Author: Chloë Westerfield
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The Drum Major Instinct: MLK Service at Meadville Lombard
Each week of our Intensives—when students travel to Chicago for week-long, in-person classwork on campus for a few weeks—starts with a Monday morning worship service. These services are planned and conducted by students. Since we observed the MLK Day on Monday, the morning worship of the final week of January Intensives was held on Tuesday, January…
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Empowering Refugees: Teen-Motherhood Project
Gur Milandou Mouanga is a student in our Master of Arts in Leadership Studies program who lives in Cape Town, South Africa. This project was conducted during his community site internship at Cape Town Refugee Centre, from October to December 2017. Working with refugees and having constantly interacted with teen female refugees who are pregnant or…
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Getting Proud: A Strategy for Liberation
[This sermon was given as part of the 2019 January Ingathering Worship service: Breakthroughs and Second Chances.] I’ll begin with a poem from Eduardo Galeano, a writer and journalist from Uruguay. Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog,and the nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them; will rain down in buckets But…
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Reflection on The Drum Major Instinct, I
Ali K.C. Bell, a student in Community Studies Signature Course of our MDiv program, offered this reflection to fellow students, faculty, and staff during the MLK service at Meadville Lombard. This was the first of four reflections on Dr. King’s “The Drum Major Instinct” sermon. In early January, I found a blog post by Kim…
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Reflection on The Drum Major Instinct, II
Joe Rettenmaier, a student in Leadership Studies Signature Course of our MDiv program, offered this reflection to fellow students, faculty, and staff during the MLK service at Meadville Lombard. His was the second of four reflections on Dr. King’s “The Drum Major Instinct” sermon. Rev. Dr. King goes on to say: There comes a time…
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Reflection on The Drum Major Instinct, III
Monica Kling-Garcia, a student in Community Studies Signature Course of our MDiv program, offered this reflection to fellow students, faculty, and staff during the MLK service at Meadville Lombard. Hers was the third of four reflections on Dr. King’s “The Drum Major Instinct” sermon. The sacred words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermon…
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Reflection on The Drum Major Instinct, IV
Mariela Perez-Simons, a student in Congregational Studies Signature Course of our MDiv program, offered this reflection to fellow students, faculty, and staff during the MLK service at Meadville Lombard. Hers was the fourth and final reflections on Dr. King’s “The Drum Major Instinct” sermon. The Drum Major Instinct. I’ve noticed it play out amongst some…
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Jussie Smollett, Believing the Victim, and Deep National Wounds
Last weekend, Dr. Pamela Lightsey, our Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, helped organize and participated in a protest and teach-in event, El Grito de la Frontera/The Cry From the Border, in El Paso, Texas. As one of the signatories of both the Boston Declaration and the All Rights for All/Todos Derechos Para Todos campaign, Dr. Lightsey called public theologians, religion…
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American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World
Dr. Mike Hogue, Professor of Theology, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion, introduces his new book, American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World. [This is a transcript of the video below.] If you are at all like me, then you’ve been really disturbed and unsettled by all that’s happening in the world right now. The election of…
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Blessed at PrideFest
“Get your blessing here! Personal Blessing given to you right now by our Blessing Booth Clergy!” Krystal called out to the passersby at PrideFest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Quizzically they would look over and then be offered a Blessing Menu. “To help the clergy customize a blessing,” she explained. Most folks look pleasantly astonished as they realized that…