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How Is Wisdom Related to Religiosity and Spirituality, and How Do They Affect Individual Well-Being?

Monika Ardelt, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology, a Founding Faculty Member and Member of the Advisory Board of the University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health, and a Member of UF Mindfulness. She is a Brookdale National Fellow, a Positive Psychology Templeton Senior Fellow, and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Ardelt developed the widely used Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS; Ardelt, 2003) and is the co-editor of the book Faith and Well-Being in Late Life: Linking Theories with Evidence in an Interdisciplinary Inquiry (2009). Her research focuses on successful human development across the life course, and she has published numerous articles on the relations between wisdom, spirituality, religiosity, well-being, aging well, and dying well.

Improvising a Better World: Black Religion, Activist Education and Radical Social Change

This lecture explores the improvisational pedagogy and leadership of 20th-century educators as a means of exploring the interconnections of faith, education, and social change. We will explore underacknowledged exemplars of faith and social change: community leaders and teachers. For example, the lecture makes connections between the type of leadership development that was essential to the Citizenship Education program of the Civil Rights movement, alongside earlier movements that empowered youth and young adults to faithfully respond to the calls to work for change. Figures like Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Clark initially seem to be an unlikely inspiration for ministry leaders; however, like many other 20th-century African American women teachers, they embodied an unwavering faith in God, in their cause, and in themselves that pushed them to continue working for justice despite efforts to thwart them.

Untitled. (Saving Ourselves): Revisiting Our Assumptions of Proclamation in the Present Times. 

Proclamation transgresses our understandings of time, while opening generative pathways for life here and now. Belief enacted in the ordinaries of life provides more openings for proclamation made flesh in daily life. Communities of faith who understand proclamation as a time transgressing occurrence also hold space for time bound and time transgressing acts of faith. Instead of waiting for an outwardly salvific intervention, these communities prioritize “saving ourselves’ as a sacred act of risk Proclamation transgresses our understandings of time, while opening generative pathways for life here and now. Belief enacted in the ordinaries of life provides more openings for proclamation made flesh in daily life. Communities of faith who understand proclamation as a time transgressing occurrence also hold space for time bound and time transgressing acts of faith. Instead of waiting for an outwardly salvific intervention, these communities prioritize “saving ourselves’ as a sacred act of risk-taking that impacts our collective outcomes and future possibilities.

Reclaiming Wesley: Reclaiming the Heart of Methodist Identity and the "Method" of Methodism

Dr. Boggan will call us back to the roots of our identity. Part of the talk will center on the moment John Wesley “submitted to be more vile" in spreading the love of God to all people, and she will argue that "Wesleyan vile-tality" is at the core of who we are as Methodists. In the second part, she will propose the 'method' of Methodism as a new Wesleyan Practical Quadrilateral, complete with resources to implement the method in your ministry contexts. In an accessible and engaging account of a fascinating history, these stories of our past call us to understand who we were, question who we are, and reclaim who we should be.