Charlie Platt (M.Div. 24’) is a 2023 awardee for the International Ministry Study Grants. Charlie’s title for the 2023 IMG project is “Lay Buddhist Communities and Buddhist-Christian Dual-Belonging in Oaxaca, Mexico.”

What's next for you?

After graduating this spring I'll be pursuing direct service roles in social work and/or spiritual care. I'm especially interested in group/community facilitation in mental health and spiritual life settings—I find these spaces to have a vitally important role for health and can have a transformative impact on people's lives. 

Why study religion?

I believe studying religion gets to the core of what is most important in life—exploring our values, beliefs and how best to use our lifetimes. In divinity school I've been able to learn about how generations of people have considered these questions through the history of our religious traditions. This has given me a much wider lens for considering how to regard my own questions and in my support of others with their questions. 

What was an interesting or valuable thing you learned during your IMG project?

My project centered on exploring how a particular cultural location (southern Mexico) impacts the consideration of the philosophies and practices of a religious tradition that originated in a different part of the world (Buddhism). By doing so, I got to see how the dialogue of these factors creates a whole new interpretation of religious customs. This process gave me a new lens on my own cultural location and how it interacts with traditions from other parts of the world. 

Charlie is a 3rd year MDiv student specializing in the study of Theravada Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist-Christian dialogue and new spiritual communities in the US which support the secular and untraditionally religious/spiritual. He previously received a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Minnesota in 2020.