The Struggle for Truth: Voices from the Margins

Panel includes Gabriel Blau, Dr. Robert Goss, Dr. Mark D. Jordan, and Irene Monroe Moderated by Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal

Wednesday, March 15, 2006 at 7:30 pm

Theology can contribute to uniting people who are normally not included, or barely included. Even though the teaching of universal love is a goal common to all religions, organized religions have all too often marginalized and discriminated against gays and lesbians. In "The Struggle for Truth: Voices from the Margins" four gay and lesbian panelists will challenge the misuse of God, the dominance and oppression of the majority, and discuss the inclusivity inherent in their own religions. It is our hope that this event will initiate dialogues and understanding between the lesbian, gay, and straight communities. A reception will be held afterwards for guests to meet the panelists and continue the discussion. Participants include: Irene Monroe, panelist

Irene Monroe is a religion columnist and openly lesbian African American theologian and ordained minister. A graduate of Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, she is a Ford Foundation Fellow and is completing her dissertation at Harvard Divinity School, where she was the head teaching fellow for the Rev. Peter Gomes, Pusey Minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard University. Presently Monroe is a professor of religion and the director of Multicultural and Spiritual Programming at Pine Manor College in MA. Among her many awards are the Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching and the Unitarian Universalist Feminist Theology Award (Boston). She writes a biweekly column, “The Religion Thang,” for In Newsweekly, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender newspaper in New England states, and an online column, “Queer Take,” for The Witness, a progressive Episcopalian journal.

Dr. Mark D. Jordan, panelist Author and Asa Griggs Candler Professor, Department of Religion, Emory University, Dr. Jordan received his Ph.D. at the University of Texas/Austin and has taught at the University of Notre Dame. His academic interests circle around the performance of religious identities, Christian teachings on sex, and the varieties of theological rhetoric. His books include The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology, The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism; The Ethics of Sex; Telling Truths in Church; Blessing Same-Sex Unions; and Rewritten Theology: Aquinas After His Readers. Dr. Robert Goss, panelist

Senior Pastor/Theologian of the MCC Church in the Valley in North Hollywood. Dr. Goss received his Th.D. in Comparative Religion from Harvard University and was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1976. He resigned the Society of Jesus in 1978 and later transferred as clergy to the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), where he is today. Dr. Goss taught and served as chair of the Religious Studies Department of Webster University, and also served as co-chair of the Gay Men’s Issues in Religion Group of the American Academy of Religion. He won the 2000 Templeton Course Prize in Religion & Science. A co-founder of Food Outreach, an AIDS service organization, Dr. Goss is a member of ACT UP St. Louis and Queer Nation St. Louis. Among his many books are Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto; and Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus ACTED UP, a Lambda Literary Finalist for Spirituality. Gabriel Blau, panelist

Author, activist, and founder of “The God & Sexuality Conference” at Bard College. Mr. Blau has spoken in the U.S. and Israel to camp groups, yeshiva students, colleges and graduate schools, and at open lectures. Both the general and gay Israeli media have covered his work as an activist. He is the author of “Two Truths: Living as a Religious Gay Jew” in Lawrence Schimmel’s book Found Tribe and is currently editing the upcoming book Homosexuality and the World Religions: Traditional Views and Modern Responses. He received his BA in Theology from Bard College and spent a year studying at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal, moderator

Dr. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Religious Studies and is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, Rice University. He received the Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1993. His areas of teaching cover the history of religions, the erotics and ethics of mysticism, the psychology of religion, and colonial, modern, and Western Hinduisms. Among his numerous publications are Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism and Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna. He is presently working on a history of Esalen and the American counter culture, which will be published as Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion with the University of Chicago Press.