Karam Forum 2022
Denise Daniels | Christian Entrepreneurship: Communities Thriving in a Changing World
Co-Presentation
At Karam Forum 2022, Denise Daniels of Wheaton College presents findings from her multi-year research on Christians in the business world, especially Christian entrepreneurs, to see what’s going well and where growth is still needed. This presentation leads into her interview with Helen Young Hayes (our next video).
Helen Young Hayes & Denise Daniels | Christian Entrepreneurship for the Marginalized
Interview
At Karam Forum 2022, Helen Young Hayes of Activate Workforce Solutions tells Denise Daniels of Wheaton College about her revolutionary experience leaving the heights of Wall Street to start a business in Denver that hires former convicts and others on the margins who need a path into the workforce, creating “triple wins for job seekers, employers and the community.”
Michaela O’Donnell | Not What I Signed Up For
Mini Talk
At Karam Forum 2022, Michaela O’Donnell talks real talk about the challenges theological educators are facing today in their vocational formation, as well as the opportunities to serve the world that flow from refreshing our vocation. More and more of our jobs as theological educators consist of doing things that we didn’t sign up for back when we entered this sector of service; how can we become the leaders that the church and the world need us to be?
Karam Forum 2021 Live Meeting
David French, Michael Wear & Vincent Bacote | Witnesses for Justice Today
Interview
At Karam Forum 2021, David French of The Dispatch and Michael Wear of Public Square Strategies – both of whom operate at the highest levels of American politics, and have made big personal sacrifices for the sake of Christian integrity – joined us digitally to discuss the intense pressures that political polarization is bringing to bear on the church. How can we create a faithful public witness and also maintain our prophetic independence? Vincent Bacote of Wheaton College moderated the discussion.
Jennifer Woodruff Tait & Charlie Self | The Industrial Revolution and the Wesleyan Movement
Joint Presentation and Panel Discussion
At Karam Forum 2021, Jennifer Woodruff Tait of St. John’s Episcopal Church and Charlie Self of Assemblies of God Theological Seminary discuss our divergent historical views of the Industrial Revolution – the bad news and the good news – and consider how the response of the Wesleyan movement can help us hold together both affirming what is good in major social changes and opposing what is wrong. Panel discussion follows with Jay Moon of Asbury Theological Seminary and P.J. Hill of Wheaton College. Vincent Bacote of Wheaton College hosted the session.
Karam Forum 2021 Live Meeting Global Session
Special Session
At the live meeting of Karam Forum 2021, we held a Global Session to hear from colleagues in theological education across Asia about their work bridging the sacred-secular divide. Speakers included Edwin Tay of Trinity Theological College (Singapore), Havilah Dharamraj of South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (India), Ivor Poobalan of Colombo Theological Seminary (Sri Lanka) and Sutrisna Harjanto of Bandung Theological Seminary (Indonesia). Kara Martin of Alphacrucis College (Australia) hosted the session.
Nathan Hitchcock | Justice Begins with a Meal
Mini Talk
At Karam Forum 2021, Nathan Hitchcock discusses how coming together around a meal – whether at the Lord’s Table or sharing a “Snickers salad” – can be the starting point for really living into the calling to justice.
Karam Forum 2021 Virtual Meeting
Mark Labberton & John Nunes | Rising to the Challenge with Vision
Co-Presentations
Mark Labberton, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, and John Nunes, president of Concordia College-New York, share their vision for how Christian higher education can flourish in the 21st century. This is the morning session of the Karam Forum 2021 Virtual Meeting.
Darrell Bock & Panel | Rising to the Challenge with Wisdom
Presentation and Panel Discussion
Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary and an interdisciplinary panel discuss how theological learning can be more effectively connected to the way people live their lives. This is the afternoon session of the Karam Forum 2021 Virtual Meeting. The traditional closing hymns of Karam Forum are also included. Panelists include: Peter Cha of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Charlie Self of Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, Lynn Cohick of Denver Seminary and Gerry Breshears of Western Seminary.
Karam Forum 2021 Virtual Meeting Global Session
Special Session
The Karam Forum 2021 Virtual Meeting included a special two-hour Global Session. Our longtime Australian partners took over the content for the Global Session, and the result was a rich discussion of the past, present and future of whole-life discipleship and faith/work integration in theological education from outside the North American context. Speakers included Kara Martin of Alphacrucis College (who also hosted), Keith McPherson of Alphacrucis College, Thomas Kimber of the Melbourne School of Theology, Ian Hussey of Malyon College, Dave Benson of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (who stayed up to 3am to be with us!) and Andrew Sloane of Morling College.
Karam Forum 2020
Rachael & Jacob Denhollander | Justice and Vocation: A Conversation with Rachael and Jacob Denhollander
Interview
At Karam Forum 2020, Rachael and Jacob Denhollander challenged the church to embrace a bigger vision of justice and the gospel, so the church can respond to injustice with holiness as well as with compassion. They discuss the atonement, eschatology, the relationship between justice and vocation, and a right understanding of the role of pastoral leadership, to show that justice is woven together with everything the church is and does. Patrick Smith of Duke Divinity School moderated the discussion. See also our shorter video for classroom use.
Lisa Slayton & Terry Timm | Discipling People in the New Economy
Joint Presentation and Panel Discussion
At Karam Forum 2020, Lisa Slayton of Tamim Partners and Terry Timm of Christ Community Church of the South Hills discuss how the new economy is reshaping the task of discipling believers in their whole life’s work. Panel discussion follows with Christeen Rico of Apple, DeLano Sheffield of Macedonia Baptist Church, and Michaela O’Donnell Long of Fuller Theological Seminary. Debroah Gill of Assemblies of God Theological Seminary hosts the session. See also our shorter video for classroom use.
Charisse Jones, Joe Gorra and Dean Blevins | Entrepreneurship: Connecting Church, Academy & Community
Co-Presentations
In this session from Karam Forum 2020, Charisse Jones of Asbury Theological Seminary offers a Christian vision for entrepreneurship as a key part of the church’s mission to the world, grounded in God’s creative love. Joe Gorra of the Veritas Life Center points to a broader set of theological questions for understanding entrepreneurship, such as pneumatology and eschatology; and Dean Blevins of Nazarene Theological Seminary shares how his school is training future church leaders to support entrepreneurship. Lawrence Ward of Abundant Life Church hosts the session.
Karam Forum 2019
David Miller, Fernando Tamara & Helen Kim | The Faith and Work Movement: Looking over the Jordan
Co-Presentations
David Miller address at Karam Forum 2019 on the state of the faith and work movement, and how theological schools can be part of what’s going on, followed by testimonies from Fernando Tamara and Helen Kim.
Nathan Hitchcock | He Loved Corn: How Theology Changes Life
Mini Talk
Nathan Hitchcock’s shares a funny story at Karam Forum 2019 that illustrates how theology changes real life.
Panel | Seeking Economic Wisdom
Panel Discussion
Four pastors, three seminary professors and two economists discuss theology and economic issues…sitting on only six chairs. Discussing topics that range from the image of God and technology to justice and the modern economic order are Kevin Dudley of The Church at North Pointe, Isaac Frere of The Font, P.J. Hill of Wheaton College, Lawrence Ward of Abundant Life Church and Brent Waters of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Tom Nelson of Made to Flourish moderates the discussion.
Karam Forum 2018
Chris Armstrong | Souls on Sticks: The Gospel and Human Flourishing
Mini Talk
To tee up the topic of the gospel and human flourishing at Karam Forum 2018, Chris Armstrong argued that a well-rounded Christian view of flourishing is essential to nurturing the faith in the coming generation. Too often, the church has treated people as if they were “souls on sticks” – addressing their eternal fate, but not their whole lives. Many young people leave the church today not because they think Christianity is false but because they think Christianity is irrelevant to anything they care about; our problem is not so much “intellectual atheism” as “practical atheism.” Bringing in big, delightful doses of wisdom from C.S. Lewis, and pointing to the origin of these insights in the earlier ages of the faith that Lewis studied, Armstrong made a case for Lewis’ maxim that “because we love something else more than this world, we love even this world better than those who know no other.” (This video is a reshoot – nefarious gremlins sabotaged the audio feed during the original presentation.)
Vincent Bacote | Seminaries or Cemeteries? A Mission as Big as Life Itself
Mini Talk
Vincent Bacote told the audience at Karam Forum 2018 that, being in Los Angeles, they were sitting not far from the most influential seminary in the world: Hollywood. The movies win hearts and minds by showing people an imaginary world on a screen for two hours. Theology may not have big special effects budgets, but it can do something even more impressive than the movies; it can show us the real world. Bacote argued that theological education needs to recover a sense of how big the mission of theology is – a mission as big as the whole world, as big as life itself. Only then will it reverse its reputation as a storehouse of lifeless abstractions and decaying formulas.
P.J. Hill | Theology and Economics: Getting Past Cognitive Dissonance
Mini Talk
P.J. Hill shared with Karam Forum 2018 the story of his journey as an economist who slowly discovered that moral and even theological questions were not secondary to his discipline; they were right at the heart of it. From a starting point where he struggled to connect his faith to his economic studies, producing “cognitive dissonance,” Hill eventually concluded that economic understanding had to begin with questions of justice, rights and morally ordered desires. Hill also described some insights the economic discipline provides on market economies that can inform theological evaluation of their functioning, such as the role markets play in coordinating social activity among people who don’t know each other well.
Greg Forster | Discovering Oikonomia: A Christian Life of the Mind
Mini Talk
Greg Forster described at Karam Forum 2018 how his conversion to the faith as an adult forced him to reevaluate what it meant to live the life of a scholar and educator. In a universe where God cares about building bridges and feeding the hungry as much as he cares about knowledge and insight, how can we have a Christian life of the mind? Forster argued that reason must have a place in the oikonomia theou, God’s plan for all things, because we use reason to discover the oikonomia theou. Everyone in the kingdom of God, in all vocations, has valuable knowledge; nonetheless there is an indispensable role for those who live the life of the mind – as Self put it, raising up poets and prophets for God’s people and world.
Karam Forum 2017
Panel | Discussion of Vanhoozer’s “Learning Christ”
Panel Discussion
Panel discussion of Kevin Vanhoozer’s address at Karam Forum 2017. Featuring Rudy Estrada, Will Messenger, Lisa Slayton and Lawrence Ward. Hosted by Darrell Bock.
W. Jay Moon | The Connected Complexity of Culture Change
Mini Talk
Jay Moon memorably illustrates at Karam Forum 2017 how changes in a culture’s economic and technological life affect its beliefs and ideas, and vice versa. See also his TED-style talk expanding on this idea.