Thursday, July 30, 2020

Online Study of 'The Christian Imagination' Begins August 18


Copied URL to clipboard

Beginning August 18, a group of ministers, community members, and students are gathering online twice a month to discuss the book The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race by the Rev. Dr. Willie Jennings, associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale Divinity School.

The first online meeting is Tuesday, August 18, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. and the following meetings will be on the first and third Tuesdays of each month; the final meeting will be on Tuesday, December 15. Anyone may join the group at any point in the semester. To receive a Zoom link to participate in the discussion, register for free. For more information, email the Chapel’s community minister, the Rev. Breana van Velzen.

Called “a ground-breaking, magisterial account of the potential and failures of Christianity since the colonialist period,” the award-winning book takes up the question, Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? Rev. Dr. Jennings, previously a professor at Duke Divinity School, is a theologian and ordained Baptist minister.

The online group will use The Christian Imagination as a prompt for discussion about challenging times in our faith and how to learn from one another’s experiences. The group is co-organized by Duke Chapel and DurhamCares, a nonprofit that seeks to foster collaboration, develop leaders, and educate the people of our Durham to care for their neighbors in holistic ways.

Watch a recording of Rev. Dr. Jennings leading a recent racial justice roundtable on Racism: The History of the Problem, which was organized by DurhamCares and Mount Level Missionary Baptist Church in Durham: