BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:icalendar-ruby CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260903T062134Z UID:369-774584@lutheransnw.org DTSTART:20261113T170000Z DTEND:20261113T213000Z CLASS:PUBLIC CREATED:20260902T160118 DESCRIPTION:The Urgent Need for the Liberation of Everything in 2026 and B eyond\nFriday\, November 13\, 9:00am to 1:30pm at Edmonds United Methodist Church\n\nRostered Ministers and Pastoral Leaders and are invted to this fall convocation gathering featuring Dr. Joerg Rieger as our presenter\nCo -sponsored by the United Methodist Church of the Greater Northwest and the Northwest Washington Synod\, ELCA\n9-12:30 presentation time\n12:30-1:30 lunch &\; conversation time\nMore details and registration link coming soon\n\nAbout This Gathering\nLiberation movements have transformed the wo rld for the better\, but in many places\, the pressures against them are o nly increasing. Liberation theologies\, now more than five decades old\, a re being called to evolve. In this keynote and workshop for pastors and de acons\, Dr. Joerg Rieger\, Distinguished Professor of Theology at Vanderbi lt University and author of Jesus vs. Caesar: For People Tired of Serving the Wrong God\, brings a working constructive theology\, developed across his published work\, in which questions of anthropology and ecclesiology a re never far from the center: what does it mean to be human\, and what is the church for\, in an age that still hasn't figured out solidarity across lines of labor and class?\nRieger names what isn't working on either side of the church's usual divide. The conservative path\, he argues\, is a de ad end. But the liberal alternative isn't automatically the answer\, too o ften it has settled into a self-congratulatory mode\, content with gesture s of inclusion\, especially to marginalized identities\, that stop short o f the deeper\, structural transformation those gestures were supposed to r epresent. Protests that “speak truth to power” without building power\ , tables that welcome “marginalized voices” without turning the tables \, “diversity” celebrated without disturbing the system beneath it\, t hese are the deficient approaches Rieger has spent his career naming.\nThe real question\, he insists\, is how we build solidarity\, genuine\, costl y\, cross-class solidarity\, and what it would take for the church itself to be reshaped by that work rather than merely to sponsor it from a comfor table distance. That's a harder question than either the conservative or t he liberal church has been willing to sit with.\nThis day is offered speci fically for those who carry pastoral and diaconal responsibility for leadi ng congregations and/or diaconal ministry\, and serves as a professional-t rack companion to the following Saturday's retreat on November 14\, in whi ch Dr. Rieger takes up these same questions with churches and lay leaders. \nAbout our presenter\nDr. Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theo logy and the Cal Turner Chancellor's Chair in Wesleyan Studies at Vanderb ilt Divinity School\, and founding director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt University. Born and educated in G ermany before completing his doctoral work in the United States\, he hold s an M.Div. from the Theologische Hochschule Reutlingen\, a Th.M. from Du ke Divinity School\, and a Ph.D. in religion and ethics from Duke Univers ity. An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church\, he spent over two decades on the faculty of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodi st University before joining Vanderbilt. Rieger is the author or editor o f 27 books and more than 200 academic articles on theology\, economics\, a nd the misuse of power in religion and public life\, including Jesus vs. C aesar: For People Tired of Serving the Wrong God (2018) and Theology in th e Capitalocene: Ecology\, Identity\, Class\, and Solidarity (2022). His wo rk has been translated into Portuguese\, Spanish\, Italian\, Croatian\, Ge rman\, Malayalam\, Korean\, and Chinese\, and he lectures widely across th e Americas\, Africa\, Asia\, and Europe on faith\, solidarity\, and justic e.\nCheck out a recent Homebrewed Christianity course with Joerg - where h e makes the case that white Christian nationalism isn't a new problem... h ttps://www.youtube.com/live/u6A2jwfjqfc LAST-MODIFIED:20260902T160118 LOCATION:Edmonds United Methodist Church SUMMARY:Urgent Need for the Liberation of Everything URL;VALUE=URI:https://lutheransnw.org/events/urgent-need-for-the-liberation -of-everything/2026-11-13 ATTACH;FILENAME=Fall Convocation w Dr. Joerg Rieger.png;FMTTYPE=image/png:h ttps://dq5pwpg1q8ru0.cloudfront.net/2026/08/26/19/38/44/2fd91952-1035-4afe -8349-0209727ab56d/Fall%20Convocation%20w%20Dr.%20Joerg%20Rieger.png END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR