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The Sunday Forum, May 25, 2008 Theology in Action: King, Bonhoeffer, and You |
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Sunday Forums
Sunday Forum On-Demand:
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Sunday, May 25, 2008, 10–10:50 am Theology in Action: King, Bonhoeffer, and You with Charles Marsh, professor of Religious and Theological Studies and director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia.
Marsh leads the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia, which he describes as “a means of bringing together academics and practitioners. It’s an attempt to bridge the gap btw the study of theology…and the practices of people in community.”
His most recent book is Wayward Christian Soldiers, which Lloyd calls “almost too hot to handle.” The volume examines the nexus between the religious right and political power in recent years. Marsh expresses particular dismay at bellicose sermons preached in the run-up to America’s recent and lingering wars. “When Jesus makes an appearance, it’s almost as an uninvited guest,” he says. “It does seem that we lost our understanding that the first axiom of our faith and practice is following this new and costly path of Jesus of Nazareth.” Instead, he assesses, too many preachers explored arcane passages in the Old Testament, and made incomplete analyses of the theory of just war. 
About the GuestCharles Marsh is professor of Religious and Theological Studies and director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia. His special interest in the ways faith has shaped social justice movements in America is reflected in his books God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights and The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today. His most recent book is Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity.
(also listed in Cathedral worship service leaflets) For more information, please contact Deryl Davis at (202) 537-6382 or e-mail ddavis@cathedral.org. |
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Charles Marsh meets with Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III to talk
about “Theology in Action: King, Bonhoeffer, and You.”
This approach is borne of Marsh’s pilgrimage as a southerner who came
of age in the Jim Crow south, and who was “haunted” by early experience
of a faith disconnected from the anguishes of life. As a child and youth
in Alabama and Mississippi, Marsh watched his father, a Southern Baptist
minister, gradually move away from the acceptance of segregation and
eventually preach a sermon entitled “Amazing Grace for Every Race.”
Marsh records his experiences in a memoir, Last Days: A Son’s Story of
Sin and Segregation at the Dawn of a New South.
Marsh has also written extensively about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as fellow Mississippian
Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights leader. His books include Reclaiming
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God’s Long Summer, and The Beloved Community.