VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 5/31/17)—The ABCUSA Office of the General Secretary and the Theologians Commission will host the fourth pre-biennial theology conference June 29 around the theme The Church’s Public Witness, in an effort to foster ongoing, vigorous theological conversations among American Baptist theologians, pastor-theologians, and theological educators throughout the denomination. The Keynote Speaker for the event will be Rev. Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble, Associate Professor of Ministerial Leadership & Practical Theology at American Baptist Seminary of the West.
The Theologians Conference will take place in conjunction with the 2017 Biennial Mission Summit of American Baptist Churches, USA. Conferees will gather at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, June 29, 2017, 8:00am – 5:30pm.
Registration for the event will close on June 15, 2017. Please email MissionSummitRegistration@abc-usa.org with questions about registering for the Theologians Conference.
The event will include three Paper Sessions with eleven persons presenting at two different times. More information about Paper Sessions and an event schedule are online here.
After a successful career in business, Rev. Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble answered God’s call to ministry as pastor, mentor, womanist scholar, practical theologian, and community activist. She is presently the Associate Professor of Ministerial Leadership & Practical Theology at American Baptist Seminary of the West (ABSW), one of 8 consortium schools in the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley CA. At the GTU, she serves on the GTU Women’s Studies in Religion (WSR) steering committee, and is consortial faculty in the Theology & Ethics Department and the Religion and Practices Department. Teaching foci include womanist theoethics, leadership theory and behavioral ethics, and public theological praxis.
Miles-Tribble is an ordained ABCUSA clergy woman with earned Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees from ABSW and San Francisco Theological Seminary respectively. She also earned her PhD in Management (research emphasis in Leadership & Organizational Change) from Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota. In ministry, she is honored to serve currently as the Interim Pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church in the historic Temescal District, Oakland. Prior to that, she helped to plant Imani Community Church in the Laurel District in pastoral ministry for more than 15 years. As a mother of one adult son, her passion is to prepare leaders to grapple with the complexities of social justice issues in public theological praxis and prophetic witness. Miles-Tribble is called upon as a preacher, trainer, and presenter with several published articles on religion, behavioral ethics, and leading social change. Her Scriptural guide is Matt. 25:31-41.
American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with approximately 5,000 congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.