Winter Gathering Days ’24 Recap

Once a quarter, Iliff students from around the globe travel to Iliff’s Denver campus during Gathering Days Week to engage in a week of in-depth, dynamic, challenging scholarship.

During the ’24 Winter Gathering Days, students experienced art, dialogue, laughter, lamentation, and deep reflection. Here are some highlights!

President Butler shares his vision with Students

Standing in front of the word "Theology," President Butler speaks with conviction as he points toward the future.

“We Advocate Freedom!” We advocate freedom, and everything that it means to be free––that’s what we are advocating. We are working on a new theological anthropology––a new way of understanding what it means to be human, what it means to be in relationship as we’re working “Toward Intercultural Equity“––and we are advocating freedom.

PRESIDENT LEE H. BUTLER JR.

Challenging Scholarship

Native American man and Iliff instructor, Steven Newcomb, stands before a class, smiling in anticipation of the conversation to come.

Doctrine of Discovery

Iliff challenges its students to think critically about subjects that many theological institutions shy away from. On Tuesday, students were led through a conversation on the Doctrine of Discovery by guest lecturer, Steven Newcomb, renowned author of the book, Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. Joining Steven were scholars, Dr. Tink Tinker, Dr. Loring Abeyta, and Glenn Morris, who offered valuable perspectives about the logic of dominance that is woven into the fabric of America’s history.

Tink Tinker and Glenn Morris engage in discussion, hands out and animated.
The guest speakers are introduced to the class.
Steven Newcomb stands at the edge of the frame, looking at the class. Behind him and out of focus are students, looking on attentively.
Dr. Loring Abeyta, Dr. Tink Tinker, and Glenn Morris sit in front of a white board, all of them laughing with smiles on their faces.
Students and teachers gather in a semi-circle and smile after a long series of discussions.

Pictures from Other Gathering Days Classes

A student leans back in their chair and speaks to someone out of the frame while the teacher, Richard Ward, looks on intently form the background.
A student speaks to two students around them and uses their hands to help express their point.
In the frame is the face of a student looking to the side, offering feedback and a sincere and thoughtful expression.
A student stands behind a music stand and preaches to the class.
A student lifts his hands and arms as he speaks animatedly and with passion.
Bishop Oliveto smiles gently and looks upward with students behind her
A group of students, all seated at the table together, look on at the teachers with smiles on their faces, laughing.
Bishop Oliveto stands in front of the class and in front of a TV screen, which has an image of a cluster of street signs. The text reads, 'How Did we get here? The Un-tied Methodist Church'
Tom Barlow looks at the class with expectation as they begin talking about UMC Doctrine.
A hand turns the page of a liturgical book, formal and traditional.
A student looks with a gentle smile on her colleagues as they all sit on the floor together.
A teacher and student sit on the Chapel carpet, surrounded by open liturgy books as they plan an upcoming service.
A student holds a pen in one hand as they work with the instructor to make decisions about an upcoming liturgy.
Iliff faculty member, Eric Smith, stands with his hand on a white board, a student on Zoom on the screen behind him.
A student looks upward as they explain their idea.
A group of students talk with big expressions, using their hands to express their ideas.
A student in the foreground contemplates as Dr. Eisenbaum expands on an idea.
Two students look intently as Dr. Eisenbaum is speaking out of the frame.
Dr. Eisenbaum speaks animatedly as a student looks on in the foreground.

Big Mama Speaks

Big Mama Speaks, a one-woman play that recounts the history of “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, OK, and explores the work of reconciliation came to Iliff during Gathering Days Week.

As we continued our observation of African American History Month, artist and activist, Vanessa Adams-Harris led us through a reflection on the impact of the worst race riot massacre in American history, which destroyed the beloved Greenwood District, renowned nationally in the early twentieth century for its preeminent Black entrepreneurs.

Against all odds, Tulsa’s African-American community overcame, and Big Mama Speaks gives voice to the triumph of the human spirit. Adams-Harris led Iliff through a deep reflection the resilience of the human spirit in the face of the horrors of violence and racism.

The actor, Vanessa Adams-Harris, her hair dyed white and her attire making her look like an old woman, looks with a serious, heartbroken expression at the audience as she recalls the tragedy she witnessed.
The audience stands and applauds as Vanessa Adams-Harris accepts their praise after a stellar, heart-felt performance.
In the background is a screen with the words, 'Big Mama Speaks by Hannibal Johnson performed by Vanessa Adams-Harris. In the foreground is a stand with two old bibles on it, with a hand-made patchwork quilt hanging from a stand.
President Butler and Vanessa Adams-Harris stand in front of the beautiful quilt, smiling after the end of the performance.

Worship in the Chapel

Participants in the Anglican Studies Program welcomed the community to an Episcopal Eucharistic Service in the Chapel on Friday evening. The service offered students from various traditions with the opportunity to experience the beauty of Anglican liturgy.
A student stands behind the lectern and reads the psalms outloud, inviting the gathered people to pray them aloud.
A student preacher dressed in a robe and traditional vestments holds a mic and preaches to the gathered people.
A student, standing behind the altar and preparing it for the upcoming service, grins toward the camera with a stained glass window in the background.

First Year Students Dive Deep

First year students are required to take a course called Identity, Power, Vocation, and Community, which serves as a primer for all of their theological studies. Students talked about Iliff’s history with “The Book,” the impact of the logic of dominance, and the possible strategies for moving forward with greater transparency, honesty, and solidarity with indigenous peoples.

The above photo features most of this year’s ’23-24 class of IPVC students at the end of their final class of Gathering Days Week.

Important work from JDP and MASJE Students

As part of the Winter 2024 course, Womanist Theoethics, taught by Dr. April Mack, Assistant Professor of Religion and Social Justice, four male-embodied JDP students made a presentation on the book Womanist Forefathers: Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois by Gary L. Lemons. As part of their presentation, each student discussed their experience in the Joint Doctoral Program and how womanist discourse and womanist methodologies have informed their scholarship.

Masters students in the course made presentations on the landmark canonical womanist text Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil by renowned womanist Emilie M. Townes.

As a central part of Dr. Mack’s pedagogy, student presentations play a central role in student development. As the Director of the Master of Social Justice and Ethics Program, Dr. Mack seeks to create leaders who are critical thinkers and scholar-activists that will be equipped to dismantle structural inequality as part of their social justice activism.