Dr. Patrick Reyes, Dean of Auburn Seminary

The Christensen Symposium

The Christensen Symposium and the Christensen Center for Vocation were both established to honor the legacy of Dr. Christensen, the 8^th president of Augsburg University who served from 1938-1962. His legacy was one of critical inquiry and genuine hospitality. We have drawn these lessons from that legacy which still shape our work.

• Christian faith liberates minds and lives
• Diversity strengthens vital communities
• Inter-faith friendships enrich learning
• The love of Christ draws us to God
• We are called to service in the world

It is my hope that you will hear echoes of Dr. Christensen’s lessons in Dr. Reyes’ presentation.

Dr. Patrick Reyes

Dr. Patrick Reyes currently serves as the Dean of Auburn Seminary in New York City.

He is a Chicano writer, theologian, and executive leader and the award-winning author of The Purpose Gap and Nobody Cries When We Die. Prior to his current position he was the Senior Director of Learning Design for the Lilly Endowment’s Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE) where he provided strategy and direction for their diverse programs, grants, and teams supporting the next generation of leaders. In addition, he led the historic fellowships supporting scholars of color, the Institutional Doctoral Network, and partnerships in theological and higher education.

He is a peer among public theologians and deeply respected among faith and justice leaders and funders. He is the current Board President of the Religious Education Association and serves as the Co-Dean of the Freedom Seminary for the Children’s Defense Fund, offering an immersive experience for diverse seminary students from across the country to engage and cultivate prophetic voices with communities on the margins.

Patrick provides leadership on several boards in theological and higher education, publications, and the nonprofit sector, supporting the next generation of Black, Indigenous, and Chicano spiritual and cultural leaders. In the last decade, he has been recognized for his service and scholarship by Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Boston University, Claremont School of Theology, Drew University, Children’s Defense Fund, Hispanic Theological Initiative, Hispanic Youth Leadership Academy, and others.

Patrick was also recently inducted into the Morehouse College MLK Jr. Collegium of Scholars. He lives in New Mexico, where he and his family embrace the cultural and religious traditions and communities they have inherited.

The Purpose Gap: Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive

“In The Purpose Gap, Patrick Reyes reflects on a family member’s death after a long struggle with incarceration and homelessness. As he asks himself why his cousin’s life had turned out so differently from his own, he realizes that it was a matter of conditions. While they both grew up in the same marginalized Chicano community in central California, Patrick found himself surrounded by a host of family, friends, and supporters. They created a different narrative for him than the one the rest of the world had succeeded in imposing on his cousin. In short, they created the conditions in which Patrick could not only survive but thrive.

Far too much of the literature on leadership tells the story of heroic individuals creating their success by their own efforts. Such stories fail to recognize the structural obstacles to thriving faced by those in marginalized communities. If young people in these communities are to grow up to lives of purpose, others must help create the conditions to make that happen. Pastors, organizational leaders, educators, family, and friends must all perceive their calling to create new stories and new conditions of thriving for those most marginalized. This book offers both inspiration and practical guidance for how to do that. It offers advice on creating safe space for failure, nurturing networks that support young people of color, and professional guidance for how to implement these strategies in one’s congregation, school, or community organization.”

(Description from Bookshop.org)

Recording of 2023 Christensen Symposium

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Here are some of our favorite quotes from the talk:

• “It’s not a journey from point A to point B, where you have to leave this place to go to that place. Instead I want to invite you into a journey that’s really more about becoming rooted deeply in the place where we already find ourselves.”
• “Vocation is ultimately not about you it’s about the space that exists between you and your neighbor.”
• It is “the quest of inquiry to figure out who our neighbor is and what it is our neighbor needs from us to thrive. It’s not a journey where you need to go on a quest to find some vocation that’s hidden out there in the future from you. It’s an invitation into the right here and the right now. That vocation is something that saves us from the nowhere plants us firmly right here with one another in this moment of time to do this good work that we’ve been given to do today. and we get to do that together and I think that’s pretty great.”

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Jeremy Myers, PhD,��Bernhard M. Christensen Professor of Religion and Vocation, Augsburg University

Join us for this year’s Christensen Symposium where we will dig deeper into the topics of vocation and public church.

Thursday, September 22
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Foss Center, Hoversten Chapel

The pandemic, rampant racism, unfettered injustices, environmental degradation, inflation – these are a few sources of the overwhelming sense of despair in our lives. We are anxious about our future. We desperately seek meaning, purpose, justice, and the common good but they seem to be nowhere in sight. Nowhere. But there is hope and potential for change if we can focus on the here and now. All we are promised is the here��and now, and it is where we are called to live our lives. Now. Here.

Jeremy Myers is the Bernhard M. Christensen Professor of Religion and Vocation and the Executive Director of the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University.��Myers earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota and his master’s and PhD from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He researches, writes, teaches, and organizes around the topics of vocation and public church. In addition to many articles and chapters, he is the author of��Liberating Youth from Adolescence��published by Fortress Press and is also a sought-after speaker. He has secured millions of dollars in grants to support the work of the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg.

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On Tuesday Oct 5, 2021,��Dr. Brian Bantum gave a lecture entitled “All Things are New: The Language of Our Life in the Face of Empire” at our 2021 Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium. Dr. Bantum is the Neil F. And Ila A. Fisher Professor of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL. He writes, speaks, and teaches on identity, racial imagination, creating spaces of justice, and the intersection of theology and embodiment for audiences around the United States.

He is a contributing editor of The Christian Century and is the author of “Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity,” “The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial�� World,”�� and�� “Choosing Us: Marriage and Mutual Flourishing in a World of Difference,” which he co-authored with his spouse, Gail Song Bantum. You can view a .

The Power of Presence

In the face of the massive shifts we have all felt during the last two years – a global pandemic, a worsening climate crisis, the racial uprising, on-line learning/ work/ social isolation, etc. – Dr. Bantum lifts up presence as the antidote. His central claim is that presence is the fundamental organizing principle of the Christian life. Presence is a way of understanding God, God’s relationship with us, and the life we are invited into. Presence is a way of finding hope and newness in the face of empire.

The power of presence, as described by Dr. Bantum, can be summarized in five simple points.

1. Presence always implies difference. To be present means to be with something that is not you.��
2. In our current state of “fallenness”, we don’t know what to do with difference (or diversity). But presence shows us what flourishing ought to look like. Flourishing is what happens we we are present to and aware of the difference around us as a manifestation of God’s beauty and reality.
3. Presence is always particular. A particular God wants to be present with a particular people, a particular person.
4. Our particular meeting point with this particular God is in our particular bodies. The body – not the “mind” or the “heart” – is the location where God is present with us.
5. Therefore, presence is always a radical and political act.

Incarnation as Presence

In what was probably the most stirring segment of Dr. Bantum’s talk, he explains the power of presence as embodied by Mary through the incarnation. Through presence – in Mary’s body – God “transforms systemic refusals.” The Word becomes flesh. The Divine becomes human. A woman becomes a priest and a preacher. Just like a priest, Mary navigates the liminal space where the spiritual and earthly realms intersect. Just like a preacher, Mary gives testimony to what God has done in her life and in the life of her community.

And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,

for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’ (Luke 1:46-55)

God said, “I want to learn how to be human from you, Mary!” And from there it is the presence of Jesus’ body – as learned from watching Mary’s body – that does the work of redemption, liberation, and salvation. Jesus’ body is present with those considered to be outcasts throughout his life. Because Jesus’ embodied presence is in those places, his disciples’ bodies (their presence) actually show up in those places as well. And it is in those places – in the presence – that we are transformed. In that presence . . .��

• The poor in spirit inherit the kingdom of God.
• The mourning are comforted.
• The meek inherit the earth.
• The hungry and thirsty are filled.
• The merciful receive mercy.
• The pure in heart see God.
• The peacemakers are made children of God.
• The persecuted receive the kingdom of heaven.

God’s presence – in real bodies – transforms our world.

What does this mean?

Presence – the Word becoming flesh – has always been integral to Augsburg University’s mission. You will find it on the university’s original seal, “ordet blev kjod”. And you will find the words of John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and lived among us” immediately in front of you when you enter the Hagfors Center on campus. Augsburg University has always been wondering what it means that God is present with us and therefore what our presence with others might mean.

President Pribbenow welcomes our incoming students each by reminding them what is required of them. He calls them to show up��pay attention, and��do the work.

These words are an annual reminder to me as well.

How am I showing up in my daily work?

To what/ whom am I paying attention?

Am I doing the work that needs to be done?

These are the questions of presence.��

These questions echo Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes, in which she shares these instructions for living a life.

 

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”��

Mary (Jesus’ mother, not Oliver) showed up, paid attention, and did the work. Mary paid attention, was astonished, and told about it. God’s transforming presence in Mary leads to Christ’s transforming presence in our midst. This presence now frees us to be truly present with and for our neighbors in ways that are mutually transformative. We are free to flourish with our neighbors.

Augsburg University and the Christensen Center for Vocation do this work daily. We show up. We pay attention. We do the work. We are committed to helping students, faculty, staff, congregations, and ministry leaders find practical ways to be present with their neighbors.

“Our faith is about the embodiment of a God whose life is love and relationship, justice and mercy, a presence that feeds and is fed, laughs and mourns, abides with and among. In the midst of our fallen world, a world so tragically marked by race and the deadly mispronunciation of what bodies are for, Jesus is the enfleshing of God’s life, the presence of God’s life in our bodies, so that we might be free.” (From The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial World, by Brian Bantum)

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The day will involve Nadia’s presentation from 10:00am-11:00am in Hoversten Chapel. It is free and open to the public!

Learn more about it through��StepUP’s blog post about the Symposium.

Augsburg Students – is a career in ministry in your future?

Join us for a special��Q&A session for Augsburg students with Nadia Bolz-Weber.

Wednesday, Oct. 1
3:30-4:30pm
Oren Gateway 113

Ask questions of Nadia such as,��“What is your advice for those of us considering careers in ministry?” Bring your own questions and be ready for good conversation!

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