The HTS Center For Justice Love and Belonging and the Pathways For Tomorrow Initiative invites you to its free fall didactics, via the Zoom portal:

November 10 & 17, 2025 – 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., EST

November 10, 2025 – 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., EST

Where Do We Go From Here? How the Church Might Address the Critical Issues Facing Us

Strategies for Addressing:

• Redistricting
• Gerrymandering
• Circumscribing Voting Rights
• Gun Policies
• Women’s Rights

November 17, 2025 - 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., EST

White Christian Nationalism: Where Do We Go From Here?

To REGISTER, complete the survey, and the Zoom link will be emailed to you. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/S5TPQFW

These free didactics are sponsored by the Pathways For Tomorrow Initiative
of the Lilly Endowment, Inc.

For questions, please contact Dr. Karen L. Owens at kowens@hoodseminary.edu

SPEAKER BIOS

November 10, 2025- 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., EST:

Father Michael Pfleger

Father Pfleger was ordained a Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 14, 1975. In 1981, at the age of 31, he became the youngest full pastor in the diocese when he was appointed Pastor of Saint Sabina Church.

Since 1968, Father Pfleger has lived and ministered in the African American community on both the west and south sides of Chicago. He spent two summers working in a Native American community on both the west and south sides of Chicago. He spent two summers working in a Native American community in Oklahoma and his seminary internship as a Chaplain at Cook County Jail and at Precious Blood Catholic Church, both in Chicago. Before he became a priest, Father Pfleger say Dr. M.L. King lead marches for open housing in Chicago and witnessed Dr. King by counter-protesters. Ever since then Father Pfleger has been a leader in fighting for social justice in Chicago. He has been a lead activist fighting against racism, drugs, and violence in Chicago. Father Pfleger has been a leader in marching against violence, supporting universal background checks for guns and against illegal guns.

Father Pfleger has been recognized for his fight against alcohol and tobacco billboards, drugs and racism in People, Time, Ebony, Newsweek and Jet magazines; The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, U.S.A. Today, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Chicago Reader and numerous other papers and journals. He has also been profiled on the following television shows: "Day One" ABC; "60 Minutes" (CBS); BBC in Great Britain, the Larry King Show and Nightline.

Author Robert McClory wrote the book, Radical Disciple: Father Pfleger, St. Sabina Church, and the Fight for Social Justice (Lawrence Hill Books, 2016).

Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

As the Pastor of Theology and Art at Valley and Mountain Fellowship. Rev. Osagyefo Sekou has written two collections of essays.  Urbansouls: Meditations on Youth, Hip Hop, and Religion (Chalice Press 2016) and Gods, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Religion and the Future of Democracy (Chalice Press 2016). and the forthcoming Riot Music: Race, Hip Hop and the Meaning of the London Riots 2011 (Hamilton Books). He wrote, produced, and directed two musical documentary shorts, Exiles in the Promised Land (2007) and Mississippi: A Love Story (2018).  

With the Deep Abiding Love Project, he has helped train over thirteen thousand clergy and activists in militant nonviolent civil disobedience throughout the United States. He faced years in prison for his role in the Ferguson Uprising and spent six weeks on the ground in Charlottesville, VA training clergy in response to the Unite the Right rally. He is a founding national coordinator for Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq (CALC-I), which represented over 300 faith-based institutions and organizations working to end the war in Iraq. In 2006, CALC-I led a civil disobedience at the White House.

Rev. LaKesha Womack

Rev. LaKesha Womack is a strategic advisor, author, and faith-based leader dedicated to empowering communities through informed action and transformative leadership. She serves as the Alabama-Florida Episcopal Director of Church Growth and Community Engagement for the AME Zion Church and as Chief Strategy Officer for the ASPIRE Community, an emerging Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). With over two decades of experience working at the intersection of faith, policy, and social impact, Rev. Womack helps congregations and organizations navigate change, build collective power, and develop strategies for equitable growth. A graduate of Vanderbilt University and alumna of leadership programs through The Wharton School, Emerge America, and the Campaign School at Yale, she brings both theological insight and practical expertise to conversations about justice, governance, and community engagement.

November 17, 2025 – 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., EST

Dr. Robert P. Jones

Robert P. Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). He is the author of The New York Times bestselling book, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future. Jones writes regularly on politics, culture, and religion for The Atlantic, TIME, Religion News Service, and other outlets. He is frequently featured in major national media, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. He is also the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award; and author of The End of White Christian America, which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Jones writes weekly at www.whitetoolong.net, a newsletter focused on religion, racial justice, and politics.

He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Emory University, an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a B.S. in computing science and mathematics from Mississippi College. Jones serves on the national program committee for the American Academy of Religion and is a past member of the editorial boards for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Politics and Religion, a journal of the American Political Science Association. 

Before founding PRRI, Jones worked as a consultant and senior research fellow at several think tanks in Washington, D.C., and was an assistant professor of religious studies at Missouri State University.

Dr. Anthea Butler

Anthea Butler is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social thought at the University of Pennsylvania, and is currently at Oxford University on a Senior Koch Fellowship. A historian of African American and American religion, Professor Butler’s research and writing spans African American religion and American Religious history, race, politics, Evangelicalism, media, and popular culture.

Butler’s recent book is White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America on Ferris and Ferris/UNC Press. Professor Butler was a contributor to The 1619 Book: A New Beginning, with a chapter entitled “Church”. Her first book is Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making A Sanctified World, also published by UNC Press.

Professor Butler is the winner of the 2022 Martin Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion from the American Academy of Religion. Her grant awards include a Luce/ACLS Fellowship for Religion, Journalism and International Affairs grant for 2018-2019 academic year to investigate Prosperity gospel and politics in the American and Nigerian context. She was a Presidential fellow at Yale Divinity School for the 2019-2020 academic year. Currently Professor Butler is a co-director of the Henry Luce Foundation funded Crossroads Project for Black Religious Histories, Communities, and Cultures. She has previously served as president of the American Society for Church history and the Society of Pentecostal Studies. Prof. Butler also holds honorary doctorates from Lutheran Theological Seminary and Meadville Lombard Theological School.

A sought-after commentator, Professor Butler is an op-ed contributor for MSNBC. Her articles have also been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, and The Guardian. She has also served as a consultant to PBS series including Billy Graham, The Black Church, God in America and Aimee Semple McPherson.

Dr. Obery Hendricks

A lifelong social activist, Obery Hendricks is one of the foremost commentators on the intersection of religion and political economy in America. He is the most widely read and perhaps the most influential African American biblical scholar writing today. His recent book, Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith (Beacon Press, 2021) has gathered wide acclaim. Cornel West calls him “one of the last few grand prophetic intellectuals.”

Hendricks’ award-winning book, The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted (Doubleday, 2006), was declared “essential reading for Americans” by the Washington Post. Social commentator Michael Eric Dyson proclaimed it “an instant classic” that “immediately thrusts Hendricks into the front ranks of American religious thinkers.” The Politics of Jesus was the featured subject of the 90-minute C-SPAN special hosted by the Center for American Progress, “Class, Politics and Christianity.” The tenth anniversary of its publication was acknowledged at a major 2016 panel at the American Academy of Religion at its annual convention in San Antonio, TX. Governor Howard Dean, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, has called his book, The Universe Bends Toward Justice: Radical Reflections on the Bible, the Church and the Body Politic(Orbis, 2011), a "tour de force"