Upcoming Conference: Nurturing the Prophetic Imagination

On March 24-26, Point Loma Nazarene University will be hosting a four-day, interdisciplinary conference entitled: Nurturing the Prophetic Imagination. This promises to be an exciting and stimulating event, drawing a diverse and distinguished ensemble of plenary speakers (not to mention something like 70 additional session papers). Particularly noteworthy is the panel session wherein Nate Kerr, Rosco Williamson, and William T. Cavanaugh will discuss Cavanaugh’s new book, The Myth of Religious Violence. 

Plenary Speakers

• Bill McKibben — Christian environmental activist, scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and author of Deep Economy; The End of Nature; Hope: Human & Wild , and The Age of Missing Information.
• Kathleen Norris — A Poet and Essayist, Norris is author of Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life; Dakota: A Spiritual Geography; Cloister Walk; Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith and The Virgin of Bennington.
• Michael Eric Dyson — A Sociologist and Theologian  from Georgetown University, Dyson’s newest book April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How it Changed America, joins his others: Can You Hear Me Now?; Come Hell or Highwater: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster; Holler if You Hear Me.  
• Emmanuel Katongole — Theologian and priest, associate professor of theology and world Christianity and co-director of the Center of Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School, Katongole is author of A Future for Africa: Critical Essays in Christian Social Imagination; Beyond Universal Reason; and African Theology Today.

Special Guests

• Joining us will be Dr. William T. Cavanaugh, a professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) who will be hosting a special conference session to review his most recent book, The Myth of Religious Violence. He is also the author of Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (1998); Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (2008).
• Dr. Ron Benefiel is the president for Nazarene Theological Seminary (Kansas City, MO). Trained as a sociologist, he is also an ordained minister who has pastored churches in a variety of urban settings. He is author of A Theology of Place: Ministry in Transitional Communities (1996).

A revised and comprehensive conference schedule can be accessed here.