Hedgerow Initiative - Fall 2011


The Hedgerow Initiative offers sustained, systematic programming in feminist theological education, spiritual integration, and leadership for a just and holy world. In a particular way, the Initiative highlights the scholarship of women who since the 1950s have worked to reclaim women’s presence and significance in scripture, church, history, theology and culture. The Initiative takes its name from the hedgerow schools in Ireland that kept alive the language, faith, culture and community of the people during the time of the British penal codes. A hedgerow is a biosphere and a haven.

Read this article and
an open letter to
Elizabeth Johnson.

Keeping Faith Today
a conversation with
Sr. Joan Mitchell

Here Be Dragons: A Dialogue with
Quest for the Living God

Mondays, September 19 - November 28, 6:30-8:30pm and Friday, November 4, 7-9pm

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, warns readers that her book Quest for the Living God will take them into the unknown, the spaces where medieval mapmakers once wrote “Here be dragons.” She challenges readers to risk a journey through dragon territory to reach new places already discovered to be life-giving and true by others in the church. In a readable book valued by people hungering for mature faith and those who want to catch up with what’s new in theology, Johnson presents insights into God found in the major theological movements of the past 60 years—liberation, ecofeminist, womanist, interfaith, evolutionary theologies. Nearly 175 theologians are represented in its pages.

Recently the book has also caught the attention of the U.S. Catholic bishops who have objected to the book’s representation of the Catholic Church and teachings. Course participants will join the lively dialogue that has ensued, reading the bishops’ critique, Johnson’s responses, and other articles. The seminar is for seekers who want to read for themselves a book people are talking about, and then engage the issues and ask questions in conversation with those finding faith beyond old boundaries.

**This series includes the Wisdom Ways premiere showing of “Journey of the Universe” and discussions of that film led by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim as part of the Wisdom Ways Fall Soul Conference in November.

Sept 19    Ancient Story, The Last Chapters
Sept 26    Gracious Mystery: Who are We, and Who is God?
Oct 3       Crucified God of Compassion: God and Suffering
Oct 10     Liberating God: God of Justice
Oct 17     God Acting Womanish:
Feminist and Womanist Theology
Oct 24     God Who Breaks Chains:
White Privilege and Racism
Oct 31    God of Fiesta: Mujerista Theology and
Day of the Dead Ritual
Nov 4      Religion and a New Environmental Ethic:
Film premier of “Journey of the Universe” **
Nov 7      Creator Spirit in the Evolving World
Nov 14    Gracious God of the Religions: Interfaith Relations
Nov 21    Trinity: Living God of Love
Nov 28    Gathering Our Insights

INSTRUCTORS:
Rhodora Beaton, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, St. Catherine University
Rev. J. Michael Byron, Th.D., St. Paul School of Divinity, St. Thomas University
Rev. Lynne Lorenzen, Ph.D., Professor retired, Augsburg College
Joan Mitchell, CSJ, Ph.D., Good Ground Press

 

TEXT: Quest for the Living God by Elizabeth Johnson.

SYLLABUS: View the syllabus.

WHEN: Monday evenings, September 19-November 28, 6:30-8:30 pm, and Friday, November 4, 7-9 pm

COST: $220 for all 12 sessions / $25 per session