- Westar On-Demand Events are purchasable lectures and interviews with scholars.
- Westar books are published under the Polebridge and Cascade imprints.
- Westar Audio-Video Resources are CDs and DVDs of Westar seminars, talks, and events. Excellent resources for study and discussion.
- Westar’s academic journal is Forum and popular magazine is The Fourth R, both available through membership or subscription.
- The Westar Archive is now open to Enhanced Associate Members.
On-Demand Westar EventsBooks and Printed ResourcesAudio-Visual ResoursesJournal and MagazineArchive Access & Subscription
Westar Recorded Events Available On Demand
December 20, 2021
Born of a Virgin
Traditional Christianity proclaims that Jesus was born without a human father, a claim also made in ancient times about certain “pagan saviors.” This presentation will explore such questions as:
– What did this belief really mean in the ancient world?
– Was the story of Jesus’ virgin birth meant to be taken literally?
– What meaning can the virgin birth story have today?
Join Westar scholar Robert Miller for a fascinating and critical review of one of the great stories from the Christian tradition.
Ninety minutes with Q and A ($20.00)
December 15, 2021
Before the New Testament
This lecture introduces the fact that there was no such thing as a New Testament in the first two hundred years of Jesus movements. Instead, communities were were deeply imbedded in oral culture. Anointed clubs, Wisdom circles, and Jesus groups were not book-oriented, but relied mostly on combinations of memorials, songs, bathing practices, and meals to enliven discussion.
Join Westar scholars Deborah Saxon and Steve Patterson for this lecture based on the book, After Jesus Before Christianity, specifically chapter nineteen.
Ninety minutes with Q and A ($20.00)
December 9, 2021
The Centrality of Israel
This lecture unfolds the breadth of the people of Israel throughout the Mediterranean and the full-blooded way Jesus as an historical person and as a mythical reality embodied the vitality of the people of Israel for so many Jesus groups. In addition, this lecture shows how the nations under Roman imperial rule made a spiritual pilgrimage through Jesus with the people of Israel.
Join Westar scholars Perry Kea and Robert Miller for this lecture based on the book, After Jesus Before Christianity, specifically chapter nine.
Ninety minutes with Q and A ($20.00)
December 1, 2021
No Christians in the First Two Centuries
This lecture takes on how to get one’s mind around the fact that there were no Christians in the first two centuries after Jesus. The words “Christian” or Christianity” are lacking from almost all of writings of the first two centuries. The lecture re-thinks the very few places that “Christian” occurs in these writings and what the few Greek and Latin words translated as “Christian” actually mean. Finally—and crucially—this lecture examines the emerging words that were used among emerging Jesus communities to identify themselves.
Chapter Two is the primary focus of this lecture comes, but almost every other chapter of After Jesus before Christianity contributes to helping the reader get beyond the words “Christian” and “Christianity” in relations to the first to centuries.
Scholars Shirley Paulson and Brandon Scott. Ninety minutes with Q and A ($20.00)
November 10, 2021
Forming New Identities Through Gender
This lecture pictures the many ways that gender bending and testing gender boundaries helped resist Roman violence and develop new kinds of communities. It surveys the different dimensions of creativity and patriarchy within Anointed communities, Jesus movements, and wisdom communities during the first two hundred years of the common era. This lecture challenges later masculine power conceptions characteristic of later church and Christianity hierarchies. The lecture displays different kinds of women’s leadership and vulnerable men.
Chapters Seven and Eight are at the heart of this lecture, but Chapters Ten, Eleven, Twelve, and Eighteen also add to the complexity of new identities through gender.
Westar scholars Erin Vearncombe and Celene Lillie lead this discussion. Ninety minutes with Q and A ($20.00)
November 3, 2021
The Violence of Rome. The Resistance and Creativity of Communities.
This lecture lays out the violent culture of Roman power and the ways a wide variety of Jesus peoples resisted the empire and built new kinds of communities. Chapters Three and Four provide most of the material for this lecture, but some material also comes from Chapters Six, Seventeen, and Eighteen. Westar scholars Susan (Elli) Elliott and Art Dewey address the cultural context for “After Jesus before Christianity.
A one hour and thirty minutes presentation including Q and A ($20.00)
October 27, 2021
Six Biggest Breakthroughs
This lecture gives an overview of the six most important discoveries laid out in After Jesus before Christianity. Erin Vearncombe, Hal Taussig, and Brandon Scott lead a discussion portraying the significance in history and to Christianity today of the wide variety of wisdom schools, Anointed communities, supper clubs, Jesus groups, and political movements before Christianity came into existence.
A one hour presentation and thirty minutes of Q and A ($20.00)
October 20, 2021
Three Themes for Theology with Music
Taking the relational theology of Carter Heyward as a starting point, Dirk von der Horst draws out three themes in the theology of music: relation, transience, and injustice. Von der Horst uses Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Walter Murphy’s disco version A Fifth of Beethoven to guide the discussion.
A one hour presentation and thirty minutes of Q and A ($20.00)
October 13, 2021
Night with Nietzsche
David Galston leads a 90 minutes workshop reviewing the life and philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. David presents several key ideas from Nietzsche’s thought and their influence on postmodern culture. He offers a critique of Nietzsche as well.
A one hour presentation and thirty minutes of Q and A ($20.00)
October 06, 2021
Matthew in Dialogue
Distinguished scholar Alan Culpepper looks at the Jewish and Christian voices in the Gospel of Matthew. Dr. Culpepper offers an informative, exegetical look at the origins and composition of Matthew in the early periods of the Jesus movements.
A one hour presentation and thirty minutes of Q and A ($20.00).
September 23, 2021
Infinite Canaan: Religion, Science, and the new Space Race
In provocative and stirring ways, Mary-Jane Rubenstein looks at the new “space race,” indicating how the language imitates and reproduces the American and biblical sense of manifest destiny, colonization, free-enterprise ownership, and frontier mentalities.
A one hour presentation and thirty minutes of Q and A (90 minutes total, $20.00).
June 30, 2021
Intersex Jesus and Gay Marriage in Early Christianity?
Ally Kateusz takes a fascinating look at sarcophagi and art depicting an intersex Jesus and gay marriage in early Christianity. Surprising images are encounters with commentary by Kateusz. Q and A follow in this 75 minutes presentation hosted by Perry Kea. ($20.00)
May 26, 2021
Jesus and John Wayne
Author and historian Kristen Kobes Du Mez discusses her book Jesus and John Wayne. Du Mez addresses several questions about toxic masculinity and evangelical Christianity. Hosted by Westar scholar Steve Watkins.
90 minutes with Q and A ($20.00).
April 24, 2021
God Seminar Session 1
The seminar meets with J. M. Adams to discuss postmodern thought, the barycentric universe, and new ideas about plasma and plasticity in our materialist era. The meeting is entitled “The Future of our Delusion.”
90 minutes. High academic content. ($10.00)
April 24, 2021
God Seminar Session 2
The conversation continues with J. M. Adams who reviews a portion of a video displaying his work. Several interesting metaphors are raised in the discussion related to neon and plasma. Luis de Miranda is highlighted.
90 minutes. High academic content. ($10.00)
April 7, 2021
On Resurrection
Brandon Scott reviews the trouble with resurrection in the Bible and culture.
Highly informative 90 minutes with Q and A ($20.00)
March 31, 2021
Roman Crucifixion
Vearncombe Erin Vearncombe leads a fascinating discussion on crucifixion in Roman times.
90 minutes with Q and A ($20.00)
March 19-20 Christianity Seminar Sessions
March 20 Panel Discussion
Featuring Ally Kateusz, Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, and Jodi Magness
90 minutes hosted by Nina Livesey ($10.00)
March 19 Session 1
Ally Kateusz presents remarkable information on The Therapeutai and Beyond
90 minutes with Q and A ($10.00)
March 19 Session 2
Zsuzsanna Gulácsi offers insight and stimulating commentary on The Life of Christ in Pictures
90 minutes with Q and A ($10.00)
Free Bonus Session
Brandon Scott, Hal Taussig, and Erin Vearncombe discuss the upcoming publication of After Jesus, Before Christianity.
Erin leads the discussion among the three editors of this significant and widely anticipated volume, 90 minutes. (Free)
March 17, 2021
The Book of Exodus and Passover
Tamar Kamionkowski offers insightful commentary on the origins and practices of Passover in reference to the Book of Exodus and Deuteronomy.
A 60 minute presentation with 30 minutes of Q and A. ($20.00)
March 2, 2021
The Meaning of James Cone and Black Liberation Theology in the 21st Century
Following a short and moving video clip of James Cone, Dr. Terrance Dean of Westar launches a stimulating discussion about Black Liberation Theology with invited guests Dr. Victor Anderson and Dr. Michael Brandon McCormick. A two-hour video with Q and A. ($20.00)
February 25, 2021
A Difficult Conversation
Praxis Coordinator Collin Glavac interviews Westar Executive Director David Galston about the struggle to discuss hot-button issues in our contentious times.
A short PowerPoint presentation and thoughtful discussion. A 90 minute conversation with Q and A. $10.00
February 10, 2021
The Life and Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer with Dr. Lori Brandt Hale
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a theologian of resistance against the Nazi regime. His extraordinary courage and anti-fascist activism was grounded in his theology and ethics. Bonhoeffer continues to motivate theologians and activists today. Lori Brandt Hale explores the inspirational life and theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ninety minutes with Q and A. ($20.00).
February 5, 2021
Preaching the Death of Jesus
Arthur Dewey discusses scholarship about the death of Jesus and how to preach this difficult subject. Dewey is interviewed by Westar Praxis members. There is discussion about preaching and Q and A from the audience.
90 minutes ($10.00)
January 6, 2021
The Forgotten Creed
Presentation and conversation with Stephen J. Patterson on his book about Christianity’s original struggle against bigotry, slavery, and sexism.
Based on The Forgotten Creed (Oxford, 2018). Ninety minutes with Q and A. ($20.00)
December 10, 2020
Christmas For Adults
A presentation by and conversation with Robert J. Miller on the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke.
Ninety minutes with Q and A. ($20.00)
November 14, 2020
Christianity Seminar, Phase II Inaugural Meeting
“Getting Behind Eusebius” with David DeVore and Elizabeth Penland
Two hours and twenty minutes. ($15.00)
October 14, 2020
The Political Jesus Session One
The Political Jesus and Paul
Two-hour format with Perry Kea and Celene Lillie. ($20.00)
October 15, 2020
The Political Jesus Session Two
The Art of Resistance: Jesus and Christ Communities
Two-hour format with Perry Kea and Celene Lillie. ($20.00)
October 28, 2020
The Historical Jesus and Liturgy of the Magdalene
Ally Kateusz discusses women leaders and the rise of Christianity. ($20.00)
September 15, 2020,
The Jesus Seminar at 35, Session One
The Enduring Issue of Jesus
Brandon Scott and Lane McGaughy in Discussion. ($15.00)
September 16, 2020
The Jesus Seminar at 35, Session Two
Assessing the Jesus Seminar
Brandon Scott, Lane McGaughy, Art Dewey, Joseph Bessler, and Erin Vearnecombe. ($15.00)
September 30, 2020
Jesus: Ascension or Resurrection
An evening of discussion with John Dominic Crossan. ($20.00)
August 26, 2020
An Evening with John D. Caputo
Discovering Radical Theology
A Terrance Dean 90-minute conversation with John Caputo. ($20.00)
Christianity Seminar Sessions
May 8-9, 2020
Session 1 Part 1, Becoming a People of the Book ($5.00)
Session 1 Part 2, Evolution and Politics of Roman Imperial Canon ($5.00)
Session 2 Part 1, Scripture and Resistance Hybridity ($5.00)
Session 2 Part 2, Gathered Around Absence ($5.00)
Session 3, If not Christian, What? ($10.00)
Session 4, Introducing Christianity Seminar Phase II ($10.00)
Associates Q and A Session (free)
Seminar on God and the Human Futrure
May 27, 2020
Session 2 with Robin Meyers
Natalie Perkins and Robin Meyers discuss Meyers’ book, Saving God From Religion ($10.00).
Featured Books
The Protoevangelium of James
By Lily C. Vuong
The Protevangelium of James tells stories about the life of the Virgin Mary that are absent from the New Testament Gospels: her miraculous birth to Anna and Joachim, her upbringing in the temple, and her marriage at the age of twelve to the aged widower Joseph. The text also adds significant details to the well-known stories of Jesus’ conception, birth, and escape from the slaughter of innocents perpetrated by Herod the Great. Despite its noncanonical status, the Protevangelium of James was extremely influential in churches of the East, and since its publication in the West in the sixteenth-century has captured the imagination of readers all over the world. This study edition presents a fresh, new translation of the text with cross-references, notes, and commentary. The extensive introduction makes accessible the most recent scholarship in studies on Mary in Christian apocrypha, offers new insights into the text’s provenance and relationship to Judaism, and discusses the text’s contributions to art and literature.
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Nativity of Mary
By Brandon W. Hawk
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is one of the most important witnesses in Western Europe to apocryphal stories about the lives of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and Mary’s parents, Anna and Joachim. This apocryphon was also used as the basis for another, the Nativity of Mary, which gained equal popularity. As bestsellers of medieval Christianity, these Latin apocrypha are major witnesses to the explosion of extra-biblical literature in the Western Middle Ages. Despite their apocryphal status, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Nativity of Mary proved influential throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period, as their popularity and influences may be traced in Christian literature, visual arts, liturgy, and theological perspectives still revered by Roman Catholic theologians. These apocrypha also remain significant works for considering the history of monasticism and the cult of the Virgin Mary. This book draws upon a range of manuscript sources to present comprehensive English translations of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Nativity of Mary with full introductions and commentaries, as well as translations of related works with accompanying commentaries.
Doing Theology in the Age of Trump
Edited by Jeffrey W. Robins and Clayton Crockett
This book is a work of theological resistance. It is not so much about the presidency of Donald Trump as it is about what his popularity and rise to power reveal about the state of Christianity and the moral character of the evangelical Right in the United States today. More specifically, it is about the threat of white Christian nationalism, which is the particular form that the nationalist populist movement of Trumpism has adopted for itself. The contributors are all fellows from the Westar Institute’s academic seminar on God and the Human Future, and include many of the leading figures in theology and Continental philosophy of religion. This volume provides a form of theopolitical resistance based on intersectionality. The authors recognize how the various forms of oppression interrelate to contribute to a vast, dynamic, and seeming impenetrable network of systemic injustice and marginalization. These essays demonstrate that politics need not be played as a zero-sum game with a winner-take-all mentality, and that a critical theology is as urgently needed and as relevant now as ever.
Songs of Your Truth
Music inspired by the Odes of Solomon
Natalie Perkins
Song of Your Truth is an EP that uses, as lyrics, odes from a collection of early Christian worship material called the Odes of Solomon. Though exact historical dating is unclear, most religion scholars believe it was written somewhere around the 1st or 2nd century CE, around the same time as the other books in the New Testament of the Bible. Each song on the album is a different genre to represent the theory that these odes would have originated from a variety of communities and then brought together in the collection.
Love Beyond Belief
Finding the Access Point to Spiritual Awareness
Thandeka
Using insights from the brain science of emotions, Love Beyond Belief: Finding the Access Point to Spiritual Awareness narrates two millennia of lost-and-found stories about love beyond belief as the access point to the heart and soul of spiritual life. Many of today’s “spiritual but not religious” people—one in four US adults—have found the access point to spiritual experience that Western Christianity lost: unconditional love. Love Beyond Belief tracks the history of this lost emotion.
Family Empires, Roman and Christian
Susan M Elliott
In this first of two volumes of Roman Family Empires: Household, Empire, Resistance, Dr. Elliott examines the Roman household form as it was changing during the Augustan era. Augustus relied on his version of that family form to establish his one-man rule of the empire. Dr. Elliott lays out several forms of resistance to the Roman empire and the family model on which it was built. She closes with a reading of Paul’s letter to Philemon considering the many viewpoints in the room as the letter was read. Her reading reveals a complex negotiation of accommodation and resistance to the Roman family empire and its slave-owning households.
The Folly of God
A Theology of the Unconditional
God and Human Future series, vol. 1
John D. Caputo
Inspired by Paul Tillich’s suggestion that atheism is not the end of theology but is instead the beginning, and working this together with Derrida’s idea of the undeconstructible, Caputo explores the idea that the real interest of theology is not God, especially not God as supreme being, but the unconditional. The Folly of God continues the radical reading of Paul’s explosive language in 1 Corinthians 1 about the stand God makes with the nothings and nobodies of the world, first introduced in The Weakness of God (2006) and The Insistence of God (2013).
God’s Human Future
The Struggle to Define Theology Today
God and Human Future series, vol. 2
David Galston
If theology is the work of defending antiquated ideas of reality, then one might as well call the Death of God the death of theology, too. Galston challenges this notion with two types of theology — covenant and enlightenment — in order to address a larger question: What is the value of religion for the future?
Some Surprises from the Apostle Paul
William O. Walker, Jr.
Controversial during his lifetime and ever since, the Apostle Paul is often accused of being homophobic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, dogmatic, narrow-minded, prejudiced, and downright obtuse. Walker argues that some of the animosity toward Paul stems from ignorance of his cultural context and/or the assumption that he wrote everything attributed to him. In Some Surprises from the Apostle Paul, Walker addresses common misconceptions and explores what can be learned about Paul from the historical evidence.
Gospels, Jesus, and Christian Origins
Collected Essays
William O. Walker, Jr.
Representing five decades of research on the gospels, Jesus, and Christian origins, this collection of historical-critical essays explores topics such as demythologizing, “son of man,” and the synoptic problem, to name just a few. Includes a critical analysis of ways in which scholars have attempted to recover the historical Jesus.
The Pastorals and Polycarp
Titus, 1–2 Timothy, and Polycarp to the Philippians
The Scholars Bible series, vol. 5
Richard I. Pervo
This first-ever gathering of the Pastoral Epistles and Polycarp to the Philippians under a single cover moves beyond debates about Pauline authorship to address second-century themes, such as combining the traditional Roman Household Code with the emerging Church Order, the corrosive effects of greed, and the price worth paying for unity. Includes the Greek texts, Pervo’s dynamic English translations, introductions, notes and index.
Galatians and the Rhetoric of Crisis
Demosthenes—Cicero—Paul
Nina E. Livesey
Livesey lays the works of Demosthenes, Cicero, and the Apostle Paul side-by-side and compares the rhetorical strategies—such as hyperbole, rebuke, and irony—that each used to win over their audiences. In doing so, she teases out the ambiguity and complexity of Paul’s letter to the Galatians and challenges simplistic explanations of his relationship to Judaism.
Wisdom Notes
Theological Riffs on Life and Living
Arthur J. Dewey
Theology at its best lends rhythm and rhyme to the raw energy of life. It improvises on this world without trying to escape to a heaven somewhere else. In this curated collection of radio commentaries and editorials, Art Dewey invites readers to remain open to new meaning as it arises from our encounters with neighbors, strangers, and friends. Through anecdotes and modern parables touched with humor and curiosity, he blends ancient and modern attempts to make sense of who we are and where we’re going.
The Acts of John
Early Christian Apocrypha series, vol. 6
Richard I. Pervo with Julian V. Hills
When and where was the Acts of John composed, by whom, for whom, and why? Using the new Scholars Version translation, Pervo introduces the text of the Acts of John, identifies its sources, investigates early witnesses, and illuminates the motivations of its author. Includes notes and cross-references.
Ethics in the Last Days of Humanity
Don Cupitt
Ethics in the Last Days of Humanity is not about the science of global warming so much as the absence of a serious ethical and religious response to it. When all existing ‘reality’ breaks down, ethics can no longer be based on nature or religious law. Cupitt advocates for an alternative inspired by the historical Jesus.
Is God Needed in the Kingdom of God?
Seminar on God and the Human Future
Spring 2015 Session
Of all the possible ways to think about God, which concept makes the best sense for our world today? This celebration of the work of radical theologian John D. Caputo invites listeners to consider a new way of thinking about God as weak but potent, God as “the great perhaps.”
The Problem with God
Peter Steinberger
Spring 2015 Meeting
Peter Steinberger challenges listeners to set aside as nonsensical the question, “Does God exist?” He argues that theism, atheism, and agnosticism are all incoherent positions and addresses the implications of his thesis for ethics, the meaning of life, and the limits and aspirations for human knowledge of the universe.
The Real Paul
Recovering His Radical Challenge
Bernard Brandon Scott
“An impressively informed and informative work of biblical scholarship that will prove to be as thoughtful and thought-provoking as it is seminal and iconoclastic … Highly recommended for seminary and academic library New Testament Studies reference collections in general, and Paulinian Studies supplemental reading lists in particular.”—Midwest Book Review
Creative Faith
Religion as a Way of Worldmaking
Don Cupitt
“A forceful and clearly-written call to open a new religious horizon suited to our time.” —George Pattison, University of Glasgow
Paul and His Legacy
Collected Essays
William O. Walker Jr.
“Paul and His Legacy is as informed and informative as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking. A work of seminal scholarship that is fully accessible to the non-specialist general reader as it is to the academic scholar or ecclesiastical theologian, Paul and His Legacy is very highly recommended for personal, seminary, community, and academic library Christian Studies collections.” —Midwest Book Review
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