The Future of American Democracy

HOSTED BY

FALTERING FAITH IN INSTITUTIONS A PANEL CONVERSATION

APRIL 13, 2023 • 5:30 PM THEODORE SEDGWICK WRIGHT LIBRARY

25 Library Place, Princeton, NJ 08540 • www.ptsem.edu

TONIGHT'S PROGRAM 5:30 OPENING REMARKS

Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton President of Princeton Theological Seminary 5:35 PANEL CONVERSATION

MODERATOR Dr. Heath W. Carter PANELISTS Jamelle Bouie Rev. Dr. Walter Kim Shannon Watts 6:45 AUDIENCE Q&A

Please submit questions electronically at Slido.com, using event code #3593053 7:00 RECEPTION

Light snacks and beverages will be available on the Concourse of the library, 2nd floor

ABOUT THE SERIES In a moment defined by cascading crises, many across the nation and world are wondering aloud about the future of American democracy. In the months ahead Princeton Theological Seminary will confront this uncertainty head-on, convening a series of timely conversations with leaders poised to shape that future.

If you have questions or suggestions for the series moving forward, email democracy.panels@ptsem.edu To receive information about upcoming conversations and resources in the series, sign up for our e-newsletter at bit.ly/PTSdemocracyseries

COMING UP LIVESTREAM ONLY Faith in Democracy?

A Conversation with Secretary Condoleezza Rice + May 8 at 5:00 p.m. EST In this conversation, Dr. Heath W. Carter will speak with Secretary Condoleeza Rice about her role in shaping American foreign and public policy over the last generation, as well as about the prospects for democracy, at home and abroad, amid all the uncertainties of our current moment.

Register at bit.ly/RiceandDemocracy

PANELISTS JAMELLE BOUIE

Jamelle Bouie, a columnist for the New York Times, covers U.S. politics, public policy, elections, and race.

Jamelle’s political instincts provide audiences with unique insight on the past, present, and future of our national politics, policy, and the state of race relations. As he did while writing for Slate and the Daily Beast, Jamelle shares eye-opening perspectives on issues concerning the issues at play in America today.

Jamelle Bouie appears regularly on CBS’s Face the Nation. His writings have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, TIME, and The New Yorker. Jamelle uses his unique perspective to take audiences to the front lines of the nation’s most significant news events, from civil unrest to political partisanship. He has emerged as a leading voice on the national scene, being named to Forbes “30 Under 30 in Media” in 2015.

REV. DR. WALTER KIM

Walter Kim became the president of the National Association of Evangelicals in January 2020, after serving as a pastor for 15 years at Boston’s historic Park Street Church and four years at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has spent nearly three decades preaching, writing and engaging in collaborative leadership to connect the Bible to the significant intellectual, cultural and social issues of the day.

He serves on the boards of Christianity Today and World Relief.

Kim received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, his M.Div. from Regent College in Vancouver, and his B.A. from Northwestern University, and he is a licensed minister in the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.

SHANNON WATTS

Shannon Watts is the founder and a full-time volunteer with the nation’s largest grassroots group fighting against gun violence, Moms Demand Action. With nearly 10 million supporters and a chapter in every state, Moms Demand Action and its partner, Everytown for Gun Safety, have stopped the NRA’s priority legislation in statehouses roughly 90% of the time, and passed hundreds of gun safety laws across the country, changed corporate policies and educated Americans about secure gun storage.

Watts is also an active board member of Emerge America, one of the nation’s leading organizations for recruiting and training women to run for office, and Advance Peace, a prominent community-based organization that works to end cyclical and retaliatory gun violence in American urban neighborhoods.

Watts was named one of Glamour’s 2022 Women of the Year and her book, Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World, was released in May of 2019.

CONVENERS DR. HEATH W. CARTER Heath W. Carter is associate professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he teaches and writes about the intersection of Christianity and American public life. He earned a BA in English and theology from Georgetown University in 2003, an MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2005, and a PhD in history from the University of Notre Dame in 2012.

Carter is the author of Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago (Oxford University Press, 2015), which was the runner-up for the American Society of Church History’s 2015 Brewer Prize. He is also the co-editor of three books: The Pew and the Picket Line: Christianity and the American Working Class (University of Illinois Press, 2016), Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017), and A Documentary History of Religion in America, 4th Ed. (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018).

He is working on a new book entitled On Earth as it is in Heaven: Social Christians and the Fight to End American Inequality, which retells the story of the American social gospel. By the 19th century, some American Christians had come to see participation in fights against structural inequality as essential to their faith. Over the course of roughly 100 years, stretching from 1865 to 1965, these believers—women and men, Catholic and Protestant, black and white and Latinx—cultivated a proud, if fractious, social Christian tradition that transformed not only the churches but also the nation as a whole. This book tells the story of how little-known activists, eminent theologians, radical preachers, and progressive politicians powered faith-filled movements for a more egalitarian United States of America.

PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY Princeton Theological Seminary, founded in 1812, is the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. Its mission is to educate leaders for the church of Jesus Christ worldwide. Its students and more than 11,000 graduates from all 50 states and many nations around the world serve Christ in churches, schools and universities, healthcare institutions, nonprofit agencies, initiatives for social justice, mission agencies, and the emerging ministries of the church in the 21st century.

For more information, go to www.ptsem.edu.

ALSO AT PTS

IN PERSON & LIVESTREAM Considering Mass Trauma: When Public Conversations Converge, April 19 at 5:00 p.m. EST When the stories of mass trauma are so great in number—from shootings to catastrophic climate events, to global pandemics—how do we find the right words...again? This event places Dr. Wagner’s recent scholarship on narrative fracture and preaching in the wake of mass trauma in dialogue with how political leaders respond to the same traumatic events. Her conversation partner, former Obama speechwriter Cody Keenan, brings experiences deeply resonant but with an entirely new vantage point, creating space for a wider-ranging audience to engage with critical themes of lament, hope, reconciliation, forgiveness, and more.

Register at bit.ly/consideringtrauma

IN PERSON & VIRTUAL 2023 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture "Becoming King" with Dr. Lerone Martin April 26 at 7pm Martin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Chair and Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. Previously, he was a member of the faculty in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and Director of American Culture Studies at Washington University in Saint Louis.

Register at bit.ly/MLK23livestream

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