Podcast appearances and mentions of Luther E Smith

"Hope is Here" (S. Kostick / L. Kravchenko) created for Companions on the Inner Way (August 2024, Lake Tahoe). Dedicated to Dr. Luther E. Smith, Jr. www.cotiway.org

Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Every other month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation. This month we sat down with Luther E. Smith Jr. to discuss his book Hope is Here!: Spiritual Practices for Pursuing Justice and Beloved Community.  Joyful and daunting opportunities to live into God's dream of justice and beloved community are compelling and available. Hope, says Luther Smith Jr., is essential to the needed personal and social transformations that prepare us for such sacred opportunities. Yet genuine hope is often confused as merely wish fulfillment, optimism, or perceiving better tomorrows. In Hope Is Here! Smith describes how we truly perceive and join “the work of hope,” enlivening us to a life that is oriented toward immediate and future experiences of personal fulfillment, justice, and beloved community. Interpreting five spiritual practices for individuals and congregations to experience the power of hope, this book prepares us to engage racism, mass incarceration, environmental crises, divisive politics, and indifference that imperil justice and beloved community. It delivers the inner resources necessary to work for change through its interpretation of hope. Additionally, each chapter ends with questions that prompt readers to examine their experiences and their readiness to journey with hope. Written for Christians who want to commit themselves to justice and beloved community, this book will provide helpful guidance for a life sustained by God's gifts of hope and love. Hope is here for our “responsibility” and “response-ability” to live the fulfilling life that God dreams for us. AbbeyoftheArts.com/Lift-Every-Voice/Hope-is-Here

For our May, 2021 podcast, we welcome Dr. Luther E. Smith Jr., Professor Emeritus at Candler Seminary, author, educator, pastor, mystic, and elder. In this episode we talk about how identity is shaped and expanded and how conversations about race could be more authentic and powerful. We also explore what it meant for him to follow a spiritual calling and the experiences that led him to his friendship and academic study of author and mystic, Howard Thurman.

Dr. Luther E. Smith, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Church and Community at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. His current research focuses on the writings and correspondence of Howard Thurman, advocacy on behalf of children, and a spirituality of hope. Smith is an ordained elder in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

In the first episode of our season elder wisdom, Professor Emeritus Luther E. Smith, Jr. offers reflections about spirituality, racism, justice, and leading life as an Enneagram Type 9.

Dr. Catherine Meeks is a retired professor of socio-cultural studies at Wesleyan College. She is the editor of the newly released book, Living Into God’s Dream: Dismantling Racism in America. From the publisher: "This book is a report from the front, combining personal stories and theoretical and theological reflection with examples of the work of dismantling racism and methods for creating the much-needed “safe space” for dialogue on race to occur. Its aim is to demonstrate the ways in which a new conversation on race can be forged." Her book contains chapters from eight different contributors including herself. Some white, some people of color, some men, some women. The first chapter is written by Luther E. Smith, Jr. Dr. Smith is professor emeritus of Church and Community at the Candler School of Theology of Emory University. He writes: “Racism also persists because a large segment of the population benefits from it. This explains why and how individuals perpetuate the system of racism, even without their conscious awareness of the implications of their actions. The existence of racism relies upon it having the personal commitment of some and the inaction of many.” Celebrate the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and dismantle racism.

Humanities Crown Forum. Guest Speaker is Dr. Luther E. Smith Jr. Also, there was a special visit to Morehouse College by the Queen Mothers of Ghana.