Workshops

Transformation does not happen through information alone.

Human beings are shaped by the communities, institutions, economies, media systems, religious practices, and public narratives they inhabit. Every society teaches people how to think, desire, judge, aspire, compete, fear, and belong.

The workshops and teaching offered here explore how communities can cultivate forms of formation rooted not in hierarchy and domination, but in solidarity, mutual flourishing, ecological responsibility, and shared dignity.

These workshops bring together:

• historical-critical biblical interpretation,
• public theology,
• anti-caste and anti-hierarchical thought,
• critical pedagogy,
• ecological ethics,
• feminist and liberationist perspectives,
• and practical models for institutional and communal transformation.

Programs can be adapted for:

• seminaries,
• universities,
• churches,
• nonprofit organizations,
• leadership institutes,
• activist communities,
• interfaith contexts,
• retreat settings,
• and public theology initiatives.

Formats include:

• keynote lectures,
• workshops,
• reading groups,
• classroom teaching,
• faculty formation,
• clergy training,
• retreats,
• and multi-session seminars.

Core Workshop Themes

Pedagogies of Solidarity

How are human beings socially formed into systems of superiority and exclusion? How might communities cultivate practices of empathy, intellectual humility, mutual responsibility, and shared flourishing instead?

This workshop explores:

• Romans 12:2 and transformation,
• critical pedagogy,
• anti-caste educational frameworks,
• feminist pedagogy,
• institutional formation,
• and practices of communal relearning.

Possible topics include:

• The renewal of the mind as communal transformation
• How institutions shape consciousness
• Learning beyond hierarchy
• Critical awareness and relational accountability
• Formation through public culture and media

Beyond Prosperity Logic

Many contemporary cultures measure worth through success, visibility, wealth, productivity, and upward mobility. Religious communities often absorb these same assumptions.

This workshop examines:

• prosperity theology,
• neoliberal forms of spirituality,
• meritocracy,
• and the politics of blessing and success.

It also explores alternative visions of flourishing grounded in:

• relational prosperity,
• communal well-being,
• mutual care,
• and shared dignity.

Possible topics include:

• Prosperity gospel and neoliberal culture
• Meritocracy and spiritual worth
• Romans and the critique of boasting
• Flourishing beyond competition
• Relational prosperity and communal ethics

Romans and Institutional Transformation

The Epistle to the Romans is often treated primarily as a theological text about individual salvation. This workshop approaches Romans as a document of communal and institutional formation.

Particular attention is given to:

• hierarchy,
• strong and weak relations,
• boasting,
• judgment,
• welcome,
• and the renewal of communal perception.

Possible topics include:

• Romans 12–15 as communal pedagogy
• Empire and public formation
• Hospitality and mutual welcome
• Burden-bearing and solidarity
• Nonconformity and institutional ethics

Human–Nature Kinship

Ecological destruction and social fragmentation are deeply interconnected. Systems that exploit land, water, labor, and ecosystems often rely upon the same logic that treats vulnerable human beings as disposable.

This workshop explores theological and ethical approaches to:

• ecological solidarity,
• communal responsibility,
• creation and justice,
• and sustainable forms of life.

Drawing especially from Romans 8, the workshop examines how creation’s groaning invites new forms of social and ecological imagination.

Possible topics include:

• Creation and shared vulnerability
• Ecology and public theology
• Environmental justice and human dignity
• Human–nature interdependence
• Flourishing beyond extraction

Empire, Hierarchy, and the Bible

Biblical texts emerged within political worlds shaped by empire, hierarchy, conquest, spectacle, and systems of public honor.

This workshop explores how:

• Roman imperial culture shaped early Christian communities,
• hierarchy becomes normalized,
• and biblical texts both reflect and resist systems of domination.

Possible topics include:

• Empire and public imagination
• Boasting, honor, and status
• The politics of visibility
• Spectacle and social formation
• Reading Scripture historically and critically

Anti-Caste Formation and Shared Humanity

This workshop explores how caste and other systems of inherited inequality shape social perception, belonging, labor, gender, and communal life.

Drawing from anti-caste thought, theology, pedagogy, and biblical interpretation, the workshop asks how communities might cultivate forms of formation that resist inherited systems of superiority and exclusion.

Possible topics include:

• Caste and public formation
• Hierarchy and religious identity
• Shared dignity and communal ethics
• Solidarity across social difference
• Relearning mutuality

Teaching Philosophy

My teaching approach is grounded in the conviction that education is never neutral.

Communities are always teaching people how to see the world and how to position themselves within it. Because of this, teaching must involve more than the transfer of information. It must also cultivate critical awareness, ethical responsibility, relational imagination, and practices of shared life.

My approach integrates:

• historical-critical scholarship,
• dialogical learning,
• critical reflection,
• public theology,
• collaborative inquiry,
• and pedagogies attentive to lived experience and social context.

The goal is not merely intellectual mastery, but transformation in how communities imagine human flourishing and shared responsibility.

Areas of Teaching and Research

Areas of specialization include:

• Pauline theology and the Epistle to the Romans
• Historical-critical biblical interpretation
• Empire-critical biblical studies
• Theology and pedagogy
• Anti-caste theology and ethics
• Feminist and liberationist theology
• Public theology
• Prosperity theology and neoliberalism
• Ecology and theology
• Institutional transformation
• Religion and public life

Invitation

These workshops are designed not simply to provide answers, but to create spaces for reflection, dialogue, institutional self-examination, and communal transformation.

At the center of this work is a shared question:

What kinds of people and communities are we becoming together?

If you are interested in organizing a workshop, lecture, course, retreat, or collaborative program, please get in touch.