Bushnell University announces the upcoming Becoming Beloved Community Spring ’25 Symposium: Excavating Culture, featuring esteemed speakers Dr. Marcus “Goodie” Goodloe and Dr. Paul Louis Metzger. This free event hosted by the College of Theology, Arts, and Sciences will take place on March 18 and 20, 2025 and is part of the ongoing and meaningful conversation around biblical perspectives on community and racial reconciliation Bushnell began in November of 2023.
The event is open to the public and registration is required. On campus parking is limited, please allow extra time to find parking in the busy University District.
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Event Schedule:
- Tuesday, March 18:
- 10:30 AM: Doors Open, Morse Center
- 11:00 AM: Chapel Message on “Excavating Culture” by Dr. Marcus “Goodie” Goodloe, Morse Center
- 12:00 PM – 1:45 PM: Lunch Panel, a conversational Q&A, featuring Dr. Goodloe and a Bushnell faculty member, Bucher Room
- Thursday, March 20:
- 10:30 AM: Doors Open, Ross Evans Chapel
- 11:00 AM: Academic Lecture by Dr. Paul Metzger on “Excavating Culture”, Ross Evans Chapel
- 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM: Lunch Panel, a conversational Q&A, featuring Dr. Metzger and a Bushnell faculty member, Bucher Room
The Becoming Beloved Community Spring ’25 Symposium aims to foster a deeper understanding of cultural dynamics and promote substantive on-campus conversations. By bringing together thought leaders and participants from diverse backgrounds, the symposium seeks to create a space for dialogue, listening, and collaboration that promotes intellectual bridgebuilding. Students, faculty, staff, and community members are invited to engage with and contribute to the vision of a beloved community at Bushnell as well as our friends, neighbors, partner organizations, city, and region beyond campus.
“We are excited to continue our Becoming Beloved Community campus and community conversations,” said Dr. Reed Mueller, vice president for academic affairs, “as part of our ongoing efforts to foster meaningful work toward interpersonal and community reconciliation. An essential foundation in such is thoughtful scholarship in the theology of culture and persons. It is our delight to bring these esteemed theologians to campus.”
About the Speakers:
Dr. Marcus “Goodie” Goodloe (Ph.D., Dallas Baptist University), a Compton, California native, is a leadership development professional. He mentors students and educators, business professionals, athletes and entertainers, and faith communities across the country on issues from cultural and interpersonal relationships to leadership, character formation, and faith. Goodloe is on the pastoral care team of Flourishing Church, Los Angeles, and serves as one of the church’s elders.
He has worked with NCAA teams at universities across the United States, as well as Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the national and state levels, and professional football teams from the United States Football League and the NFL. Goodloe serves on the Community Engagement Board and as a department chaplain for the Redondo Beach Police Department. He continues to work with both law enforcement and community activists, to foster better understanding and education on cooperative policing and matters of fairness and justice with respect to the judicial system.
Goodloe is the author of three books: King Maker: Applying Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Leadership Lessons in Working with Athletes and Entertainers (2015), co-author of Habits: Six Steps to the Art of Influence (2017), and The Next Level: Growing with God…in His Word, Your Walk, and Your Worship (2022). He is a Martin Luther King Jr. scholar and has served as an adjunct professor at Dallas Baptist University since 2012. He was a member of the inaugural cohort for Ph.D. studies at DBU (2005) and the first African American to graduate with a Ph.D. from that program (2011). In 2016, DBU established the Marcus “Goodie” Goodloe Scholarship in his honor, and in 2020, Goodloe was selected to serve as Senior Fellow for Ethics and Justice at the DBU Institute for Global Engagement (IGE). In 2023, he was elected to the Board of Trustees for Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.
Goodloe and his wife, Lucy, live in the Los Angeles area and have two adult children.
Dr. Paul Louis Metzger (Ph.D., King’s College London) is a Professor of Christian Theology & Theology of Culture at Multnomah Biblical Seminary, Jessup University. He is also the Founder and Director of The Institute for Cultural Engagement: New Wine, New Wineskins. Integrating theology and spirituality with cultural sensitivity stands at the center of Dr. Metzger’s ministry vision.
Metzger is the author of Evangelical Zen: A Christian’s Spiritual Travels with a Buddhist Friend, 2nd edition (Cascade Books, 2024); More Than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture (IVP Academic, 2023); Setting the Spiritual Clock: Sacred Time Breaking Through the Secular Eclipse (Worship & Witness series, Cascade, 2020); Beatitudes, Not Platitudes: Jesus’ Invitation to the Good Life (Cascade, 2018); Evangelical Zen: A Christian’s Spiritual Travels With a Buddhist Friend (Patheos, 2015); Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths (Thomas Nelson, 2012); New Wine Tastings: Theological Essays of Cultural Engagement (Cascade, 2011); The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town (InterVarsity Press, 2010); Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction (co-authored with Brad Harper; Brazos/Baker, 2009); Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church (Eerdmans, 2007); and The Word of Christ and the World of Culture: Sacred and Secular through the Theology of Karl Barth (Eerdmans, 2003). He is co-editor of A World for All?: Global Civil Society in Political Theory and Trinitarian Theology (co-edited with William F. Storrar and Peter J. Casarella; Eerdmans, 2011); editor of Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology (T&T Clark International, 2005); and editor of New Wine’s journal Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture.
Metzger is a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey, and served as Senior Mission Scholar in Residence, Spring 2018 at the Overseas Ministries Study Center, when it was located in New Haven, Connecticut. He has a keen interest in the art of Katsushika Hokusai and Georges Rouault, the writings of John Steinbeck, and the music of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, The Doors, and Nirvana. Metzger blogs frequently at Uncommon God, Common Good (Patheos). His forthcoming works include a volume on trauma and resilience (Worship & Witness series, Cascade, date TBD), one on complexifying the category of “world religions” and the interface with our secular age (IVP Academic, date TBD); and another on his family’s journey of faith, hope, and love interfacing with his adult son Christopher’s traumatic brain injury.
Metzger and his wife, Mariko, have been active in intercultural ministry in churches in the States, Japan, and England. The Metzgers have two children and one grandchild.
About Becoming Beloved Community Series:
This event is part of the Becoming Beloved Community series of events initiated by the Board of Trustees and Office of the President at Bushnell University. This series explores biblical perspectives on racial reconciliation and important issues facing our community.
Recordings of past events can be viewed here.
Bushnell is pursuing meaningful conversations about how the Gospel nurtures present and future hopes of, in the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, “the creation of the Beloved Community.” It is in this spirit, and with this hope, that we continue Bushnell’s commitment to calling and Christ-centered reconciliation by hosting events like Spring ’25 Symposium on “Excavating Culture” on campus.
More Information
For any event questions or to learn more about the ongoing Becoming Beloved Community effort at Bushnell University and to partner please contact Lars Coburn, director of university relations at 541-684-7320 or by email at lacoburn@bushnell.edu.
