The fallout from twenty years of neoliberal economic globalism has sparked a surge of interest in the old idea of democratic socialism. Gary Dorrien will address the expansive and ambitious intellectual history of this topic, and his forthcoming book, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism.

Responding to Gary’s book will be The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of Episcopal Divinity School, and Dr. Geoffrey Kurtz, Associate Professor of Political Science at the BMCC-CUNY, an editor of Democratic Socialists of America’s Religion and Socialism Blog, and author of Jean Jaurès: The Inner Life of  Social Democracy.

This event is sponsored by Union’s Theology Department, Episcopal Divinity School at Union, and The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

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Event will also be available via live stream.

About Social Democracy in the Making Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism
The fallout from twenty years of neoliberal economic globalism has sparked a surge of interest in the old idea of democratic socialism—a democracy in which the people control the economy and government, no group dominates any other, and every citizen is free, equal, and included. With a focus on the intertwined legacies of Christian socialism and Social Democratic politics in Britain and Germany, this book traces the story of democratic socialism from its birth in the nineteenth century through the mid-1960s.

Examining the tenets on which the movement was founded and how it adapted to different cultural, religious, and economic contexts from its beginnings through the social and political traumas of the twentieth century, Gary Dorrien reminds us that Christian socialism paved the way for all liberation theologies that make the struggles of oppressed peoples the subject of redemption. He argues for a decentralized economic democracy and anti-imperial internationalism. Click here to purchase.

Gary Dorrien ’82, ’88 teaches social ethics, theology, and philosophy of religion as the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University. He was previously the Parfet Distinguished Professor at Kalamazoo College, where he taught for 18 years and also served as Dean of Stetson Chapel and Director of the Liberal Arts Colloquium. Professor Dorrien is the author of 19 books and more than 300 articles that range across the fields of social ethics, philosophy, theology, political economics, social and political theory, religious history, cultural criticism, and intellectual history. Full Bio

The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas ’78, leads EDS at Union in the education and preparation of students in fulfilling requirements for ordination in the Episcopal Church while receiving their degree from Union. A leading voice in the development of womanist theology, Dean Douglas is widely published in national and international journals and other publications. Her groundbreaking and widely used book Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (1999) was the first to address the issue of homophobia within the black church community. Her latest book, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (2015) examines the deep roots of “Stand Your Ground” culture in America and the challenges it brings for the Black Church community. Full Bio

Dr. Geoffrey Kurtz has taught at Borough of Manhattan Community College since Fall 2007.His recent essays and reviews have appeared in New Political Science, Logos: A Journal of Modern Culture and Society, Public Seminar, and Contrivers’ Review. He is currently studying the American social democratic tradition, looking at its patterns of emergence and invisibility, its place within the broader tradition of American thinking about democracy and community, and its relationship to trans-Atlantic debates about humanism, personhood, and the idea of the political. Full Bio