Instructor: Adam Barnes
Date: Saturday, September 12, 9:00 am -12:00 pm  |  Saturday, September 19, 9:00 am -12:00 pm
Format: Union will hold online weekend intensives during September via synchronous classes over two consecutive Saturdays, and additional asynchronous learning between the two weekends.

Register Here

As seminarians, we are graduating into a world in turmoil. How are we prepared to offer spiritual leadership in these times? This seminar draws on the Kairos Center’s national network of leaders and decades of experience in grassroots organizing to help answer this pivotal question. Special attention will be given to examining the history of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) and the recent effort to revive that campaign, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Participants will learn about the model and lessons of the’68 Campaign, gain some basic information on poverty and community organizing, and participate in biblical study and theological reflection on building a social movement to end poverty, led by the poor.

Adam Barnes, PhD is the coordinator of the Rights and Religions program at the Kairos Center. Born in St. Louis, MO and raised in Colorado, he has lived in New York since 2006 and worked at the Poverty Initiative/Kairos Center since 2007. In 2016 Adam completed a PhD in Comparative Theology at Union Theological Seminary. His dissertation investigates the liberative theology and spirituality emerging from anti-poverty struggles in the US and in a Sufi-Muslim community in West Africa. He received a BA in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Currently he is working closely with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival helping to coordinate faith leaders and institutions. He is the father of three amazing children and married to Shailly Barnes.