In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book
The 2026 November Annual Meeting in Denver, CO: Friday, November 20 - Tuesday, November 24. All times are listed in Mountain Time Zone. For more information about the November Annual Meeting, co-hosted with the Society of Biblical Literature, click here.
Please note that this is the preliminary schedule and is subject to change. We anticipate a mostly final schedule in mid-August. If you have any questions, please contact annualmeeting@aarweb.org. For Other Events, your event is not confirmed until you received notification from AAR staff.
Friday, 10:20 AM - 11:20 AM | Colorado Conference Center, 203 (Street…Session ID: P20-108
Paper Session 3B: Engaging a Divided World: Justice and Mission - The Church's Mission and Witness to the World Presiding: Andrew Tompkins, Andrews University Paper #1: Seeking the Welfare of the City: Reimagining the Missional Community and Identity of the Church in Contemporary China Chuanshan Liang, Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies
Paper #2: Reimagining the Remnant: The Ecclesiological Tension Between Denominational Identity and Universality Seunghyeon Oh, Andrews University
Paper #3: Inroads to the Islamic Community. Reimagining Church Outreach to Muslim Neighbors Sean Facchinello, Federal Prison, US Army Retired Chaplain (LTC)
What responses do the dharma traditions offer to the emergence and proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI)? To answer this question, this panel brings together scholars of dharma traditions who will present a variety of philosophical, ethical, and engaged approaches to addressing the risks, opportunities, and challenges AI poses for our shared future. Presenters will discuss questions of AI sentience as well as several social and environmental issues, highlighting the manifold resources the dharma traditions provide us as we collectively face this paradigm-shifting technology.
RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATIONS IN PRISONS WORKSHOP. Point of contact: Sandy Stevens: sstevens@aarweb.org, Roxana Dondera rdondera@aarweb.org, American Academy of Religion Ocean Zhang ez9@stmarys-ca.edu, Saint Mary's College of California, Prison Religion Project Coordinator
Paper Session 4A: Community: Identity and Praxis - The Table, Food, and Lived Theology Presiding: Jim Wibberding, Pacific Union College Paper #1: The Table: The Church's Lifeline H. David Mendoza, Texas Conference of SDA Church
Paper #2: Keeping Adventist Food Weird: Adventist Food Pedagogy and the (Mal)Formation of Ethical and Ecclesial Imagination Vaughn Nelson, Boston University
Paper #3: Reimagining the Church by Listening to Her: Toward an Adventist Public Lived Theology Geoffrey Nelson Blake, Graduate Theological Union
Paper Session 4B - Community: Identity and Praxis - Forming the Next Generation Presiding: Zane Yi, Loma Linda University Paper #1: Between Storytelling and Structure: The Early Church as Model for Spiritual Discernment for the 21st Century Church Eike Mueller, Newbold College of Higher Education
Paper #2: How the Concepts of Truth and Identity Change in the pre-modern, modern, post-modern, and post-human Western and Adventist Contexts Tamara Pispisa, Italian Adventist University
Paper #3: Reimagining the Church through Discipleship in Adventist Higher Education: Integrating Faith and Learning for Christian Identity, Community, and Mission Herbert Liessi, Northeast Brazilian Adventist University
The 2026 Media and Religion pre-conference workshop will reflect on the intersections of media, religion, and community—not as fixed categories, but as active and unstable formations through which people come to belong, to struggle, and to imagine otherwise. In keeping with this year’s presidential theme of “Future/s,” how might we think about what the study of religion and media can offer to the theoretical and practical work of community formation and vice-versa? How are communities mediated, fragmented, destroyed, or newly constituted in our hypermediated moment, and what form(s) do they take? And how might these questions help us think about a range of possible futures: political, planetary, professional, intellectual?
