2022 ICFSH Fall Conference: “Human Futures: Grounded by Earth, Reaching for Heaven”

Friday, October 28, 2022

9:00 – 12:00 p.m.

Hood Theological Seminary, The Aymer Center , 1810 Lutheran Synod Drive
Salisbury, NC 28144

Free! Gifts and Food Provided (Limited Seating, Register Early)

Streamed on Facebook Live and Zoom

The event is hybrid, but the in-person seating is limited, so we encourage all to register and designate their virtual or in person attendance. To register for in-person attendance, please contact Rev. Sharon Grant, Ph.D. at sgrant@hoodseminary.edu.

The event will be accessed through Zoom and Hood’s Facebook Live platform. Zoom ID is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85407819654

The International Center of Faith, Science and History at Hood Theological Seminary presents its 2022 Fall Conference. The hybrid event takes place on Friday, October 28, 2022 in the Aymer Center at Hood Theological Seminary and begins at 9:00 am. The featured “Scientist in Spotlight” and 2^nd Annual Gov. Jim and Dottie Martin Lecturer, is Professor Joseph Graves of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University, Greensboro, NC. Dr. Graves is an Evolutionary Biologist whose research has made significant contributions to the scientific understanding of aging. He has also written much about the social construction of race and the lack of scientific evidence to support the notion that race is rooted in biology. While he was experimenting with the genetic components of aging, Graves was also doing research related to the social construction of race. Like many scientists, Graves believes that there is no biological justification for the notion that races exist within modern humans, but that popular notions about race and racism in western society remain strong because race has become a powerful social construction. His most recent published work in this regard includes: A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems (2022); The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America (2005). Dr. Graves will lead the conference by presenting aspects of his research that trace the evolutionary aspect of humanity - and then provide a few questions for the theologians to consider.

In the current age of climate crisis and emerging dominance of Artificial Intelligence, how might theology rightly understood – imagine a future(s) for humanity to thrive? Dr. Monica Coleman, a Womanist theologian and Africana scholar who is the John and Patricia Cochran Scholar for Inclusive Excellence and Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Delaware will privilege the ICFSH with conversation. She spent nearly fifteen years in graduate theological education at Claremont School of Theology, the Center for Process Studies and Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Dr. Coleman has taught religious leaders, community justice leaders and religious scholars about different ways to think about what we believe. She has written books and articles about faith and liberation, and about mental health and faith. She speaks around the world about a more liberating faith. Dr. Coleman mentored Dr. Philip Butler when she served as faculty member of Claremont School of Theology, and they will engage in conversation on the theme: “Human Futures: Grounded in Earth, Reaching toward Heaven”. Professor Butler is an international scholar whose work primarily focuses on the intersections of neuroscience, technology, spirituality and Blackness. He uses the wisdom of these spaces to engage in critical and constructive analysis on Black posthumanism, artificial intelligence and pluriversal future realities. He is also the founder of the Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational artificial intelligence with mental health capacities.

The conversation between these two gifted theologians prompted by a leading evolutionary biologist promises to be informational and inspirational. We invite the Salisbury community to reserve this date and join us.

The event is hybrid, but the in-person seating is limited, so we encourage all to register and designate their virtual or in person attendance. To register for in-person attendance, please contact Rev. Sharon Grant, Ph.D. at sgrant@hoodseminary.edu.

The event will be accessed through Zoom and Hood’s Facebook Live platform. Zoom ID is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85407819654

“Scientist in Spotlight”

2^nd Governor Jim and Dottie Religion and Science Lecture

Dr. Joseph Graves, Evolutionary Biologist, AAAS Fellow

North Carolina A &T

9:00 a.m.

THEOLOGIANS IN CONVERSATION

10:00 a.m.

Dr. Monica A. Coleman

Womanist Theologian and Africana Scholar

University of Delaware

Dr. Philip Butler

Assistant Professor of Theology,

Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence

Iliff School of Theology