Thought-provoking Speakers
& Inspiring Preachers

You know some of these speakers well, and we promise you’ll be reading the others for years to come!

Here's a preview, in their own words:

Mark Achtemeier

Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Dubuque, IA. He is the author of A Passion for the Gospel: Confessing Jesus Christ for the 21st Century.

I believe that full inclusion is coming to the Presbyterian Church because our commitments to the authority of Scripture and the Lordship of Christ demand it. The reality of Jesus’ love for God’s gay and lesbian children is plain enough and self-evident enough that the ranks of the ordinary faithful are recognizing and embracing it more and more with each passing day.”

Gregory Bentley

Pastor, Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Tuscaloosa, AL, and President, National Black Presbyterian Caucus

In seminary, I had a New Testament professor who would always remind us to not only preach Jesus, but to preach what Jesus preached as well; to not only preach Jesus and him crucified but to preach the content of what got him crucified in the first place. To that end, the church that is coming into being will be a church that is anointed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to ‘bring good news to the poor; to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to proclaim the season of the Lord’s favor.’ This transformed church will not seek comfort, convenience, and conformity to the cultural milieu but instead will seek to please God above all else and to serve God’s people and all of God’s creation even at the risk of losing its own life.”

Melva Wilson Costen

Professor Emerita of Music and Worship, Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta. She is the author of In Spirit and In Truth: The Music of African American Worship

The Church we can see from here is an endless gathering of the people of God, called out and committed to serve; freed to accept diversity of cultures, languages and people as a new and vital way of seeing, hearing and responding to God. More vibrant and less suspicious of the stranger previously considered other or outsider, with liturgical spaces for worship broadening to include the streets and communities where people live; God is served without the boundaries of walls, and limitations of race. Love abounds in the church we can see from here, and the church dances with her whole being, not only because love is silently mandated in the PCUSA Constitutional resources, but because the church believes and acts as if ‘Love is of God,’ is endless, and constantly in motion. Therefore a vote from the people is totally unnecessary!"

Kenda Creasy Dean

Associate Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture, Princeton Theological Seminary, and author of Oblivious: What the Faith of American Teenagers Is Telling the American Church

Youth ministry is the research and development branch of the church: if you want to see where the church will be in twenty years, look at what’s happening in youth ministry now. Nowhere is that more evident than in churches’ current interest in “emerging adulthood.” You might take the sickly state of many ministries designed for young people as a dismal sign for the church’s future--but I think it’s a sign of hope. Young people are not settling for a faith that doesn’t matter. And they won’t settle for a church that doesn’t matter either."

Eddie Glaude

Professor of Religion and African American Studies, Princeton University, and author of In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America

I can see the Church humbly searching and serving; and that those of us who identify with it do not act as if all has been settled. Instead, we exemplify in our living what it means to sacrifice for and to love others. This is, in my view, essential to the exercise of faith in public."

Dawne Moon

Assistant Professor of Sociology, Marquette University, and author of God, Sex and Politics: Homosexuality and Everyday Theologies

Liberals have grown to fear the language of choice when it comes to sexuality. For many Protestants, Christian living is all about choices: to choose to follow Jesus, to choose a certain career or cause or marriage partner. But this language of calling is strikingly absent when it comes to gender and sexuality; here, liberals tend to rely on inevitability and compulsion. They miss their opportunity to argue that gays and lesbians (and possibly, if they think about them, bisexuals and transgender people) should not have to change. Instead, they argue that they have no choice."

Ted Smith

Assistant Professor of Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt Divinity School, and author of The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice.

This year saw a record number of presbyteries voting to welcome the gifts of all those God calls to ministry. Thirty-four presbyteries—34!— shifted their votes towards full inclusion of glbt Christians. If we do not yet live in the church we are working for, we can see it from here. But the church we can see from here is not only the product of our plans. It is also the judgment and redemption of those plans. The church we can see from here—because it is the church—is not the work of our hands alone. It is a gift. A fearsome, wonderful gift."

Exploring changes in the areas of Reformed theology, race and ethnicity, youth ministry, and Christian ethics of sex, will be the challenge of this conference. To insure continuity between the plenaries, Ted Smith will serve as Plenary Host. Following each Plenary, Ted will engage the speaker and conference participants in dialogue that will help keep us all focused on the connections and the context.  He will also preach the closing sermon.