Chicago Theological Seminary is pleased to present the 2023 André LaCocque Interreligious Lecture and Herman E. Schaalman Interreligious Award on Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 6:30pm.

We are thrilled to announce our guest lecturer for the evening will be Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad to present a lecture entitled, “Standing Against the Status Quo: Buddhism and Black Liberation Theology.”

In the lecture, Dr. Vesely-Flad will explain how Siddhartha Gotama, as the Buddha, accepted seekers of every caste into early sanghas.  In so doing, he stood against caste oppression. Jesus of Nazareth, during his three years of public ministry, healed lepers and ate with tax collectors. In so doing, he embraced social outcasts.  Both of these community leaders, as inadvertent founders of enduring religious traditions, stood against the status quo. They serve as models for contemporary practitioners and theologians who similarly seek to dismantle institutions and deconstruct narratives that dominate and exclude. Drawing from the writings of contemporary Black Buddhists and Black Christian theologians, this lecture examines the radical underpinnings of two traditions that, when founded, challenged the status quo and today, continue to uplift marginalized people as significant.

Dr. Vesely-Flad is the Visiting Professor of Buddhism and Black Studies at Union Theological Seminary.  She is the author of Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (NYU Press, 2022) and Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice (Fortress Press, 2017).  She leads retreats and classes for dharma centers throughout the U.S.

More details will be announced soon!