News and Events

If you are considering a career in the ministry - or just want to explore your faith - you are invited to register for a Starr King online course. Registration is open to all at online.sksm.edu and runs from Jan. 25-29.
Classes begin Feb. 1.

Listen to an introduction to online course "Promised Lands and Immigrants" by instructor Hugo Córdova Quero:

Feel like Christianity's too small? Come to First Christian Church of Oakland on Thursday, February 11 at 7pm, and experience a different Christianity, a bigger Christianity, an earlier Christianity. An author talk with Starr King core faculty member Rita Nakashima Brock on her most recent book, "SAVING PARADISE: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire".

Fourth-year SKSM student Darcy Baxter is the featured seminary student in a UUA News article on UU clergy and the abortion debate. Darcy relates her experiences working on abortion issues as pivotal to her decision to come to seminary. Read the full article here: Spiritual Dilemmas and the Right to Choice (posted January 10, 2010).

Dr. Dorsey Blake, core faculty member and Dean of Faculty at Starr King, will give the Invocation and Reflection at this year's Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Jan 26-28. The conference will explore the increasingly popular phrase spiritual, but not religious. For details, see the conference website at Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference.

Same-Sex Marriage, Bombing Iran, and a Truth Commission on Conscience in War: Commentary by SKSM Faculty

Starr King faculty members Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini offer their reflections on critical issues of the day in recent blog postings:

Did you know that the pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church, one of the San Francisco Bay Area's largest African-American churches, is a graduate of Starr King? In the audio excerpt below from his keynote address at a recent breakfast reception at the school, hear how Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Jr. (MDiv '96) found a theological home here. Dr. Smith also shares intimate details of his journey to the school and how profoundly the Starr King educational experience influenced his personal and professional development.

The city council of Washington D.C. passed a measure on Dec. 15 legalizing same-sex marriage in the district. Rev. Rob Hardies, a 2000 graduate of Starr King, is one of the leading proponents of same-sex marriage quality in D.C. Rev. Hardies is the senior pastor at All Souls Church Unitarian and is co-chairman of D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality.

Rev. Hardies was quoted in The New York Times saying that "social justice and equality are goals for all people of faith, which is why so many religious leaders and faithful people in the District support this legislation". Read the Times article featuring this and other quotes from Rev. Hardies: NYT - D.C. Council Approves Gay Marriage.

The statue of Rev. Thomas Starr King formerly in Statuary Hall in Washington D.C., was installed on Dec. 8, 2009 in Sacramento's Capitol Park in the Civil War Grove. Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, President of Starr King School, was an invted speaker at the dedication.

This is the second year that members of the Starr King community and friends are invited to be part of this international celebration in Konya, on the central Anatolian steppe of Turkey, where concerts, lectures, sema (ceremony of the whirling dervishes), dhikrs (Sufi ceremony of Divine Remembrance), etc., take place throughout the day and late into the night for much of December, culminating in a memorial ceremony at the moment of his passing.

New: follow the Rumi Immersion class on their fan page on Facebook as they learn and travel in Turkey.

When Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, the great Sufi theologian, mystic and poet of the 13th century, died in Konya in 1273 CE, so much was he revered that members of all of the diverse religious communities of the city sought to participate in his funeral procession. For over 700 years, lovers of this "Sultan of Love" have gathered from around the world to mark the anniversary of his "Sheb-i arus," the wedding festival of Rumi's departure to be with the Beloved.

Starr King School for the Ministry is pleased to announce the promotion of Dr. Ibrahim Farajajé to the position of Provost. Prior to being named Provost, Dr. Farajajé has served as Starr King's Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of the Faculty, and Director of the Luce Project for Multi-Religious Education. He continues to hold appointments as Starr King's Professor of Islamic Studies and Cultural Studies, as Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, and as a member of the GTU Core Doctoral Faculty in the area of Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion. Before his appointment to Starr King's faculty in 1995, he was a tenured professor at Howard University School of Religion. He earned his doctorate in theology from the University of Bern, Switzerland; his M.Div. from St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary; and his B.A. from Vassar. He has done post-doctoral studies in Bible at the Pontifical Institute in Rome, and in Arabic at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of In Search of Zion, and co-editor of African Creative Expressions of the Divine. He and David Dezern recently produced an award-winning documentary film on Muslims in the Bay Area, Oceans of Divine Mercy.

As Provost, Dr. Farajajé is charged with the design and implementation of Starr King's "new educational model" and with building relationships and collegial partnerships with other academic institutions and organizations. These include: Goddard College, Aleph Institute, the Interfaith Chaplaincy Institute, Naropa University, the GTU's Islamic Studies Center, the Buddhist Studies Center, and the Center for Jewish Studies.

“I am delighted to make this appointment,” said President Rebecca Parker, “Dr. Farajaje's leadership skills, scholarship, and educational imagination, have already advanced Starr King's commitments to education that counters oppressions, that builds just and sustainable communities, and that fosters multi-religious life and learning. We are looking forward with hope and excitement as we move ahead with Starr King's mission to educate people for Unitarian Universalist ministry and for progressive religious leadership in society.”

America needs "not just restricted areas that make people tourists, but a respect for the knowledge human beings develop over many generations from living sustainably on the land of their ancestors", says Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock in her recent blog post Our National Parks, Uninhabited Wilderness, and Toilets in Weird Places. Your comments are welcomed.

Starr King School mourns the passing of Rev. Forrest Church, acclaimed author of over two dozen books and longtime minister of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City. Rev. Church had served on the Board of Trustees of Starr King School for the Ministry and he was awarded an honorary doctorate Sacrae Theologiae Doctor by the school in 2008. For more about Rev. Church's life and accomplishments, see the tribute by the UUA.

In an article “Empty Roar from the Lion of Islam”, published today by the Boston Globe, Starr King faculty member Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock and co-author Amir Soltani Sheikholeslami comment on human rights violations in Iran and the appearance of President Ahmadinejad at the United Nations.

Dr. Brock's background piece on the profound influences of Persia on Christianity in its early formation “Iran and our Axis of Friendship” was also published today by the widely read progressive blog DogCanyon.org.

Starr King School for the Ministry announced today that its Board of Trustees has adopted a comprehensive living wage policy for all employees: salaried, temporary, and work-study students. Workers of the 105-year-old Unitarian Universalist seminary must be compensated no less than $14 an hour, the amount currently set by the Berkeley Living Wage Ordinance. The successful motion was presented by the board's student trustees.

This presentation and conversation - "Caring and the Religious Life: Ministering to Souls Who Suffer" - will focus on:
• how a caring presence and arousing empathy are central to ministering to the lost, lonely, sick, bereaved, and brokenhearted
• identifying the motivations, risks, and rewards of entering into a close relationship with the frail elderly, poor, homeless, abused, chronically ill, or those at the end of life

In addition, we will ask:
• can those in religious life honestly claim to know another person's suffering?
• why do we enter into — or sometimes resist — solidarity with those in the grip of suffering?

Charles Garfield, Ph.D. is a Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union; Clinical Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry; UCSF Medical School; Founder, Shanti, America's first community based volunteer AIDS organization; founding faculty, Metta Institute End of Life Counseling program; mathematician, Apollo Eleven first lunar landing; ten books published including Training Volunteers for Community Service; Sometimes My Heart Goes Numb: Love and Caregiving in a Time of AIDS (with C. Spring); Wisdom Circles: A Guide to Self Discovery and Community Building in Small Groups (with C. Spring); and the Peak Performance trilogy.

Meet the Starr King alum who pastors one of Oakland's largest African-American churches. All are invited to a keynote breakfast reception with Pastor Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Jr. of Allen Temple Baptist Church, one of Oakland's historical and largest African-American churches. Dr. Smith will reflect on his experience as a Starr King M.Div. student and its impact on his personal and professional development.

Crystal H. Weston, Director of Recruitment and Marketing, will share Starr King's multi-religious, counter-oppressive, student-centered approach to seminary education, one of the Bay Area's best kept secrets.

Starr King School's Master of Arts in Religious Leadership for Social Change (MASC) program presented a screening of the film Trouble the Water. A panel discussion followed the screening with executive producer Danny Glover, Rev. Dwight Webster, and Trudell Webster. Discussion was introduced and moderated by Dr. Gabriella Lettini, director of the MASC program and Professor at Starr King School.

Read the full story and see video of the panel discussion with Danny Glover. This program was co-presented with the Graduate Theological Union's Center for the Arts, Religion and Education.

Stay in touch with Starr King friends on our new Facebook fan page. Visit Starr King's Facebook page and become a fan!
Contact: Crystal H. Weston, Recruitment & Marketing Director

View some special moments of Commencement 2009 on our Flickr album. (If you have photos of Commencment for our album, please let us know. Contact: communications@sksm.edu)

Graduates of Starr King - join us at the annual meeting and reception at General Assembly, on Friday, June 26, 2009 in Salt Lake City Utah! To register, print and mail the GA 2009 Grad Assocation Meeting/Reception registration form. Registrations must be received by June 19, 2009. See you at GA! Contact: Judy Welles

Rev. Jeremiah Wright spoke to a full house at Starr King School on the evening of May 19 about the challenges facing seminaries and his reflections on a 35 year career in progressive ministry. Naming the most difficult challenges, he asked “How to be faithful in dialogue with people who don't believe what you believe?”

Rev. Wright will be presented with the Honorary Doctorate of Sacred Theology at Starr King's Commencement cermonies, May 21, 2009.

Congratulations to Jodi Tharan, 2nd year student at Starr King School, on receiving a grant from the Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley funding program of the UUWF. Jodi was among four women to receive the grant which supports women aspirants to the Unitarian Universalist ministry who identify as people of color, Latina or Hispanic. The program was founded to honor the memory of the late Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, a past UUWF board member and a member of the first Equity and Justice Grants Panel. This year marks the program’s first funding cycle, and four recipients received grants of $1,500 each.

Jodi will be presented with the grant award at General Assembly in Salt Lake City, UT, at the UUWF workshop on Saturday, June 27, from 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m, room: Salt Palace 255 A
(Source: http://uuwf.org/fundingprograms/bowenswheatleygrants.html)

Two SKSM graduates, Rev. Dr. Holly Horn and Rev. Benjamin Maucere of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City, legally married 17 same-sex couples on Friday, May 1st, in Iowa City, Iowa.

Read Rev. Dr. Holly Horn's personal reflections on this joyful, courageous event and see media coverage in video and print. article continues >>

Commencement for Starr King School's graduating students will take place at Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church in Walnut Creek. See the Commencement Celebration 2009 page for location details and a listing of graduates by degree. President Rebecca Parker announced the school's Honorary Degree Recipients for 2009 — Rev. Mary Harrington, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., and author Chris Hedges.

Our beloved Patti Lawrence, Professor of Congregational Studies, has been in intensive care in recent days, surrounded by friends and family who have been offering her healing touch, music, prayers and blessings. She died today, April 30, 2009. read more >>

This ten-minute video presents our new educational model, introduces our students and faculty, and lays out our vision for theological education in the 21st century. Produced and narrated by fourth-year student Garrick Linn.
View "A Fire in the Soul, A Revolution of the Sprit"

Starr King’s courses are in great demand! Courses include residential, online and immersion learning opportunities. Our courses are open to students at non-Unitarian Universalist schools as well as at Starr King, Meadville Lombard and the Graduate Theological Union. Lay people, ministers, social justice activists and people of all faiths are welcome, and find the courses an exciting way to deepen their theological education.

We encourage all students to register early. Registration for Fall courses occurs August 31 - September 4, 2009. For more information and a full listing of courses, see Course Schedule.

“Rebecca Ann Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock offer a fascinating new lens on the history of Christianity, from its first centuries to the present day, asking how its early vision of beauty evolved into a vision of torture, and what changes in society and theology marked that evolution.”
- from the publisher's announcement for Saving Paradise

The student body officers of Starr King School wish to express their solidarity with the GTU Black Seminarians, and their support of the following statement in response to the slaying of Oscar Grant.

For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise up for the Jews from another quarter… Perhaps you have come to your royal dignity for just such a time as this.
- Esther 4:14

We the members of the Graduate Theological Union Black Seminarians (GTUBS) deem it inexcusable that still on the eve of 2009 a black man can get beaten, degraded and killed all while being recorded on video and swift justice fail to occur. Further, the emerging news of a second officer assaulting Oscar Grant with no provocation and no consequence is especially heinous and disturbing. It is this type of disregard for human life which eats away at the core of all of humanity; this type of intolerance--by those elected and sworn to enact and uphold justice--of the unwarrantable that causes community unrest to fester to eruption; this type of injustice that we the members of the Graduate Theological Union Black Seminarians will not be co-conspirators to by our silence. Thus, WE add our collective voice to those of the community activists, elected officials, clergy, family, and friends in calling for justice--from the Attorney General of California to the District Attorney of Alameda County to those who sit on the jury--for the New Year's Eve murder of Oscar Grant. Instead of juxtaposing King and Obama, which is comfortable for folks, we juxtapose Grant and Obama---therein lies the real issue and comparison.

"How long? Not long?"
How Long? It's already been too long.
Sisters and brothers, the time to act is NOW.
Sisters and brothers, the time to speak Truth to Power is NOW.
Join the call for justice and ask your friends to do the same.
It only takes a minute, click here.

The Graduate Theological Union Black Seminarians
Berkeley, California
January 2009

An important new book about the New Orleans hurricane tragedy has just been published by Wipf & Stock, authored by Robert Ross, adjunct faculty member at Starr King School for the Ministry. “Walking to New Orleans” traces how a dominant but paradoxical model of the relation between the human and natural worlds in Western culture has informed many environmental and engineering dilemmas and has contributed to the history of social inequities and injustice that anteceded the disasters of the hurricanes and subsequent flooding.

“Walking to New Orleans is an astonishingly informed and informative account of one of the major human, natural, and political disasters in recent memory.”

— Professor Mark C. Taylor, Chair, Department of Religion, and Co-Director of the Institute of Religion, Culture and Public Life, Columbia University Cluett Professor of Humanities, Williams College

Robert R. N. Ross teaches courses in the areas of philosophy and the study of religion at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and at Starr King School for the Ministry/Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California; he also works with congregations in transition as an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister.

Read the latest online publications and emails from Starr King's communications office.

Listen to our latest podcast, "Andalusia and Beyond." Professor Ibrahim Farajajé shares his recent research on the intersections of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

And click here to see our latest photo gallery, "GTU Poverty Truth Commission", photographs of Starr King students and faculty in the GTU Justice Collaborative's 2008 Poverty Truth Commission (requires Flash).

Daniel Jae-Won Lee, a member of Starr King's adjunct faculty, successfully leverages his theological education in globalized international movements. Join us for “Bringing It to Bear! Your Theological Education, Globalization and Social Change” and learn just how powerful your spiritual agency is in the world of ‘isms’, once you decidedly tether it to the practice of resistance. read more >>

Don't miss Rev. Carmen Lansdowne’s presentation on the World Council of Churches (WCC) advocacy strategy for seeking a just peace for Palestine-Israel. Read more about this event >>

Starr King School held a Gala Celebration in April for Patti Lawrence, honored for her service as a professor and multi-faceted staff member, and Rigdon Currie, who received the Thomas Starr King Award for his service as former Chair of the Board, Chair of the Centennial Campaign, and ongoing champion of the school. See Photos of the Gala

Starr King School for the Ministry & the Alameda Spiritual Living Center present an interfaith gathering celebrating Women in Spiritual Leadership.

Sisters in the Spirit
Saturday, March 28, 2009 10:00am - 12:00pm
Starr King School for the Ministry, Fireside Room

Janice Mirikitani is the Founding President of the Glide Foundation, and former Executive Director of Glide's 86 programs. A multicultural visionary and poet, Janice has been a powerful force at Glide Memorial Church since 1965. Janice Mirikitani is married to Reverend Cecil Williams.

Contact: Crystal Weston, Director of Recruitment and Marketing,
Starr King School for the Ministry, email: recruitment@sksm.edu

“People of Faith, Standing on the Side of Love” is the new video produced by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) to showcase Unitarian Universalism's long-standing committment to marriage equality for same-sex couples.

The video includes a photo of Starr King's President, Rev. Rebecca Parker, presiding at the wedding of students Wendy Bartel and Lynn Gardner.

Link to the video on YouTube.com where you can leave a comment and share with a friend. For inquiries about this video, please contact Deborah Weiner, Director of Electronic Communication for the UUA, at dweiner@uua.org.

Edges Is Available!
Edges is the student-organized and juried arts and letters journal of Starr King School for the Ministry. Three volumes are now available for purchase through the mail. The three issues are:

Starr King Graduates Can Now Enroll in Online Courses for Free
For some time now, SKSM grads have been entitled to take one course per semester for free, except for online courses. New policy makes it possible for grads to receive scholarship assistance (in the form of waived fees) to take one online course each year. To apply, please email the Online Education Director, Cathleen Young, and state your request.