2026 André LaCocque Lecture & Schaalman Award
Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 6:00 pm Central | Virtual Event
https://ctschicago-edu.zoom.us/j/91408111626
Order of Events
Welcome & Artist Introduction
Kim Schultz, Director of Interreligious Engagements and Public Projects
Poetic Invocation
Junauda Juanita Petrus-Nasah, Minneapolis Poet Laureate
Introduction of Dialogue Partners
Rabbi Dr. Rachel Mikva, Herman E. Schaalman Professor of Jewish Studies
2026 André LaCocque Interreligious Dialogue
Dr. Peter Manseau, Founding Director of the Center for Understanding Religion in American History at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Rev. Dr. Brad Braxton
Musical Reflection
Rev. Dr. Lama JoAnne Marie Terrell, Kenneth B. Smith, Sr. Professor of Public Ministry and Associate Professor of Theology, Ethics, and the Arts
Community Dialogue (Q&A)
Heather Elsayed, PhD Student
Presentation of the Herman E. Schaalman Award
Munir Shaikh, Vice President of Operations & Academic Affairs at Bayan Islamic Graduate School
Award Response
Jimmy Paton, Master of Divinity Student
An Invitation to Build What Comes Next
Chad R. Schwickerath, Vice President for Advancement & Strategic Initiatives
Extending the Conversation: Our7Neighbors and Beyond
Kim Schultz, Director of Interreligious Engagements & Public Projects
Closing
Stephanie Arroyokou, President, CTS Student Government Association
Featured Participants
Dr. Peter Manseau
Dr. Peter Manseau is a novelist, historian, and museum curator. He is the founding director of the Center for Understanding Religion in American History at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award, the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Literature, the Ribalow Prize for Fiction, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, he has also been shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Prix Médicis étranger, awarded to the best foreign novel published in France. Dr. Manseau’s. He is author of One Nation Under Gods: A New American History.
Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton
Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton is President and Professor of Public Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary. He is a seasoned biblical scholar and homiletician (i.e., an expert in the arts of sermon creation, delivery, and evaluation). He has held professorships at Southern Methodist University, Vanderbilt University, and Wake Forest University, as well as lectureships at Georgetown University, Harvard Divinity School, and McCormick Theological Seminary. In addition to his work in biblical studies and homiletics, his scholarship and teaching are conversant with other disciplines, including African American studies, interreligious studies, womanist, feminist, and LGBTQ+ studies, and postcolonial studies.
Rev. Dr. Lama JoAnne Marie Terrell
Rev. Dr. Lama JoAnne Marie Terrell is the Kenneth B. Smith, Sr. Professor of Public Ministry and Associate Professor of Theology, Ethics, and the Arts. Professor Terrell’s current research interests are interreligious in scope, and focus on soteriological principles in Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity, the genre of spiritual autobiography, and the power of the visual and performing arts to effect personal, social, and cosmic transformation.
Minneapolis Poet Laureate Junauda Petrus
Junauda Petrus is a creative activist, writer, playwright, and multi-dimensional performance artist who is born on Dakota land, West-Indian descended, and African-sourced. Her work centers around Black wildness, futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, spectacle and shimmer. She is the author of The Stars And The Blackness Between Them, winner of the 2020 Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award. And she is the 2025–2026 Minneapolis Poet Laureate, appointed to a two-year term to amplify community voices, especially Black and queer narratives, through poetry.
2026 Rabbi Herman E. Schaalman Interreligious Leadership Award
Jimmy Paton
The InterReligious Institute at Chicago Theological Seminary is pleased to announce Jimmy Paton as the 2026 recipient of the Rabbi Herman E. Schaalman Interreligious Leadership Award. The award will be formally presented at the André LaCocque Interreligious Lecture to be held virtually in March 2026.
Paton’s award-winning submission, “These are the Names”, is an immersive audio installation conceived as a sacred space for mourning, reflection, and interfaith solidarity. The project confronts acts of religious terrorism carried out by white supremacist and Christian nationalist extremists by honoring victims and lifting up shared teachings of peace across faith traditions. Designed as a public ritual, the installation transforms collective grief into an act of healing and resilience for the Durham, North Carolina community and the wider region.
Paton is a social practice artist whose work creates immersive experiences at the intersection of technology, spirituality, and social commentary. He is in his second year of the Master of Divinity program at CTS, concentrating in Chaplaincy Studies, while concurrently pursuing a Master of Arts in Art & Technology at the University of Oklahoma. A self-described post-Pentecostal mystic, Paton brings a trauma-informed approach to spiritual care, grounded in his belief that art can create pathways for healing and the reclamation of agency for those who have experienced spiritual abuse.
As the 2026 Schaalman Award recipient, Paton receives a $1,000 honorarium, along with an additional $500 to support project expenses. CTS also recognizes two Special Mention Awardees: Mahir Hussein, for his reflection on interreligious formation through “Safer Nights,” and Suleiman Adan, for “Faith at the Gate,” a proposed initiative offering interfaith reentry support for Somali Muslims in Minneapolis.
Special thanks to the Interreligious Committee:
Rabbi Dr. Rachel S. Mikva, Herman E. Schaalman Professor of Jewish Studies (Chair)
Kim Schultz, Director of Interreligious Engagement & Public Projects (Chair)
Dr. Emily Vogt, Dean of Academic Affairs
Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Oseguera, Assistant Professor of Psychology & Muslim Studies
Munir Shaikh, Vice President of Operations & Academic Affairs, Bayan Islamic Graduate School
Roger Morales, Director of Lapp Learning Commons
Rev. Dr. Lama JoAnne Terrell, Kenneth B. Smith, Sr. Professor of Public Ministry and Associate Professor of Theology, Ethics, and the Arts
Min. Deneen Collins, Director of Student Formation & Outreach
Rachel Payden, Director of Theological Field Education
Hazel Gomez, Student Representative
Heather Elsayed, Student Representative
Jason Smith, Student Representative
Wilder Carson, Student Representative
History of the Lecture and Award
The André LaCocque Interreligious Lecture showcases the diversity of religion and life stance in the human experience. It is named in honor of Dr. André LaCocque, the longtime CTS professor and stalwart supporter of interreligious work, who passed away in January 2022.
In the mid-1960s, Dr. Andre LaCocque, a distinguished scholar of the Hebrew Bible, originally from Belgium, joined the faculty at CTS as Professor of Hebrew Bible. He founded a doctoral program in comparative religious studies, known as the Center for Jewish-Christian Studies. This center was designed to serve as a research hub for doctoral candidates, and as a training ground for a new generation of scholars who understood that early Christianity could not be fully grasped without also understanding Judaism. It also became a venue for public conferences. Dr. LaCocque frequently co-taught with Rabbi Herman Schaalman, a respected religious leader and activist in Chicago, helping to instill the belief that religious leaders must be knowledgeable about traditions beyond their own into the very fabric of our work at CTS.
Later, Dr. LaCocque broadened the scope of the Center for Jewish-Christian Studies to incorporate Islamic scholarship, organizing the first national conference on women and Islam that featured prominent Muslim scholars. This evolution led to the creation of the Center for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Studies (JCIS), one of the nation’s pioneering centers dedicated to fostering interreligious dialogue among the Abrahamic faiths. Dr. LaCocque retired in 1996 but continued to contribute to CTS and beyond for many years.
Today, the work of the JCIS is carried on by the CTS InterReligious Institute (IRI), which has expanded its focus to include interreligious dialogue across all spiritual lifestances. We at CTS owe much to the work of Dr. LaCocque, and we are grateful to tonight’s speakers who honor his legacy.
Upcoming at CTS
O7N Season 5: Religion and Resistance in America, hosted by Reza Aslan
Coming soon!
Chicago Interfaith Trolley Tour
Join us Sunday, April 26 for the 5th Annual Chicago Interfaith Trolley Tour, an afternoon exploring architecture, history, and sacred spaces across Chicago’s religious landscape — all from the seat of a trolley!