Can We Hold Together in a World Coming Apart? Faculty Weigh in on the Gifts and Challenges of our Learning Community

In 2024, the PhD Studies program at Princeton Seminary was awarded a one-year grant from the Wabash Foundation.

“So That We Might Build Together: Cultivating Honest Conversation, Enduring Trust & Mutual Care in the Midst of Deep Difference” is a project that seeks to promote communal care and connection. The program’s goal is to equip participants with pedagogical practices that will sustain honest, difficult conversations and cultivate the enduring trust, mutual respect, and individual and community-wide care that is essential to flourishing.

To kick off this one-year program, PhD studies is hosting a community-wide event  featuring a panel of Princeton Seminary faculty who will discuss the questions at the heart of the grant:

• How do we sustain important conversations in the midst of deep disagreement, theologically and otherwise, and in a way that is life-giving even if also difficult?
• What are the stakes of sustaining these conversations?
• What would we lose if we narrowed the conversation?

Faculty Panelists

Kenneth G. Appold, James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation

Lisa Cleath, Assistant Professor of Old Testament

Keri L. Day, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religion

Kenda Creasy Dean, PhD ’97, Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture

Panel Moderator

Heath Carter, Associate Professor of American Christianity, Director of PhD Studies