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“We Advocate Freedom!” Teach-In Series // Session 3

September 26

Session 3: Spirited and Spiritual Resistance: Community Chaplaincy and Religious Leadership

Series Description
In these times of significant division and conflict, we bear the responsibility to find meaningful ways to engage in conversations about challenging and complex issues. Iliff is responding to the current moment with the “We Advocate Freedom!” Teach-in Series, a five-session series starting on Thursday, June 27th. This series aims to create a space where we can come together in-person and remotely to discuss and navigate these important topics together.

Session Description
Chaplains are interfaith/interreligious leaders who work to support human dignity and advocate spiritual integrity within institutional and community settings. This session will bring together spiritual leaders and chaplains to discuss the challenges of navigating entrenched, complicated issues that provoke individual and collective disintegration. The conversation will invite reflections on topics like the spirituality of violence and the spirituality of resistance. With commitments to ending isolation while being sensitive to the dynamics of moral injury, chaplains mediate across religious differences and advocate commonality.

In addition to the in-person event at Iliff, attendees can participate via Zoom by registering at the link below:

ZOOM WEBINAR LINK

September 26, 2024

6:00 pm MST – Refreshments at Iliff / Zoom room opens
6:30-8:00 pm MST – Teach-in Roundtable Discussion

Facilitated By
Dr. Lee H. Butler, Jr.

Speakers

Chaplain Leenah Safi
Assistant Muslim Chaplain, Yale University

Rabbi Stephen Booth-Nadav
Chaplain

Rev. Dr. Zachary Moon
Professor of Theology & Psychology, Chicago Theological Seminary

Speaker Information

Chaplain Leenah Safi

Assistant Muslim Chaplain,
Yale University

Chaplain Leenah Safi is an Assistant Muslim Chaplain at Yale University.  She joined the Yale Chaplain’s Office after previously serving as a chaplain at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University with a non-profit organization serving the Muslim community.  Chaplain Safi is a Muslima with a passion for interreligious and interfaith theological reflection.  Chaplain Safi has both hospital and university chaplaincy experience.  Her guild work involves her in the Society for Pastoral Theology, the Association of Muslim Chaplains, and the Moral Injury and Recovery unit of the American Academy of Religion.

She is a graduate of Zaytuna College with a B.A. in Islamic Law and Theology.  She earned a MDiv with an emphasis in Interreligious Engagement and Chaplaincy from Chicago Theological Seminary.  She is now a PhD/ABD in Practical Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary.  Within her doctoral studies, she is focused on developing a Muslim practical theology to inform the work of chaplaincy for Muslims and interfaith spiritual care providers.   When writing Chaplain Safi is inspired by the angelic voice of Ella Fitzgerald and listens carefully when Toni Morrison (and when mothers more generally) speak and educate. She is renewed by conversations about the meaning(s) of life, having the opportunity to hear people talk about those they love, and the consumption of coffee prepared every which way.  Her dissertation project is entitled “Sh?r?: A Practice of Relational Care in the Formation of Muslim Selves.”

Rev. Dr. Zachary Moon

Professor of Theology & Psychology,
Chicago Theological Seminary

Professor Moon is Professor of Theology and Psychology at Chicago Theological Seminary.  A leading voice in the study of moral injury and moral distress, he publishes and consults widely on the topic, especially with the military. His broader research interests include pastoral and practical theologies, psychology, and trauma studies. He is the author of four books, Coming Home: Ministries That Matter with Veterans and Military Families (Chalice Press, 2015), Warriors between Worlds: Moral Injury and Identities in Crisis (Lexington Books, 2019), Goatwalking: A Quaker Pastoral Theology (Brill, 2021), and Doing Theology in Pandemics: Facing Viruses, Violence, and Vitriol (Pickwick, 2022). His articles have been published in the Journal for Pastoral Theology, Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Journal of Religious Education, Journal of Pastoral Psychology, International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, Christian Century, Christianity Today, Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, among others. He has served as a chaplain in multiple contexts, including having served as a chaplain in the US Navy assigned to the Marines.  He specializes in working with military veterans and their families, training faith communities in post-deployment reentry and reintegration, and building sustainable social movements for justice through holistic compassionate care.  Moon is a graduate of the Iliff-DU Joint PhD program.  He was raised in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and is currently ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Rabbi Stephen Booth-Nadav

Chaplain

Rabbi Steve served as a congregational rabbi for 14yrs, where he especially enjoyed facilitating hundreds of life cycle events from birth to death.  He was trained as a Jewish Mindfulness Teacher by a Mindfulness Leadership Training program for Rabbis, and by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.  He is a trained Jewish Wilderness Spirituality Guide and a “Death Educator” for The Jewish Association for Death Education.  He directs The Multifaith Leadership Forum of Metro Denver.  He has been the chaplain at Kavod Senior Life for twelve years.  Kavod is a “Jewishly Hosted Multifaith Affordable Housing Community for Seniors.”  It is an amazingly rich and diverse community of over 400 people with many stories and wisdom to share.

Rabbi Steve is a 1992 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.  He is a former board member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assn. and is also a founding member of Ohalah: The Alliance of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal.  As a seminary student living in Jerusalem during the first intifada (1987-88), Rabbi Steve embraced two “adopted families.”  One Jewish family who immigrated from South Africa in the 1950’s, and there raised three children; the other a family from the lower Galilee, Palestinian Citizens of Israel.  Their two oldest daughters are his “God-daughters.”  One works for Al Jazeera.  The other, Nura, is married with two lovely children and teaches English in the village of Tarshiha, six miles from the Lebanon border.

Session 4 • October 10, 2024

UMC Social Principles and the Impact of Socially Responsible Investments

Session 5 • November 7, 2024

 Book Discussion: Angela Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Details

Date:
September 26

Venue

Iliff School of Theology
2323 East Iliff Avenue
Denver, CO 80210 United States

Organizer

Iliff School of Theology