Sep 30
Convocation: Emilie Townes
Emilie Townes is a distinguished scholar and leader in theological education, with broad areas of expertise including Christian ethics and cultural theory. The dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School and Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society, Townes has been a pioneering scholar in womanist theology, a field of studies in which the historic and current insights of African American women are brought into critical engagement with the traditions of Christian theology. Townes has a strong interest in thinking critically about a faith, rooted in both spirituality and social justice, that can help confront the important issues of our day such as health care and economic justice. Townes reflects on all that has happened in the United States and the world that has been linked to religion in the last year. She asserts that, despite other predictions, religion is still very much with us, sometimes in relevant ways and sometimes not; that the search for meaning is eternal and far from a dying thing, religion is flourishing and will continue to do so. The title of her presentation is “The Future of Religion is Ascendant – But It is Not the Religion of the Past.”