Join us on select Sundays 10-15 minutes after worship service for a conversation on the topics described below. These forums are free and open to the public. All are welcome, come as you are!
October 4: “What is homer’s Odyssey”
Led by Polly Coote. This forum is an introduction or refresher on the composition of the epic from the perspective of oral traditional storytelling.
Polly Coote’s academic training in classics (Greek) and in South Slavic (Yugoslav) language and literature with a focus on Serbo-Croatian heroic song first brought her to a position in the Slavic department at UC Berkeley in the 1970s. Polly taught biblical Greek at the San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) and the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) for over 35 years, along with working as the registrar and associate dean for student life.
October 18: “Consciousness, Free Will, and God”
Led by Changin Sohn (Chan). This forum will cover consciousness and metacognition (how do we know ourselves?), free will (are we really free?), and where God is in all of this.
Changin Sohn (Chan) is a doctoral candidate at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) and a visiting Ph.D. student at the Tsao lab at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research stands at the intersection of theological anthropology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind.
Changin graduated from Calvin College, where he earned a B.A. (Honors) in religious studies and a B.A. (Honors) in psychology, and an M.Div. from Yale University, where he continued his research in Christian ethics and social neuroscience. Before coming to the United States, he served as a KATUSA chaplain assistant, providing pastoral care and training in an intercultural military Christian community.
His research interests include the dialogue between theology and science with philosophy as a medium; conscious awareness of emergent properties; the concept of self and social neuroscience; moral responsibility and agency in theological anthropology and neuroscience; and human morality and personhood in the age of AI. Alongside his doctoral work at the GTU, Changin actively participates in research on consciousness, visual perception, and neural representation using different neuroscience methods. He has co-taught an interdisciplinary neuroscience and philosophy course at UC Berkeley and instructed a theology-and-science seminar at GTU. This dual appointment gives his theological scholarship directly relevant with the empirical sciences.
His dissertation, “Formed to Be Free: Metacognition, Finitude, and the Developmental Structure of Creaturely Freedom,” argues that the freedom Christianity ascribes to human persons is not a fixed capacity but a developmental achievement – one that forms within finitude, embodied practices, and communal accountability. Changin co-chairs the Religion, Science, and Technology unit at the American Academy of Religion, Western Region. He is actively presenting his work, including in the Religion and AI unit at the American Academy of Religion National Meeting this November. Changin will graduate in May 2027.
October 25: “Is there a Lawyer in the House? Creating collaborative opportunities to improve health through public policy and the law”
Led by Madlyn Morreale. This forum will explore using our gifts to benefit others, inspire others to do the same, and give hope that there are more good people in the world, using Madlyn’s career and experiences in healthcare and government as examples.
For the past 18 years, Madlyn led Legal Aid of North Carolina’s statewide Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) Program, working with health professionals from a variety of community-based clinics, hospitals, and health system settings to integrate access to “legal remedies” into team-based efforts to address social drivers of health.
Madlyn also directed Legal Aid of North Carolina’s efforts to serve Medicaid managed care enrollees participating in the state’s Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP) program, the nation’s first comprehensive program to test and evaluate the impact of providing select evidence-based, non-medical interventions related to housing, food, transportation and interpersonal safety and toxic stress.
Prior to joining the staff of Legal Aid of North Carolina, Madlyn co-founded the Center for Adolescent Health & the Law, served on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, was Professional Staff for the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families in the U.S. House of Representatives, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala.
November 8: “Paul and the Family-Led Cult of Jesus”
Led by Robert Coote. This forum (the first of three sessions over three weeks) will explore the early, family-led cult of Jesus and the awkward, at first marginal place of Paul and his thought (his message, his euangelion) in it.
Robert B. Coote is internationally renowned for his work on the Bible and the ancient Near East and has written several seminal texts of Biblical scholarship. His work expands across disciplines and is particularly known for the ways in which he brings context across texts through the examination of biblical composition, literary structure, and content. Bob is a Professor of Old Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
November 15: “Making Sense of the Book of Romans”
Led by Robert Coote. This forum (the second of three sessions over three weeks) will explore The Book of Romans and how Bob makes sense of it.
Robert B. Coote is internationally renowned for his work on the Bible and the ancient Near East and has written several seminal texts of Biblical scholarship. His work expands across disciplines and is particularly known for the ways in which he brings context across texts through the examination of biblical composition, literary structure, and content. Bob is a Professor of Old Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
November 22: “Seeing Paul in the Four Gospels”
Led by Robert Coote This forum (the third of three sessions over three weeks) will explore how Paul’s views play out in each of the four Gospels, starting with how Mark incorporates his message into a narrative of Jesus (far more elaborate than Paul). The discussion will also cover Matthew’s critical cover of Mark, Luke’s attempt to finesse the disagreement between Mark and Matthew, and finally John’s prescinding from their narrative template in favor of the words and few deeds of a (Pauline) Jesus who is a cosmic demigod embodying the creative, life-giving, revealing discourse (logos) of God that begins with “let there be light”—the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome/grasped (katelabon) it.
Robert B. Coote is internationally renowned for his work on the Bible and the ancient Near East and has written several seminal texts of Biblical scholarship. His work expands across disciplines and is particularly known for the ways in which he brings context across texts through the examination of biblical composition, literary structure, and content. Bob is a Professor of Old Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
December 6: “Where are the Women Writers in the Bible?”
Led by Elizabeth Conway. In this season where Mary features so powerfully in the story of our faith, I ask, “Where are the Women Writers in the Bible?” Our bible accounts are all attributed to male writers, but attribution may not mean authorship or authority. This education session will explore:
- Writings by women that are not part of the “canon.”
- The nuance in understanding the entirely male authorship of the Bible
- Potential pseudepigraphic accounts (women’s work signed by men)
- Places where women’s voices feature prominently (indicating that they were the source of the writing)
Elizabeth Conway is a third-year Seminary student at San Francisco Theological Seminary, and a Candidate for Ordained Ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She has studied with an eye toward radical inclusion in the Gospel message and how our faith should build bridges for a loving world.