Reading the Bible for Current Times
with Rev. Dr. Jeremy L. Williams
Saturday, March 22, 2025
9:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. CST
In-person at Brite Divinity School

The Bible is a powerful text in the public square, especially in the United States. Its interpretations literally have the power of life and death. Too frequently, when some Christians declare “the Bible says,” they are proof-texting hatred, domination, exploitation, and violence. That is not the only way to read Scriptures nor is it the only way that interpreters have engaged these texts over millennia. This seminar presents strategies for carefully reading biblical texts. Participants will learn how to intelligently consider the ancient contexts of biblical passages while meaningfully addressing contemporary problems like racial capitalism, the prison industrial complex, settler colonialism, patriarchal legislation, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, and ecological catastrophe.

The Rev. Dr. Jeremy L. Williams is a nationally sought-out thinker, preacher, leader, and author. He is the author of Criminalization in Acts of the Apostles: Race, Rhetoric, and the Prosecution of an Early Christian Movement, published by Cambridge University Press. He is a scholar of religion who specializes in New Testament and Early Christianity. Williams earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University and an MDiv. degree from Yale Divinity School where he was awarded the Henry Hallam Tweedy Prize, the highest award presented to graduates. He is an Assistant Professor of New Testament at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. Williams received his ordination in the North Central Alabama Region of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church as a member of Acklin CME Church in Berkley, AL. Williams works every day to inspire people to “dream better dreams.”

Register at https://epay.tcu.edu/stalcup_seminar/