The Virtue of Hospitality: Becoming and Being a Welcoming Community

The Virtue of Hospitality:  Becoming and Being a Welcoming Community By David Saetre

The Meaning of Salvation

Speaker: David Saetre "The Meaning of Salvation" 
Easter Sunday Service, speaker David Saetre, Northland College Chaplain and Humanities professor. David will offer an inter-faith exploration on themes of new life and renewal. This will also be the last in his year-long series on "reconstructing theology": essential themes from the Judeo-Christian traditions. In David's own words, the series has been a theology for skeptics, exploring some of the difficult ideas from the Western religious traditions. 

The Easter service will focus on the idea of salvation. Noting that salvation derives from the Latin root, salus, meaning to be safe and sound, this meditation will explore what that might mean not only in the context of Easter, but in the everyday world of our lives. The world often seems unyielding and dangerous. Here, one finds a word of hope and encouragement. Finally, we look to the Universalist side of the UU heritage, which defined salvation in terms of a final acceptance and healing for all humankind. 
David W. Saetre 
College Chaplain and Assistant Professor of Religion, Northland College 
"The opposite of faith is certainty, not doubt." David 

Morality, modernity, and the Holocaust

Paul Schue will speak on the question morality, modernity, and the Holocaust. He will address what the Holocaust has to say about morality in modern industrial societies, and how we can change the way we think about morality to better respond to future crises in the modern world.

Prof. Schue has a Ph.D. in modern European history from the University of California, Irvine, and has been teaching history, including courses on the Holocaust, at Northland College since 2001.

Sin and Redemption

David Saetre--Is it possible to talk about our existential experience of brokenness and alienation, without falling into the abyss of judgmental moralism. Is that what sin really signifies? Is it possible to imagine life's surprising capacity for renewal and hope, redemption, without appealing to supernatural causes? The words sin and redemption lead us down into those depths of our human experience as few other words can.

Standing on One Foot: 3,000 years in 20 minutes

David Seigler presents, "Standing on One Foot: 3,000 years in 20 minutes." What can be said in twenty minutes about the world's oldest monotheistic religion? Plenty, and in using twenty minutes to do so David Siegler will take at least nineteen minutes more than one of Judaism's greatest rabbi's thought necessary.

The Great and the Small

In our society, bigger is usually seen as better. We've got big business, big boxes and big portions. I'm reflecting on the role of the small congregation in the life of the church. What does it mean to be a small group working for social justice? How can we nurture this still, small voice?

A.J. Galazen is a queer, nonsectarian, vegetarian, Aquarian, Buddhist, Taoist, Humanist, Unitarian Universalist theologian. He has spoken for over twenty years on issues of social equality and religious freedom, and is currently pursuing the Unitarian Universalist ministry at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

What About God?

As part of the year-long series on "Reconstructing Religious Thought," it's time to take on the big topic, "What About God?" In the January talk I will explore recent developments in popular culture and the philosophy of religion around the question of God. The writings of Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), and the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens created something of a movement, called the "new atheism." But, this was really part of a longer process of reexamining what the Western religious tradition means when it refers to "God."