Accessing the Divine: Religious Sources of Resilience in an Age of Political Turmoil
5th Annual Graduate Student Conference - Hybrid
Co-hosted with The Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2025
Time: 8:30am - 3:30pm
Location: Boston College Campus, 245 Beacon St. Room 102
The Accessing the Divine conference took shape in 2021 under the leadership of students in the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium. The conference was initially conceived as a disability theology conference, and its first two iterations explored themes related to disability, building joyful futures, relationality, and interdependence. This year’s conference, which will be co-sponsored by the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium, hopes to expand the definition of its questions about access to include questions of resilience, sustainability, connection, and hope amidst political turmoil, activist and academic burnout, and social division. We hope to explore sources of resilience in religious and spiritual traditions (e.g. their rituals, practices, histories, major figures) in order to inform and energize exercises of resilience in our contemporary political era.
8:30 – 9:00 | Registration, continental breakfast | 245 Beacon Street, room 102, Chestnut Hill, MA
9:00 – 9:05 | Welcoming remarks | Room 102
9:05 – 10:20 | Concurrent Session 1A: Communities of Resilience | Room 102
* Resilience Amidst Conflict: Orthodox Christian Advocacy and Ministry in Pittsfield’s Vulnerable Communities
Cornelius Wambi Gulere, Hellenic College Holy Cross
* Faith and Fortitude: Exploring Spiritual Resilience in Black Alabamians Jaymes Mooney, Howard University
*Resilience in Community: Historical Exploration of Adaptive Strategies of Indian Christians Facing Persecution in Madhya Pradesh, India
Abhishek Prabhakar John, Boston University
9:05 – 10:20 | Concurrent Session 1B: Religious Sources of Resilience | Room 205
* Cruciform Resilience: Two Anabaptist Ingredients for Survival
Thomas Elbourn III, Boston College
* On Mystical Darkness: Prophets & Mystics for Liberatory Transformation
M. Mookie C. Manalili, Boston University
*The Ignatian Examen Prayer as a Narrative Therapeutic Exercise for Resilience
Josef Raoul Rodriguez, S.J., Boston College
10:30 – 11:45 | Concurrent Session 2A: Resilience as Practice: Art, Play, and Song | Room 102
* Unveiling Political Resilience: The Life and Serigraphy of Sister Corita Kent
Lauren Tassone, Harvard University
* Lacrosse as Medicine: Haudenosaunee Resilience, Matriarchal Authority, and Theologies of Play
Colin Destache, Marquette University
“Sing Hallelujah to the Lord”: Colonial Hymn, Postcolonial Resilience, and Social Movements in Hong Kong
Jeffrey Ng, Harvard Divinity School
10:30 – 11:45 | Concurrent Session 2B: Interreligious and Comparative Resources | Room 205
* Contemporary Muslim and Christian Theological Perspectives on Sumud in Palestine
Jack Engelmann, University of Notre Dame
* A Transcendent Interdependence: Syncretic Shinto-Buddhism and Resilience in Minamata Disease Tragedy
Wing Yin Li, Princeton Theological Seminary
* A Zen Quaker’s Guide to Equanimity
Kurt Lakatos, Marquette University
11:45 – 12:30 | Lunch | Room 102
12:30 – 1:45 | Concurrent Session 3A: Wisdom from Theological Leaders | Room 102
* Enfleshing Communion: Solidarity as a Spiritual Practice of Care, Survival, & Liberation in the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez & M. Shawn Copeland
Nathan Davis Hunt, Boston University
* The Prodigal Son: Finding Strength in Religion in Heinrich Heine’s Confessions
Michal Ong, Harvard Divinity School
* Beyond Bonhoeffer: Rethinking Responsibility in Modern Civil Turmoil
Selah Long, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University
12:30 – 1:45 | Concurrent Session 3B: Sources of Resilience from the Earth | Room 205
* Sacred Earth, Sacred Self: Buddhist-Christian Approaches to Embodied Ecospirituality and Caring for the Natural World
Serafina Blake, Loyola Marymount University
* Resilience Reimagined: Toward an Eco-Centric Praxis of Attunement
Hayden Shaw, Hartford International University
* Artistic showcases: “Bleed, Burn, and Bloom,” Mary Mueller, University of Notre Dame; “Fighter,” Br. John Baptist Santa Ana, University of Notre Dame
1:45 – 2:00 | Afternoon coffee break
2:00 – 3:00 | Workshops
* Spiritual Yoga: Revive the Self and Illuminate One’s Own Path using Brahma Kumaris Raja [self-sovereign] Yoga, Sudarshan Sundar, Harvard Divinity School | Room 102
* Creativity Builds Resilience, Molly Snakenberg, Boston College | Room 205