Get to know Mairo and Emily, who started Dinner Church in 2024 as a place where people from all backgrounds, cultures, and traditions could gather around a warm meal. Together, we are exploring what it means to be authentic, spiritual, loving human beings in our modern world.
Mairo
Mairo Anthony is a Nigerian theologian and an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church. Rooted in pastoral ministry, her theological work brings faith into dialogue with lived experience, community, and social realities. She is concluding her doctoral research in the Protestant Theological Faculty, Interdisciplinary Studies in Theology and Religion, at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, focusing on women, patriarchy, and the development of Christocentric gender relations in the Nigerian context, with insights relevant beyond Africa, including the German context. As a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, she is committed to the well-being of women and children and to fostering just and healing relationships in church and society. A gifted storyteller, she understands the Bible as the unfolding story of God’s loving relationship with humanity and affirms the God-given dignity of every person.
Emily
Emily grew up in the United States and studied theology in Ohio, Boston, Oxford, and Reutlingen before earning her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Munich in 2019. She is a local pastor in the United Methodist Church. Her passion is fighting the isolation of digital modern life by bringing people together for meaningful gatherings, both secular and churchy. She loves long tables with lots of chairs, sharing experimental (vegan) meals, and deep conversations with humans of all stripes. Her theological interests include progressive ecclesiology, environmental theology, Buddhist/Christian interreligious dialogue, and the evolving relationship between faith and technology. She is working on a book about remaining deeply spiritual and authentically human in a world dominated by artificial intelligence (the book is progressing, alas, at a very human pace—probably because she refuses to let ChatGPT write it for her). Emily has a day job at a big IT company, raises two smart and brave daughters, pursues a handful of academic side projects, and tends a kale-forward vegetable garden.