San Francisco Theological Seminary at University of Redlands

Please join us for an inclusive prayer service, online or in person, to honor transpeople who have been murdered or tragically lost: share names, sing together, lift up our trans friends and loved ones. Contact [email protected] or visit http://bit.ly/SFTS-TDoR-2024 for more information.

Please join us for an inclusive prayer service on Wednesday, Nov 6th, on Zoom or in person, to celebrate those who have gone before us - especially those who died in the previous year. 🙏🏽🕯️
https://uredlands.zoom.us/j/84037232789?pwd=vjqHiAoKlenmQJ8XGNGjIY3hicSbH2.1

Contact [email protected] to submit a photo or name for our altar of remembrance.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nNkV0_hMag01FVEIgeFR4A6AuROGXOuj/view

We are having a retreat this semester for all current students 🤗

Join us next Wednesday for our annual Blessing of the Animals 🤗
In person at Montgomery Chapel and on Zoom.

Join us for a new series of interactive workshops in partnership with Glacier Camp 🤗.
See the link below for full information on the series:
https://uredlands-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/ryan_knauber_redlands_edu/EXz-MtpjOclCm-FgXEPWHB8B4ac9cjCIG2gefqZyqqP8QQ?e=TinZv7

Join us in congratulating this year's Commencement Award recipients! 🌟💒🎓

Distinguished Alumni Award
Rev. Dr. Sharon Stanley-Rea
M.Div. 1989

Rev. Dr. Sharon Stanley-Rea is an ordained clergy in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), also with clergy standing in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the US and Canada. She has over three decades of grassroots and national expertise in direct programmatic development, refugee organizational leadership, policy and advocacy, and community education in refugee resettlement and sponsorship, immigrant rights and legislation, asylum seeker policies, and unaccompanied children services.

Sharon has Bachelor of Arts in Religion and Politics from St. Andrews Presbyterian College, a Master of Divinity from San Francisco Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry from Columbia Theological Seminary. She also received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of Lynchburg. After graduation, Sharon spent more than 13 years in a California community nicknamed after a refugee camp in Thailand. She founded and directed a multi-service refugee organization in Fresno, California, nationally led Refugee & Immigration Ministries for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination, and currently is Director of the Washington, DC regional office for Church World Service global refugee and development organization. Rev. Stanley-Rea is deeply committed to refugee resettlement as one of our nation’s most successful public/private and bipartisan partnerships in U.S. history. She has won multiple human rights, justice, and advocacy awards, and has moderated numerous national and local press conferences, vigils, and community actions related to refugee resettlement and the benefits immigrants offer to both local neighborhoods and to the character and strength of our nation.

Honorary Doctorate
Mike Wilson
Human Rights Activist

Mike Wilson is a Native American (Tohono O'odham) human rights activist. He was born in 1949 in the village of Wac in the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Mike has worked as a teacher and a Presbyterian lay pastor. He served for 22 years in the U.S. Army Special Forces. From 1988 - 1989 he was a military advisor to the Army of El Salvador during that country's brutal civil war. During this period, he witnessed the horrors of a military dictatorship, extreme poverty and the injustices of war. Against his District (Baboquivari) Council’s order, from 2002 - 2014 Mike maintained many life-saving water stations on the O'odham reservation for undocumented migrants crossing tribal lands.

He has participated in numerous documentary and feature films and panels about the border. He holds a BA in Spanish, with a minor in History, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and did Graduate studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary. He is the co-author with José Antonio Lucero, PhD, of “What Side Are You On? A Tohono O’odhamLife across Borders“ to be released June 2024 by the University of North Carolina Press. Mike is currently in production as co-director with Victoria Westover of the documentary film “Whose Land? O’odham Land” to be released in 2025.

Check out our event tomorrow (5/15)! 🤗
In person and online at 11am.
https://www.facebook.com/events/292943117106285/

Mark your calendars on May 15th 🤗.
Zoom for the day of: https://uredlands.zoom.us/j/87228460102

A conversation about q***r medievalisms and the use of historical traditions in the ministry and witness of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are an international order of q***r and trans nuns founded in San Francisco in 1979, with affiliated chapters throughout the world.

JOIN US for an ONLINE discussion on the future of the black church ⛪ with Dr. Julius Bailey and Dean Laurie Garrett-Cobbina. This will be a look through the lens 🎥 of its history, into the future of God. The lecture and discussion will be followed by a question and answer session.
This is a FREE, online event and all are welcome 😊

When: Wednesday, Feb. 28th, 10am - 12pm.
Where: Zoom Online: https://uredlands.zoom.us/j/84942043884?pwd=dGJMMEJDWkVJUnk0c3A2RVVqMEVtUT09
Who: Rev. Dr. Laurie Garrett-Cobbina, Dean, San Francisco Theological Seminary.
& Dr. Julius Bailey, The H. Eugene Farlough-California Chair in African-American Christianity.

Calendar invite: https://www.redlands.edu/study/schools-and-centers/gst/sfts/events-at-sfts/

Caring Across our Curriculum. Check out some of our course offerings this semester 🤗 !
https://www.redlands.edu/study/schools-and-centers/gst/academics/

Check out Dr. Chris Ocker's new book, The Hybrid Reformation. He's our our Professor of the History of Christianity who also served as Interim Dean for 3 years.
https://www.amazon.com/Hybrid-Reformation-Cultural-Intellectual-Contending/dp/1108477976

"A hybrid Reformation both acknowledges and compromises the authoritative claims of Reformation protagonists."

"Loud voices then, such as Luther's or Calvin's, must be heard as the best historians hear them...to have been creatively, even playfully participating in a vibrant lifeworld of ideas about belief, identity, and the real."

Description:
Christopher Ocker offers a constructive and nuanced alternative to the received understanding of the Reformation. Combining the methods of intellectual, cultural, and social history, his book demonstrates how the Reformation became a hybrid movement produced by a binary of Catholic and Protestant self-definitions, by bystanders to religious debate, and by the hesitations and compromises made by all three groups during the religious controversy.

'Braving the Way' is the Graduate Theological Union's 2023 impact report, for your enjoyment here: https://issuu.com/graduatetheologicalunion/docs/impact_report_f

We are so thankful to be a part of a diverse, contemplative, and unifying center of theological schools.

From the GTU: "This year, we have made strides on a number of key initiatives: transforming our physical spaces to meet the needs of today’s scholars; training the next generation of scholar-leaders; and committing to investing in bold, innovative endeavors by continuing to grow our GTUx platform. The 2023 Impact Report details the aim, impact, and current status of these initiatives and more."