The word “formation” is more than just Episcopal jargon for Sunday School or Christian Education. When we come together in community to study, pray, and discuss the ways of God, we are shaped and reshaped by new ideas and the perspectives of others. Sometimes we get a glimpse of God and of who God calls us to be.
Formation suggests development, and even a sense of structure … but structure, like a cloud formation, evolves, grows, and shifts. Come be formed and re-formed, and possibly even made new.
Oct. 18
Racism and Creationism
Professor Steve McKenzie
We will discuss the strange story in Genesis 9:20-27, how it has been misused in support of slavery and segregation; I will argue that a literalist reading of this story in history is inherently racist and is perpetuated in efforts to install the teaching of creationism in public education.
Steve McKenzie is Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Spence L. Wilson Senior Research Fellow at Rhode College, where he has taught since 1983. His research has focused on the historical books and approaches to interpreting the Bible. Among his publications are King David: A Biography (2000), How to Read the Bible (2005), and commentaries on the books of Kings, Chronicles, and Jonah (with John Kaltner and Rhiannon Graybill).
