Earl Lectures

The 112th Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference Be|Art|Now held January 29-31, 2015 brought together activists, artists, and progressive people of faith to experience the intersection of art, spirituality, and social transformation. Participants experienced performances, exhibits, public arts, and worship to explore innovative ways they could integrate art into their vocations and spiritual lives. Keynote speaker and preacher Adriene Thorne, speaker Tim Holmes, and performances by Michael Franti and Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira led members of the conference into deep explorations of art and social justice.

Michael Franti {musician, filmmaker}

Adriene Thorne {pastor, dancer}

Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira {playwright, musician, police officer}

Tim Holmes {sculptor, philosopher}

Rossitza Schroeder {assistant professor of arts and religion, PSR}

The 110th Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference, Our Daily Bread: Faith, Work, and the Economy, brought together religious and secular leaders to teach, preach, and strategize about issues of economic justice.  Joined by Robert Reich, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Kim Bobo, Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, Bishop Yvette Flunder, and many more renowned speakers and presenters, members of the PSR community came together to strive to live out the Gospel message to care for “the least of these.”

Robert Reich

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

Kim Bobo

Rev. Alexia Salvatierra

Bishop Yvette Flunder

There is something new emerging inside, alongside, and even outside the familiar institutions and expressions of Christianity in North America. What will this “new thing” be, and how will it affect the traditional church? The 2009 Earl Lectures provided an opportunity to experience and reflect critically on new forms of spirituality and worship associated with the emerging church.

The 108th Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference was held in the Ecumenical Center of Berkeley, the former University Christian Church, and marked the first time the lectures had been held on Holy Hill since 1949.  Speakers guided explorations of popular culture, generational change, and religious innovation in North America.

Jay Bakker

Bruce Reyes-Chow

Karen Ward

Gerardo Marti

Boyung Lee

In Genesis, a single, unnamed river flows out of Eden and branches into tributaries that run to different parts of the world, providing us with a metaphor for the world’s religions and reminding us that Americans today live in an interfaith world in ways never imagined in our history. “We the people” now include Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, and new varieties of Christians and Jews, while the original people of this land still hold fast to their own sense of the sacred. Members of all the world’s religions now live in the same neighborhoods, profoundly affecting schools, markets, and the halls of government. And all the while the world bristles with the weapons and wars of religious intolerance.

The 2007 Earl Lectures grappled with these momentous questions, challenging and informing our thinking about the place of Christianity among the world’s religions and changing our practice as we become profoundly involved with people of other faiths.

Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub

Bernice Powell Jackson

Tat-siong Benny Liew

Choan-Seng (C.S.) Song

The 2005 Earl Lectures on the theme “Sex and the City of God” attracted one of the largest audiences in the event’s 104-year history.  Discussion focused on the dilemmas in the definition of and right to marriage and on clergy and sexuality during two panel discussions.  In addition, the 31 workshops of the Pastoral Conference enabled participants to delve deeper into specific issues, such as sex in the Bible, queer theology, pastoral care responses to sex, coming out, youth ministry and sexuality, sexual ethics, issues in Asian/Pacific Islander and African American families and congregations, and HIV/AIDS ministry.

Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire and the first openly gay Episcopal bishop

Eric H.F. Law, missioner for congregational development of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and author of The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirituality for Leadership in a Multicultural Community

Christine E. Gudorf, professor at Florida International University and author of Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics

Douglass Fitch, pastor of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church

Inspired by the life and ministry of the late PSR Professor Robert McAfee Brown (1920–2001), the three-day event explored ways that faith communities can take a greater leadership role in shaping public discourse in a troubled world.

Gustavo Gutiérrez, renowned Latin American liberation theologian

Nancy Ammerman, sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary

Gary Dorrien, theologian and chaplain at Kalamazoo College

Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan, PSR Associate Professor

Thomas Hoyt, Bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and President of the National Council of Churches.

Sydney Brown, Director of the Northern California Interfaith Council on Economic and Environmental Justice

Daniel Ellsberg, best known for his release of the Pentagon Papers

John Fife, Presbyterian minister and one of the founders of the US Sanctuary Movement

C. Welton Gaddy, Executive Director of The Interfaith Alliance

Leontine T.C. Kelly, retired United Methodist Bishop

Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission

Hubert Locke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington Graduate School of Public Affairs