Center for Faith Studies Events Archive

Within the magnificent beauty and rhythms of Sun and Earth, we humans are fortunate to witness Creation’s Migration Events all over the world. Certainly one of the most ancient, captivating, spiritual and accessible of these is the annual northward migration of some half-million Sandhill Cranes through the Platte River Valley each spring, along with hundreds of thousands of other migrating waterfowl, all drawn to their summer nesting grounds farther north.

In an act of pure imagination, Countryside Community United Church of Christ in Omaha invites you to “migrate” with us March 12 and 13, 2010, to that portion of the Central Flyway which is found in mid-Nebraska along a 50-mile stretch of the Platte River between Hastings and Kearney.

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The Reverend Michael Dowd is author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World, which has been endorsed by fi ve Nobel Prize-winning scientists and religious leaders across the spectrum. Uniquely gifted at bridging the liberal-conservative divide and speaking meaningfully to religious and non-religious audiences alike, Dowd is passionate about sharing the wonder and awe of the science-based history of the universe in ways that touch, move, and inspire people of all backgrounds and beliefs. In Christian settings, Rev. Dowd offers ways in which an understanding of the evolutionary sciences can deepen and strengthen faith and make core Christian doctrines truly relevant in modern times. Rev. Dowd served as a United Church of Christ minister for nine years, pastoring churches in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Michigan. He and his wife, noted science writer Connie Barlow, are creators of the leading educational website in the Evolution Theology movement: TheGreatStory.org.

Co-sponsored by: Unity Church of Omaha

With the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, the immediate buzz was that the United States has entered a “post-racial” society. There is a problem with that phrase: 1) there is no clear-cut definition of what “post-racial” means; 2) there can be no exit of the racist past of this country without a clear acceptance that this country has in fact been racist.

“The Myth of Post-Racialism” will examine what the term “postracial” means, and offer an argument that until there is real understanding of racism, why and how it is such a deeply-rooted disease, and how the church’s complicity in keeping racism alive have all kept this peculiarly American illness alive and contagious, there can never be the claim of this nation being in a post-racial position.

Reverend Dr. Susan K. Smith is a former news reporter, talk show host and now Senior Pastor of Advent United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. Author of four books, her work also appears weekly on The Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog, as a member of a panel of theologians, scholars and writers who comment on issues pertinent to religion.