Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration: “Called to Love,” January 15

Monday, January 15, 10:30 a.m. - noon

Augustana College Center for Student Life, Gävle Room, 3435 Ninth-and-a-Half Avenue, Rock Island IL

With the event sponsored by the Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity and the Augustana Diversity Council, the college's annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration on January 15 is themed Called for Love, its keynote speaker the award-winning author Dr. Reggie Williams, who also serves as a professor of Christian ethics at Chicago's McCormick Theological Seminary.

Dr. Williams' book Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance (Baylor University Press, 2014) was selected as a Choice Outstanding Title in 2015, in the field of religion. The book is an analysis of exposure to Harlem Renaissance intellectuals, and worship at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist on the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, during his year of post-doctoral study at Union Seminary in New York, 1930-31. Dr. Williams’ research interests include Christological ethics, theological anthropology, Christian social ethics, the Harlem Renaissance, race, politics and black church life. His current book project Interrogating Theological Anthropology in the Harlem Renaissance: The Figure of the Human as a Problem for Christian Ethics includes a religious critique of whiteness in the Harlem Renaissance. In addition, he is working on a book analyzing the reception of Bonhoeffer by liberation activists in apartheid South Africa.

Having received his Ph.D. in Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in 2011, Dr. Williams earned a Master’s degree in Theology from Fuller in 2006 and a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from Westmont College in 1995. He is a member of the board of directors for the Society for Christian Ethics, as well as the International Dietrich Bonhoeffer Society. He is also a member of the American Academy of Religion and Society for the Study of Black Religion. His accomplishments include serving as co-editor and contributor to Baptist Peacemaker, Global Christian Ethicist: Essays in Honor of Glen Harold Stassen.

The Martin Luther King Jr. celebration Called to Love will be presented in the Gävle Room of Augustana College's Center for Student Life on January 15, participation in the 10:30 a.m. program is free, and more information is available by calling (309)794-7306 and visiting Augustana.edu.