The 2012 Church World Service Forum on Domestic Disaster Ministry will explore "Sacred
Hospitality: Compassion and Community in the Wake of Disaster." The forum will take place March 19-21, 2012, at
the Brethren Conference Center in New Windsor, Maryland.
The forum brings together scholars,
researchers, theologians and disaster responders throughout the interreligious community.
Keynote speaker: Amy Oden
Dr. Amy Oden is Dean and Professor of History of Christianity
at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. She has also served on the faculties of Saint Paul School of Theology in
Kansas City and Oklahoma City University. She earned her Ph.D. in religious studies from Southern Methodist University, writing
her dissertation on Augustine.
Amy shares that teaching is her vocation, and she looks forward to every day
with students. For the last 20 years, she has taught theology and history, and pursued scholarship in service of the church.
Most of her work has been an effort to make ancient voices, especially women's, accessible to current audiences. Her most
recent scholarship has focused on the radical practice of hospitality in early Christianity and its challenge for communities
today.
Dr. Oden has published an anthology of women’s primary source writings in the history of Christian
thought (In Her Words) and was a primary sources editor for the study series Christian Believer: Historic Teachings
of the Church. She developed a video-study series, Women Speak of God, produced by the Wesley Ministry Network
for congregational study in 2004. Her research examining the virtue and practice of hospitality issued in the publication
of And You Welcomed Me: Sourcebook on Hospitality in Early Christianity (Abingdon Press, 2001). Her recent book God’s
Welcome: Hospitality for a Gospel-Hungry World (Pilgrim Press, 2008) for congregations connects the ways God welcomes
us to the ways we welcome others. Dr. Oden has served as president of the Southwest Region of the American Academy of Religion
and serves in leadership for the American Society of Church History.
Born and raised on the prairies of Oklahoma,
she currently lives in Riverdale Park, MD with her husband, who is a United Methodist pastor.
