Luther Lecture

Turning Ourselves Inside Out For Each Other: Why Intercultural Ministry Matters

The 2025 Luther Lecturer is The Right Rev. Dr. Carmen Lansdowne, the first female Indigenous Moderator of the United Church of Canada, and Assistant Professor of United Church Studies at Emmanuel College.

There are two schools of thought about life in the 21st century: One that perceives us as going through a series of unprecedented shifts in society that continue to expel whole communities to the margins. The other sees our challenges as significantly improved from every previous global upheaval and challenge. Perhaps both things can be true … we cannot reach back into past centuries to measure our conflicts against theirs, we only know the world that we know. But we also follow in a tradition that has documented our human failure to live into the liberative story of Christian discipleship, and our forebears have reflected theologically on war, environmental degradation, racism, and other oppression since the beginning of our tradition. What would a church turned inside out look like for political theology in the 21st century – and what remains instructive from political theology in the mid-20th century. And what does interculturalism have to do with it?

Join us in person at the Luther Auditorium or email us for the Zoom link.