moving

From now on, I'll be posting my activities on http://keelandownton.blogspot.com

Religion in the Civil Rights Movement

a graphical meditation on some of the iconic images
of Septima Clark, Ella J. Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer

For the past three days, some of the great scholars of the Civil Rights Movement have reflected on the issues of memory and memorializing, representation and imagination, and the relation of praxis, rituals, and values. The various approaches to revisiting the movement (many in light of the Obama presidency) have enhanced my appreciation for the many contributions of African-American churches to the ecumenical movement. Among the many stories of tragedy, hope, and courage, the sense of the conference was powerfully expressed for me when those present were invited to join with Hollis Watkins in singing Calypso Freedom.

Princeton University
April 2-4
link to program

Visiting Villanova

One of the great benefits of participation in the search for Christian unity is the chance to think theologically with those from different traditions. It was a delight and a privilege to be invited by my colleague, Fr. Joseph Loya, OSA, to reflect on how understandings of God as loving, what God requires of humans, and what it means to worship have intersected at different points in church history for his introductory class. He continues to remind me of the importance of Slavic communities for understanding the differences between Eastern and Western expressions of Christian faith. Such hospitality makes it easier to celebrate the Wildcats' victory over the alma mater of other great ecumenists and wish them well this weekend.

Research Flow Chart

A number of my students have had issues with finding and utilizing sources in extended arguments. This flow chart is designed to assist them in making good use of a variety tools including library catalogs, Google, Amazon, and Wikipedia as an entry point to more complex scholarly discussions.

Wesleyan Theological Society Meeting

At this year's meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society, Somerset's own Richard Riss presented a review of the literature on John Wesley's Christology. John Drury presented in the same session on the resurrection in Karl Barth's Christology.

Other interesting presentations included Nathan Crawford's discussion of race and hospitality, Timothy Gaines on aesthetics, Dave Mowers on pacifism in the Assemblies of God, and Jeff Stark on postliberal theology, Thomas Bridges on the incarnation and secularism, and a panel discussion of Nathan Kerr's new book: Christ, History, and Apocalyptic. And, of course, John Caputo brought provocations and amusement in numerous addressess to the Society of Wesleyan Philosophers—most pointedly the connections he draws between Christian and transhumanist attempts to overcome flesh.

My own contribution, Narratives of Testimony, Witness, and Reconciliation, is included below:

Create Moodle Courses Easily with EditGrid + XSL

As I'm making more use of online teaching tools, I've noticed how cumbersome and time consuming it is to create courses on Moodle. There is no easy way to repeat an assignment multiple times or edit them without a lot of waiting for page-loads. To make my life easier, I've devised a way to create courses outside of the Moodle interface and import them using the "Restore" option.

1. Create the course using my EditGrid template (you need to create an account and then File > Save As before you can make changes).
2. In your browser's navigation bar, append .moodle.xml to the template page's URL
   www.editgrid.com/user/yourname/course -->
   www.editgrid.com/user/yourname/course.moodle.xml
   Alternatively, you can use the EditGrid menu: Data > My Data Format > moodle.xml Either approach will apply an XSL stylesheet to the spreadsheet that you can also download here.
3. Use your browser to save the resulting page as moodle.xml
4. Compress moodle.xml as a .zip file (once zipped it can be renamed something sensible like M101.zip so that you can tell your zipped courses apart).
5. Upload your zipped file to your Moodle filespace or email it to an administrator.
6. In a Moodle course, click the restore option, select your uploaded file, and use it to create a new course. If you can't find the menu, ask an administrator to do it for you.

Both the template and the stylesheet are licensed Creative Commons Attribution. If you find it useful, please let me know. It's currently still under development (current version: 0.8) and may have a few bugs. One upcoming feature is the ability to author an entire quiz in a spreadsheet.

Essay Contest - National Workshop on Christian Unity

National Workshop on Christian Unity (NWCU)
April 27-30, 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona

Theme: "Desert Pilgrimage", complemented by the 2009 Week of Prayer theme "That they may be one in your hand", drawn from Ezekial 37:15-28.

The National Workshop on Christian Unity is pleased to announce a coordinated essay contest to encourage students to engage contemporary ecumenical issues. The contest is open to students working toward a graduate degree in theological studies at a seminary or accredited school of theology.


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