Patel, who will speak on the “Holiness of Common Ground,” was named one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009 by U.S.News & World Report.

IFYC is based in Chicago and is devoted to building the interfaith movement on college campuses.

Patel’s visit to Augsburg fits well with the College’s commitment to interfaith dialogue, neighborhood service, and intentional diversity. The visit also will further the work and support Augsburg contributes to President Obama’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, a project launched during 2010 to engage students in interfaith discussion and community service.

Learn more about the history of the Christensen Symposium and its 2011 convocation speaker, Walter Brueggeman, from the .

Augsburg’s 2012-13 Convocation Series of speakers explores the impact that an individual can have in a global population of 6.7 billion people. Presentations touch on topics in the arts, humanities, and sciences.

Each session offers an opportunity to hear from leaders in their areas of expertise. Psychiatrist and author Dr. Henry Emmons will discuss the “Science of Hope” during the to be held Friday and Saturday, Oct. 19-20.

Christensen Symposium Event Schedule

September 17

– 4 p.m. – Hoversten Chapel | Tilling Common Ground: Interfaith Work at Augsburg

– 7:30 p.m. – Marshall Room | Creating Common Ground: The Arts as a Bridge for Interfaith/Intercultural Work

September 18

– 11 a.m. – Hoversten Chapel | The Holiness of Common Ground

Convocation Hashtags

Share your convocation experience using social media. The hashtag for the Christensen Symposium with Eboo Patel (@EbooPatel) of Interfaith Youth Core (@IFYC) is #ChristensenSymp. Other hashtags include #Interfaith and #CommonGround.

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The annual Christensen Symposium is made possible through the Christensen Endowment, which was established by alumni and friends of Augsburg to honor Bernhard M. Christensen. As the president of Augsburg College and Seminary from 1938 to 1962, Christensen was a central figure in drawing Augsburg fully into the study of the liberal arts.

The Symposium is designed to reflect and reinforce the principles to which Christensen showed such deep commitment: academic integrity, the Christian Gospel, and a mutually supportive relationship with the church. In addition, it serves as a vehicle for the Augsburg community to explore and apply the five lessons that are Christensen’s legacy:

— Christian faith liberates minds and lives.

— Diversity strengthens vital communities.

— Interfaith friendships enrich learning.

— The love of Christ draws us to God.

— We are called to service in the world.

The Food Fight: Dispute in Biblical Testimony, Sept. 26-27

Monday, Sept. 26 lecture, 5 p.m., Hoversten Chapel

Accumulation: The Lust for Domination and Monopoly

This presentation will consider biblical models, beginning with Pharaoh in the book of Exodus, of the drive for acquisitiveness that destroys community and turns neighbors into threats or pawns. Brueggemann will connect those ancient witnesses to the contemporary force of acquisitiveness among us and the ideology of domination that skews neighborhoods and distorts policy initiatives in our society.

Tuesday, Sept. 27 convocation, 11 a.m., Hoversten Chapel

Community: Food Practiced as Astonished Gratitude

This presentation will consider an alternative trajectory of food in the Bible beginning with the manna narrative and culminating in the Eucharist. This trajectory is grounded in God’s gift of abundance that makes generous community possible. Brueggemann will probe the ways in which this ancient counter-narrative provides a ground for contemporary neighborly practice and for contemporary policy formation that eschews the scarcity enacted from anxiety.

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Sometimes it is because a textbook is written by a fairly anonymous author or group of authors. Other times, the back-and-forth simply isn’t possible. After all, it isn’t like having Shakespeare visit a classroom is an option.

That is what makes Bill McKibben’s visit to Augsburg so interesting. McKibben, an environmentalist and author, will speak Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Foss Chapel for the Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium.

McKibben, who writes about global warming, alternative energy, and other environmental issues, will talk about “The Most Important Number on Earth: Climate Change and Moral Challenge.”

McKibben is also one of the people behind the website , a group with the goal of cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050. 350.org is also behind the upcoming International Day of Climate Change on Oct. 24.

The works of McKibben are currently being used in a number of classrooms this fall, including the Fate of the Earth Integrated Term for first-year students.

Why is McKibben important? Here are the words of some faculty members who are using or have used his books in their classes.

Nancy Fischer – Sociology

“When Lars Christiansen and I taught the study abroad course SOC295: Sustainable Cities in North America we used Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy as our text. We chose the book because McKibben makes it clear that promoting a healthy environment goes far beyond conserving green space or individual efforts to recycle or use the proper light bulbs. It’s about thinking about and acting on behalf of one’s local community—supporting the local businesses and farmers who are our neighbors. He makes a clear point in Deep Economy that Americans don’t need more consumer goods to satisfy their deepest needs—they need social ties with other people in their community. Helping the environment (through lessening one’s carbon footprint or reducing waste) is very much about helping people. That’s why I’ve chosen to use the book again for SOC111 Human Community and the Modern Metropolis. I’m hoping that along with Sustainability Awareness Month and Bill McKibben’s talk, it will be a great way to start my first-year students off thinking in terms of community.”

Michael Lansing – History

“Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy offers readers interested in the current state of economies, ecologies, and community a brilliant take on the intertwined futures of each. Timely, accessible, and accurate, the book suggests that our society’s basic assumptions about economic growth and consumption—that growth is good and more is better—ironically creates despair in otherwise abundant lives. Over consumption and the fetishization of growth also lead to environmental degradation that undermines both over the long-term. Calling for a new, more durable future for humanity rooted in local as well as global interactions, McKibben draws on existing alternatives to show how global warming, industrial food systems, and energy crises might be battled even as we reclaim everyday happiness. Deep Economy’s real strength lies in connecting these seemingly disparate subjects, showing how the future of one determines the future of them all. It is essential reading.”

John Harkness – English

“During my first year as a professor, my colleague and mentor mentioned an author that had just completed a riveting series of pieces in The New Yorker and turned them into a book called The End of Nature. Its main message—that we have so deeply affected the very climate of the planet that the meaning of ‘nature’ itself is now forever changed—struck me like a ton of coal. I have used this seminal work, one that established Bill McKibben as the author most responsible for first bringing the issue of global warming to the public’s attention, and many of his other excellent books in a range of classes. A few years later, I heard him speak and found that he was as engaging, personable, profound and insightful a speaker as he is a writer. McKibben’s recent book, Deep Economy, points out that in the face of diminishing resources and a threatened planet, our economy of high consumption is not only unsustainable, but it is also failing making to bring us joy. In other words we have everything to lose and not much to gain by continuing business as usual. To quote Wendell Berry, the author McKibben dedicates his book to: ‘We thought we were getting something for nothing, but we were getting nothing for everything.'”

Christensen Symposium Teach-in

Students behind Sustainability Awareness Month (SAM) events have organized a series of teach-in events for the College community:

11 a.m.-12 p.m. Students from the Integrated Term, “Fate of the Earth 101,” will lead discussions of chapters 4 and 5 of McKibben’s Deep Economy. Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

1:20- 2:20 p.m. The Pedalers for Progress will make their first presentation to the College community about their bike trip from Minneapolis to Portland, Oregon and the many opportunities this trip provided for them to learn from local transportation policy-makers, advocates, and organizers. Minneapolis Room, Christensen Center

2:30- 3:30 p.m. Students who participated in the New Zealand study abroad program will share what they learned about environmental politics in New Zealand. Minneapolis Room, Christensen Center

3:30 – 4:30 p.m. SAM students will hold a Pledge and Forum in the Quad

7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Christensen Symposium Lecture by Bill McKibben. Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

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This is the ninth annual series incorporating long-standing endowed and special programs of Augsburg College. The first convocation of the year is the Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium with lectures on October 6 and 7. The speaker is Martha E. Stortz, author and professor of historical theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary/The Graduate Theological Union. Stortz will speak on “Costly Discipleship: Forgiveness as a Practice” and “Costly Citizenship: Regarding the Other in a Culture of Fear.”

Stortz holds a BA from Carleton College and completed her MA and PhD at the University of Chicago. She serves on leadership team for the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, the Northern California Kaiser Permanente Institutional Review Board and the Augsburg Fortress Board, as well as the editorial boards for Dialog, Word and World, and the online journal for Lutheran ethics. She is also the author of “The Beatitudes: Compass for Christian Discipleship,” a nine-month series in Lutheran Woman Today starting in September, 2008.

The Christensen Symposium is the first event in the series and was established by an endowment in 1990 honoring former Augsburg president Bernhard M. Christensen. The symposium reflects and reinforces his commitment to academic integrity, the Christian Gospel, and a mutually supportive relationship with the church community. The five lessons we learn from Bernhard M. Christensen include:

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

The 2008 Bernard M. Christensen Symposium

Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

October 6, 7:30 p.m.

“Costly Discipleship: Forgiveness as a Practice”

October 7, 11 a.m.

“Costly Citizenship: Regarding the Other in a Culture of Fear”

Class Schedule

Tuesday, October 7

1st Period 8:00-9:20

2nd Period 9:30-10:50

Convocation 11:00-12:00

3rd Period 12:10-1:20

Remaining classes follow regular schedule. See the Registrar’s website for the complete .

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Jacobson’s two-day theme is “Everyday Life in Light of the Gospel.”

Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m. “Why Do You Weep?” Sadness, Grief and the Gospel

Sept. 25, 11 a.m. “How Can I keep From Singing?” Laughter, Joy and the Gospel

Both events are free and open to the public and will be held in Hoversten Chapel.

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