Search
Enter your search word or phrase below:
Events
During the academic year, we have many events, which address the intersectional issues of racial justice, LGBTQ and gender issues, interreligious collaboration from both a theological as well as an activist lens. Join us for one of our upcoming events or schedule a visit to experience our CTS community.
A full listing of internal and public Seminary events can be found on our Community Calendar.
If you are a CTS student, faculty, or staff and wish to have an event added to the website or community calendar, submit our Add an Event Form.
april

Event Details
Please come hear PhD student Zach Selby present his paper, entitled, "The Violent Herem: Spatial Transformations of Class Status in the Book of Joshua." The historiography of conquest is not often
more
Event Details
Please come hear PhD student Zach Selby present his paper, entitled, “The Violent Herem: Spatial Transformations of Class Status in the Book of Joshua.”
The historiography of conquest is not often thought of as a meditation on class struggle. However, there are significant exceptions to the violence of the Israelite’s conquest of the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan that suggest class antagonisms lurk just below the surface of the texts. Using a model of interpretation developed by Fredric Jameson, we can interrogate these traditions and their spatial concepts as aesthetic objects exploring social contradictions in post-monarchic Israelite Yehud.
Join us on Zoom: https://ctschicago-edu.zoom.us/j/98949536650
Time
(Tuesday) 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
07apr12:00 pm1:00 pmWednesday ReflectionsWith guest speaker Syda Segovia Taylor12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Event Details
With Special Guest Syda Segovia Taylor Translating Love into Action: We can use various methods and frameworks when trying to create change. From community organizing to a prayer chain, we know we
more
Event Details
With Special Guest Syda Segovia Taylor
Syda Segovia Taylor has 25 years of experience connecting opportunities with Black and Latino youth and families in Chicago. She prides herself of being a social justice advocate by promoting the oneness of humankind, environmental justice and physical/spiritual health. Syda is the new founder and executive director of a nonprofit called Organic Oneness established in 2020. Together with her 9 board members, countless volunteers and multitude of community partners, they promote the interconnectedness of all people and the Earth through community trainings, programs, and events. Organic Oneness is also building structures to help social activist prevent illness, burn-out, and compassion fatigue.
WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS continue at CTS through the academic year. Invited speakers, community partners, and members of our community will gather with the intention of putting our faiths into action. Engaged discussion will give space for many voices to share. We come together to inspire, encourage, and challenge one another to use our voices, bodies, and spirits to build the world we believe is possible. Join us.
Zoom link: https://qoo.ly/35cj3m
Time
(Wednesday) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Event Details
Moral Reckoning: Geographies of Goodness and Evil Virtually with Elmhurst University The Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray Jr. is president of Chicago Theological Seminary and of the Society for the Study of Black Religion.
more
Event Details
Moral Reckoning: Geographies of Goodness and Evil
Virtually with Elmhurst University
The Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray Jr. is president of Chicago Theological Seminary and of the Society for the Study of Black Religion. Seeking to understand the evil that is racism, Ray became a student of the Holocaust, focusing on the systematic murder of Jews by ordinary individuals in villages across Europe. A comparative analysis of lynchings in the U.S. led to his insight about a “moral geography” creating spaces of atrocity or, alternatively, goodness.
The Holocaust Service of Remembrance and Lecture
Sunday, April 11, 7:00 p.m.
Admission is free
Time
(Sunday) 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
14apr12:00 pm1:00 pmWednesday ReflectionsWith guest speaker Rev. Alan Conley12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Event Details
With guest speaker: Reverend Alan B. Conley Join us as Rev. Conley discusses religious and cultural diversity in Chicago Public Schools and how Covid-19 has affected that. Reverend Alan B. Conley is
more
Event Details
With guest speaker: Reverend Alan B. Conley
Join us as Rev. Conley discusses religious and cultural diversity in Chicago Public Schools and how Covid-19 has affected that.
Reverend Alan B. Conley is a 21st century communicator of the Gospel who happens to know that 90% of ministry is fulfilled outside of the pulpit. Being raised in the Baptist tradition in his youth and the Pentecostal tradition in his teenage years, has enabled Reverend Conley to have a greater respect for all denominational distinctions. He believes that we are all a part of God’s Kingdom regardless of race, denomination, or creed.
Reverend Conley presently serves in the third largest school district in the U.S. as the Director of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. As the Director of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives, Reverend Conley has been influential in cultivating faith-based partnerships across various faith distinctions city-wide. Through these partnerships, the Office of Faith Based Initiatives have supported over 10,000 students. Under Reverend Conley’s leadership, the Office of Faith Based Initiatives continue to help promote the success of parents, schools, and students.
Reverend Conley is also the founder and CEO of Beyond the Brick Ministries who works diligently to inspire people around the world through unconventional acts of kindness and media production. On the eve of Thanksgiving 2020, Beyond the Brick launched the pilot for their inspirational digital series titled, Unconventional.
Reverend Conley believes that, “It takes a healthy village to raise a healthy child,” and ultimately his purpose is to help sustain the relevancy of faith and community with all of the gifts and talents that he has been granted.
WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS continue at CTS through the academic year. Invited speakers, community partners, and members of our community will gather with the intention of putting our faiths into action. Engaged discussion will give space for many voices to share. We come together to inspire, encourage, and challenge one another to use our voices, bodies, and spirits to build the world we believe is possible. Join us.
Zoom link: https://qoo.ly/35cj3m
Time
(Wednesday) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
15apr3:00 pm4:30 pmPublic Square LectureWith Keynote Speaker Kamal Sinclair3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Event Details
Join the CTS community on Ap 15 for a Public Square Lecture featuring Kamal Sinclair! Making a New Reality Together Story is the code for humanity’s operating system. We’ve used stories to
more
Event Details
Join the CTS community on Ap 15 for a Public Square Lecture featuring Kamal Sinclair!
Making a New Reality Together
Story is the code for humanity’s operating system. We’ve used stories to communicate knowledge, prescribe behavior, and imagine our futures since our earliest days. Story and narrative are how we design everything from the technology we invent, to the social systems we implement, to the norms in which we perform our identities, to perhaps the mutations of our very DNA. Stories we tell now will write the next operating system for humanity. Are we making a reality we want?
We are in a fundamental disruption to human communication akin to the disruption of mass media 500 years ago. However, this is not just another expansion of scope, scale and efficiency, it is one that results in systems that can independently think, exist in every object or structure, and integrate with our bodies. It is the most complex, abundant and dynamic communication and information system in human history. How will we use this infrastructure to make stories that make our reality? Who will make these stories?
Future Architect, Kamal Sinclair, shares insights from a two year research project on equality in emerging media commissioned by Ford Foundation’s JustFilms in partnership with Sundance Institute’s New Frontier program.
Kamal Sinclair, is making the world more beautiful as the Executive Director of the Guild of Future Architects and artist at Sinclair Futures. She served as an External Advisor to the MacArthur Foundation’s Journalism & Media Program, a Creative Advisor to For Freedoms (the largest collective art project in US history), a member of Sharon Chang’s Family Office (Dream Office of Imaginary Friends) and as an advisory board member of MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality, Starfish Incubator, and Eyebeam.
Previously, was the Director of Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Labs Program for seven years, which supports artists working at the convergence of film, art, media and technology. During that period, she consulted for the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms program on a research project aimed at furthering equality in emerging media, which resulted in “Making a New Reality.”
Sinclair got her start in emerging media as an artist and producer on Question Bridge: Black Males. At Question Bridge, where she and her collaborators launched a project with an interactive website and curriculum; published a book; exhibited in over sixty museums/festivals.
Time
(Thursday) 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Event Details
With special speaker: Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount, Senior Pastor, Arnett Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Executive Director of The Oikos Institute for Social Impact "How Faith Communities Can Make
more
Event Details
With special speaker: Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount, Senior Pastor, Arnett Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Executive Director of The Oikos Institute for Social Impact
“How Faith Communities Can Make a Greater Social Impact”
Dr. Blount will talk about developing supportive ecosystems for social impact that strengthen the faith, intellectual, social and human capital of faith communities.
WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS continue at CTS through the academic year. Invited speakers, community partners, and members of our community will gather with the intention of putting our faiths into action. Engaged discussion will give space for many voices to share. We come together to inspire, encourage, and challenge one another to use our voices, bodies, and spirits to build the world we believe is possible. Join us.
Zoom link: https://qoo.ly/35cj3m
Time
(Wednesday) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Event Details
CTS welcomes guest lecturer and author, Melissa M. Wilcox. This year, we will also celebrate the late Professor Emeritus, Dr. Ted
more
Event Details
CTS welcomes guest lecturer and author, Melissa M. Wilcox. This year, we will also celebrate the late Professor Emeritus, Dr. Ted Jennings.
Melissa M. Wilcox is Professor and Holstein Family and Community Chair of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and specializes in the study of gender, sexuality, and religion in the Global North/Global West. Dr. Wilcox’s books include Coming Out in Christianity: Religion, Identity, and Community; Sexuality and the World’s Religions; Queer Women and Religious Individualism; Religion in Today’s World: Global Issues, Sociological Perspectives; and Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody; Queer Religiosities: An Introduction to Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion; and (with Nina Hoel and Liz Wilson) the Religion, the Body, and Sexuality. Dr. Wilcox’s current research is on spirituality in leather and BSDM communities.
The Gilberto Castañeda Award was established in 1994 in loving memory of Gilberto Castañeda, the “adopted” son of Dr. Theodore Jennings and Rev. Dr. Ronna Case. Gilberto first met Case in California, where she worked to develop mission congregations among undocumented workers from Mexico. Gilberto “found the love of God so compelling that he not only became a member but also a leader in the new congregations of young people” that were being established by Rev. Case. In 1994, at the age of 29, he died of complications from AIDS.
Time
(Thursday) 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
28apr12:00 pm1:00 pmWednesday ReflectionsAward Day!12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Event Details
Join the CTS community as we award the Sanderson Award for Women in Leadership and G. Campbell Morgan Preaching Award. WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS continue at CTS through the academic year. Invited speakers, community partners,
more
Event Details
Join the CTS community as we award the Sanderson Award for Women in Leadership and G. Campbell Morgan Preaching Award.
WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS continue at CTS through the academic year. Invited speakers, community partners, and members of our community will gather with the intention of putting our faiths into action. Engaged discussion will give space for many voices to share. We come together to inspire, encourage, and challenge one another to use our voices, bodies, and spirits to build the world we believe is possible. Join us.
Zoom link: https://qoo.ly/35cj3m
Time
(Wednesday) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
29apr6:00 pm7:30 pmScience for Seminaries EventWith Guest Speaker Dr. Philip Butler6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Event Details
Join Drs. Ringer and Terrell in an event culminating from their work with the Science for Seminaries grant. Guest speaker. Dr. Philip Butler, Assistant Professor of Theology and Black
Event Details
Join Drs. Ringer and Terrell in an event culminating from their work with the Science for Seminaries grant. Guest speaker. Dr. Philip Butler, Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems at Iliff School of Theology will be featured. The keynote is titled: “Decolonizing AI: From Panopticon Dystopias to Liberative Possibilities.”
This event is AAAS Grant-funded.
Time
(Thursday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
may
05may12:00 pm1:00 pmWednesday Reflections12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Event Details
Topic / Guest TBA WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS continue at CTS through the academic year. Invited speakers, community partners, and members of our community will gather with the intention of putting our faiths
Event Details
Topic / Guest TBA
WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS continue at CTS through the academic year. Invited speakers, community partners, and members of our community will gather with the intention of putting our faiths into action. Engaged discussion will give space for many voices to share. We come together to inspire, encourage, and challenge one another to use our voices, bodies, and spirits to build the world we believe is possible. Join us.
Zoom link: https://qoo.ly/35cj3m
Time
(Wednesday) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Event Details
This Wednesday Reflection gathering will be dedicated to celebrating Dr. Julia Speller upon her retirement from CTS. Dr. Speller is the Kenneth B. Smith Professor of Public Ministry, and Associate
Event Details
This Wednesday Reflection gathering will be dedicated to celebrating Dr. Julia Speller upon her retirement from CTS. Dr. Speller is the Kenneth B. Smith Professor of Public Ministry, and Associate Professor of American Religious History & Culture. We will be joined by Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright. Please join us in celebration of Dr. Speller’s 24 years at CTS.
Time
(Wednesday) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
june
No Events
july
No Events
august
No Events
september
No Events
october
No Events
november
No Events
december
No Events
january
No Events
february
No Events
march
No Events