A recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that, in general, highly religious Americans are less likely to express concern about climate change. But the research also shows that young

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that, in general, highly religious Americans are less likely to express concern about climate change. But the research also shows that young religious adults, including evangelical Protestants under 30, are much more likely than older people in those same religious groups to say that human activity is warming the planet and that global climate change is a serious problem. And, on college campuses across the United States, there are now Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other religious groups urging collective action to cut carbon emissions.

On April 26, 2023, we hosted a panel discussion with young Americans from a variety of religious backgrounds. They will discuss how their religious commitments mesh with their campus activism, share stories about how they came to their current views, and talk about the impact they have had – or hope to have – on older Americans inside and outside their own religious traditions.

Randy Woodley | Learning from Indigenous Peoples & Ethnic

Randy Woodley | Learning from Indigenous Peoples & Ethnic Diversity | The GlobalChurch Project

Christian. Pastor. Transgender. Join us to hear from Dr. Paula Stone Williams about her experience journeying from male to female and from despair to joy.

As a father of three,

Christian. Pastor. Transgender. Join us to hear from Dr. Paula Stone Williams about her experience journeying from male to female and from despair to joy.

As a father of three, married to a wonderful woman and holding several prominent jobs within the Christian community, Dr. Paula Stone Williams made the life-changing decision to physically transition from male to female at the age of sixty. Almost instantly, her power and influence in the evangelical world disappeared and her family had to grapple with intense feelings of loss and confusion.

Feeling utterly alone and at a loss after being expelled from the evangelical churches she had once spearheaded, Paula struggled to create a new safe space for herself where she could reconcile her faith, her identity, and her desire to be a leader. Much to her surprise, the key to her new career as a woman came with a deeper awareness of the inequities she had overlooked before her transition. Where her opinions were once celebrated and amplified, now she found herself sidelined and ignored. New questions emerged. Why are women’s opinions devalued in favor of men’s? Why does love and intimacy feel so different? And was it possible to find a new spirituality in her own image?

In her book As a Woman, Paula pulled back the curtain on her transition journey and shed light on the gendered landscape that impacts many in the LGBTQ+ community. Williams shares her lived experience of both genders and offers a truly unique perspective on the universal struggle to understand what it means to be male, female, and simply, human.

NOTES

See more "Michelle Meow Show"s at The Commonwealth Club: http://commonwealthclub.org/mms

Author photo by Rebecca Stumpf.

SPEAKERS

Paula Stone Williams
Pastor, Left Hand Church (Longmont, CO); Author, As a Woman

Michelle Meow
Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—Co-Host

John Zipperer
Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-Host

speeches at the Club.