Earth-Honoring Faith Series

A Desert Faith for a Desert Time is sixth in a series of a ten-year commitment on the part of Ghost Ranch to Earth-Honoring Faith: A Song of Songs. The goal of the series is to construct justice-centered, Earth-Honoring, christianities that promote interfaith efforts on common earth issues.

Life may have begun in Eden, but faith began in the desert. How are landscape and belonging joined? And how has God’s presence been experienced in these fierce places? What is a desert faith for a time of global warming, and how do we shape a desert people when “the eyes of the future are looking back at us and are praying for us to see beyond our own time?” –Terry Tempest Williams. Join one another for study and worship amid the mystical landscape and the red and gold mesas of northern New Mexico’s high mountain desert.

NOTES:
• Dates for the 2013 program are one week later than previous Earth-Honoring Faith offerings.

Earth Honoring Faith 2013 Flyer for posting and Sharing

Instructor(s)

Terry Tempest Williams author of Refuge, Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, and When Women Were Birds, is the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah.Tempest Williams has been called “a citizen writer,” a writer who speaks and speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, she has consistently shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice.

William Brown is Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament and author of The Seven Pillars of Creation. Dr. Brown has abiding interests in the use of scripture in the life of the church and contemporary theological discourse, as well as in the ancient cultural contexts out of which scripture emerged. Specific interests include Psalms, wisdom literature, Pentateuch, Isaiah, history of ancient Israel, and modern literary theory.

Since 1987, Talitha Arnold has been the Pastor of the United Church of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a “new church start” of the United Church of Christ. She has been President of Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity and the Ministerial Alliance, served on the city’s first Youth Commission, organized Jewish-Muslim-Christian dialogues and been recognized for her Human Rights work. She and a Roman Catholic priest started a relationship between their congregations that includes pulpit exchanges and educational events. Pilgrim Press recently published her book, Worship for Vital Congregations, that draws on both the worship life of United and also her experience at YDS. She is currently working on the book, A Desert Faith in a Time of Global Warming. The United Church of Santa Fe was awarded the “Arthur Tappan Award” by the United Church of Christ for its witness as a multicultural and just peace church. In 2010, Talitha was recognized as one of “Ten Who Make a Difference” by the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper.

Larry Rasmussen is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary. He is the organizer of Ghost Ranch’s decade project on Earth-honoring Faith and author of the award-winning volume Earth Community, Earth Ethics. His most recent book with Oxford University Press is Earth-Honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key (Nov. 1).