Join us for the 74th Annual Spring Convocation
Featuring The Brueggemann and Kulekamp Lectures and Reunion Days!
In conjunction with Herbster 2008

Dates: April 1-2, 2008
Location: Eden Campus - S. D. Press Education Center
Theme: Globalization and its Challenge to the Church
Featuring: Rebecca Todd Peters and Peter Paris

Tentative Schedule (subject to change)

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Time	Event
8 - 9am	Registration – Boeke Center
9 – 10am	Worship with guest preacher
10:30am - 12pm	Lecture by Peter Paris
12 - 1:15pm	Lunch – Schroer Commons
1:30 - 3pm	Lecture by Rebecca Todd Peters
3:30 - 5pm	Herbster Panel (open to all)
5 - 6pm	Reception – Boeke Center
6pm	Convocation Banquet – Eden Campus

Wednesday, April 11, 2008

Time	Event
8:30 - 9am	Registration – Boeke Center
9 – 10am	Worship – Senior Preacher
10am - 12pm	Lecture by Rebecca Todd Peters
12 - 1:15pm	Lunch – Schroer Commons
1:30 - 3pm	Lecture by Peter Paris
3:30 - 4:30pm	Student Juried Paper – Luhr Library
4:45 - 5:45pm	Reception and Reunion Class Photos – Luhr Library
6pm	Reunion Dinners– Eden Campus

Lectures

Rebecca Todd Peters
Changing Direction: Theological Resources for Engaging Globalization
As Christians in the first world struggle with the theological questions of privilege, blessing, and justice in a world of global poverty and inequality we need to develop a theology that helps us to change. This lecture will explore theological resources for First World engagement with globalization that offer hope and courage for promoting justice and sustainability in our world.

Changing Direction: Strategies for Living Faithfully as First World Christians
One of the difficulties of challenging the power of dominant ideologies and power structures is simply acknowledging that viable alternatives exist. This lecture will focus on household, community, and global strategies that can contribute to the kind of large scale social change that is necessary to address the ethical problems that globalization poses in the 21st century.

Peter Paris

Globalization and the Church: A Topic for Celebration, Criticism and Change – Part 1
Globalization and the Church: A Topic for Celebration, Criticism and Change – Part 2



Rebecca Todd Peters
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Elon University

In addition to teaching ethics courses in the Religious Studies department at Elon University, Rebecca Todd Peters is a member of the Environmental Studies faculty and offers courses in the Honors program and the Women and Gender Studies programs. Research and teaching areas include economic and environmental ethics, sexuality issues and reproductive concerns. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is active denominationally and ecumenically. She recently chaired the PCUSA task force on just globalization and is currently serving as a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. She is a graduate of Rhodes College (B.A.), and Union Theological Seminary in New York (M.Div., Ph.D., Christian Social Ethics). Her book, In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization (Continuum, 2004), won the 2003 Trinity Book Prize. She has also co-edited two books, Justice in the Making (Westminster/John Knox, 2004) and Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community and World (Westminster/John Knox, 2006).

“Toddie Peters is quickly becoming one of the important voices in the field of ethics particularly around the complex issues of globalization and society. Her book In Search of the Good Life is the winner of the 2003 Trinity Prize, awarded annually to a writer or scholar in the early stages of their career. She has a powerful mind, a strong passionate spirit and is a delightful compelling speaker. I believe her to be a great gift to the church and the world of scholarship.”

Damayanthi Niles
Associate Professor of Constructive Theology
Eden Theological Seminary




And featuring:

Peter Paris
Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Liaison with the Princeton University African American Studies Program
Princeton Theological Seminary

Peter Paris earned his B.A. and B.D. degrees from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His courses cover various subjects in African American social ethics, Aristotle’s ethics and politics, and the theology and ethics of Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr. An ordained Baptist minister, he is an active member of the First Baptist Church in Princeton. He is past president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. Paris is the senior editor of the New York University series “Religion, Race and Ethnicity,” general editor of The History of the Riverside Church in New York City, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He is a member of the board of trustees of New York Theological Seminary and the Princeton Young Achievers, an after-school program for children of low-income families.

The preeminent social ethicist, Peter Paris, has focused much of his scholarly effort on retrieving African spirituality and trying to understand how this religious experience – rooted in God, community, family and person – has continued to sustain the life of African American Churches. By so doing, Professor Paris has not only provided a way to be spiritual and ethical that diverges from the more individualistic forms of Western cultural life, he has also broadened the vistas of social ethics in general and the way that global theology and ethics can be conceived.

John Riggs
Professor of Historical Theology and Church History
Eden Theological Seminary

With Guest Preacher
(Tuesday, April 1)

Terry Provance
Executive Director
Oikocredit USA

Terry Provance has been Executive Director of Oikocredit USA, in Washington, DC, since November, 2001, and has worked successfully to increase investments and publicity for the socially responsible and development-focused nationwide organization. The Reverend Provance is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He pastored a local UCC congregation in Pittsburgh for 5 years before administering an international program in the national Cleveland office for 10 years prior to joining Oikocredit. Terry has traveled extensively throughout the world visiting more than 100 countries for peace, economic justice, disarmament and racial equality. He has worked for the National Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church USA, American Friends Service Committee and the Unitarian Universalist Association and received an M.Div. from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an MA in Christian Social Ethics from the Graduate Theological Union.

The Brueggemann and Kulenkamp Lecture Series
The Brueggemann and Kulenkamp Lecture Series brings together outstanding Biblical and theological scholars with alumni/ae, faculty, students and others to explore some of the cutting edge dialogue taking place in the church today. In addition to the lectures, participants will have the opportunity to experience the nature and direction of academic life at Eden through the presentation of several juried student papers.

Reunion Days
This is also a time for reunions with alumni/ae dinners and many opportunities for informal conversation with classmates, students and professors.

The class of 1958 celebrates its 50-year reunion. Class members will be guests of the Seminary at a dinner in their honor on Wednesday, April 2, 2008.

All classes graduating prior to 1958 will also be guests of the Seminary for their Reunion Dinners.

In addition, Reunion Dinners will be held for the following classes: 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1993, 1998 and 2003.

For more information or to register by phone for Spring Convocation, please contact:

Continuing Education
Eden Theological Seminary
475 East Lockwood Avenue
Saint Louis, Missouri 63119
phone: 314-918-2547
toll-free: 877-627-5651
fax: 314-918-2544