Embracing Diversity: Past, Present, and Future - Part 3
with Rev. Dr. Carolyn B. Helsel
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
7:00 to 8:30 pm CDT
Online

What do we mean by the word “diversity”? And how has this word changed in meaning even within the past decade? What does it mean for us to embrace diversity moving forward? This series of presentations will address these questions, drawing from the 2020 book co-authored by Drs. Carolyn Helsel and Y. Joy Harris-Smith, entitled The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Our Kids (and Ourselves!) Embrace Diversity. Helsel will unpack some of the themes and strategies of the book for understanding diversity in multiple contexts, as well as describing more recent political trends that have impacted the ways society talks about diversity. Additionally, Helsel will look at ways people of faith can move forward in embracing diversity in their own work contexts, places of worship, and educational institutions.

The Rev. Dr. Carolyn B. Helsel is the Blair Monie Distinguished Chair of Homiletics at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where she teaches preaching and directs the Faithful Preaching Project. Funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, this program seeks to equip clergy and lay preachers to craft faith-inspiring sermons. Prior to teaching at the seminary, Helsel has served as a transitional pastor in the greater Boston area, as associate director of admissions at Princeton Seminary, and as a hospital chaplain. Helsel is also the author of Anxious to Talk about It: Helping White People Talk Faithfully about Racism, Preaching about Racism, and co-author of The Flawed Family of God: Stories about the Imperfect Families in Genesis.

Registration opens August 1.