This Is the Story

Trevor and I are swinging open the doors to the Disseminary, but slowly. Rather than try to draw attention to the project on a large scale before there’s much to see, we’re getting some of the constituent projects going. Then we’ll ask for a general PR foofaraw, so that newcomers will see us beginning to fill the larders (rather than looking at where we hope someday to put the produce).

The first two projects we’re setting in motion are group blogs, one a more formal seminar on The Ethics of Interpreting the Bible, which Trevor and I will lead, and one a freer round table on the theological movement called Radical Orthodoxy, which Margaret will facilitate. After these two (perhaps concurrently, depending on the timing), Prof. Wesley Avram of Yale Divinity School will lead a seminar on Spirituality and Technology, and Dr. Tania Oldenhage of the Evangelisches Tagungs- und Studienzentrum (the Protestant Academy of Boldern) will lead a seminar on the parables of Jesus.

Trevor and I are inviting applications for the seminar on ethics, the Bible, and hermeneutics. We anticipate leading a six- or seven-week discussion, drawing on articles that are almost entirely available online. The seminar would then continue for a while, depending on the participants’ interest, reading materials suggested by the course of the conversation up to that point. As with all Disseminary projects, the discussion will be held at a publicly accessible site, and we’ll permit open comments from the peanut gallery. We don’ have a fancy application form just yet — we’ working on one — but if you’d like to participate in our seminar, please drop one of us an email message (I’m at akma {at} disseminary.org, he’s at bechtel {at} disseminary.org).

We already have three participants for the RadOx round table (Margaret, Joel Garver, and Matt Gunter) and we’re looking for another nine or ten participants. Contact Margaret (margaretbadam {at} mac.com) or me (akma {at} disseminary.org) if you’ interested in reading through this bracing theological alternative in postmodern thought!