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Picard Lecture on Environmental Theology and Ethics
October 28 at 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm CDT
Join us October 28 for the Picard Lecture on Environmental Theology and Ethics at United or online. Dr. Kiara Jorgenson, associate professor of Religion and Environmental Studies at St. Olaf College, is this year’s speaker. Kiara, whose lecture is titled “Hope through Tears,” is a theologian who earned degrees from St. Olaf College (BA, Religion & Women’s Studies), Denver Seminary (MDiv) and Luther Seminary (PhD, Theology). Her research interests include: Protestant ecotheologies, vocation, ecofeminisms, agrarian studies, ecological resistance movements, childhood studies, and the theology of motherwork. At St. Olaf College, she teaches religion courses on ecotheologies, place-based spiritualities, and a smattering of environmental humanities offerings such as Biophilia, Theo-Ethics of Climate Change, and Culture of Nature.
Kiara recently published Ecology of Vocation: Recasting Calling in a New Planetary Era (Fortress/Lexington, 2020) and an edited volume, Ecotheology: A Christian Conversation (Eerdmans, 2020). She has also published articles in journals on interdisciplinary topics ranging from Jürgen Moltmann’s ecological ethics to the vocation of children to Indigenous influence on Christian watershed liturgies.
After she speaks, Dr. Munjed M. Murad, United’s program director for Eco-Justice and assistant professor of World Religions and Intercultural Studies supported by the Johnson-Fry Endowment, and Dr. Timothy R. Eberhart—the Robert and Marilyn Degler McClean Associate Professor of Ecological Theology and Practice at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and Director of the Center for Ecological Regeneration—will offer brief responses to Kiara’s lecture.
Free parking is available in either the North or South lot adjacent to the CASE building in St. Paul.
About the Picard Lecture
The Picard Lectures on Environmental Theology and Ethics are supported by an endowment made possible through the generosity of United alum, Rev. Frank Picard (’02), and members of the Picard family. The purpose of the lectureship is to explore questions and issues concerning the state of the creation from theological and ethical perspectives. The lectureship seeks to raise questions such as the relation between our spiritual life and the state of the natural world, and the response of religious leadership to the decline of the planet. In establishing the endowment the Picard family especially wishes to remember the deep appreciation for God’s creation they shared with the late David and Roland Picard.