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Please join us for an end-of-semester celebration of our graduating seniors! This is one of Beatrice Institute's signature events: an undergraduate colloquium spotlighting our graduating seniors that brings together our community in celebration of what these students have accomplished. Come hear what our Christian Studies Fellows have been working on this year: short stories, poetry, essays and provocations, meditations and musings. Following the presentations and Q&A, we will have dinner and toast our graduating fellows.

Presentations will take place in the Cathedral of Learning room 501. The location for the dinner reception aftewards is TBD

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Attend the first-ever staged production of J.S. Bach’s long-lost Markus Passion. Find more info on this traveling performance here!

Chatham Baroque is excited to partner with Concert Theatre Works and NYC based ensemble The Sebastians for a world-premiere of this important work as reconstructed by Malcolm Bruno and published by Breitkopf & Härtel. With an ensemble comprising 14 players and 4 singers dramatically supporting acclaimed actor Joseph Marcell as the Evangelist, this musical treasure is brought to life in a gripping theatrical format.

RSVP by March 21st.

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Beatrice Institute welcomes Dr. Brent Robbins — Licensed Psychologist and Program Director of the PsyD Program in Clinical Psychology at Point Park University — to close out our undergraduate seminars this spring with this final discussion topic. Dr. Robbins will look at the Beatitudes as an answer to the problem of evil, suffering, and death — applying them through the lens of psychological research on human flourishing. He will also offer and apply insights from several important theorists, e.g., Rene Girard, Viktor Frankl, Ernest Becker.

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Dr. Evan O’Dorney will give a lecture on the Christian roots of Western musical styles, touring how scales, melody, harmony, and form have operated in the music of various periods (Gregorian chant, Renaissance, Baroque, etc.) and stood the test of time for over 300 years.

In certain recurring structures, he argues for images of the story of salvation history, even in pieces of secular genres. These features distinguish Western music from the age-old traditions of non-Christian peoples, and they have challenged composers to create works of enduring beauty that have shaped Western culture and are now admired by many around the world. He argues that part of the work of evangelization is to reclaim these traditions, which are in danger of being copied mechanically and then abandoned for lack of appreciation. An infinite supply of new music lies in wait to be written.

We will then attend the PSO’s rendition of Beethoven’s “Pastoral.”

The seminar will go from 5:30-7:00PM. The symphony at Heinz Hall begins at 7:30PM.

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Join Beatrice Institute and The Port for an evening of poetry, cookies, wine, and friendship. We’ll enjoy poetry from up-and-coming poets as well as acclaimed poet George David Clark, poet, author and editor-in-chief and executive director of the journal 32 Poems.

This event is free and open to the public, so feel welcome to bring a friend for a delightful evening of Valentine’s themed poetry.

RSVP requested, but not required.

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German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a committed pacifist who eventually felt called to participate in a plot on Hitler’s life. Inspired by the release of the new movie on Bonhoeffer's life, Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin., we invite you to join the conversation this semester as we interrogate the tension in Christian ethics between a preference for non-violence and the responsibility to protect the innocent. (Seeing the movie is not necessary to attending the Salon, but click here for info on that cultural event!)

Our annual Winter Salon invites four panelists with a range of viewpoints to speak about Bonhoeffer's historical context and the theological commitments that swayed both pacifist and activist responses to Hitler's regime.

Drinks and heavy hors d’oeuvres provided!

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In collaboration with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Prof. Ryan McDermott will address common questions surrounding the Gospels in this final seminar of the semester.

Did Jesus even exist? Why are there four Gospels? Why do they disagree on details? Can we trust the writers’ memories? What about the Gnostic Gospels? We will discuss a brief reading (found here) by New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham that addresses these and other questions.

This event is open to all undergraduate students in the Pittsburgh area. RSVP not required.

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Our All Fellows Seminar serves as the final seminar for all cohorts (taking the place of any seminars previously scheduled from December 2nd through the 10th) This is an opportunity for all of our fellows to come together to celebrate our work this fall.

It’s a basic axiom of Christianity that we wouldn’t have knowledge of God’s plan for salvation without the Bible. The Apostle Paul said that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16). But Peter acknowledged that humans collaborated in the writing of the Bible (2 Peter 1:21). The tools of modern scholarship have opened windows onto the human element of the Bible’s composition and, as with all things human, there is a lot of evidence of screwiness. Manuscripts got lost or corrupted. The Bible is rife with contradictions of fact. From a modern scientific and historical outlook, the Bible seems supremely unreliable. How could such a mess of a book be the Word of God?

In this talk, Prof. Ryan McDermott (Pitt, English) examines what Christians claim and don’t claim about the Bible’s reliability as history. He will compare different Christian understandings of how humans collaborated with God to compose the Bible and will draw on recent research in anthropology, oral history, literary studies, and classical history writing to contrast the Bible’s claims to truth with modern standards of history and science. Prof. McDermott argues that in the 21st century, we often need a conversion of mind in order to be able to trust the Bible. 

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Students will attend a showcase of Christmas music from the Heinz Chapel Choir. This performance is a part of the University of Pittsburgh’s holiday concert series for 2024.

Doors will open to at 4:45pm (30 minutes prior to the concert start time).

Click here to check out more Heinz Chapel Choir events.