Thurber Conversation Archives

Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King as Speakers for Change

Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King delivered the most famous speeches in American History. And their words changed the world. What can religious leaders learn from how Lincoln and King changed the story of a people and in so doing changed the people themselves?

Our guest speaker will be Scott Cormode, Academic Dean and Hugh De Pree Professor of Leadership Development, School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Scott Cormode was named academic dean in Fall 2013, after serving on the faculty at Fuller since 2006 as the Hugh De Pree Associate Professor of Leadership Development. Cormode brought significant leadership and teaching experience to this position, as an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who served for the previous decade as George Butler Associate Professor of Church Administration and Finance at Claremont School of Theology. Cormode also served at Claremont as associate dean for institutional research, chair of the Curriculum Committee, chair of the Accreditation Team, and principal writer of the Long Range Planning Committee.

Functioning as a leader of leaders, Cormode founded in 1998 the Academy of Religious Leadership, an organization for professors who teach leadership in seminaries, and created the Journal of Religious Leadership, for which he also acts as editor, in 2001. His articles on leadership, organization, and technology have appeared as well in Christian Century, Theological Education, and Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. His most recent book, Making Spiritual Sense: Theological Interpretation as Christian Leadership, was published by Abingdon Press in 2006. He has served as convener for numerous leadership conferences, presented dozens of papers, chaired various boards, and led training events. He maintains a series of case studies and other resources on christianleaders.org, a website for developing Christian leaders. fuller.edu/faculty/scormode/

Dinner served at 18h30; lecture at 19h30.

Thurber Thursdays is an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

The Eternal Now - Finding God in the everyday.

You are a busy person, with a challenging career and/or a much loved family. It probably seems as if your time is not your own, that you are owned and are identified by the deadlines and demands of these rigorous and yet chosen roles of yours. Perhaps your schedule and the requirements of these assignments may have caused you to lose the time you once devoted to self-care; you would like to live in God’s kingdom, and be transformed into the image of Christ, but who has the time or energy? It seems a difficult task. A thing you want, but have trouble finding the time to pursue.

Perhaps that is because you have a wrong idea about how to accomplish it. It is really very simple.

All that is required of you is to accept God’s love coming toward you in the present moment, and to respond to this love in obedience.

I said it was simple, but it is not necessarily easy.

The passive movement - Jean Pierre de Caussade will teach us how to “make a sacrament of the present moment;” turning ordinary events of our lives into sacred encounters.

The active movement - St. Therese de Liseaux is our model for letting our every word and deed be an act of worship to the God we love.

Guest speaker, Debby Bellingham (DMin, Christian Spiritual Formation), is a Spiritual Director, a licensed psychotherapist, an ordained minister, author and experienced retreat facilitator. Currently she lives in Ossining, NY with her husband, Jack and her pugs, Molly and Ellie. She enjoys learning new things, running and hanging out with her grandchildren. You can learn more about her by visiting her blog. (www.thementoredlife.com)

Dinner served at 18h30; lecture at 19h30.

Thurber Thursdays is an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Abraham Lincoln 2015; Wisdom for Today

Our guest speaker will be Ronald C. White, Jr., graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, and author of A. Lincoln: A Biography, a New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times bestseller. The book was honored as a best book of 2009 by the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, History Book Club, and Barnes & Noble.His Lincoln biography won the coveted Christopher Award in 2010 which salutes books “that affirm the highest values of the human spirit.”

White is also the author of Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (2002), honored as a New York Times Notable Book of 2002, and a Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (2005), a Los Angeles Times bestseller, a selection of the History Book Club and the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Listen to Dr. White preaching on Abraham Lincoln's Sermon on the Mount at the ACP on 8 March here.

He is presently writing a comprehensive biography of Ulysses S. Grant — American Ulysses — which will be published in the spring of 2015 by Random House. He has lectured at the White House and been interviewed on the PBS News Hour.

Dr. White is a graduate of UCLA and Princeton Theological Seminary with a Ph.D. in Religion and History from Princeton University. He has studied at Lincoln Theological College in England. He has been honored with a D. H. L. [Doctor of Humane Letters] from Whitworth University. He has taught at UCLA, Princeton Theological Seminary, Whitworth University, Colorado College, Rider University, and San Francisco Theological Seminary. He is a Fellow at the Huntington Library, Visiting Professor of History at UCLA, and a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum. He lives with his wife, Cynthia, in La Cañada, California.  www.ronaldcwhitejr.com

Dinner served at 18h30; lecture at 19h30.

Thurber Thursdays is an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Modern Art and Christian Pilgrimage

Was Pop Artist Andy Warhol really a deeply religious man? Was the paint-flinging Jackson Pollock actually seeking representation of spiritual rebirth? Could many of today’s so-called “heretical” artists be representing Christian sensibilities; or asking theologically poignant questions?

Our guest speaker, Dr. Linda Stratford, traces the dialogue between art and religion with interest in the possibility that in the process of stating why it can’t be (in regard to religion), we have failed to recognize where it in fact is. Images will be provided to support discussion.

Dr. Stratford is director of Paris Semester, a semester of credits offered in Paris by Asbury University each fall (open to non-Asbury applicants). She received her Ph.D. from the State University of New York, Stony Brook with an emphasis on Art and Society in France.

As a historian of art and society Dr. Stratford's interests include the means by which artistic initiatives come to be viewed as belonging, or not belonging within the framework of a community. The dynamics of inclusion and exclusion have led her to question the largely secular methodologies in art history and criticism today. 

Dinner served at 18h30; lecture at 19h30.

Thurber Thursdays is an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.