be ethical and honest, humble, and grateful in a world where justice is fleeting and duplicity and evil are gratuitously on display. We bring our broken, ill-formed, halting questions and curiosities to religion and spiritual sources to be tended to, laid bare, and cared for. (more…)
September 27, 2018
Queer, Christian, and Ready to Serve: Putting the Pieces Together
Nikole Mitchell is a first year student at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, where she is pursuing an M.Div. with a concentration in Social Transformation: "My whole life I’ve had to choose between social justice and my faith," she explains. "I never had a place where those two came together. So, when a friend of a friend suggested I check out United, I went on the school's website and saw they had a Social Transformation program. Plus, was interfaith and affirming. It was everything I’d been looking for!" (more…)
September 27, 2018
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
Biblical Drag: Performing Gender with the Song of Songs.
From He to She, from You to Me: Worship as Drag in the Song of Songs (more…)
September 27, 2018
Introducing Social Transformation at United: Videos from Students.
At United, a key question is what makes an ethical leader. According Steve Newcom, Director of the Social Transformation Program, "there are injustices in the world" and for many of our students "their faith calls them to do something about that." In the following videos students discuss what calls them to study Social Transformation at United. (more…)
September 27, 2018
“Beloved is Where We Begin”: Sermon by Claire Curran
Beloved is Where We Begin (more…)
September 27, 2018
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…)
September 27, 2018
Interview with Dr. Ayo Yetunde on the Theology of Prince
"The Theology of Prince" is a project at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities headed by Dr. Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Assistant Professor of Pastural and Spiritual Care and Counseling and Director of Interfaith Chaplaincy. The project includes a call for essays, poetry, video, or visual art from the United Community in response to the theme. On September 27, 2017 I interviewed Dr. Yetunde about the project and her connection to Prince. (more…)