Tragedy and Epiphany

January 06, 2025, 7:30pm Eastern Standard Time

A scriptural and contemplative exploration of stories of the Three Kings (Maji) and the Slaughter of the Innocents

On Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, we remember how the stars re-aligned to recognize the Christ, arising from the struggling margins of the earth. We remember how a group of elders crossed boundaries to encounter and give respect to this miracle. We often do not remember that, as the scripture tells it, their visit triggered the killing of every child below the age of two by the jealous King Herod. What does the coincidence of these stories of epiphany and tragedy have to say to us today? Join Will O’Brien, Miguel A. De La Torre, Crystal Silva-McCormick and Brian Walsh for a roundtable discussion.

Register here:

This event co-sponsored by the Alternative Seminary and Bible Remixed.

Image: “Flight into Egypt” by Gislebertus. Sculpture on the capital of the Cathédrale Saint-Lazare d’Autun in Bourgogne, France. Photograph from Wikimedia Commons

Optional advance reading:

Speakers:

Will O’Brien is the coordinator of the Alternative Seminary. He spent several years on the editorial staff of The Other Side magazine, an independent progressive Christian magazine. He has written and taught extensively on issues of scripture, discipleship, social justice, peace, and culture. He has also spent years working with Project HOME, a nationally recognized nonprofit organization that develops solutions to homelessness and poverty in Philadelphia. He has done extensive advocacy and political organizing with and on behalf of homeless persons.

Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre is an international scholar, documentarian, novelist, academic author, and scholar activist. His research focuses on social ethics within contemporary U.S. thought, specifically how religion affects race, class, and gender oppression. Since obtaining his doctoral in 1999, he has authored over a hundred articles and published forty-three books (six of which won national awards). He presently serves as Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at the Iliff School of Theology, and has served as a past-director to the American Academy of Religion; as the co-founder and executive director (2013-2017) of the Society of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion; and as the founding editor of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion.

Rev. Crystal Silva-McCormick is a visiting instructor of Evangelism and Missions at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and a dissertation scholar through the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI). She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and has served on the steering committee of the UCC Palestine Israel Network as well as the UCC immigration collaborative. Her academic research is focused on the history of Muslim-Christian relations and expressions of Christian Zionism in Latin America and among Latine Protestants. Crystal was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. Her mother, grandmother, aunts, and uncles immigrated to the United States from Mexico and it is their stories along with being raised on the border that has shaped her spiritual and personal identity as a scholar and minister. She resides in Texas with her partner and children.

Dr. Brian Walsh is an author, theologian, activist and farmer who co-organizes the Bible Remixed community, and co-curates the website empireremixed.com. He served for almost twenty-five years as a Christian Reformed campus minister to the University of Toronto, where he founded the Wine Before Breakfast community. He has written and co-written numerous books including his latest, Rags of Light: Leonard Cohen and the Landscape of Biblical Imagination, recently published by Cascade Books. Brian has taught at the Institute for Christian Studies, Wycliffe College and Trinity College, as well as for the Creation Care Studies Program in Belize and New Zealand. He is a Fellow of the University of St. Michael’s College.