Open Plaza 8/2/21 Open Plaza 8/2/21

Attempt Great Things for God

Rev. Dr. Sammy Alfaro and Dr. Chloe T. Sun celebrate theological education in diaspora

Rev. Dr. Sammy Alfaro talks to Dr. Chloe T. Sun about her book Attempt Great Things for God: Theological Education in Diaspora (Eerdmans, 2020). Part of the TEBT book series, the work was inspired by Dr. Sun’s experience of being born in China and raised in Hong Kong, before coming to the United States to attend college and where she would become a Christian. “In this process of finding my vocation,” she says, “I struggled with the question of who am I, really—in terms of my identity, my ethnic bicultural identity, and my spiritual identity—and so it took me a while to figure that out.” Dr. Sun encourages others to “find that identity in God's Kingdom and to embrace it and to share it with those who have struggles about who they are in this journey of theological education.”

This episode of OP Talks is part of the Theological Education between the Times (TEBT) series, an initiative out of HTI member school Emory University Candler School of Theology that "gathers diverse groups of people for critical, theological conversations about the meanings and purposes of theological education. The project begins with a recognition that theological education is between the times, on the way. And it works in the confidence that we do not walk this road alone."

Attempt Great Things for God: Theological Education in Diaspora by Chloe T. Sun (Eerdmans, 2020)

“This book fills a gap in our knowledge of theological education in the diaspora by showcasing the story of Logos Evangelical Seminary. Chloe Sun challenges the narrative of decline of theological education in America and helps us reimagine the future of theological training with vision and hope. I highly recommend this insightful text.”

— Kwok Pui-lan
Candler School of Theology at Emory University

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Rev. Dr. Sammy Alfaro is a pastor-scholar whose research interests focus on doing theology from and for the Pentecostal Latina/o church and community. He is an ordained bishop with the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) and founding pastor of Iglesia Nuevo Día (New Day Church), a Latina congregation in Phoenix, AZ. Rev. Dr. Alfaro is Professor of Theology at Grand Canyon Theological Seminary. His publications include Divino Compañero: Toward a Hispanic Pentecostal Christology (Pickwick Publications, 2010) and a co-edited work with Néstor Medina, Pentecostals and Charismatics in Latin America and Latino Communities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Rev. Dr. Alfaro holds a BA in Pre-Seminary Studies from Patten University; he earned an MA in Biblical and Theological Studies and a PhD in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

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Dr. Chloe Sun was born in Beijing, China, raised in Hong Kong, and became a Christian while attending college in the US. Her PhD is from Fuller Theological Seminary. She is a Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Logos Evangelical Seminary, El Monte, California, where she also serves as Acting Director of ThM and PhD Programs, and Academic Dean. Dr. Sun has published in both Chinese and English, and conducts Bible seminars internationally. Her recent publications include Attempt Great Things for God: Theological Education in Diaspora (Eerdmans, 2020) and Conspicuous in His Absence: Studies in the Song of Songs and Esther (IVP Academic, 2021). She is interested in promoting diversity in theological education because of her own context as a Chinese woman in the academy and her vision for a more inclusive future. You may visit Dr. Sun’s website at: chloesunphd.com

Open Plaza 2/15/21 Open Plaza 2/15/21

Cuban Literature in the Age of Black Insurrection

Dr. Elías Ortega-Aponte and Dr. Matthew Pettway discuss his debut book on how two 19th-century Cuban writers envisioned emancipation through the lens of African spirituality

"View of the Harbor and Town of Matanzas from the Hill," 1870. Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections — *"View of the Harbor and Town of Matanzas from the Hill," 1870. Source:* *Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections*

Dr. Elías Ortega-Aponte and Dr. Matthew Pettway discuss his debut book Cuban Literature in the Age of Black Insurrection: Manzano, Plácido, and Afro-Latino Religion (University Press of Mississippi, 2019). Dr. Pettway examines how the portrayal of African ideas of spirit and cosmos in otherwise conventional texts recur throughout early Cuban literature and became the basis for the antislavery philosophy of writers Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés (Plácido). With cultural roots in Puerto Rico and in Trinidad, respectively, Dr. Ortega-Aponte and Dr. Pettway engage in a conversation on AfroLatinidades that flows like, in the memorable words of 19th-century poet Lola Rodríguez de Tió, “two wings of the same bird.”

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This book is an original study on the influence of religion in the writings of two nineteenth-century Cuban writers, that although very recognized and studied, have not been analyzed from the point of view of religion (Catholicism and African influenced)…This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Cuban studies, Caribbean studies, religious studies and African Diaspora studies.

—Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez, Chair/Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin

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Dr. Elías Ortega-Aponte, a Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Leadership, is the President of Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, IL. Dr. Ortega is an interdisciplinary scholar who received his MDiv and PhD (Religion and Society, Magna Cum Laude) from Princeton Theological Seminary (2005, 2011). He also holds a B.A. in Communications Arts & Sciences and Philosophy and Religion from Calvin College. Prior to Meadville Lombard Theological School, Dr. Ortega served as Associate Professor of Social Theory and Religious Ethics at Drew University Theological School. He is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Commission on Institutional Change.

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Dr. Matthew Pettway is Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of South Alabama, where he teaches Afro-Latin American, Caribbean, and Spanish literatures, and is associated with the Africana Studies Program. A native of Detroit, MI, Dr. Pettway holds a PhD in Hispanic Cultural Studies and an MA in Spanish and Latin American Literatures from Michigan State University. His research examines race, slavery, and African ideas of spirit and cosmos in nineteenth-century black Cuban literature. Dr. Pettway has a keen interest in how Afro-Latin Americans who endured extreme trauma in the colonial era took hold of the aesthetic and spiritual tools available to them to conceive a poetics of emancipation. His research is part of a broader project of literary and historical recovery, akin to what Toni Morrison has termed “a kind of literary archaeology.” Dr. Pettway’s work has appeared in American Studies Journal, PALARA, The Zora Neale Hurston Forum, The Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography, the Cuban journal Del Caribe, and his article “The Altar, The Oath and the Body of Christ: Ritual Poetics and Cuban Racial Politics of 1844” is the inaugural chapter in Black Writing, Culture and the State in Latin America, edited by Jerome Branche (Vanderbilt University Press, 2015). Dr. Pettway’s first book, Cuban Literature in the Age of Black Insurrection: Manzano, Plácido and Afro-Latino Religion (2019), is part of the Caribbean Studies Series of the University Press of Mississippi.