125th Anniversary Plans
The Disciples Divinity House will celebrate a historic 125th anniversary in 2019. The celebration will take place on May 24-26, Memorial Day Weekend, in Chicago. Speakers for the weekend include Teresa Hord Owens, Sandhya Jha, Stephanie Paulsell, W. Clark Gilpin, Robert M. Franklin, the Honorable Betty Sutton, actor Drew Powell, Ayanna Johnson Watkins, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Cynthia Lindner, Holly McKissick, Julian DeShazier, Lee Hull Moses, Vy Nguyen, Garry Sparks, Braxton Shelley, Santiago Piñón, and more.
On Friday, Honorary Co-Chairs JoAnne Kagiwada and Clark Williamson will welcome guests to the Disciples Divinity House. After worship and a barbeque supper, Rebecca Anderson and Yvonne Gilmore will co-host a DDH StoryHour. Hannah Fitch will provide soulful music.
Saturday will feature a lecture, three panels, and focused discussion sessions, sponsored under the auspices of the Hoover Lectures. Larry Bouchard, Professor of Religion at the University of Virginia, will enunciate the anniversary theme, “Grateful for what is to come,” which will echo throughout the weekend. Historians W. Clark Gilpin and Susan E. Schreiner will respond by exploring “gratefulness and timefulness.”
What are our responsibilities to a future that cannot be fully known? How can gratitude for past and present communities ready us to move onward with courage and vision? How might art, worship, community engagement, theology, and preaching, attune us to the demands of the future?
At a time when the future may seem particularly uncertain and may provoke anxiety and despair, critical awareness of the past and present is especially crucial. For if the past is acknowledged with recognition of the unexpected gifts and hard-won knowledge that constituted it, and the present received as an opportunity to respond with gratitude for these past gifts, then the challenging unknown of the future might elicit sage and courageous ministry, scholarship, and leadership. The point is not to be more optimistic, but rather to engender gratitude, thought, and action.
A panel of distinguished academics will explore teaching and learning for what is to come: Harvard professor and Christian Century columnist Stephanie Paulsell, Morehouse College President Emeritus Robert Franklin, Vanderbilt practical theologian Bonnie Miller-McLemore will speak with Divinity School Dean David Nirenberg presiding. Another panel of innovative practitioners Sandhya Jha, Ayanna Johnson Watkins, and Holly McKissick, with Julian DeShazier presiding, will invite ministry, thought, and action towards what is to come.
A gala dinner will take place on Saturday evening at the Quadrangle Club, with Dean Kris Culp, Board President April Lewton, and 125th Anniversary Chair Chad Martin. Trustee Gaylord Yu and actor Drew Powell (of TV series Gotham, Ponderosa, and Malcolm in the Middle) will serve as Masters of Ceremony.
On Sunday, Teresa Hord Owens, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), will preach at University Church, offering a compelling message for these times.
Disciples minister and writer Thandiwe Dale-Ferguson is planning morning prayer for the quiet of the extraordinary Chapel of the Holy Grail. Opportunities for a focused conversation with practitioners and scholars will be offered on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday morning. Family-friendly activities are being planned, with childcare for the youngest children and activities for older children.
The celebration will be immediately preceded by a Divinity School and DDH Ministry Alumni/ae gathering, featuring reflections by Cynthia Lindner on “Multireligious formation as a perspective on ‘public ministry,’” with responses by faculty and alumni/ae from varied religious traditions.
The 125th celebration will be followed by the Second Annual Amy A. Northcutt Lecture to be given by the Honorable Betty Sutton, the former Congresswoman and Gubernatorial candidate from Ohio. The event remembers Amy Northcutt, a former DDH Board President who was CIO of the National Science Foundation at the time of her death. A panel, hosted by Verity Jones, will focus on women and transformative leadership and feature Constance Battle, Ronne Hartfeld, JoAnne Kagiwada, and Gail McDonald.
Registration closes May 10. The weekend’s events are supported by the Hoover Lectures, so registration costs have been minimized. A commemorative mug is offered free with registration by March 31.