Events

One of the highlights of Regent Summer Programs is our free Evening Public Lectures. This series always features a wide range of professors and topics, and this year is no exception. All lectures will be streamed online, so invite a friend and join us!

These are turbulent times, and among the adjectives circulating (“unprecedented” being most prominent) is “untethered.” Contagion has taken lives, quarantined humankind, and rattled economies small and large. Our bodies politic are sorely divided, riven along religious as well as partisan lines. And we are facing the ways we’ve rejected the full humanity of other human beings. Civil and emotional turbulence are not new. Seventy years ago Howard Thurman, an American theologian, civil rights leader, and mentor of Dr. King among others, offered advice for living in “turbulent times.” Core to his counsel was the encouragement to “keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God.” May we do so now! In this lecture Dr. Phillips will share some of what she's witnessed during our own turbulent time, as a 500-year old prayer practice known as the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola has tethered people to God.

Dr. Susan Phillips has served as Executive Director at New College Berkeley since 1994, and prior to this role was the Academic Dean. Dr. Phillips is keenly interested in how we live our faith in daily life, drawing insight from the diverse fields of the social sciences, biblical spirituality, and practical theology. She is a sociologist and meets regularly with individuals for spiritual direction. She teaches in a wide range of contexts, serves as supervisor for spiritual directors, and consults for Christian organizations. In addition to being a regular contributor to summer classes at Regent College, she teaches at the Graduate Theological Union, Fuller Theological Seminary (Northern California), and San Francisco Theological Seminary (Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction). Dr. Phillips sat on the Board of Governors at Regent College for eight years and on the editorial boards of Radix,Presence, and Reflective Practice. Her most recent book is The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy.