Executive Assistant for Marketing and Events, Alexis Waggoner works closely with both Westar’s Marketing Committee and the Executive Director to advance the presence and value of Westar in our culture through social media and the use of digital media in public education. Alexis brings to Westar a unique blend of digital marketing and religious education experience. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary.
Westar scholar, Dr. Susan "Elli" Elliott, recently put together a video about the Galli, a group of self-castrated people in the ancient Roman Era. She connects this to the idea of transgender resistance, what it may have looked like thousands of years ago, and what implications it may have for today. Dr. Elliott and Westar [...]
Westar’s generous donors continue to inspire and invest in Westar’s growth and impact on scholarship and culture. A 25% increase in donors to the Spring Appeal A Board member donation challenge, matched in 24 hours Increased funding through gifts made outside of the Spring Appeal
Theologian, author, and social critic Diana Butler Bass spoke at our Spring Meeting on the subject of her new book, Grateful. But she started off by talking about religious affiliation in the US today, showing a chart that indicated that while the US has become more pluralistic in the past few decades it has also [...]
In his presentation on “How the Death of Jesus was Remembered,” Arthur Dewey started by pointing out that the death of Jesus doesn’t seem to be remembered at all — at least not iconographically — till the 400’s. There are plenty of other images of Jesus prior to this, but his death isn’t portrayed at [...]
Sarah Morice Brubaker began her session with a delineation of untruthfulness, explaining that it is both a theological issue and something at work in the “fake news” culture of today. She stated that Christianity hasn’t been great at providing a variety of ways in which to talk about untruthfulness. Classically, Christian culture emphasizes something as [...]
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