Schedule of Events

This panel brings together student presentations from RLTH 393 (Spirituality and the Arts), held in Fall 2018.  That fall, under the twin devastations of the November shootings and fires, the class community found deeper bonding through ongoing encounter with art works and art-making.  These presentations engage specific examples of artistic genres and media in relation to religious or spiritual practice/s and trauma.  Panel participants will show how particular art forms or practices hold or give language -- whether verbal, aural, tangible, or imagistic – to participants caught in the impossible negative space of traumatic experience, toward the possibility of slowly-emerging healing.  This panel brings together student presentations from RLTH 393 (Spirituality and the Arts), held in Fall 2018.  That fall, under the twin devastations of the November shootings and fires, the class community found deeper bonding through ongoing encounter with art works and art-making.  These presentations engage specific examples of artistic genres and media in relation to religious or spiritual practice/s.  Panel participants will show how particular art forms or practices hold or give language -- whether verbal, aural, tangible, or imagistic – to participants caught in the impossible negative space of traumatic experience, toward the possibility of slowly-emerging healing.  The panel will also indirectly contribute toward the final 30 minutes of the larger Religion Department session, taking place in the SEEd Garden with hands-on artistic practice, as an experiential immersion for participants in the themes of the session as a whole.

On November 7, 2018, twelve people were shot and killed at Borderline Bar and Grill. One of them was a CLU alum and as the campus grieved the air was filled with fear and shock. I watched staff and pastors hold students up, while barely being able to stand up themselves. Living in the reality that I was headed into a life of ministry, I couldn’t help but contemplate what it is that keeps people going in this harsh reality. I landed on the work I was doing for my capstone on the psychology of grace. Could the psychologically positive effect of grace be the answer to how Christian believers survive the suffering in life? In this paper I intend to examine how psychology and a Lutheran understanding of grace can inform each other to promote human flourishing. I will first explore the key theological elements of grace set forth primarily by the writing of Martin Luther; however, I will also utilize 20 and 21st century theologians. I will then mirror these elements with psychological theories, informed by psychologists from the schools of humanism, positive psychology, and object relations. Finally, I will integrate the theology and psychology I have presented to analyze grace as a psychological phenomenon. I will reach the conclusion that when everything collapses around people of faith it is the grace of God that provides the psychological stability to remain standing.

Experiences outside the classroom are a common feature of classes in the Religion Department. Interacting with community members of different religious and non-religious traditions, students gain a more holistic understanding of these communities and grow in their understanding of the embodied nature of religious practices. A panel of students from a variety of classes will talk about how immersive experiences such as volunteering at a mosque food bank, studying housing and homelessness on Skid Row, or attending a ritual at the Mexico-U.S. border have shaped their understanding of religion.