Study of 1 Timothy 2:8-15 led by Crystal Hall and Carolyn Grice

March 08, 2022, 7:30 PM Eastern Time

In this session, Dr. Crystal Hall rereads 1 Timothy 2:8-15, a passage perhaps more than any other used to silence women and deny women’s leadership. She contextualizes this passage within its socio-historical context, in which there was increasing pressure on the early church to accommodate to Greco-Roman gender norms. Rev. Carolyn Grice, Chair of the Presbytery of Missouri River Valley’s Social Justice and Peacemaking Committee and activist with the Empowerment Network of North Omaha, offers her perspective based on her grassroots work to empower women and girls.

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Dr. Crystal L. Hall is a community organizer, political educator and the Kraft Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at United Lutheran Seminary in Pennsylvania. She has taught at United Lutheran Seminary since 2018, and co-directs the Guatemala Immersion Semester Program. Her research and teaching address God’s call into right relationship with the human Other and with Earth. Her research focuses on the Pauline corpus, apocalyptic literature, poverty and wealth, and ecological and liberationist hermeneutics. Her methodological commitments include empire criticism and feminist theory. Her teaching privileges voices historically excluded from the classroom and the Church. She is a frequent speaker in congregational and synodical settings on women’s leadership, LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and immigration. Before coming to ULS, Dr. Hall worked as a community organizer and political educator with organizations advocating for human rights, environmental justice and ending poverty. She served on staff with the Poverty Initiative (now the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice), United Workers and the Sierra Club. Read more biographical information at unitedlutheranseminary.edu.

Rev. Carolyn Grice is a community activist and Presbyterian leader in Omaha, Nebraska. After serving as a teacher and assistant principle in the Omaha Public Schools for 39 years, she has retired and is now focusing her energy fully on social justice activism, with a special focus on empowering women and girls. Carolyn has served as the local teachers’ union president, as well as serving on union boards at the state and national levels. She has worked as a local pastor, a community organizer with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America NE Synod, and a community activist with the Empowerment Network of North Omaha. She currently serves as chair of the Presbytery of Missouri River Valley’s Social Justice and Peacemaking Committee, the Self Development of People Committee and the Leadership Team. Carolyn obtained her Masters of Divinity from University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in 2018, and has since continued her education through the Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, where she received a Certificate in Community Organizing and is currently working toward her Certificate in Public Theology through their Drum Major for Justice program.