Adult Education October 2018 NASSAU PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Theologians for These Times

Sundays, 9:15 a.m., in the Assembly Room, unless otherwise noted

In its own time, every generation looks for the voices that speak powerfully through their responses to realities, struggles, challenges, and issues of import. Join us in examining the life, times and meaning-making of four theologians who spanned the century leading up to today. Come and allow the witness and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Russel Botman, Ignacio Ellacuría, and Reinhold Niebuhr inform how our Christian witness might address the theological dissonance in our world.

Oct Bonhoeffer and the Question of Oct Contemporary Theologian Russel 7 14 Compromise (1906-1945) Botman (1953-2014) Mark Edwards Dirk Smit has ideals of divine The South African theologian Russel Botman was perfection. Politics has real world internationally known for his contributions to problems. What’s a disciple to do public life - as a student leader when Christ isn’t on the ballot? against apartheid, an influential Working from both Bonhoeffer’s minister, as academic theologian, systematized Ethics and his as President of the South spontaneous reflections from African Council of Churches, as prison, we’ll address what he Rector and Vice-Chancellor of might teach us about confronting Stellenbosch University, and political and theological compromise. as leading voice in tertiary Mark Edwards joined Nassau as Director of Youth education in Africa. His family Ministries in September of 2013. He is a lifelong participated in the life of this Presbyterian and holds a PhD (Philosophy and congregation when Botman was a Fellow at The Theology, 2013) from Princeton Theological Seminary. Center of Theological Inquiry. One of the founding He has been an Assistant of Instruction at Princeton figures in what is today known as “public theology,” University, and is currently an adjunct professor at The he received the Kuyper Prize in 2014 for his College of New Jersey. Mark is married to Janine and contributions to public life. This class will focus on they have two children. how faith informed and inspired Botman’s own life In-depth Bible Study with George Hunsinger of public service - in his own words, his “project of hope.” Dirk Smit is the Rimmer and Ruth De Vries Professor Colossians of Reformed Theology and Public Life at Princeton Theological Seminary. Smit came to Princeton from Sundays, 9:15 a.m. South Africa, where he taught systematic theology at Maclean House (Garden Entrance) the universities of Western Cape and Stellenbosch, was involved in ecumenical church activities and George Hunsinger leads a verse-by-verse contributed to public life with both popular and examination of the Letter to the Colossians. academic writing.

Oct Ignacio Ellacuría: Radical Witness to Oct Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) 21 28 the Kingdom (1930-1988) Peter Paris & Francisco Pelaez-Diaz The subject of a high-profile documentary in Why in some instances does 2017, An American Conscience: The Reinhold witnessing to the Kingdom Niebuhr Story, and dubbed by Religion & Politics of God lead to the ultimate as “Washington’s Favorite Theologian, ” Reinhold sacrifice? How does this sacrifice Niebuhr was respected by the political left and in some cases become a life- right. A pastor (Evangelical and Reformed Church) giving inspiration for future before he was a celebrated theologian and foreign generations? The life and work policy expert, Niebuhr wrote prolifically about the of the Spanish-Salvadoran self, morality, ethics, politics, the public square, philosopher and theologian justice and so much more. Join us for a conversation Ignacio Ellacuría represents a clear example of this about theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s legacy and its kind of inspiration for a deep commitment to the relevance for our times. work of justice, freedom and the liberation from the Peter Paris is Elmer G. social and political conditions that inflict suffering Homrighausen Professor of and death. Join Francisco Pelaez-Diaz to learn more Christian Social Ethics Emeritus about this Latin American theologian, who remains at Princeton Theological Seminary. unfamiliar to many in the US, and explore together Paris is a world-renowned scholar, honored most recently by a the answers to these questions. collection in his honor, Ethics That Francisco Pelaez-Diaz is a PhD candidate in Religion Matters: African, Caribbean, and and Society at Princeton Theological Seminary. African American Sources. While Francisco is originally from Mexico and has worked in Princeton he also worked closely as an ordained pastor among immigrants in a with the multiethnic/multiracial PC(USA) congregation in African American Studies Dayton, Ohio. His dissertation –in progress– Is titled Program. He has also been a Visiting Professor in “Migration as a Way of the Cross: Ignacio Ellacuría’s Harvard University Divinity School, Union Theological Notion of ‘Crucified Peoples’ for Theological Seminary (New York), and Trinity Theological College Reframing of Central American Migrant Experience.” (Legon, Ghana). Daniel Migliore is Professor Emeritus of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. An ordained Presbyterian minister, whose broad interests include systematic Oct Oct Oct 14 21 28 theology, , the Trinity, and Christology. During his career Inquirer’s Class for he taught courses on Christology, the doctrine of God, the theology of Karl Barth, Barth’s Church Prospective Members Dogmatics, and an introductory course on the doctrines and practices of Christian 9:15 a.m., Niles Chapel faith. His book Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology has been a standard Come explore the meaning of Christian through three editions. Dan is a “clergy member” of faith, church membership, and the founda- Nassau. tions of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Contact Lauren McFeaters (lauren@nassauchurch. org, 609-924-0103 x102) Finding Faith in Literature

Sundays, 9:15 a.m., in the Music Room, unless otherwise noted

Recognizing biblical allusions and picking up on theological nuances in literature can deepen and enrich novels, poetry, classics, and every kind of writing. Take a fresh look at four authors and their works – you may want to start over or pick them up for the first time.

Oct Shakespeare and the Bible Oct Renewal and Rebirth in Jane Austen’s 7 14 Rhodri Lewis Persuasion Explore Shakespeare’s Deborah Nord relationships with, and use Austen’s final completed of, the text of sacred scripture. novel, Persuasion, published Writing before the publication posthumously in 1918, tells the of the King James Version, he story of spinster Anne Elliot’s relied for the most part on the so- second chance at happiness called Geneva Bible, though he with the same man, Captain occasionally shows awareness of Wentworth, she had rejected the Vulgate’s Latin. Rather than years before. But marriage turning to scripture as a source of truth or meaning is never just marriage in as earlier dramatists did, particularly those Jane Austen. This hugely satisfying love story is who wrote the Mystery Plays to which the young also a tale of spiritual renewal and even bodily Shakespeare was exposed, we find him treating rejuvenation, and it imagines, at the same time, it almost as a source like any other. He thereby a kind of renewal and reform of British social explores the tensions about the authority and relations. Longing for rebirth, for escape from her significance of scripture that dominated so much autumnal and dimming life, Anne Elliot also enacts of English and European public life in the century an escape from outmoded notions of privilege, class, after Luther posted his 95 theses. and marriage. Rhodri Lewis is Senior Research Scholar in English Deborah Epstein Nord is Woodrow Wilson Professor and Comparative Literature at Princeton University, of Literature at Princeton. A specialist in Victorian having recently moved from a Professorship of English literature and culture, her latest books are Gypsies Literature at the University of Oxford. He remains an and the British Imagination, 1807-1930 (2006), and, Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford. His most with Maria DiBattista, At Home in the World: Women recent publication is Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness Writers and Public Life, from Austen to the Present (Princeton UP, 2017), and he is currently at work on two (2017). She is currently working on a project about main projects: a short book on Christopher Marlowe, the relationship between 19th-century fiction and the and something much longer on the development of visual arts. satirical writing between 1500 and 1750.

Oct Milton’s Paradise Lost 21 Russell Leo In Paradise Lost John Milton gives an exciting poetic account of the fallen angels, the Creation

of humanity (to say nothing of SPECIAL NOON SESSION the rest of the universe), and life in Eden before and immediately after the Fall. But to what extent Oct Slavery, Presbyterians, and Princeton 28 is it Christian, at least in a way Jim Moorhead that we recognize today? And to what political ends does Milton write? These 12:15 p.m., Assembly Room are some of the abiding questions you will hear Examine how Presbyterians addressed in this introduction to Paradise Lost and addressed slavery in the pre-Civil its milieux. War period. Contrary to what one Russell Leo, originally from Rochester, New York, might suppose, the institution received his PhD from the Program in Literature at was not confined solely to the Duke University where he studied Reformation poetics South. Slavery still existed in New and their impact across seventeenth century Europe. Jersey, though with dwindling Leo came to Princeton University in 2009, first, as a postdoctoral fellow at the Society of Fellows and, numbers of people in bondage in the early 1800s. after 2012, as an Assistant Professor in the English Explore Presbyterian responses to slavery here Department. in Princeton--at the college, the seminary, First Church (predecessor of Nassau), and Witherspoon Street Church. Oct Harry Potter Belongs at Church 28 Jim Moorhead is professor emeritus of American Debbie Hough Church history at Princeton Seminary. He became J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series engaged in research on this topic when he wrote two is easily the best-selling and short essays for the university’s online Princeton and Slavery Project, and when he participated in the task most popular literature series force conducting an historical audit of Princeton in recent memory. These books Seminary’s relationship with slavery. Jim, his wife are a “portkey” from Harry’s Cynthia, and their three children are long-time world into the world of the Bible, participants in the life of the Nassau congregation. because they are jampacked with Christian symbols, values, themes, theological ideas and much more. You are invited to put on your spectacles of faith (if they are shaped like Harry’s even better!) and take a look into the wealth of ideas shared in the seven volumes for fans of all ages. Debbie Hough recently retired as the Director of Christian Education at Derry Presbyterian Church ADULT EDUCATION COMMITTEE Thinking about November… in Hershey, Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the Larry Alphs, co-moderator FAITH AND ACTIVISM Lisa Burke, co-moderator Presbyterian School of Christian Education and Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a Harry STAFF Potter mini-geek, her favorite character is Professor Corrie Berg McGonagall, she’s a Gryffindor and her animagus is a ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT Nassau Presbyterian Church buzzard. And she believes all of this can work together! Lauren Yeh 61 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ nassauchurch.org