Human Rights

Rev. Dr. James Noel of San Francisco Theological Seminary will be honored as the Graduate Theological Union Distinguished Faculty Lecturer on Nov. 8 in Berkeley, Calif.

The GTU, one of the largest partnerships of seminaries and graduate schools in the United States, celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012. Each November, the GTU faculty honors a distinguished professor who embodies the scholarly standards, teaching excellence and commitment to ecumenism that define the GTU. Nominations are considered by the Council of Deans, which selects the Distinguished Faculty Lecturer.

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May 10, 2012 - Graduate Theological Union announced Pacific School of Religion Professor Boyung Lee as the 2012 recipient of its Sarlo Excellence in Teaching Award during its May Commencement ceremony.

The selection committee said in its announcement that Lee "embodies in an exemplary way the values of 'interreligious sensitivity and commitment,' 'interdisciplinary approach and content in teaching,' 'sensitivity to ethnic and cultural diversity,' and 'creative and effective classroom pedagogical methods and performance.'

In response to accepting the award,...

A conversation co-sponsored by the Women's Studies in Religion, Asia Project at the GTU, and the Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM) 2012 Annual Conference "Abundant Life and Unjust Prosperity."

Photo Credit: Photographers@Large

On Saturday, January 14, the Black Church/Africana Religious Studies Program hosted a Womanist Symposium – “Who Do They Say I Am?” at the McGee Avenue Baptist Church in Berkeley. The Honorable Congresswoman Barbara Lee, 9th Congressional District, was the morning keynote speaker (pictured above).

“The attendance far exceeded expectations,” according to Dr. Martha Taylor, Symposium Convener. “By bridging the academy and the seminary, this first ever of its kind symposium offered an opportunity to engage womanist theology within...

Izak Lattu, a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies, denounces changes by the Indonesian government which oppress practioners of indigenous religion.

"Although indigenous faiths such as Sunda Wiwitan, Kejawen and other forms of traditional beliefs represent local ways of addressing the Ultimate Reality, they nonetheless encounter discrimination on a political basis....

"Having been suppressed, the Sunda Wiwitan community is now longing for freedom of religious expression. Unfortunately, neither the national government nor the local government of Bandung have dealt...

Izak Lattu, doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies, explains how the actions of one Indonesian politician marks the exception to the general principle of religious tolerance in the country for which it is revered.

"It has been years of agony for GKI Taman Yasmin Protestant church congregation members as Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto has defied a Supreme Court decision to allow them to attend Sunday mass in their place of worship.

Budiarto’s bureaucratic move reflects the failure of not only law enforcement in the city, but also of the country’s civil justice system....

Izak Lattu, a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies, speaks against acts of violence perpetrated in the name of religion.

"Using violence based on religion is blatantly misleading; religion does not lead to violence but to love and peace instead. The suicide bomb that occurred in the Bethel Injil Sepenuh Church (GBIS) Surakarta, also known as Solo, Central Java, is not linked with one particular religion and the fatalities should be perceived as victims rather than as the believers of a certain religion. In my point of view, the problem should be located in the victim-...

Rabbi Julia Watts Belser (Ph.D. ‘08) will be Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and Jewish Ethics at Harvard Divinity School’s Women’s Studies in Religion Program for 2011-12. She earned her Ph.D. in the Joint Doctoral Program in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union and the University of California, Berkeley.

Belser, who is Assistant Professor of Judaism at Missouri State University, strives to teach classic Jewish texts in ways that speak to contemporary longings. While at HDS, she will set contemporary postcolonial, queer, womanist, and feminist theorists...

Tat-Siong Benny Liew will be a keynote speaker at Drew University's Tipple-Vosburgh Lectures, October 18-20, 2011. Liew, Professor of New Testament at Pacific School of Religion, will deliver "What Has Been Done? What Can We Learn? Racial/Ethnic Minority Readings of the Bible." Also present at the lectures will be former PSR faculty members Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan, current Dean of Drew Theological School, and Mayra Rivera, currently at Harvard Divinity School.