Mercy Seminar 2026
Peace at the Last:
The meaning of life in light of death
With Father David Peck
and Professor Randall Zachman
Entirely on Zoom
In its seventh year, the 2026 Mercy Seminar will explore what different faith traditions can teach us about living our best life and dying our best death. How can the certainty of death help create focus and deepen gratitude rather than increase depression and anxiety? Is death really “nothing at all” or “a simple turning out of the lights”, or “the gate to eternal life”?
Exploring short selected readings of sacred Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures as well as recent secular spiritual writing, we will find in contemplative practices in our well-established Zoom format a remarkably intimate coast-to-coast community.
In the first term, we will focus on Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of birth and death and how one can escape the inherent suffering in the cycle of birth and death.
In term two, we will focus on the emergence of Jewish and Muslim theologies of resurrection and the world to come.
In term three, we will focus on Christian understandings of resurrection and eternal life.
Using contemplative practices, we will seek to come to an empathetic understanding of the hopes and visions of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the land of Israel/Palestine. Our goal is to develop in a contemplative way, a deeper understanding of and sensitivity towards these contested perspectives so that we all might pray for the peace of Jerusalem with greater spiritual understanding and compassion.
Classes meet on six consecutive Thursday evenings via Zoom from 7:00 to 8:30 PM EST. Each term stands alone but, when taken together, offers a layered understanding as our knowledge of the issues increases. All sessions are recorded and available to participants for asynchronous viewing.
Term 1, February 19 - March 26, 2026
Each session will be recorded in Zoom and available for viewing for those who have completed their registration.
Cost: $75/term, includes access to course readings, recorded sessions for
asynchronous viewing, instructor office hours and podcasts.
Scholarships are available; please email Nancy LeVasseur for more information.
A Mercy Seminar ParticipantEach weekly meeting and lecture with you and Father David has truly given me a totally new outlook and peace towards my daily life as well as my ongoing thoughts of where we are and how we became and what we are to be in our lives.
Happily I will never see things the same way again.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and making these seminars not only working towards enlightening us but making it fun.
Father David Peck
The Rev. David W. Peck is the twenty-third rector of Saint James. Prior to his arrival in 2008 from the United Kingdom, he served the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at Lambeth Palace as his Secretary for International Development. In this role he focused on building partnerships with church leaders, UN agencies and international non-governmental organizations in order to provide food and education in post-conflict zones in sub-Saharan Africa.
Born in Indiana, David was educated in the United States and England, earning his Theology and Ministry degrees from Cambridge University and Westcott House.
David’s prior peace building and reconciliation work led him to study in Jerusalem in 2013. There he began a new focus on how the rich theology of mercy could help Jews, Christians and Muslims explore their own and each other’s texts and traditions more deeply.
His work in Africa and the Middle East and his completion of a 30-day Ignatian silent retreat at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, PA drew him more deeply into the practice of contemplative prayer. Since then he has taught meditation in school, hospital, hospice and prison settings. He lives with his wife Dr. Cordelia Moyse, a church historian, and their daughter.
Prof. Randall Zachman
Randall Zachman is Professor Emeritus of Reformation Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in theology for twenty-six years, and is currently an adjunct instructor in theology at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is a lifelong Episcopalian. Randall received his undergraduate degree in religion at Colgate University, his Master of Divinity at Yale Divinity School, and his PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
He is the author and editor of several books on Martin Luther and John Calvin, and has also published articles and chapters on the theology of Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth. He has spent his career teaching the history of Christian theology, including seminars on the Old and New Testaments.
For the past fifteen years, he has been a member of the International Theology Conference at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem in which Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars study and dialogue together. He lives in Lancaster with his wife, The Rev. Dr. Carrie Call, who is the Transitional Conference Minister of the Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ. Their son Johnny lives in Austin, Texas.
The Urban Well is a registered trademark of Saint James Episcopal Church.
