Please join us on Wednesday, February 15 at 7:00 p.m. as we welcome guest speaker Dr. Elizabeth M. Bounds to begin a new Lenten season of “Seeking Shalom” with a focus on bridging social divides through dialogue.

“Learning to Recognize Jesus: Dialogue as Christian Practice” will be the topic for Dr. Bounds’ talk, and for the Lenten series, which will continue on Wednesday nights from March 1 through March 29. The series is a continuation of “Seeking Shalom,” the 2022-2023 theme for The Reverend Anne Bridgers Contagious with Love Symposium. 

Dr. Bounds is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at the Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. Following her visit to St. Philip’s on February 15, she will lead five video presentations on dialogue as a Christian practice.

"Lent is a time of preparation and purification, patterned on Jesus’s desert preparation for ministry and on the time leading to the crucifixion. It is a time when Christians are called to repent and renew their understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. Both Jesus’s own ministry and the work of the early church suggest obligations for Christians to connect, to understand, and to engage, especially with those who are unfamiliar to them."

On March 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, participants will gather in small groups in Miller Hall to view the videos, followed by discussion time with facilitators for each table group. The programs will start at 6:00 pm, immediately following our 5:00 pm Lenten soup-and-salad suppers in Miller Hall.

Please plan to join us on February 15 to welcome Dr. Bounds and learn more about “Seeking Shalom”! Admission to this event is free and we encourage you to bring a friend. Advance sign-ups are not required.

About our guest speaker

Dr. Elizabeth M. Bounds is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at the Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. She teaches courses in conflict transformation, responses to incarceration, restorative justice, and reconciliation, working with a variety of participatory and practical methods. Her current research studies theo-moral understandings of the good life among incarcerated women. She is co-founder/administrator of the Certificate in Theological Studies at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Georgia.