Hope in an Age of Cruelty & Despair

We are living and dying through an era of mass collective trauma. Politics of cruelty threaten the lives of people in the U.S. and abroad. Structures of communal care are being eroded, putting collective wellbeing at risk. Ecocidal violence is decimating species and devastating the wider ecological web of life. This planetary polycrisis is too much and too fast, a collective trauma that we experience through the paralysis of inaction, the dissociation of distraction, and an overwhelm of despair.

A Christian community, acquainted with death-dealing state violence and strengthened by the liberative promise of resurrection, are not beholden to a wishful optimism or a complacent ideology of progress. Instead, followers of the way of Jesus are animated by a feral hope, rewilded by the Spirit, rooted in a deep communal belonging to God, to one another, and to the ecological web of life. Out of the current chaos and catastrophe, a new way struggles to be born.

Guest Panelists will include:

• Rev. Erica Whitaker, Moderator, Professor & Director of Development BSK Theological Seminary

• Dr. Anna Bowden, Associate Professor of New Testament, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
• Dr. Lewis Brogdan, Associate Professor of Black Church Studies and Executive Director of the Institute for Black Church Studies at BSK Theological Seminary
• Dr. Jason Jordan, Chair of the School of Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Spalding University
• Rev. Dr. Brian Henderson, Executive Director, Association of Welcoming and Affirming Bapists
• Hon. Jerry Abramson, Former Louisville Mayor, Lt. Governor, Special Advisor to President Barack Obama

Schedule for Saturday 8/16/2025

1:00 - 3:00 - Presentation by Dr. Sanders

3:00 - 4:00 - Break, Refreshments, Book Signing (Copies will be available for purchase)

4:00 - 6:00 - Panel Discussion

Schedule for Sunday 8/17/2025

10:45 - Dr. Sanders preaching in Worship

Registration

Cost: $25.00 per person - covers the cost of refreshments

Registration deadline - August 16. To register, click Get Tickets.

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