2026 Allen Lecture
Dinner and Annual Allen Lecture
featuring Rev. Dr. Damien W. D. Davis
Grief that has nowhere to go doesn't disappear — it becomes rage, and rage, rightly held, can become sacred. Drawing on his book Sacred Rage: Love That Didn't Die With Them, Rev. Dr. Damien W.D. Davis traces a pastoral journey that began behind prison walls and led to the bedsides of children's hospitals. Along the way, he discovered that lament, anger, and love are not opposites to be managed but companions to be honored — whether ministering to men serving out sentences or families sitting vigil beside a hospital bed. This lecture explores sacred rage as a working pastoral theology: a framework for meeting people in their darkest, most confined moments — literal and otherwise — without rushing them toward premature comfort. Rooted in the Black prophetic tradition and shaped by years of clinical chaplaincy, Davis offers both a theological argument and a practical model for chaplains, pastors, and caregivers who want to sit faithfully with rage instead of silencing it.
Rev. Dr. Damien W.D. Davis, DMin, MDiv, is a chaplain at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and an ordained Baptist minister who teaches Bible classes at Trinity United Church of Christ and co-leads the Emmaus grief group. He holds a DMin from McCormick Theological Seminary (Hunt Prize recipient) and is completing Board Certification as a chaplain. His decade-plus of clinical chaplaincy spans correctional, hospice, adult acute care, and pediatric settings, including Stateville Correctional Center and Franciscan Health. He is author of Sacred Rage: Love That Didn't Die With Them (Wipf & Stock) and writes on the Black church's prophetic response to AI and pastoral care. Learn more at soulsync.sale.
Made possible by an endowed fund from Winnetka Congregational Church, the Allen Lectures stimulate thoughtful dialogue around strategies for—and practical applications of—effective pastoral care.