Associate Director Hosts CTI Breakfast at AAR/SBL

CTI’s Associate Director Joshua Mauldin hosted a CTI breakfast reception at the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio, Texas on November 19.

A full room was present to hear about CTI’s interdisciplinary programs, including our Inquiry on Thriving in Diverse Contexts, a study program on psychological science for Christian theology, which is made possible with funding from the John Templeton Foundation.

The principal investigator of this inquiry, Michael Spezio, discussed the goals and format of the study program, while Barbara McClure, a participating theologian in the cohort, discussed her research project. Andrew Davison, CTI’s Houston Witherspoon Fellow in Theology and Science, discussed CTI initiatives, including our partnership with the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at Cambridge University. Fred Simmons also spoke on the societal impact of origins of life research in the context of CTI’s partnership with the Leverhulme Centre. 

CTI holds Two-Week Summer School on Cross Training in Psychological Science for Christian Theology

CTI held a two-week summer school in June 2023 for participants in its inquiry on Thriving in Diverse Contexts. Made possible through generous funding from the John Templeton Foundation, the two-year program consists of cross-training in psychological science for scholars of Christian theology. Ten scholars joined together in an intensive training program that provided them with foundational familiarity and basic expertise in a wide range of topics central to most influential work in psychological science. The central aims were to provide thorough introductory psychological science training for our scholars in an environment that conveyed our respect for them as scholars and our sense of the importance of their planned work in interdisciplinary theology and philosophy engaging psychological science. These scholars traveled from across the United States and around the world to take part in an opening summer school led by Principal Investigator of the inquiry, Michael Spezio, along with Brick Johnstone, Andrew Davison, Clifford Anderson, and Joshua Mauldin.

The training program covered most topical areas of high relevance to influential, empirically grounded models in psychological science. These areas are foundational to more applied areas in psychological science, such as Psychology of Religion, Post-Traumatic Stress and Recovery, Autonomy and Self-Determination, Moral Psychology, Intergroup Reconciliation, Creativity & Insight, Music Cognition & Aesthetic Judgment, Wellbeing, and Thriving/Flourishing. The grounding provided by the summer school prepared the scholars for work in applied areas in Psychological Science that we will engage in future training sessions. The ten scholars in the program have now returned to their home institutions, where they will collaborate for remote study modules before returning to Princeton for residential workshops in fall 2024 and spring 2025.

Director Announces CTI Members 2023-25

The Director is pleased to announce the members of the Inquiry on Thriving in Diverse Contexts: A Study Program on Psychological Science for Researchers in Christian Theology, 2023-25.

Elijah Baloyi, Professor of Practical Theology

University of South Africa 

Michael Brautigam, Lecturer in Theology

Melbourne School of Theology/Eastern College, Australia

Jessica Coblentz, Associate Professor of Theology

Saint Mary’s College, USA 

Michael DeJonge, James F. Strange Endowed Chair of Religious Studies

University of South Florida, USA 

Marion Grau, Professor of Systematic Theology, Ecumenism, and Missiology

MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society

Nadia Marais, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology

Stellenbosch University, South Africa 

Barbara McClure, Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Practice

Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, USA 

Sheryl Overmyer, Associate Professor of Catholic Studies

DePaul University, USA 

Michelle Panchuk, Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Murray State University, USA 

Andrew Shepherd, Senior Lecturer in Theology and Public Issues

University of Otago, New Zealand

Director Meets with Nobel Prize-Winning Astronomer

CTI’s Director William Storrar met recently at an astrobiology conference at Cambridge University in the UK with the directors of CTI's new research partner, the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe. Dr. Storrar is pictured here with Professor Didier Queloz, the astronomer who was awarded a Nobel Prize as the co-discoverer of exoplanets, and Professor Emily Mitchell, the organizer of the conference. Dr. Storrar heard presentations by scientists doing research in every scientific field from astronomy to zoology on the potential of the universe to harbor biological life beyond Earth. The Leverhulme Centre is committed to a dialogue with the Arts and Humanities on the questions raised for humanity by its scientific research on the origins and extent of life in the universe. As a Leverhulme partner, CTI will host a symposium series in Princeton to foster this dialogue.

For more information, please view the Director’s Insights from March 2023.

CTI at SBL / AAR in Denver

CTI Member Elise Edwards, Baylor University, addressed the Center’s well-attended breakfast reception at the November annual meetings of SBL and AAR in Denver. Dr. Edwards spoke about the value of participating in CTI's digital research group on religion and the built environment during the Covid lockdown year. Based on that positive experience, she thought the virtual component would enhance the resident phase in CTI’s new research cycle.

The CTI Members and friends at the breakfast also heard from the Director on that new program of virtual, resident, and public inquiry in the renovated building at Luce Hall, opening in 2024. And the leaders of CTI’s new study program in psychological science for researchers in Christian theology, Thriving in Diverse Contexts, briefed those present on its value for scholars developing theologies of thriving in diverse contexts around the world. For more information and the Call for Applications, go to Apply.

Director of Digital Research Appointed 

The Director, Dr. William Storrar, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Clifford Anderson to the CTI staff team as Director of Digital Research. Dr. Anderson was previously Associate University Librarian for Research and Digital Strategy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

An old friend of the Center from his earlier days on staff at the Princeton Theological Seminary Library, Anderson will develop a new digital infrastructure for the Center’s research program. He will work closely with CTI’s Associate Director, Dr. Joshua Mauldin, in providing digital expertise and support for the next Inquiry on Thriving in Diverse Contexts, when CTI’s new research cycle of virtual as well as resident inquiry will be launched. Alongside this role at the CTI, Anderson will serve as Chief Digital Strategist at the Vanderbilt University Library.

Welcoming this strategic opportunity to advance CTI’s goals for digital research, Dr. Anderson said, "I am excited to be joining the Center of Theological Inquiry at this significant juncture in its distinguished history. I look forward to assisting with the digital transformation of CTI's research as its members engage with our era's most significant theological questions." 

Director Announces CTI Members 2021-22

The Director is pleased to announce members for the 2021-22 Research Workshop on Religion & the Natural Environment:

Mark Douglas, Professor of Christian Ethics
Columbia Theological Seminary

Jairo H. Garcia, Adjunct faculty
Georgia Institute of Technology

Jan-Olav Henriksen, Professor of Systematic Theology
Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society

Bruce Huber, Professor of Environmental Law
University of Notre Dame

Kanan Kitani, Assistant Professor of Theology
Doshisha University, Japan

Codi Norred, Executive Director
Georgia Inter-Faith Power and Light

John Rodwan, Environmental Department Director
Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi Tribal Government

Elaine Rutherford, Professor of Art
College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University

Peter Scott, Professor of Applied Theology
University of Manchester

Lisa Sideris, Professor of Environmental Ethics
University of California Santa Barbara

Frederick Simmons, John Templeton Foundation Research Scholar
Princeton Theological Seminary

Edwin Turner, Professor of Astrophysics
Princeton University

Krista Tippet & CTI Evolutionary Scientist Agustín Fuentes on Covid-19’s Challenge to Humanity

“A scientist on the frontiers of how humans behave and function together and change together,” says On Being host Krista Tippett in introducing Agustín Fuentes, a leading biological and evolutionary anthropologist at Princeton University, on her public radio show. They discuss what we have learned about the human condition in 2020, the year of the pandemic, from his perspective. Listen to the conversation between Tippett, a CTI Honorary Trustee, and Fuentes, a CTI Member and advisor by clicking here to the On Being website. 

Towards the close of their conversation, Fuentes reflects with Tippett on how much he values his dialogue with theologians in understanding the human condition and gaining wisdom and hope. It is a dialogue that began for Fuentes in his year in residence at CTI in our Inquiry on Evolution & Human Nature in 2012-13.

To learn more about Fuentes’s research on the cooperative and religious traits in human evolution, listen to his prestigious Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh University in 2014 on the theme of Why We Believe: Evolution, Making Meaning, and the Development of Human Natures. (Click here to listen)

You can also listen to another On Being interview Krista Tippet recorded live at a CTI symposium on science and spirituality with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson and Templeton Prize-winning scientist Marcello Gleiser in 2012, discussing The Mystery We Are. (Click here to listen)

These are all examples of the ways in which CTI Members are raising theology’s relevance in the public conversation. Be part of that exciting conversation by joining the Friends of CTI now.

Announcing Research Fellow in Machine Intelligence & Pastoral Care

The Director is pleased to announce the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Erin Raffety as the Research Fellow in the Center of Theological Inquiry’s new research project on machine intelligence and pastoral care. The Center gratefully acknowledges the award of a research grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation for this groundbreaking Spiritual Loop Project, part of the Foundation’s Diverse Intelligences program.

Dr. Raffety is highly qualified to conduct CTI’s pioneering pilot project on the potential of machine intelligence to enhance the pastoral life of congregations with members with cognitive disabilities. She has an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, a PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University, and extensive fieldwork experience working with families with disabilities. Dr. Raffety will be based at the Center during her two-year full-time appointment, advised by an expert panel, including pastoral theologian John Swinton on disability studies, philosopher Susan Schneider on artificial intelligence, systematic theologian Hanna Reichel and practical theologian Eric Stoddart on theology and digital technologies.

As Dr. Raffety began her new CTI research project this month, she said, “I am delighted to join with CTI and the Diverse Intelligences research community in this remarkable opportunity to bring my expertise and passions in anthropology and pastoral ministry with people with disabilities together with pathbreaking research in artificial intelligence, technology, and communication.”

July 2020

This Moment. These Voices. Our Enduring Relevance.

Click here to hear the five ‘Voices from CTI’, including interviews with two Black scholars in our research community, Professor Peter Paris and Professor Leslie Wingard.

It is Peter and Leslie who speak for CTI in this moment of public anger and peaceful protest at the shocking killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the many other victims of racist violence. They help us see behind the headlines.

In their interviews, Peter and Leslie reflect on their research on issues of race and social justice: Peter over decades at CTI as a Christian ethicist working on a range of projects from African spirituality to God and globalization; and Leslie in residence at CTI last Fall, critiquing as a literary scholar the language of sin and servanthood in the portrayal of Black women’s domestic labor in fiction and the visual arts, drawing on the perspectives of Black womanist theologians. Two other scholars will bring the critical perspectives of Black and Womanist studies to inform next year’s program on religion and the environment. Professor J. Kameron Carter is Professor of Religion at Indiana University Bloomington. His book, Race: A Theological Account was the focus of a CTI symposium in collaboration with the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. We look forward to welcoming Professor Carter back to CTI as our distinguished guest speaker to deliver our annual William H. Scheide Lecture on Global Concerns. His theme will be Creation Otherwise: Black Ecologies After the Human. And Professor Elise Edwards of Baylor University will be a member of our research workshop on religion and the built environment next Spring, working on Black Womanist perspectives on the built environment as both a Christian ethicist and an architect.

Appalled and challenged by recent events, like every educational institution, we need to do far more at CTI to ensure our research community and agenda reflect the inclusive aims of our mission and the diverse membership of the academy. We also need to be chastened by our dialogue with policymakers, in Professor Paris’ memorable phrase, as we distill our research to inform public thinking on race, religion, and justice. Committed to these goals for CTI, I therefore endorse the recent ‘Statement About Race’ of the American Theological Society and commend it to you: http://www.amtheosoc.org/home.

William Storrar, Director

June 19, 2020

The Director is pleased to announce members for the 2020-2021 Research Program on Religion & The Built Environment

Stephen de Beer, Associate Professor of Practical Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Kyle Dugdale, Critic in Architecture, Yale School of Architecture, United States

Elise Edwards, Assistant Professor of Religion, Baylor University, United States

Tammy Gaber, Associate Professor, McEwen School of Architecture, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Architecture, Laurentian University, Canada

Nesrine Mansour, Postdoctoral Researcher in Architecture, Texas A&M University, United States

Martin Radermacher, Interim Professor, Study of Religions at the Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Murray Rae, Professor of Theology, University of Otago, New Zealand

Whare Timu, Senior Architectural Practitioner, First Light Architecture Studio, New Zealand.

Click here to learn more

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: March 2022

Issue Highlights:
CTI draws on a deep bench of scholarship to cast light on the global concerns of our time and to ask the more basic questions of life such as, "What is the relationship between science and faith?" In the Director’s Insights video this month, William Storrar invites subscribers to our continuing outreach events including our annual William Witherspoon Lecture on Theology & Science and William Scheide Lecture on Religion & Global Concerns. The latest Leading Thinkers LIVE recording is now available: an important dialogue worth watching a second time with Director William Storrar and CTI Members Mary Ellen O'Connell, Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution, University of Notre Dame and John Burgess, James Henry Snowden Professor of Systematic Theology, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. In epiosde 5 of Season 5 of Theology Matters, Sacred Architecture in the Digital Realm, Nesrine Mansour, CTI Member and Assistant Professor of Architecture at South Dakota State, discusses her research on religious practices using digital tools and technology by sharing a series of questions for us to consider: How does our spiritual experience change in the digital realm?

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: February 2022

Issue Highlights:
Director William Storrar shares news of our Spring Research Workshop on Religion and the Natural Environment: Twelve workshop members are meeting digitally in a weekly seminar, sharing work in progress. Our research group is both international and interdisciplinary, and includes our first ever Artist in Residence, as well as policymakers on environmental issues. The WILLIAM H. SCHEIDE LECTURE ON RELIGION & GLOBAL CONCERNS is announced: Creation Otherwise: Black Religion & Climate Catastrophe with J. Kameron Carter, Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University and author of Race: A Theological Account. The latest Theology Matters podcast Architecture as a Recurring Figure in the Biblical Narrative features Kyle Dugdale, Architect & Historian and Lecturer at Yale, discussing with host Josh Mauldin two areas of his research: Why do we return to the Tower of Babel throughout our history? And, how the notion of the modern city being godless is not necessarily true; we have simply shifted our devotions to other authorities who influence our lives as the old gods did.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: January 2022

Issue Highlights:
Director William Storrar announces a Spring Conversations series, five events in March where you can enjoy the wisdom and insights of some of the theologians, architects, anthropologists, and religion scholars in our research programs. The first is a new webinar series, Architecture After Abraham, continuing our inquiry into the built environment by discussing architecture and design in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions with three authors who have published important books on these themes. Elise Edwards is our featured guest in the latest Theology Matters podcast, Exploring Questions of Gender, Justice, and Design, discussing her journey from a practicing architect to professor of theology sharing how theology answered her question of “how we want to live and how architecture relates to that.”

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: November 2021

Issue Highlights:
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Director William Storrar gives thanks for CTI’s founders, scholars, and supporters. The recordings of our recent Leading Thinkers LIVE sessions are available featuring Keith Leslie on Leading Organizational Change in Times of Crises and Anne Case & Sir Angus Deaton on Deaths of Despair in America. Theology Matters begins Season 5 featuring members from the Religion & Built Environment Workshop 2020-21 on how their time at CTI impacted their thinking and practice in architecture. Listen in to Episode One featuring leading Maori architect Whare Timu and systematic theologian and architect Murray Rae.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: October 2021

Issue Highlights:
Director William Storrar reflects on CTI's founder, James McCord, who established the Center to foster an environment conducive to fresh thinking on a host of problems facing religion and society. CTI announces a new series of annual Research Reports that distills the fresh thinking of our research groups on a range of global concerns for the wider public from the Center, starting with a report on religion and economic inequality by Associate Director Joshua Mauldin. In the latest Theology Matters podcast on Economic Inequality, Mary Hirschfeld, Associate Professor of Economics & Theology at Villanova, discusses her book, Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Theology.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: September 2021

Issue Highlights:
Director William Storrar introduces this year's research theme of Religion and the Natural Environment, the capstone topic in our five-year Inquiry on Religion & Global Issues, and perfectly timed for COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference this Fall. Research Insights features an article by CTI Member Seforosa Carroll “Migration, Justice, and Hope in a Changing Climate.” Her goal as a theologian is "to reframe our understanding of sin, salvation, and eschatology within the Pacific context as it pertains to climate change and insofar as it stands as a barrier to a community of people struggling to make sense of where the suffering God may be in their midst." A new Theology Matters podcast, What Are The Humanities For? The Humanities teach us how we think, how we believe, and therefore how we operate in this world. In short, it’s about “humans thinking about humans.” CTI's Joshua Mauldin joins CTI Member Willem Drees to discuss his latest book, What Are The Humanities For?, making the case for the intrinsic value of the Humanities in the university and their social value in the wider world.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: July 2021

Issue Highlights:
CTI is embarking on a new research project inquiring into machine intelligence and pastoral care. Learn more about this pathbreaking research in artificial intelligence, technology, and communication. A new season of Theology Matters podcasts, Theology & the Pandemic, releases three new episodes episodes with N.T. Wright, Gerald McKenny, and Friederike Nüssel. Research Insights features the article What We Are Learning: Thinking Theology Together by Ulrich Schmiedel, “Max Weber has had a lot of bad press among scholars of religion in recent years. But during my time at the Center of Theological Inquiry, his lecture on, "Wissenschaft als Beruf," delivered a century ago at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munchen in Germany came to my mind again and again.”

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: June 2021

Issue Highlights:
Director William Storrar reflects on this year's successful research workshop on Religion & the Built Environment, subsequent "Knowledge Exchange" between CTI researchers and policymakers, and looks ahead to next year's workshop on Religion & the Natural Environment. Theology Matters podcast Divine Permission or Divine Willing? A Reassessment of the Doctrine of Providence features CTI Member and recently appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, David Fergusson discussing his book," The Providence of God: A Polyphonic Approach." Research Insights features Theology in the Age of AI: Machine Intelligence & Pastoral Care discussing CTI’s Spiritual Loop Project, a two-year, fieldwork based study investigating the possibilities of video gaming in providing spiritual communication and connection for families and congregations with members with disabilities.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: May 2021

Issue Highlights:
Director William Storrar highlights CTI's upcoming public events including our new series: The Colloquy and Leading Thinkers Live. Readers are invited to a special preview of this month's event with architect and theologian Elise Edwards as she discusses her CTI research project on challenging racism in architecture and the built environment in America.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: March 2021

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar interviews Board Chair Dr. Fred Anderson about CTI's Theology Matters podcast series hosted by Associate Director Josh Mauldin. "You get to know what the scholar has been doing, what they are interested in, why theology is important to that...and then the extraordinary impact that is coming out of the research projects." The Theology Matters podcast releases two episodes: International Law Compliance: What is the Source? featuring legal scholar Mary Ellen O'Connell discussing her book, The Art of Law in the International Community, which brings resources from aesthetic philosophy to bear on the question why nations should comply with international law, and How Can We Best Think Through the Identity of Christianity? with biblical scholar Hannah Strømmen and theologian Ulrich Schmiedel discuss their book, The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far Right, which engages in theological analysis and critique of the ideology of the far right in Europe.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: February 2021

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video reflects on how CTI's Friends program brings theology into the public conversation through its Meet Our Scholar events this Spring with members of our current Research Workshop on Religion & The Built Environment. The Religion & Built Environment Research Team resumes for the spring session. The Theology Matters podcast continues with Season 4 highlighting CTI Member books. This month’s Research Insights highlights the work of CTI Member and sociologist Elisabet le Roux on “Gender-Based Violence in the Pandemic: A Chance to Change Social Norms.”

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: January 2021

Issue Highlights:

Insights Video: Director William Storrar interviews three members in our current workshop on Religion & the Built Environment about their CTI experience this year: theologian Murray Rae, architectural professor Tammy Gaber, and architect Whare Timu. Lead Story: Krista Tippet & CTI Evolutionary Scientist Agustín Fuentes on Covid-19’s Challenge to Humanity. The Theology Matters podcast features Wolfgang Palaver, CTI Member and theologian discussing his new book, Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness: Reflecting on Violence and Religion with René Girard with Associate Director Joshua Mauldin.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: December 2020

Issue Highlights:

In the Director’s Insights Video, William Storrar reflects on the relevance of CTI's work at this time and looks ahead to 2021 with hope. Board Chair Fred Anderson shares why he gives and why he gives to CTI. In this month’s Research Insights, Associate Director Joshua Mauldin writes our first Research Report in a new series for our magazine Fresh Thinking, distilling the theological insights gained from dialogue with colleagues in other fields in our interdisciplary inquiries, in this case with economists on economic inequality. In the Theology Matters podcast, Douglas Ottati, CTI Member and Professor of Reformed Theology & Justice at Davidson College, discusses his new book, A Theology for the Twenty-First Century.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: November 2020

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video reflects on the mission of CTI in this Season of Thanksgiving, amid the continuing pandemic. This month’s Research Insights remembers Rabbi Jonathan Sacks at CTI. The Theology Matters podcast features Robert Gascoigne, a member of CTI's Workshop on Religion & Economic Inequality, discussing how inequality undermines a community and how solidarity, in a time of social distancing, refocuses us on what truly brings together a society.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: October 2020

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video reflects on one of our founding purposes as a research center to foster comparative theological scholarship across religious and cultural traditions, as in our current research workshop on religion and the built environment with its Muslim, Christian, African, and Maori perspectives. The Theology Matters podcast features Peter Ochs discussing how his time at CTI nurtured his collaborative work with Dan Hardy and David Ford ultimately leading to Scriptural Reasoning, described by Ochs as the study across the borders of scriptural traditions. This month’s Research Insights shares Peter Och’s work on Diagnosing Religious-Group Conflict.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: September 2020

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video reflects on the relevance of CTI's research on global concerns as CTI launches its inquiry on religion and the built environment. The next Theology Matters podcast in the series Theology & the Pandemic features Etin Anwar discussing how Faith, Community, and Ritual have changed.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: August 2020

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video previews Religion & the Built Environment, the new interdisciplinary research team assembling digitally to delve into CTI's continuing multi-year inquiry on religion and global issues. New Theology Matters podcast from the Theology & the Pandemic series featuring Brick Johnstone: How Spiritual Experience is Connected To Our Minds. This month’s Research Insights features A Conversation on Theology with Marilynne Robinson: What We Are Learning: Writing Soul to Soul.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: July 2020

Issue Highlights:

Director Willam Storrar’s Insights Video shares how CTI is embarking on a new research project inquiring into machine intelligence and pastoral care. New Theology Matters Podcasts with N.T. Wright, Gerald McKenny, and Friederike Nüssel. This month’s Research Insights: What We Are Learning: Thinking Theology Together by Ulrich Schmiedel.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: June 2020

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video discusses how with support, CTI can extend our reach globally, sharing theology's wisdom to inform the way we live now. Preview CTI’s new Wisdom for our World Webinar: Pandemic: Possibility for Change with Liz Grant, Elisabet Le Roux, and Frederick Simmons and new Theology Matters Podcast Series: Theology & the Pandemic.

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: May 2020

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video discusses the Center's productivity and partnerships during the pandemic and reflects on theology's relevance to the time, CTI Releases Theology Matters Season 2 Podcast, Leading in the New Normal of a Pandemic World Global Webinar, Salon on Screen with Philosopher Susan Schneider.

Leading in the New Normal of a Pandemic World Global Webinar

CTI and Religions for Peace (RfP) partnered together to pioneer an intensive dialogue between scholars and religious leaders on the intersection nature of “Leadership” as it relates to and is shaped by diverse areas of focus, in and beyond a time of pandemic.

April 28, 2020

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: April 2020

Special Feature

Issue Highlights:

Editor Joshua Mauldin, Associate Director, previews the latest edition of CTI’s magazine Fresh Thinking. Podcast:Economic Inequality and the Virtue of Solidarity.

CTI Launches Salon on Screen Series

The Center of Theological Inquiry, in partnership with Morven Museum & Garden and Labyrinth Books, presented our annual Book & Film Festival, now aptly renamed the Salon on Screen. Director William Storrar engages Salon authors and our audience online in a thought-provoking series of conversations.

The opening session on April 17 featured Philosopher Susan Schneider and her book, Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, published by Princeton University Press, discussing artificial intelligence and its impact on our human identity.

April 17, 2020

A Message from our Director at this time

Dear CTI Members, Friends, and Visitors from around the World,

Our concern is for your health and safety amid the coronavirus pandemic. Our thoughts are with you.

We are proud of our CTI Members, teaching on every Continent. You are moving classes online and caring for the welfare of your students and colleagues in these challenging circumstances.

We are grateful to the Friends of CTI, our donors and supporters. Your generous gifts have enabled CTI to move our programing swiftly online as well, as we too seek to act responsibly and work remotely.

And we value the interest of visitors to our website, curious about the work of CTI.

You may well be asking, “What does theology have to contribute in the midst of this global crisis?”

Theology across all traditions is on the frontline of pastoral and health care. It is informing and inspiring the responsible and compassionate action of faith leaders and workers in following public health guidelines in their own communities and reaching out to care for their congregants and neighbors. And theological seminaries across all denominations are offering online sessions to guide and support ministers, rabbis, imams, priests, and chaplains in pastoral care during the pandemic.

But what of CTI at this time? Our academic mission is to draw on the deep theological and interdisciplinary resources of our research program on God and global concerns to think ahead to the shape of a healthier, safer world.

The pandemic is showing us yet again the fragility of life and the response of solidarity – enduring realities of the human condition that have been the subject of profound theological thought and insights over millennia. Our continuing inquiries on the renewal of international law, on understanding life on a planetary scale, and on the benign uses of technology are all highly relevant to the post-pandemic world.

How do we live together on this small planet in ways that put into practice humanity’s deepest wisdom on God and global concerns? That is CTI’s question at this time. We are advancing the frontiers of wisdom for a better world beyond this present agony.

Please join us in this endeavor. And take care, be safe, reach out.

William Storrar, Director

March 26, 2020

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: March 2020

Issue Highlights: Director William Storrar’s Insights Video, Research Insights: Theology and Pandemics, Podcast: In Addressing Economic Inequality, What Theological Resources Are Available?

CTI Member Marcia Pally Delivers Luce Hall Lecture

Evolutionary Science, Theology, & Economic Inequality

What makes humanity flourish or flounder? To build an economy, Professor Pally suggested that humanity is a relational species drawing on Christian and Jewish traditions and recent research in evolutionary biology and psychology. “To the extent that we see and see to these relations in our economic systems, we have a greater likelihood of flourishing.”

March 3, 2020

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: February 2020

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video, Research Insights: Migration, Justice, and Hope in a Changing Climate, Podcast: Sin, Servanthood, & Inequality in African American Literature and Culture

CTI Member Nico Koopman Delivers Luce Hall Lecture

Mandela's Dream: Democracy in South Africa 25 Years On

One of South Africa’s change makers, Nico Koopman, Vice Rector of the University of Stellenbosch, delivered the 2019 William H. Scheide Lecture on Religion & Global Concerns. Nico is pictured with CTI Trustee Judith McCartin Scheide.

December 5, 2019

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: December 2019

Issue Highlights:

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video, Research Insights: A Chorus of Planets, Podcast: The Use of Monetary and Economic Language in Religion

CTI Hosts Annual Reception at AAR/SBL in San Diego

It was wonderful to see so many CTI Members and interested colleagues attend. CTI members Paul Middleton and Wolfgang Palaver shared how CTI provides a "wonderfully stimulating intellectual environment" the impact of which continues well after the time in residence. Current member Devin Singh discussed this year's workshop theme of Religion & Economic Inequality and his project on debt. Soon-to-be member Manitza Kotze gave a preview of her upcoming work evaluating how human enhancements through biotechnology could exacerbate existing economic inequality and how new inequalities could arise.

November, 2019

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: November 2019

Issue Highlights

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video, Research Insights: Migration and Architectural Form, Podcast: Explaining the Science of Transcendence

CTI Member Robert Gascoigne Delivers Luce Hall Lecture

Inequality & Catholic Social TeachingRobert Gascoigne from Australian Catholic University, where he is Emeritus Professor of Theology reflected on the global problem of rising economic inequality in the light of the Catholic Church’s social teaching on the common good and its relevance to all people of faith and concerned citizens.

October 17, 2019

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: October 2019

Issue Highlights

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video, Tea & Talk: Exploring Connections Between Religion and Economics, Podcast: The Intersection of Spirituality, Architecture, and Theology

CTI’s Monthly Newsletter: September 2019

Issue Highlights

Director William Storrar’s Insights Video, Research Insights: Should the World's Religions Consider Economic Inequality a Moral Issue?, Podcast: Religion & Violence

Symposium with Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion

Members in CTI’s Research Workshop on Religion & Violence participated in a Symposium on Religion & Violence held in co-operation with Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion. CTI workshop members presented their work in progress on religion and violence in a public forum.

Pictured above, left to right: Tanya Zion-Waldoks (Visiting Fellow, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University), Antti Pentikäinen (Executive Director, Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, Finland, and CTI Member), and Ephraim Meir, (Professor of Modern Jewish Philosophy, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and CTI Member.

December 7, 2018

CTI Member Andreas Losch Returns to Luce Hall to Present

Losch, a member of CTI’s Inquiry on the Societal Implications of Astrobiology, joined the lunchtime discussion with current CTI members along with scientists Ed Turner (Princeton University) and Michael Hecht (Princeton University), as well as Frederick Simmons, also a member of the Inquiry on the Societal Implications of Astrobiology.

October, 2018

Albert Raboteau Joins CTI Members to discuss his 2016 Book, American Prophets & Their Struggle for Social and Political Justice

Raboteau is the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion Emeritus at Princeton University. His research and teaching have focused on American Catholic history, African-American religious movements and currently he is working on the place of beauty in the history of Eastern and Western Christian Spirituality.

Jose Casanova Visits for a Lunchtime Seminar

Professor Casanova is one of the world's top scholars in the sociology of religion. He is a professor at the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University, where he also heads a Program on Globalization, Religion and the Secular at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.

September, 2018

CTI welcomed a new cohort of scholars with the launch of the 2018-2019 Research Workshop on Religion & Violence.

Top Row: Antti Pentikäinen (Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers), Ephraim Meir (Bar-Ilan University), Wolfgang Palaver (University of Innsbruck), Louise Du Toit (Stellenbosch University), David Tombs (University of Otago), Ed Noort (University of Groningen).

Bottom Row: Joshua Mauldin (Assistant Director at CTI), William Storrar (Director of CTI), Hannah Strømmen (University of Chichester), Elisabet Le Roux (Stellenbosch University).