On February 23, 2017, we had a party to celebrate 40 years of excellence in urban contextual theological education of SCUPE, and to launch a new entity called OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership. Among the distinguished guests that day was Prof. Martin Marty, one of the most erudite church historians in the world. He had participated in our Advisory Board for about a year prior to that, and helped us think through the transition. Somehow, we kept the name OMNIA secret from everyone until it was unveiled. Watch the launch video here: https://youtu.be/6MR6b3zIXok Dr. Marty was thrilled at the name. He went home and did a word study in his Latin Vulgate bible and came up with hundreds of occurances of "omnia" and wrote to me with commentary on the most useful quotes. He urged that we use the following as our watchword: 1 Corinthians 3:22 "omnia enim vestra sunt" All things are yours... you are Christ's and Christ is God's. "All things are yours" he reiterated -- claim it! Martin Marty died yesterday after a long and productive life, having mentored and taught a long line of theologians, preachers, justice-seekers and peacemakers. I am grateful to God for his life, his scholarship and his generous mentorship. (fb)

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