The Sprunt Lectures

“Redeeming the Creature: Race, Place, and the Hope of the Church”

The Rev. Dr. Willie Jennings, a major figure in theological education across North American, is the featured speaker at the 2018 Sprunt Lecture series May 7-9, 2018 on the Richmond campus of Union Presbyterian Seminary. The topic is “Redeeming the Creature: Race, Place, and the Hope of the Church.”

“These lectures will be devoted to helping Christians rethink the nature of life together as creatures. Christianity in the west suffers from a defective doctrine of creation that has been plagued with both the racial condition and a horrid understanding of place. Together these problems have rendered the doctrine useless – it does no significant work in shaping the way we understand creaturely life together. In these lectures, I will explore the reasons for this defect and suggest what a robust doctrine of creation should teach us.”

Jennings serves as associate professor of systematic theology and African studies at Yale University Divinity School. He is the author of “The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race,” for which he received the American Academy of Religion book award in 2011 and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion in 2015. The work was described as a “theological masterpiece” by the Englewood Review of Books.

The Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield (M.Div.’96), editor and publisher of The Presbyterian Outlook, will be the preacher for the three-day event.
Worship Titles: “Mature Little Children” (Col 1: 15-29 and Mark 10: 13-16) and “Where are you from?” (Isaiah 43: 1-7 and Luke 13: 22-30)

2018 Distinguished Alumnus: The Rev. One Ho Park (Ed.D’89), president of the Graduate School of Practical Theology in Seoul, Korea

2018 Black Alumni Association Trailblazer:  The Rev. Karen Brown (M.Div.’92), pastoral associate at Grace Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland, and resource developer for Intersection of Change

Join us for the Third Annual Union Golf Tournament on Monday, May 7th, at Jefferson Lakeside Country Club, 1700 Lakeside Avenue, Richmond, VA 23228.

More information and registration at www.regonline.com/Sprunt2018.

Click here for a link to the event brochure and schedule.