Clockwise from top left: Ellen J. Kennedy, Phd, Najeeba Syeed, JD, the Rev. Angela Denker, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Photos provided.
Wednesday, April 8
6:30 p.m.
The O'Shaughnessy
90-minute runtime, followed by a book signing and reception in the lobby
This lecture is free and open to the public, but tickets are required.
This year’s Goodman Lecture will have not one speaker, but three, as a panel of spiritual and community leaders gather at The O’Shaughnessy for an interfaith conversation. The Reverend Angela Denker will moderate a discussion of religious nationalism and its impacts on the United States and world, featuring:
- Ellen J. Kennedy, PhD, founder and executive director of World Without Genocide, a Minneapolis-based human rights organization with special consultative status to the United Nations.
- Najeeba Syeed, JD, inaugural El-Hibri Endowed Chair of Interfaith Studies and executive director of the Interfaith Institute at Augsburg University.
- Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, author, preacher, and community builder working for social change with faith-rooted movements that include the Yale Divinity School, St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church, and the Public Religion Research Association.
Denker is an award-winning author and pastor, serving at Lake Nokomis Lutheran Church in Minneapolis as Pastor of Visitation and Public Theology. A journalist and subject expert on the topic of Christian nationalism and its theological and cultural roots, she has appeared in national and international news media such as the Star Tribune, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, CNN, BBC, and NPR.
In this year’s lecture, the panelists will explore issues around belonging, socio-economic impacts, discrimination, violence, theological implications, and legislative roadblocks that manifest in response to these religious ideals.
Read more about the speakers and reserve your tickets at oshag.stkate.edu/goodman.
About the Goodman Lecture
Founded by Arthur and Constance Goodman in 1979, the Goodman Lecture promotes interfaith dialogue between Jewish and Christian communities. Recent speakers in the lecture series include Janet Horvath, Krista Tippett, the Reverend Jim Bear Jacobs and Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, Paula Fredricksen, PhD, Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman, and Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker.
This fund has allowed the St. Catherine University theology department to sponsor a lecture for nearly four decades, focusing on interfaith dialogue between Jews and Christians. As an interfaith couple — Arthur was Jewish and Constance was Catholic — the prejudices they experienced strongly motivated them to promote dialogue that might lead us from hostility and discrimination to greater understanding and acceptance of our differences as part of the human family.