But the gathering at Tuff City Styles, across the street from Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, had a scholarly purpose. In keeping with the 2016 theme of the Association of Practical Theology conference, which took place April 8 through 10 at Fordham, the off-campus excursion was meant to exemplify the intersection between migration and theology, said Tom Beaudoin, PhD.

“We live in a world with boundaries and borders, which means we have to pay careful attention to who those borders benefit—who gets to have life and who doesn’t as a result of them,” said Beaudoin, the association’s president and an associate professor in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE).

“Practical theology in particular has a responsibility to be part of the living experiences of the neighborhood—to find out what brings joy and pain in the local environment, and how those are connected to the larger world… This starts with symbolically and literally going outside of the gates.”

Tuff City is an art supply store and tattoo and piercing parlor that also houses a professional recording studio. Street artists from around the world are drawn to its backyard graffiti lot, where they paint over its walls on a daily basis.

“Not engaging with and serving the neighborhood—including the arts—is to all of our detriment,” Beaudoin said. “There are resources to be shared, [and]this is a relationship that could be life-giving on both sides and utterly essential to the mission of this University.”

In addition to giving association scholars from around the country a glimpse of the Bronx, Tuff City provided an apt milieu for a talk by alumna Tamara Henry, PhD, GRE ’14, an assistant professor of religious education at New York Theological Seminary.

Against a backdrop of a graffiti murals and life-sized replicas of subway trains, Henry offered an introduction to the world of hip-hop and how urban art—including rap music, DJing, graffiti art, and breakdancing—pertains to the world of practical theology.

“Hip-hop is an art form that is hewn out of hardship—specifically, the hardships of young people in the 1970s and 80s living in the throes of postindustrial economic and social distress,” said Henry, who is the youth minister at Lenox Road Baptist Church in Brooklyn.

“These art forms become a way in which young people can ignite resistance to the moral and social ills that are plaguing their community … whether it’s pervasive forms of housing discrimination, racial discrimination, unemployment, or the dwindling quality of education systems.”

Hip-hop can serve as a pedagogical resource to illuminate themes relevant to both theology and hip-hop, such as “speaking from the margins, speaking truth to power, and contesting injustice,” Henry said.

The art form can also provide religious educators a window to their students’ world, Henry said, helping them to better understand how urban adolescents and young adults relate to their social and religious environments.

“Hip-hop has become a grammar of young people all across the nation,” she said. “We can begin to view it as an equally meaningful avenue through which religious identity is being formed and through which a new approach to religious education can be engaged.”

The conference initiated what Beaudoin hopes to become an ongoing partnership with Tuff City.

“They are interested in working with students to teach them about urban art, and I’d like to find ways to support and appreciate the Tuff City artistry within our gates and to deepen the partnership Fordham has with our neighborhood,” he said.

“There is a lot to engage with, not only around religion but also other aspects— art, urban life, racial diversity and justice, and local economic issues.”

“Migration has been part of the story of New York City for centuries, and it’s also a powerful image for what is both rich and conflictual about the city,” said Beaudoin, an associate professor of religion in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

“We’ll be looking at all kinds of migration—forced and chosen migrations across borders, migrations through the prison system, migration into and out of religions, migrations through the journey of faith and spirituality—and asking how we are contributing to life in places where migration is happening. There are many ways to relate to this topic, but what’s most important is that people’s lives and livelihoods are at the center of it.”

The lived experience of real people is the central concern of practical theology, said Beaudoin. Rather than focusing exclusively on ideas and concepts, practical theologians study how religions and theologies directly and indirectly influence people’s actions, experiences, and practices.

“We see theology as interventionist,” Beaudoin said. “We do theology because we want to facilitate life and facilitate deeper or renewed practices in different environments.”

Many of the conference sessions will explore the intersection of practical theology with critical contemporary issues, such the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. A plenary session on this topic will feature a panel of speakers that includes BLM activist Darnell Moore and Rev. John Vaughan, executive vice president of Auburn Theological Seminary and a leader in the BLM movement.

“The idea is to ask how the effects of your theology honor the lived witness of the BLM movement,” Beaudoin said. “Whether you’re doing religious education for second graders or systematic theology for the university, how is your theology helping to realize these goods?”

Conference participants will also have the opportunity to head across Fordham Road to Tuff City Styles, where alumna Tamara Henry, PhD, GRE ’14, will discuss urban art, religious education, and practical theology. In conjunction with Henry’s talk, graphic artists at Tuff City will be revamping the APT logo in the style of graffiti art.

“This is a way to connect the study of religion at Fordham and the neighborhood we’re in,” Beaudoin said. “That’s very important to me.”

Registration for the biennial conference is open now through March 10. Visit the conference website to learn more and to register.