Webinars at The Seattle School
Introducing Faculty Webinars!
A free online conversation series with Seattle School faculty and friends
In a world shaped by fragmentation, anxiety, and quick answers, many of us are longing for a different kind of learning that makes space for complexity, depth, and honest conversation. The Seattle School invites you to join a global community of healers exploring provocative, challenging, and nuanced perspectives in theology, psychology, and culture to discover G-d at work beyond certainty and stability. In times of fragmentation and accelerating crisis, our society often pushes us toward simple answers and definitive solutions. Yet these responses can unintentionally reinforce the very dynamics of disconnection we hope to mend.
This a series of free webinars, invites us to a different kind of educational posture: where we learn to listen deeply to the pains of our world, holding its complexity with attention and care. These free webinars are designed for the next generation of healers and rebuilders exploring theology, psychology, and culture in an educational space that honors:
- Formation Without Fixing
- Curiosity Over Control
- Being with (rather than solving) Uncertainty
2026 Spring Webinar
Beyond Pews and Couches: Finding Care Outside Church and Talk Therapy
Dr. Dwight Friesen, Dr. Paul Hoard, and Dr. Joel Kiekintveld
May 28, 2026
9:30-11:00am PT
What if there is more beyond traditional church and talk therapy models? Join theologians, Dr. Dwight Friesen and Dr. Joel Kiekintveld, in conversation with psychologist, Dr. Paul Hoard, as they explore the question of therapeutic models beyond church pews and the therapy couch.
How do we use the transformative tools of psychology and theology, but also not get stuck in models that lack responsiveness to these times?
Drawing on insights from psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, and sociologist, Philip Rieff, we will explore alternative pathways to discourse that critique the assumption that knowledge is held through mastery, control, and order.
2026 Summer Webinars
Purity Culture and the Therapeutic Turn in American Evangelicalism
Dr. Lauren Sawyer
June 25, 2026
9:30-11:00am PT
The purity movement of the 1990s is usually seen as a grassroots pushback against the sexual revolution—a return to “biblical values” in a more permissive culture. But that view misses something important: purity culture actually grew out of a much longer effort by evangelicals, spanning about a century, to figure out how to respond to the challenges of modern society
This webinar traces how American neo-evangelicalism eventually coopted the therapeutic language it once rejected—and how purity culture emerged as a product of that accommodation. By the 1970s, leaders like James Dobson had fully embraced the language of therapeutic Christianity. These leaders taught that the nuclear family was the foundation of a strong country—and that adolescents were both its most vulnerable members and its greatest threat. In this period, “family values” rhetoric—evident in anti-abortion activism, welfare reform debates, and early purity discourse—consistently positioned young people at the center of a perceived moral crisis. Within this framework, sexual purity was framed as a corrective intervention, promising to heal adolescents, restore families, and ultimately safeguard the nation.
Join this webinar to consider how understanding purity culture—and its appropriation of therapeutic language—shapes ongoing conversations in Christian communities about sexuality, faith, and personal growth.
Eucontamination: Disgust Theology and Psychoanalysis in Practice
Dr. Paul Hoard and Billie Hoard
July 30, 2026
9:30-11:00am PT
This conversation explores Eucontamination as a theological framework for understanding how disgust shapes our inner lives, communities, and responses to difference. Building from their book Eucontamination, Paul and Billie Hoard argue that disgust is not merely an emotional reflex but a formative moment that reveals what we fear, what we exclude, and what we imagine holiness to be. Eucontamination names a counter-movement—an openness to what unsettles—that mirrors the pattern found in the life of Jesus, who consistently inverted the logic of disgust. Rather than reinforcing boundaries between clean and unclean, pure and impure, Jesus moved toward lepers, the bleeding woman, sinners, and the marginalized, contaminating the very categories meant to keep him separate. His ministry reveals that transformation often occurs precisely where disgust would have us withdraw.
Join this webinar to explore theory and practical application, offering ways leaders and communities can work with disgust as it arises around bodies, stories, social difference, and conflict.
From Aspiration to Action: Equipping White Folks for Anti-Racist Practice
Dr. Ron Ruthruff and Dr. Paul Hoard
August 27, 2026
9:30-11:00 am PT
Many White individuals express aspirations toward anti-racism, yet struggle to translate these intentions into meaningful action that fosters belonging for all. How can we help White members of our organizations move beyond ideological platitudes to embodied practices that build equitable communities?
Drs. Paul Hoard (psychology) and Ron Ruthruff (theology) have spent the past three years grappling with this challenge within a theological institution. In this webinar, engage with the psychological and theological factors that often inhibit white individuals’ ability to sustain anti-racist action—particularly the temptation to protect an idealized self-image rather than confront uncomfortable realities.
Participants will explore policies and practices that cultivate equity and inclusion in churches, schools, and agencies. This conversation asks new questions to help organizations move toward credible, community-rooted anti-racist practice.