October Lecture: Steven Harris

On Black Fugitivity, Politics and
Christian Sociality

WHEN: October 26, 2023
WHERE: KOSC - Chair's Room and Loggia
TIME: Reception at 4 p.m., Lecture at 4:30 p.m.
Free and open to the public

In this lecture

Steven Harris will discuss the contradictions of American Christian history and the formation of what has been termed "the black church." He will also explore the concept of fugitivity as a potential mode of evangelical existence.

What might it look like to disavow contemporary political binaries and constraints?
How might we cultivate authentic community and Christian sociality?
Does "the faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) have a sustainable future amidst such deep division and disagreement?

About our speaker

Steven Harris currently serves as Senior Director of Academic Programs at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University. He previously spent several years on Capitol Hill as director of advocacy and policy director for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. In this role he helped build faith-based coalitions while working on domestic and international public policy issues at the intersection of religion, justice and human dignity. In 2018 he testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs in a hearing entitled, "Protecting Civil Society, Faith-Based Actors, and Political Speech in Sub-Saharan Africa." His testimony focused on human rights, national security interests and constricting civil society spaces in Sudan, Rwanda and the DRC. In 2019 he spent time in South Korea producing a short documentary film on North Korean defectors and DPRK human rights violations. In addition to currently serving as a Black Interfaith Fellow with Interfaith America—where he helps communities understand the importance of congregation-based community organizing—he has also helped develop faith engagement strategies for national political campaigns.

Steven’s research interests lie at the historical intersection of black religious thought and Calvinistic theology, as well as the religio-racial logics of historical black religious actors in conversation with the contemporary discursive edges of Afro-pessimist thought. His most recent publications include chapter contributions to two edited volumes: For God So Loved the World: A Blueprint for Kingdom Diversity (B&H Academic, 2020) and The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism (Oxford University Press, 2021). A Vanderbilt graduate, Steven holds an MDiv from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, an MA in religion from Yale and an MA in religion from Harvard, where he is also a teaching fellow and PhD candidate in American religious history and African American studies.

You can lean more about Steven's lecture in the bell →