In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

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Session 4: Annual DANAM Book Award and Keynote Address
Presider: Veena Howard (vehoward@csufresno.edu), California State University, Fresno

Keynote Speaker: Francis X. Clooney, (fclooney@hds.harvard.edu) Harvard University

Annual DANAM Rajinder and Jyoti Gandhi Book Award,
Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story, Francis X. Clooney, T&T Clark, 2024.
This autobiography traces Francis X. Clooney’s intellectual and spiritual journey from middle-class American Catholicism to a lifelong study of Hinduism. It explains how he became interested in learning from Hinduism more than 50 years ago, and how professionally he came to fashion comparative theology as a way of learning interreligiously that is boldly intellectual and deep personal and practical. His strong commitment to Hindu-Catholic learning is lived out in intersections of his roles as theologian and scholar of Hinduism, as a professor and practicing Catholic priest, and even now in his role as Parkman Professor of Divinity, Harvard University.

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Institute for Biblical Research Annual Lecture

Ellen Davis, “A Path through the Wilderness: Tracing the Covenantal Economics of Psalms”

Mark Boda and Brent Strawn, Respondents

All are welcome.

Mennonite Scholars and Friends welcome Drew Hart (Messiah University) to reflect on the Anabaptist theological tradition's past, present, and future in its 500th anniversary year. Hart will draw on themes from his new book, Making It Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism and the Black Church (Herald Press 2025), to outline possibilities for an antiracist and decolonial form of Christian faith. Janna Hunter Bowman (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary), Dennis Edwards (North Park Theological Seminary), and Laura Schmidt Roberts (Fresno Pacific University) will offer responses. A reception will follow.

Panel discussion of Has God Been Found?, ed. Adam Johnson (Wm. B. Eerdmans, forthcoming), a transcript of a debate between Adam Johnson and Dan Barker with essays by Paul Copan, Dolores Morris, Rob Koons, Alex Malpass, Dan Linford, Robin Collins, Philip Goff, Joshua Rasmussen, Ben Watkins, David Enoch, David Baggett, Andrew Drinkard, Joseph Folley, and Joe Schmid in which they respond to issues raised in the debate. In this panel six of the authors from the book will present portions from their chapters.

Moderator: Andrew Drinkard, Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Panelists:
Adam Lloyd Johnson, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Dan Barker, Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University.
Dan Linford, independent philosopher specializing in philosophy of physics and philosophy of religion.
Robert Koons – University of Texas, Austin.
Benjamin Watkins, Nuclear Engineer, United States Navy and host of Real Atheology: A Philosophy of Religion Podcast.