Important Note Regarding the 2022 Annual Gathering

Dear friends,

After much consideration, the Executive Committee, along with the 2022 Annual Gathering planning team, have come to the difficult decision to move the 2022 Annual Gathering to an entirely virtual gathering this year.

The Alliance is committed to making every space as equitable as possible. During this pandemic, that means we must consider how we are to keep our neighbor safe. Because there are still many unknowns about how the next few months may play out, the Alliance has decided to take the necessary steps to create a vibrant online experience and gathering for this year.

We are fatigued by these ongoing moves to online spaces. We grieve with you and long for a time when we can gather together again in person. One of the most important parts of our communal life is being together. The Alliance is committed to gathering together again when it is safe to do so. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing how this tapestry displays itself again this year in an online form.

Registration information will be distributed in the next few days. We hope you will join us as we take on the cross together. This year's theme urges us to reimagine the love of God and theologies of the cross in light of our social situation. We are thrilled to host keynote speakers Rita Nakashima Brock and Eboni Marshall Turman. To learn more about the gathering, please visit our website.

In the spirit of love,

The Alliance of Baptists 

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock is the Director of the Shay Moral Injury Center at Volunteers of America and the former Director of the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. A Disciples of Christ minister, Dr. Brock’s deeply personal Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us (co-authored with Rebecca Parker) expressed an incisive feminist critique of Christian theories of atonement. She followed it up in 2008 with Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (also with Rebecca Parker), where her research charted the Church’s shift from resurrection paradise to crucified atonement.

Dr. Eboni Marshall Turman is an Assistant Professor of Theology and African American Religion at Yale Divinity School and formerly taught theological ethics, Black Church studies, and African & African American studies at Duke Divinity School. Her book, Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church, and the Council of Chalcedon, connects the incarnational experience of Jesus to the oppressed experience of African Americans, which will enrich our conversation about atonement and the cross. A National Baptist minister, Dr. Marshall Turman was ordained at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

The Alliance of Baptists is a vibrant movement of people, faith communities and ministry partners who are deeply passionate about ecumenism, partnership in mission, relentless hospitality and racial and social justice.

Leadership Team

Carole Collins, co-director

Elijah Zehyoue, co-director

Staff

Paula Clayton Dempsey, thrive grant coordinator

Malu Fairley-Collins, endorsement specialist

Brooklyn Lovelace, social media specialist

Cathy McGaughey, operations specialist

Kristy Pullen, website specialist

Stephanie True Cooper, communications specialist