Constructive theology project plans underway
The constructive theologies project planning team met in Chicago last week: Yvonne Gilmore (project director), Jose Morales (PhD student DSF), Allie Lundblad (MDiv student DDH), Andrew Packman (PhD student DDH), Christian Watkins (MDiv grad Yale), and, not pictured, Alexis Kassim (MDiv grad DDH). The project seeks to ensure space for the peer development of creative, faithful, risk-taking theological thinking.
The project envisions cultivating innovative ideas that "move" across racial, vocational, intellectual and economic lines to address the challenges and possibilities that face the Disciples of Christ. Young Disciples leaders are already responding to these questions as they minister in traditional and transforming congregations, labor in the non-profit world, plant new congregations, and engage these questions in the academy. ("Young" here means persons who are still in or just out of graduate school.) While there is a loose network of such persons, they are dispersed across the country and are often located at the margins of the church, outside of formal denominational structures. This project seeks to connect them to one another and to galvanize shared constructive theological work. It is funded by a grant from the Oreon E. Scott Foundation.