Harvard Divinity School

Saints, spiritual warriors, bodhisattvas, zaddikim—no matter how they are named in a given tradition, all share a profound altruistic wish to free others from suffering. Saints are not beings of stained glass or carved stone. “Each of us can be a new saint,” says Lama Rod Owens. “In our pain, our trauma, and all our complexity, we all can—and must—awaken the virtue of our compassion for the benefit of our communities, our planet, and our own souls.” Watch Lama Rod as he shares personal stories, spiritual teachings, and instructions for contemplative and somatic practices from his newest book, The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors. This work reinforces the truth of our interdependency—allowing us to be of service to the collective well-being, and to call on the support and strength of the countless beings who share our struggles and hopes. Bio Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Div

In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we sit down with Keisha Bush, a second-year MTS student. We discuss the importance of intention and the value of community. Learn more about religion and spiritual life at Harvard Divinity School here: hds.harvard.edu/community-life/re…nd-spiritual-life Transcript forthcoming.

In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we sit down with Swami Sachidananda, a student fellow at HDS. We discuss his monastic journey and the power of a smile. Learn more about religion and spiritual life at Harvard Divinity School here: hds.harvard.edu/community-life/re…nd-spiritual-life Transcript forthcoming.

In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from Jamail Khan, a second-year MTS student at HDS. We discuss the importance of religious community for spiritual growth and the power of love and beauty in the face of hopelessness. Learn more about religion and spiritual life at Harvard Divinity School here: hds.harvard.edu/community-life/re…nd-spiritual-life Transcript forthcoming.

Pop Apocalypse, hosted by Matthew J. Dillon, postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, explores the mystical and the mythic, the paranormal and the psychedelic in popular culture. For episode 7, we welcome the writer and scholar Erik Davis to reflect on the journey that led to his new book, BLOTTER: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. We discuss Erik’s writing for the Village Voice in the early 90s, his breakthrough monograph Techgnosis, and how his home state of California informs his oeuvre. In the second half of the interview, we discuss the academic study of “the weird,” perils and possibilities for the psychedelic renaissance, and how BLOTTER is a love letter to LSD. A full transcript is forthcoming. Learn more: cswr.hds.harvard.edu/

In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from Michael Fuhrman, a second-year MDiv student at HDS. This conversation includes his religious position of non-position, religious sympathy, and the importance of writing for its own sake. Learn more about religion and spiritual life at Harvard Divinity School here: hds.harvard.edu/community-life/re…nd-spiritual-life Transcript forthcoming.

In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from Ahmaad Edmund, a third-year MDiv student at HDS. He discusses his long-time commitment to the Baptist tradition, starting a basement church as a youngster, and finding hope in transit. Learn more about religion and spiritual life at Harvard Divinity School here: https://hds.harvard.edu/community-life/religious-and-spiritual-life Transcript forthcoming.

This alumni webinar explored the role of chaplaincy in fostering resilience and navigating complex challenges. Representing different religious traditions and fields, HDS alumni—Celene Ibrahim, MDiv '11, Faculty and Muslim Chaplain at the Groton School; Naomi Tzril Saks, MDiv '10, Palliative Care Chaplain at University of California, San Francisco; and The Venerable Priya Rakkhit Sraman, MDiv '17, Buddhist Chaplain at Emory University—shared their insights and experiences on providing spiritual care in diverse settings. The conversation was moderated by Kerry Maloney, Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life at Harvard Divinity School. The global impact of Harvard Divinity School is realized through generations of remarkable alumni like Celene, Naomi, and Priya. You can help HDS continue to educate leaders who serve with empathy and care by making a gift this year: www.hds.harvard.edu/give. This event took place March 19, 2024. A full transcript can be found online: https://hds.harvard.edu/ne

This was the fifth event is a six-part series, Religion in Times of Earth Crisis. Can personhood be granted to mountains, lakes, and rivers? What does it mean to be met by another species? How do we extend our notion of power to include all life forms? And what does a different kind of power look like and feel like? Wild Mercy is in our hands. Practices of attention in the field with compassion and grace deepen our kinship with life, allowing us to touch something deeper than hope. Great Salt Lake offers us a reflection into our own nature: Are we shrinking or expanding? Speaker: Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life Terry Tempest Williams joined HDS as a writer-in-residence in 2017. She is the author of numerous books, including the environmental literature classic "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place." Her most recent book is "The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks," w

Plenary II: Plenary Chair: Dr. Melissa Wood Bartholomew, Associate Dean for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Lecturer on Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Harvard Divinity School Panelists: Sevonna Brown, National Director of Black Women’s Blueprint, Safer Childbirth Cities Initiative, Merck for Mothers, Dr. Henry Love, inaugural Obama Foundation U.S. Leaders Fellow, Vice President of Public Policy and Strategy at Women in Need, Dr. Joshua Louis Gills, Rutgers Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the Aging and Brain Health Alliance, Yolo Akili Robinson (he/him/his) is a non-binary award-winning writer, healing justice worker, yogi and the founder and Executive Director of BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective) Professor Ahmad Greene-Hayes (Harvard Divinity School) and Professor George Aumoithe (FAS, History and African and African American Studies) proposed this two-day interdisciplinary symposium, integrating mind, brain, and behavior insights into the exploration of Black religious pra

Plenary I: Plenary Chair: Dr. Tracey E. Hucks, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School Panelists: Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman, John and Patricia Cochran Scholar for Inclusive Excellence and Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Delaware, Dr. Martin Summers, Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College, Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans, Professor of Black Women's Studies (WGSS & AAS) at Georgia State University Professor Ahmad Greene-Hayes (Harvard Divinity School) and Professor George Aumoithe (FAS, History and African and African American Studies) proposed this two-day interdisciplinary symposium, integrating mind, brain, and behavior insights into the exploration of Black religious practices and their impact on mental health. They questioned how Black religious spaces can enhance mental health outcomes, considering their dual role as sanctuaries and potential impediments to open discourse. The symposium brought together exper

Full Title: Black Religion and Mental Health Symposium Keynote, "Black Freedom and the Racialization of Religious Excitement in American Psychiatry” by Dr. Judith Weisenfeld Professor Ahmad Greene-Hayes (Harvard Divinity School) and Professor George Aumoithe (FAS, History and African and African American Studies) proposed this two-day interdisciplinary symposium, integrating mind, brain, and behavior insights into the exploration of Black religious practices and their impact on mental health. They questioned how Black religious spaces can enhance mental health outcomes, considering their dual role as sanctuaries and potential impediments to open discourse. The symposium brought together experts from history, public health, psychiatry, African American studies, religious studies, and civic society, focusing on understanding the neurobiological and socio-behavioral dynamics contributing to mental health stigmatization within Black communities. The symposium aimed to illuminate how societal stressors, such as

This event was sponsored by the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. This lecture, "More Babies and More Birth Control: American Jews and the Politics of Reproduction," was given by Samira K. Mehta, who is the Visiting Associate Professor of North American Religions. This event took place on February 29, 2024. For more information, see: https://wsrp.hds.harvard.edu/ A full transcript is forthcoming.

Full title: Refuge in the Storm Webinar Series, Part III: Caring for Crisis Workers- Buddhist Approaches to Stress Management and Self-Care This webinar is the third in a series offered by the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School and featured a panel discussion of contributors to part III of Refuge in the Storm: Buddhist Voices in Crisis Care, edited by Nathan Jishin Michon. The panel included Shushin R.A. Peterson, Alex Baskin, and Acala Xiaoxi Wang, and was be co-moderated by Rev. Dr. Nathan Jishin Michon and Rev. Dr. Monica Sanford. For full bios, see: https://youtu.be/ist6h9ge4SQ This event took place February 27, 2024. For more information: https://hds.harvard.edu A transcript is forthcoming.

This was the fourth event in the six-part Religion in Times of Earth Crisis Series. Human-caused climate change already contributes to manifold global disasters. As the planet inevitably continues to warm, these disasters will be routine and unrelenting. Addressing the reality of loss must become a basic spiritual task of our climate present and future, along with summoning the resolve to respond to all our losses. In this session, Matthew Ichihashi Potts considered the apocalyptic roots of the Christian tradition in order to diagnose how Christianity has contributed to the present crisis and suggest possibilities for a different way forward. Through particular attention to grief and hope as religious categories and with specific reference to various moments and movements from within the Christian tradition, Potts reflected upon the spiritual crisis at the heart of climate catastrophe and suggests the potential for a religious response. Speaker: Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Moral

Dr. Luis Eduardo is the Director of Wasiwaska, a research center in Brazil for the study of psychointegrator plants, visionary art and consciousness. Dr. Luna spoke about the ethnobotanical research at his Center, learning with and from the local communities and speaking with and to the plants. He also explored the relationship between his research work and art and how the greater-than-human world has informed his approach to being an artist and an exhibition director. This event took place on February 16, 2024. For more information: https://hds.harvard.edu/ A transcript is forthcoming.

This is the third event is a six-part series that took place live on Zoom discussing religion in times of earth crisis. Across the Indian Ocean world, communities have shared stories while encountering legacies of modern state-centrism, colonial capitalism, post-colonial environmental destruction, and religious reform. Muslim communities, among others, have shared stories of religious environments and animals that were inherited, transmitted, and reinterpreted in light of evolving ecological crises. These stories of multispecies ancestors and colonizers, Islamic conceptions of the environment, and narrative traditions of Islamic ecological care have confronted cycles of crises with visions of pasts and futures. In this session, Teren Sevea will discuss the question, “Can listening to these stories compel us to re-evaluate our academic approaches to religion and environments and the relationship of religious pasts and presents, in our time of crisis?” Speaker: Teren Sevea, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Assistan

Full event title: Religion, Conflict, and Peace Book Series Spring 2024: The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance & End of Days Ethics, Tradition, and Power in Israel This joint book talk will feature “The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance” by Shaul Magid and “End of Days Ethics, Tradition, and Power in Israel” by Mikhael Manekin. “The Necessity of Exile” is a progressive collection of essays on the Jewish relationship to Zionism and exile. Magid invites us to rethink our current moment through religious and political resources from the Jewish tradition. “End of Days” is a meditation on Jewish morality in the age of Israeli Jewish power, and a cri du coeur by an Orthodox Israeli Jew and former combat officer in the IDF. Manekin calls on fellow Israelis to examine the Jewish religious ethical tradition for an alternative to the secular and religious Zionism that sanctifies power, statehood, and sovereignty. Featuring: - Shaul Magid, Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative Affiliate, and Dist

This is the second event in a six-part series about religion in times of earth crisis. Two hundred years ago, the residents of metropolitan Boston faced a climate crisis. White settlers had destroyed the region’s pine forests, triggering dangerous disruptions to both water and carbon cycles. Activists responded by creating forest parks on previously disrupted landscapes. But many of these activists were themselves descended from the settlers who had caused the harm they sought to heal. In imperfect yet instructive ways, they blended ecological care with new forms of ancestral devotion. Gradually they learned what indigenous communities had long known: that care for the more-than-human world is inseparable from care for our ancestors. In this session, Dan McKanan will discuss these stories and how they can help contemporary Bostonians, and others, recognize that what makes a place wild is not the absence of humans but the presence of ancestors. Speaker: Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalis

This is the first event is a six-part series that will take place live on Zoom and is free and open to the public. Environmental catastrophes can create a break in the experience of time, they can rupture the possibility of collective meaning. Yet, for communities shaped by colonialism and racism, this rupture can only be understood in relation to the past, as an event in the “unceremoniously archived procession of our catastrophes,” to use Édouard Glissant’s words. Histories of colonial and racial devastation teach us that environmental futures are linked to our pasts. We may describe them as “ancestral catastrophes,” as Elizabeth Povinelly suggests. In this session, Mayra Rivera explores the question, “How may we engage those stories in ways that honor our pasts and open possibilities for different futures?” Speaker: Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life Mayra Rivera works at the inter