News & Media

Ohio Wesleyan Chaplain’s Office to Host ‘Love Across the Spectrum’ Nov. 7

DELAWARE, Ohio – Defining sexuality, morality, and marriage. Examining the Bible’s teachings for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. Understanding the intersectionality of race, gender, and identity.

Sara Miles

These are just a few of the topics that will be discussed Nov. 7 during “Love Across The Spectrum: LGBT Christians Speak Out,” a half-day conference held at Ohio Wesleyan University and co-sponsored by the OWU Chaplain’s Office and the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Cost is $20 for students and $40 for the general public. Online registration continues through Nov. 4 at https://www.owu.edu/about/offices-services/office-of-university-chaplain/love-across-the-spectrum/.

This “Love Across the Spectrum” conference is a follow up to the successful inaugural conference in 2013, which featured Justin Lee, founder and executive director of The Gay Christian Network, and Dove Award-winning singer Jennifer Knapp.

This year’s keynote speaker is author and activist Sara Miles, whose books include “City of God: Faith in the Streets,” “Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead,” and “Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion.”

Miles is the founder and director of The Food Pantry, and serves as Director of Ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. She speaks, preaches, and leads workshops around the country, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and on National Public Radio.

Miles will discuss “Scandal, Folly, and Freedom,” addressing questions of “How do our experiences as LBGT people inform our faith? How do LBGT Christians understand the Gospel in very different cultural contexts?”

She will share her own surprising story and invite people to look honestly at their own lived experiences of God. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, she said, “I think that there is a powerful tendency in Christianity, as in all religions, to scapegoat people and define yourself by who you are not.”

In addition to the keynote address, participants in Ohio Wesleyan’s “Love Across the Spectrum” conference will be invited to join in workshop discussions on topics including:

• The Bible and Homosexuality
• Queer Ethics
• Church Coming Out of the Closet
• Trans 101 The Inter-sectionality of Race, Gender, and Sexuality

Learn more about the conference at https://www.owu.edu/about/offices-services/office-of-university-chaplain/love-across-the-spectrum/.

Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,675 students represent 43 U.S. states and territories and 33 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.