Presenter: Ken Sawyer, Professor of Church History, McCormick Theological Seminary
I joined the McCormick community in 1980, began teaching in 1988, and was appointed to the regular faculty in 1993. I am a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). My teaching and training has centered in the broad Reformed tradition and New and Old School Presbyterian history in the decades before the Civil War, with special focus on varieties of abolitionism. In recent years three quite distinct themes have been central to my teaching: the history of early or “classical” Islam, the extensive literary traditions of the Early Church Mothers and Fathers, and the tasks of dismantling the carceral state. PhD, U. of Chicago, ksawyer@mccormick.edu
These are days of great scholarship and analysis, including the following:
- Blight, David. Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom. Simon & Schuster, 2018.
- Blumenthal, Sidney. The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln. 3 vols. Simon & Schuster, 2017-.
- Kendi, Ibram X. How to be an Anti-Racist. On World Press, 2019.
- Sharpe, Christina. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Duke U. Press, 2016.
- Schulman, Sarah. Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair. Arsenal Press, 2016.
- Karumitsu, Kenji. Booklet of Uncommon Prayer: Collects for #BlackLives Matter. ESA, 2017.
- Praying with James Baldwin in an age of #BlackLivesMatter at: www.prayingwithjamesbaldwin.com
This is a public presentation for FIDE (a Presbyterian Faith Formation Collective)