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Sundays, at 9:30 AM ET - 10:15 AM ET from April 7 until April 28, 2024 hosted in partnership with Saint Luke's Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody, Georgia.
This course tackles the challenges of discussing immigration head-on.
Each week, we will take up a contemporary argument about immigration and resettlement and analyze the ethical framework, norms, and theological commitments that underpin it.
Drawing on sources ranging from the news and novels to scripture and the arts, we will analyze principle-based arguments about coming “the right way,” utilitarian arguments about economic impact, virtue-based arguments about the kind of nation the U.S. “actually” is, and, finally, care- and responsibility-oriented arguments that foreground our local, communal, and societal relationships.
Janelle Lindsey Adams is a doctoral candidate in Ethics and Society, a doctoral fellow with the Candler Foundry, and a researcher for the Forum for Theological Exploration’s Discernment Labs initiative.
Her dissertation is titled “Unsettling Resettlement: Organizations Creating Shared Sufficiency through Practices of Subversive Belonging.” Drawing on social and theological ethics, practical theology, and qualitative methods, Janelle suggests that organizations extend belonging possibilities through practices of recognition, accompaniment, design, and turning towards and away (or, solidarity and critique). She argues that these practices of subversive belonging—while formative in and of themselves—also contribute to a vision of shared sufficiency that exposes the American Dream as the nightmare it is and invites established Americans and newcomers alike to creatively resist society’s idolization of self-sufficiency.
Janelle’s writing has appeared in the Journal of Pastoral Theology and Center for Migration Studies Essays. Prior to her doctoral studies, she served as the Program Manager for Community Engagement for the refugee resettlement agency, Inspiritus, and as the Senior Administrative Coordinator for ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care & Education.
Janelle received her BA in religious studies from Rhodes College and her MDiv from Candler School of Theology.