April 28-29, 2025
Saint Paul University
223 Main Street, Ottawa
Christian theology today stands at the intersection of multiple disciplines, societies, cultures, and spiritualities. This reality calls for emerging scholars to embrace an openness and collaborative spirit, engaging with diverse perspectives and exploring new horizons. In a globalized world, the diversity of viewpoints and approaches becomes essential for understanding and addressing contemporary challenges, particularly those experienced in the existential margins and peripheries of society. While opportunities to respectfully encounter the perspectives of others can be scarce in our polemically-oriented world, this colloquium aims to provide emerging scholars with a stimulating and collegial environment within which to foster constructive dialogue.
In the ongoing conversation between faith, reason and culture that Saint Paul University seeks to promote, heterogeneity and diversity are strengths that can open up our horizons, not simply as scholars, but also as human persons.
Encountering Abolitionist Horizons in Black Feminist and Womanist Theology
Particularly given the central role that Christian religion and theology have played in the construction and expansion of policing and prisons, the development and deployment of abolition religion, abolition theology, and abolition spirituality are critical and urgent tasks for members of Christian religious communities. A similar task involves excavating and embracing the religious, theological and theo-ethical implications of the Black Lives Matter movement and related movements led by Black, queer and feminist anti-violence organizers. Taking up these ideas as calls to action, this talk is a contemplative auto-ethnographic journey of seeking and encountering abolitionist ethics and visions in Black feminist and womanist Christian theology.
Dr. Johonna McCants-Turner
Dr. Johonna McCants-Turner (she/her) is a Black feminist scholar, educator and cultural worker whose research and teaching is deeply informed by participation in social movements led by radical feminists of colour. She holds a PhD in American Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland, as well as a Graduate Certificate from Fuller Theological Seminary. An Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo, Dr. McCants-Turner’s recent courses include Police and Prison Abolition as Moral Imagination; Anti-Violence Ethics: Black Feminist and Womanist Christian Perspectives; and Engaging Communities in Social Change.
For more information, contact colloquium-colloque@ustpaul.ca.
