Today is the final day of the 57th Annual Convention of the College Theology Society. Several of us contributors and a number of friends and colleagues have attended a number of excellent papers (of course, some were not so excellent). This year’s theme has been “They Shall Be Called Children of God: Violence, Transformation, and the Sacred.” The National Catholic Reporter has provided (and will provide more in the coming days) some coverage of it. Overall, some 260 persons were registered for the convention. Plenary talks were given by William T. Cavanaugh (“Violence Religious and Secular: Questioning the Categories”), M. Shawn Copeland (“God Among the Ruins: Companion and Co-Sufferer”), James T. Logan (an African-American Mennonite theologian whose book on prisons and punishment I reviewed for Christian Century; he offered a great response to Copeland’s talk), and Todd David Whitmore (“Theology as Gospel Mimesis: Lessons from a Conflict Zone”). During a fourth plenary, “Alive Man Walking: One Person’s Story of Exoneration from Death Row,” Shujaa Graham, of the Witness to Innocence Project, movingly shared his story of being on–and released from–death row with us. During the banquet last night, Peter Steinfels and Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, who were honored with the CTS Presidential Award, also spoke. Afterwards, during the CTS Celebration that began at 9:30 p.m. and included music and singing (a tradition here), a number of us stayed up late reflecting on all that we experienced, and we discussed the future of CTS (and the many opportunities for us to have an active role in it). If you (my colleagues in theology) have never been to an annual convention of CTS, I encourage you to check us out. Next year (May 31 to June 3, 2012) the annual convention will be held at Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.