Gabriella Lettini

Last updated

Gabriella Lettini (born in Turin on 25 February 1968) is an Italian-American Waldensian pastor and academic. Rev. Dr. Lettini is professor of theological ethics at the Graduate Theological Union and is Dean of the Starr King School for the Ministry [1] in Berkeley, California. She is President of the American Waldensian Society and a member of the North Atlantic section of the European Society of Women in Theological Research.

Contents

Academic career

Lettini graduated in 1995 from the Facoltà Valdese di Teologia (Waldensian Theological Seminary) in Turin with a thesis on the figure of Jesus in the cinema. She earned her PhD in Divinity from the Union Theological Seminary (New York City) with a dissertation titled The Allergy of the Other, which analyzes the theological conceptions of alterity (otherness) and the hegemonic schemes of the construction of identity.

In January 2011 Lettini organized in Rome an international interdisciplinary course on ecumenical theology. Bringing together all her institutional affiliations, she made the course a collaborative project of Waldensian Theological Seminary, Starr King School for the Ministry, Union Theological Seminary in New York, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and the American Waldensian Society. [2] In a 2017 interview Lettini said she would like it if academic theology could develop more organically as community theology, with real dialogue between the believers and theologians; she thinks the current rapprochement between Protestants and Catholics is a good thing, but, pointing to the history of Christian complicity in the world's worst atrocities, she considers their differing theological tenets less important than "to offer a corrective to these aberrations of the Christian faith." [3]

In 2017 she agreed to provide space at the Starr King School for the Ministry for the new women-led mosque Qalbu Maryam (the heart of Mary) upon request of mosque founder Rabiʻa Keeble, a 2012 alumna of that institution. [4]

Lettini's recent research explores the different models of identity and their implications for theology and ethics; at the same time, she continues her research on movies as sources of theological reflection. In concert with Rita Nakashima Brock, Lettini has developed the practice of soul repair from "a wound of war called 'moral injury'," defined as "the violation of core moral beliefs." [5] [6]

Publications

Lettini published her book Omosessualità (Homosexuality) in 1999, based on her experience in pastoral work. [7] [8] She has also published various contributions on syncretism, theology and culture, liberation theology, feminist theology, women and theology, cinema and religion, and religious tradition and "the Other" in articles and edited volumes.

Books

Edited

Chapters

Journal articles

See also

References

  1. "Rev. Dr. Gabriella Lettini". sksm.edu. Starr King School for the Ministry. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
  2. "Rome: A Crossroads of Religion 2011: Second Successful Execution of Immersion Course" (PDF). AWS Updates (1): 3. July 2011. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  3. Ribet, Elena (6 September 2017). "A 500 anni dalla Riforma, cattolici e protestanti sono ancora così diversi?" [At 500 years from the Reformation, are Catholics and Protestants still so different?]. Riforma (in Italian). Turin: Edizioni Protestanti. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  4. Escobar, Allyson (17 April 2017). "Women-Led Mosque Opens to Build Place Where 'Everybody Is Welcome'". NBC News. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  5. Wiener, Nancy H.; Hirschmann, Jo (2014). Maps and Meaning: Levitical Models for Contemporary Care. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. p. 171. ISBN   9781451482942.
  6. Nakashima Brock, Rita; Lettini, Gabriella (2012). Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War. Boston: Beacon Press. p. xiii–xvi. ISBN   9780807029084.
  7. "Lettini (Gabriella) - Omosessualità". Centro Studi Calamandrei. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  8. Lettini, Gabriella. "Peccato contra natura?". Il Dialogo (in Italian). Retrieved 10 November 2017. Includes an excerpt from pages 21–33 of the book.