Personal Theology: Dr. Brent Duckor, “Why Saul/Paul…I mean really, why?” Toward a conversation with the Messianic Jewish Tentmaker
02-09-2025
9:30 am - 10:30 am
The Personal Theology program is thrilled to have Dr. Brent Duckor presenting on a conversation with us, UU folks, Dr. Brent and Saul (aka Paul), the disciple of Jesus. Brent is a wonderful teacher and thinker and this talk will be stimulating, fun, provocative, engaging and utterly satisfying. The full title of Brent’s talk is: Why Saul/Paul…I mean really, why?: Toward a conversation with the messianic Jewish Tentmaker of the 1st Century who became the Apostle of the Christ to the Gentiles. Wow!
Words from Dr. Brent and his bio:
Several years ago, I wrote, “Paul of Tarsus sought to lead Gentiles toward Israel with a passion, style, and commitment that invite us to study his leadership model with a concrete congregation, the Corinthians.” (2022). What I did not say in that article with my Jesuit serving colleague, Dr. Racine, was what exactly drew me to the study of Saul/Paul as a professor of education at a secular, public university. It seems fair to ask: “Why study a Jewish messianic of the tent-making trade who proclaimed himself the first apostle of Christ to the Gentiles? And, more importantly, why give attention to the hero of Luther and Augustine who is also the villain of so many Jews and Christians who later saw Paul as the anti-hero in the quest for the authentic Yeshua/Jesus?” My personal theology—a conversation with Paul and his Letters and his milieu–is my attempt to make sense of Saul/Paul in my idiosyncratic walk towards the God of Israel.
Brent Duckor, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at San José State University. He began his secondary school teaching career at Apáczai Nevelési Központ Gimnázium in Pécs, Hungary where he taught philosophy and history from 1989 to 1991. He later taught government, economics, and history at Central Park East Secondary School in New York City in the 1990s. With the passage of No Child Left Behind, Brent returned to earn a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley and study educational measurement, testing, and assessment in the Quantitative Methods and Evaluation program at the Graduate School of Education.
