In her book, God Will be All in All: Theology Through the Lens of Incarnation, Anna Case-Winters re-envisions central affirmations and questions of Christian theology by looking through the lens of incarnation—making incarnation a presupposition rather than a conclusion.  Her process-panentheist approach takes a broad view of incarnation proposing that God is already in all things, and all things are in God.  Through this lens, the ancient Christological controversies around how Jesus can be “truly God and truly human… two natures in one person” can be unraveled.  If we see that God is already in all things, and if we shift from “substance thinking” to dynamic relational thinking, there is no contradiction here. The trinitarian vision of God and our understanding of how God acts in the world are also illumined by this approach.

In this event, Dr. Case-Winters will explore these themes as well as the provoking questions that  arise with our affirmation that “God is with us.” How can we believe “God is with us” when there is so much suffering and evil in the world?  When we make this affirmation what do we mean by “us”?  Do we mean “just us Christians”? Is the claim that “God was in Christ” automatically exclusivist—as if God is nowhere else?  Does “us” even mean “only us human beings”? What about divine presence in the larger natural world?  Widening our view still further, what if we who are on planet earth, are not alone in the cosmos?  Is God with others out there, too?  What is the depth and scope of incarnation?  How wide is the divine embrace?

Christians affirm that God is with us—a presence and activity we see most clearly in Jesus the Christ.  Questions arise around this affirmation, but looking through the lens of incarnation, we can continue to affirm that God is with us—all of us—and especially in the face of suffering and evil.  The question is not so much whether God is with us, but whether we are with God in the struggle to engage in transforming work so that all may flourish.

Anna Case-Winters (God Will be All in All: Theology Through the Lens of Incarnation)

Rev. Dr. Anna Case-Winters is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and serves as Professor of Theology at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago where she has been on faculty since 1986.  Case-Winters has research interests and publications in several areas:  dialogues in religion and science, open and relational theologies, theological contributions of Reformed tradition, and theologies attending to global economic, ecumenical, ecological issues. 

Case-Winters is a grant recipient and project leader for the Science for Seminaries program, an initiative of AAAS and ATS.  She has also received grants from the Templeton Foundation including: the Religion and Science Course Award, the Templeton/ASA Lecture Series Grant, and the Exemplary Paper in Humility Theology Award. In 2020, she was inducted as a fellow into the International Institute on Religion and Science.

In the wider church, Case-Winters served as a pastor and a denominational leader. For the PCUSA General Assembly, she chaired the Code of Professional Ethics Committee as well as the Committee on Confessions and Christology. In two terms of service as Chair of Christian Unity, she furthered the work in ecumenism that has marked her ministry. Prof. Case-Winters has also been a leader in the global Reformed church serving in various leadership roles and as a theological consultant in the World Communion of Reformed (WCRC). 

She is the author of four books: God’s Power: Traditional Understandings and Contemporary Challenges; Reconstructing a Christian Theology of Nature: Down to Earth; A Theological Commentary on Matthew; and God Will be All in All: Theology Through the Lens of Incarnation. Case-Winters is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the past President of the American Theological Society, Midwest Region.