Thursday, January 05, 2023

Discussion Groups Begin for Dean Powery's New Book


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As part of the Duke Chapel Reads program, online book groups, organized by the Congregation at Duke Chapel, will discuss Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery's new book, beginning next Wednesday, January 11. In the book Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race, Dean Powery contrasts a view of humanity that sees race as essential and valuing some bodies over others with a theological understanding of humanity, shaped by the biblical account of Pentecost, that sees the diversity of human bodies as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Sign up to join a book group. They are free and open to the public.

“The Spirit as a person of the Trinity has no color or race, yet the Spirit takes on human flesh, even flesh that has been racialized, thus dehumanized, in order to rehumanize God’s blessed creation,” Dean Powery writes in the book’s introduction. “This means that not even the Spirit is color-blind; she takes on the hues and colors of all of humanity by indwelling them, not to enthrone color or feed the raced imagination but to affirm the beauty of God on all flesh.”

Watch an interview Dean Powery did about the book on the Left of Black show with Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal:

Dean Powery will also lead a seminar on his book on Saturday, February 18, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Trinity Ave. Presbyterian Church in Durham. Hosted by the Congregation, the seminar will begin with refreshments and conclude with a catered lunch. The seminar is open to the public with a fee of $10 per person, which offsets the cost of the lunch. Click here to register for the seminar.