 Program Schedule
Time Grid
Click here for the GA 2005 Programming Grid  (subject to change).
 Ware Lecture
Elaine Pagels is a preeminent figure in the theological community whose impressive scholarship has earned her international respect. Dr. Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. In three consecutive years, she was awarded the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships. Pagels presents even the most esoteric material in a fashion accessible to those who know nothing of her subject: a gift few scholars possess. As a young researcher at Barnard College, she changed forever the historical landscape of the Christian religion by exploding the myth of the early Christian Church as a unified movement.
Dr. Pagels is the author of The Gnostic Gospels, The Origin of Satan, Adam, Eve and the Serpent, and Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
GA Planning Committee Featured Presentations
Pete Seeger and Friends Celebrating Our Tradition
Sing with the man who has led the musical charge for social and environmental justice over six decades; marched, spoken, sung and lived the principles that are the foundation of our faith – joined by Rev. Hope Johnson, Pat Humphries and Sandy O., Kim and Reggie Harris, and Geoff Kaufman.
Pete Seeger; Rev. Hope Johnson; Geoff Kaufman
Jerusalem Women Speak: Three Faiths, One Vision
UUs for Justice in the Middle East, in collaboration with Partners for Peace, bring three women from Israel and Palestine, one Muslim, one Jew, one Christian, to speak as a panel about their fears and hopes in the midst of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Audience questions follow.
Michael Brown, PFP
Healing Earth, Healing Ourselves: Choices for a Sustainable Future
Global warming is one component of today’s synergistic environmental, social, and spiritual crises. Duane Elgin articulates the extraordinary opportunities for an "evolutionary leap" to new patterns of living and relationship that are inherent in these challenges. He invites UUs to choose a future that sustains life while deepening our faith.
Duane Elgin
More Voices, More Choices: Why We Need Media Reform
Our media system represents the antithesis of what Unitarian Universalism stands for. Instead of a diversity of voices engaged in a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning," a few multi-national conglomerates control most of what we read, see and hear. Learn how you can help change the system.
Robert McChesney
The Exonerated
This play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen is based on actual interviews, court transcripts, and other documents. Actors relate true stories of wrongful convictions leading to death row and incarceration for as long as 22 years before exoneration.
 Service of the Living Tradition
Sermon: "Out From Walden"
Our Unitarian Universalist heritage celebrates two distinct spiritual strains, each embodied in the life and work of Henry David Thoreau: the spiritual tradition of retreat into idyllic Nature, and the spiritual tradition of prophetic engagement and witness for social justice. The Service of the Living Tradition, honoring the work of our religious professionals, seems an appropriate occasion to consider where our heritage is calling us today.
Our Preacher of the Living Tradition:
The Rev. Dr. Patrick T. O’Neill has been Senior Minister at First Unitarian Church in Wilmington, DE since 1996. He was ordained at University Unitarian Church in Seattle in 1979. Prior to his current settlement, he served UU churches in Kirkland and Yakima, WA and in Framingham, MA. Patrick holds degrees from St. Peter’s Jesuit College, the University of Chicago Divinity School, and Meadville/Lombard. He serves on the UUA Melcher Book Award Committee, is a past member of the UUA Pamphlet Commission, the UUMA Exec Committee, and has been President of two UUMA Chapters. Patrick was a charter member of the UUMA CENTER Committee and the UUMA Continuing Education Commission. He was awarded the UUSC Vision of Justice Sermon Award in 1999 and the 2001 UUA Annual Stewardship Sermon Award. The Wilmington congregation was honored with the O. Eugene Pickett Award in 1999.
 Sunday Morning Worship
On Sunday morning, we will be inviting residents of the Fort Worth community to join us for worship. The service will convey the Good News of Unitarian Universalism, a faith of open minds, loving hearts and helping hands. Worship will be open to all, both Unitarian Universalists and those who may be seeking our faith.
Rev. Robert Hardies, senior minister of All Souls Church in Washington, DC, will deliver the sermon. He was called by All Souls to build "a diverse, spirit-filled and justice-seeking church" in the heart of our nation's capital. Hardies previously served churches in Oakland, Sacramento, and Portland, Oregon. He helped direct a faith-based affordable housing development corporation in Portland, and worked as a human rights accompanier in the jungle of Guatemala. A graduate of Cornell University and Starr King School for the Ministry, he currently serves on DC Mayor Anthony Williams' Interfaith Advisory Board. |
