Vantage Summer 2017

VANTAGE C O L U M B I A

T H E O L O G I C A L

SUMMER

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S E M I N A R Y

TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES PART THREE OF COLUMBIA’S 3-PART MISSION

VANTAGE

P O I N T

“IT SEEMED GOOD TO THE HOLY SPIRIT AND TO US” TO BE TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES A WORD FROM OUR PRESIDENT

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WONDERFUL STORY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS PORTRAYS THE THIRD OF OUR KEY MISSION THEMES, TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES. Perhaps you remember the story of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, where the early church struggled together about how to solve the issue of Gentile inclusion in the church.

Some leaders wanted Gentile converts to comply with all the traditional Jewish laws. Other leaders insisted that this was not necessary. The controversy was solved in favor of gracious hospitality. And so the leaders went out to all the surrounding communities with the news of welcome and acceptance. The story includes an exquisite little detail that the leaders reported to the communities, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” that no additional rules and regulations Dr. Leanne Van Dyk be imposed on new Gentile Christian PRESIDENT believers.

This lovely line conveys the central affirmation that the Christian church—and a Presbyterian seminary—always follows a path that God has already laid out. The Holy Spirit is already out ahead of us. We are following with discernment and diligence. And the way the Holy Spirit works, it almost seems like we are moving together. “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” is one way of explaining the meaning of Transforming Communities.

Columbia Theological Seminary is committed to preparing leaders for the sake of the church and the world. We are faithful when we invite students on a path of Encountering God and when we take seriously our task of Cultivating Leaders.

But we are so aware that our third mission theme for the transformation of communities is a task we cannot begin to claim as our own. Rather, we participate in what God is doing.

This past weekend, I preached at Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, a congregation in a city of striking contrasts. There are, of course, the powerful and influential in our nation’s capital. And then there are the homeless, including 2

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many with food insecurity and mental illnesses. This church, pastored by an alumna of Columbia Seminary and a Board of Trustees member, the Rev. Dr. Laura Cunningham, seeks to be an agent of transformation in that community. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to this congregation to be long-time supporters of Miriam’s Kitchen, a ministry that addresses the problems of homelessness. In the last five years, this ministry has worked to address the root causes of homelessness, not just provide a warm bed for a night or two. As a result of deep, systemic work, the homeless population in the city of Washington, DC has decreased by nearly 20%. Here is one example of a faithful congregation seeking to transform communities. This is a key part of Columbia Seminary’s mission ­— to train our students to write another story like this one, and another, and another.

Then there is the story of the Rev. Billy Honor, another Trustee at the seminary, who has planted a vibrant new congregation in the heart of Atlanta, in a community of racial and ethnic diversity and economic disparities. Convinced that the city needs a voice of social action in the name of Jesus Christ, the Rev. Honor and his team reach out to the neighborhood and make perfectly clear that all people are welcome. Billy would certainly say, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” to welcome those who are often rejected.

The three mission themes that I have introduced to you in this and previous Vantage issues­—Encountering God, Cultivating Leaders, Transforming Communities—are enough to get us up in the morning at Columbia Seminary. We are committed to participating in God’s goals of healing and reconciliation in the world that God so loves. We invite you to continue to pray for us and support us as we all create new stories of faithfulness to the call of God. Many Blessings,

Leanne Van Dyk

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IN THIS ISSUE DEPARTMENTS

VANTAGE POINT

pg 2

HYPERFOCUS: NEW CTS MEDIA

pg 21

REASONABLE SERVICE

pg 22

LIFELONG LEARNING

pg 25

TAUTA PANTA

pg 31

NEWS FROM COLUMBIA

pg 31

ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES

pg 34

FACULTY & STAFF

pg 37

BEST OF THE BLOG

pg 42

VANTAGE / VOL. 109, NO. 3 SUMMER 2017

EDITORS

Dr. Leanne Van Dyk, President, along with Dr. Erskine Clarke, Professor Emeritus of American Religious History (see story on page 9).

Michael K. Thompson Corie Cox

DESIGN

Lucy Ke

PHOTOGRAPHY

Michael K. Thompson Buz Wilcoxon MDiv ’08/DMin ’15

FEATURE

TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES PART THREE OF COLUMBIA’S 3-PART MISSION PG

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REFLECTING, WORKING, AND TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES FOR GOOD

Voices from the CTS campus reflect with insights and ideas THE PRESBYTERIAN HERITAGE TOUR

With Professor Erskine Clarke

CONTRIBUTORS

Jess Adams Mary Lynn Darden Sarah Erickson ’03/DEdMin ’10 Alexia Ford MDiv/MAPT ’18 Israel Galindo Steven Miller Kihyun Park ’19 Marcia Y. Riggs Valrie Thompson Leanne Van Dyk Debra Weir Buz Wilcoxon MDiv ’08/DMin ’15 William Yoo

TRANSFORMATIVE RECONCILERS: LIVING INTO TENSIONS

What does it take to be a reconciling community?

This issue of VANTAGE is available online at www.ctsnet.edu.

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REFLECTING, WORKING, AND TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES FOR GOOD B Y A L E X I A F O R D M D I V/M A P T ’ 18

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HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF THE WORD “TRANSFORMING” AS INCREASING DEVELOPMENT FROM ONE STATE TO AN EVEN BETTER ONE—A WAY OF IMPROVING. BUT THAT IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. In the Bible, transformation means “change or renewal from a life that no longer conforms to the ways of the world, but to one that pleases God” (Romans 12: 2).

This is accomplished by the renewing of our minds, an inward spiritual transformation that will manifest itself in outward actions. The Bible presents the transformed life in Christ as demonstrated through our “bearing fruit in every good work growing in the knowledge of God.” Transforming involves those who were once far from God being “drawn near” to God through the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13).

Transformation takes place inwardly and outwardly. There are transformations that can be seen and other transformations that cannot be seen—or can they? If someone’s heart is truly transformed, then others should be able to tell by their actions, right? So, does a community have a heart? Does a community act as one body with its purpose being a common heartbeat in the way it functions?

When I think of community, my mind instantly goes to those persons, businesses, schools, churches that surround my home. There can even be a community within a community; where I live is surrounded by diverse cultures, faith expressions, and personal narratives. My neighbors include a single white female and a family from South Korea. We are a part of a bigger community called the Village, which in turn is part of the Columbia Theological Seminary family.

After reflecting on my community, I think, “Does transforming a community mean that there is something wrong with its current state that deems the need for change? What does transformation have to do with our relationship with Christ?

What fruit is Columbia Seminary bearing? More importantly, what does it mean to transform a community?”

I had the privilege of interviewing some of my friends and professors who gave me their perspectives:

Sarah McLean, MDiv/MAPT ’18.

Transformation has to come from the inside in order to effect a change on the outside.

Transformation of a community has to come from the top.

“It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.” [Psalm 133:2-3] Therefore, it is from the head where the blessings stem — the leadership within a community is responsible for its transformation.

Khayla Johnson, MDiv ’19.

Transforming a community is working from within, and not specifically from within the inner group, but within each person.

We understand that if we want to be a community, then we will have to work on our relationships with one another, not just a few people working, but from that community as a whole.

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DeShun Kilgore, MDiv ’17.

Community means common thread and common ground, before one calls itself a community.

Transformation is taking something that looks one way and transitioning to where other people can see that it has changed, in a positive way.

Matthew Connor, MDiv ’17.

There is a tension between tradition and change.

Transformations require the work of all parties involved, meaning the whole community. The transformation of a community should have a “Kingdom of God” effect. It should infiltrate others to assess community relationships, talk about them and trust that God is working in the transformative process.

Sam Turpen, MDiv ’19.

In order for our community to really be transformed, we have to be intentional about it. We have to decide why it needs to be transformed. If you live next to people you can say you’re living in community which is close proximity to someone else, but that doesn’t mean you’re intentional about being in community.

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Katie Ricks, MDiv’02 and Associate Director of Vocational Services and Student Life.

A transformed community is a place where the real conversations take place. There’s not an assumption of agreement, but there is an assumption that we are all followers of Jesus Christ and that we are talking about the issues at hand. The best way of talking about any particular conversation or any point of tension has to happen among those groups, rather than within this group. Things have to change every year, but you have to have a grounding which would establish a core of morals and values of an institution.

Leslie Cox, MDiv ’18.

Transforming community is when individuals truly become transformed, not just an inner transformation, but they are transformed by the people around them. I begin to change and grow by hearing other voices, which are becoming a new form of identity and being transformed. The more I get to know other people and hear their stories, I start to change slowly.

Dr. William Yoo, Assistant Professor of American Religious and Cultural History.

Jesus did call out both individual sins and what we know as systemic or institutional or historic sins. So he would go and tell people, for example the Pharisees, that they as leaders are missing the mark, abusing or misusing their power. He would cleanse the temple and do these really bold and courageous things, sometimes not the easiest things. In addition, he taught the disciples and he taught the crowd that followed him that the world they were living in is not the world that God created for them. Jesus acted, he taught, but in addition to that he dined with people and loved people and he spent time with people. So in order to promote transformation and advocate change, whether it be locally in our seminary community, in Atlanta, nationally, or globally, it takes all of these things. We have to act faithfully and justly.

We need to teach and inform, and we need to do it in accessible ways. We have to know our audience. It’s not just earning credibility, but it’s listening well and building relationships with people both in and around community.

(See story and photos of Dr. Yoo on our trip to Stillman College, page 22).

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Dr. Marcia Riggs, J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics.

We often immediately think about the need for transformation only when something has gone overtly wrong. But I also think that transformation must be about how we enhance and enlarge our thinking about who we are as we carry on our lives daily. This way of thinking about transformation is more than saying, “We’re going to transform the community because it’s totally an unjust place, and we are going to make the community into something entirely new.” That kind of transformation is necessary sometimes, but I think that understanding transformation solely in that way limits us. I would like to encourage us to think of transformation as a process of awakening.

Transformation as awakening is about noticing that there is a dormant or latent capacity for change within the community that is happening around the edges as members of the community engage. Therefore, transformation emerges from the edges when everyone looks at each other forthrightly and grapples for ways to enhance communal attitudes and values for the sake of becoming more fully aware and interconnected day in and day out. It can be difficult sometimes for people who are already in a community to step back and listen so that transformation can happen as a matter of daily life. Because we have been living in proximity as community, we begin to think that we all share the same attitudes and values about our common life. Therefore, it is critical that each member of the community believes that it is safe to speak and be heard about what needs to change. Of course, once we are actually talking and listening to one another, the hard part is moving from talking and listening to actually living out our ideas for transformation.

(See story about “Transformative Reconcilers” by Dr. Riggs, page 15).

So, being in a different environment and being around diverse people allows room for growth and change. In order for a community to be transformed, that community must have a basic knowledge of who they are and have standing morals, values, and principles. These are subject to change based on who we are as members of the community. Everyone agreed that transformation of a community is difficult, continuous, and does not happen overnight. All parties need to be involved and the powers that be will need to be willing to sit at “the table” and have difficult conversations, be vulnerable, and embrace the tensions in love.

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THE PRESBYTERIAN HERITAGE TOUR WITH PROFESSOR ERSKINE CLARKE S T O R Y A N D P H O T O S B Y B U Z W I L C O X O N M D I V ’ 08, D M I N ’ 15

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HIS SPRING I HAD THE WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PRESBYTERIAN HERITAGE TOUR SPONSORED

BY COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. Professor Emeritus Dr. Erskine Clarke led us through historical sites in the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia that were significant for Reformed communities during the colonial and antebellum eras. For many years I had seen this trip advertised but had not been able to attend. Finally, it was my chance to go on a pilgrimage through the ages with a trusted guide and community of fellow pilgrims. Many members of Spring Hill Presbyterian Church (where I serve as pastor) expressed interest in the trip but were not able to attend. So, as a way of including them in this journey, I posted Facebook updates in the form of a travel log from each location that we visited. What follows are versions of those posts adapted for the broader CTS community.

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April 24: Our first

stop was a delicious lunch at the Washington Street Presbyterian Church in Dublin, GA. This strong AfricanAmerican Presbyterian congregation has made significant sacrifices in order to minister to children living amidst poverty and poor education in their neighborhood. Their clerk of session, the amazing Lois Stroman, was our gracious host.

We then went to Midway Congregational Church in Liberty County, GA, founded in 1754 by New England Puritans. This classic example of a meeting house was beautiful in its starkness and intentional simplicity. Called the most important church in Georgia

history, this congregation produced many governors, signers of the Declaration of Independence, scientists, statesmen, and many pastors — including the founder of Columbia Theological Seminary, Dr. Thomas Goulding. It is the church featured in the books Children of Pride and Dwelling Place. In the sanctuary the plantation owners sat downstairs in pews with doors on them, and the slaves sat upstairs in the balcony.

Next, we went to Dorchester Academy in Midway, GA, founded in 1871 as a school for African-American children in the Reconstruction era. It was partially funded by the American Missionary Association.

It closed its doors in 1940, but it now thrives as a community center and museum for preserving the rich African-American history of this region. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to this area, he would stay at the Academy. After his last visit, the staff found a Bible open on the table in his room from his studies the night before. They have kept the Bible in the same place and open to the same page as it was when Dr. King was reading from First Corinthians.

April 25: We started this morning at First African Baptist Church in Savannah, GA, the oldest continuous African-American congregation in the United States. It was originally organized in 1773, and the church building was built entirely by slaves at night time in the 1850s. Although the slaves had been given permission to build the building, it was illegal at the time for slaves to build with brick, and so the pastor of the church was publicly whipped as punishment.

The ceiling in the sanctuary reflects the “nine patch”

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pattern in quilting which was used as a coded symbol for safety throughout the Underground Railroad. They built spaces underneath the floors where runaway slaves could hide. You can still see the holes drilled on the floor that were used to allow those hiding to breathe.

The organ in the sanctuary is the oldest continually used pipe organ in the state of Georgia. When they installed stain glass windows, they used the biblical image of the Temple curtain torn in two to symbolize no division between black and white worshipers.

We then went to the Laurel Grove Cemetery which is built on land that was previously the Springfield rice plantation. In the middle of the cemetery is a large oak tree that used to be the “whipping tree” where slaves were punished.

There are marks on the tree that were made by whips repeatedly hitting the trunk over time. We also went to a part of downtown Savannah where slaves were kept as they awaited being sold in the markets. Being close enough to touch these marks of pain and dehumanizing cruelty was a powerful and haunting experience.

Next, we went to First Presbyterian Church of Savannah, GA, founded in 1827 by 13 members who left Independent Presbyterian Church when it refused to join the Presbytery of Georgia. One of the charter members, an elder at the church, was Lowell Mason, the great American hymn tune writer. Early pastors of the church included Charles Colcock Jones and Benjamin Morgan Palmer. Their present sanctuary was built in 1956.

Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah was founded in 1755 by the Dissenters from the Church of England, which was the established church of the colony of Georgia. Although it was involved in the life and leadership of the larger Presbyterian Church it maintained its independence and never officially joined any presbytery, so its polity functions at a congregational level. Throughout its history, most of its pastors have come from mainstream Presbyterianism, but its recent pastors have come from the Presbyterian Church in America. It was in this church that Woodrow Wilson married his first wife, the granddaughter of the pastor. The members of the church session sit on the very front row for worship, and their terms of service will last for life.

In my free time I made a quick stop

by Christ Church (Episcopal), giving thanks for Episcopalian and Methodist friends.

This is the oldest church in the state of Georgia. Both John Wesley and George Whitfield served as pastors during the colonial era.

Finally, we had an amazing evening at the Pin Point Heritage Museum. This Gullah/Geechee community was founded when former slaves and sharecroppers moved away from island plantations and started a small fishing village along the Moon River. They thrived from harvesting oyster, shrimp, and especially blue crab.

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The businesses closed decades ago, and the population is now dwindling, but their sense of community and memory is still strong. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was born and raised here. After touring the museum, we ate a delicious Low Country boil dinner outside as the sun set on the marsh. The importance of this whole trip was expressed in a statement by our tour guide: “A people without a sense of their history is like a tree without roots.”

April 26: We started the new day at Edisto

Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island, SC, officially organized in 1866 but with roots going back to the colonial era when slaves worshipped at the Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island. After the Civil War, the white church members returned to the church and told the freed black worshipers that they would still have to sit in the balcony and would not be represented on the session. So they left to start their own church. We had a wonderful lunch hosted by the Presbyterian Women, and we received a spirited welcome from their interim pastor, Dr. Charles Hayward.

We also heard about an old slave cabin that people continued to live in until recent decades. The cabin was recently disassembled and moved to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, where it was reassembled. We met a woman who actually grew up in that cabin as a girl.

The Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island is one of the oldest Presbyterian congregations in South Carolina with roots as far back as 1685. The present sanctuary was built in 1830. They have a beautiful old sanctuary with

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a very high central pulpit. The planter William Seabrook was a prominent member who financed the building of the sanctuary. During the Civil War, Northern troops disassembled the original pipe organ intending to melt its metal down for ammunition. When the Confederate troops saw what was happening, they sank the barge that was carrying the pipes into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Church grounds include a very old cemetery and a Session House where their elders met.

Then we went to St. James Presbyterian Church on James Island in Charleston, SC, one of the largest African-American congregations in the Presbyterian Church (USA). It grew out of the community of slaves who had been members of the James Island Presbyterian Church after emancipation. The early ministers of the church were instrumental in starting schools to teach African-American children, the first such schools on the island. We were warmly welcomed by their interim pastor, Dr. David Wallace, former dean of the Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary.

We heard one elder of the Church tell us the strong history of their congregation, and we also were treated to wonderful and engaging Gullah storytelling by another elder.

April 27: We started the day at Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston, which was organized by Scots-Irish members in 1809. This was one of the most important churches for Southern Presbyterians during the antebellum era. Its pastor for 40 years was Dr. Thomas Smyth, who owned the

second largest personal library in the United States and later sold his library to Columbia Theological Seminary.

Dr. Smyth also was the organizer of the Presbyterian Historical Society. The Smyth Lectures at CTS and Smyth dorm at Presbyterian College are both named after him, and his son Ellison Adger Smyth was the founder of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Greenville, SC. This beautiful old sanctuary is lined with an avenue of oaks in front—a bit imposing now—but quite indicative of the worldview of its original worshippers.

Some of us visited the Circular Congregational Church, which began in 1681 when Dissenters from the Church of England organized their own “independent meeting house” in opposition to the official state church (Anglican) of the colony of South Carolina.

Meeting Street in Charleston received its name because of this meeting house. The first worshippers included English Puritans, Scottish Presbyterians, and French Huguenots who all worshipped together. This was another extremely important congregation in the Colonial Era in the South and played a significant role in the First Great Awakening. While it existed as a Congregationalist church, for most of its history it has been served by many Presbyterian pastors.

We also went to First (Scots) Presbyterian Church, which began in 1731 when 12 Scottish families left the Circular Congregationalist Church and went less than a mile down Meeting Street to found their own Presbyterian congregation following the pattern of the Church of Scotland. For the first decades of the church’s history, it did not join the Presbytery of Charleston, and its ministers, all of whom were from Scotland, maintained their membership in the Presbytery of Edinburgh. During the Revolutionary War, nearly all the members of this church were Royalists who supported England, and after the war their pastor left the country. (By contrast, nearly all the members of the Circular Congregationalist Church had

been Patriots supporting independence.) Their present church building was built in 1814. The stained glass window depicting the resurrection is an original Tiffany glasswork. We were fortunate to spend time with their interim pastor, the Rev. Joseph Harvard, on his last day of service at the church.

A personal highlight of the trip was getting to visit the French Huguenot Church in Charleston, SC. In the last couple of years, I learned about French Huguenots named DuBose in my own ancestry. I searched the historic graveyard, but wasn’t able to find any DuBoses there. This is the only active Huguenot congregation in the United States. It follows a Calvinist liturgy dating back for centuries but adapted to fit the unique Low Country context. Our tour guide made sure to mention three times that their service only lasts for 45 minutes and includes a 12 minute sermon. This is important so that everyone worshiping can have lunch together each week. Every week the opening hymn at the beginning of worship is sung in French.

The most emotionally moving part of this trip was meeting with the Rev. Anthony Thompson, Vicar of Holy Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church in Charleston. His wife Myra Thompson was leading the Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church, when she was murdered along with eight others, in June, 2015, a horrific event that shook our whole nation to its core. Reverend Thompson spoke to us about his own experiences that night and in the months

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that followed. The central message he shared with us was about the healing power of forgiveness. At the bond hearing for Dylann Roof, the Rev. Thompson felt moved by God to stand up, walk to face his wife’s killer, and tell him, “I forgive you, and my whole family forgives you!” There was not a dry eye in the room as we heard his story. After the talk, I walked over to see Mother Emanuel AME Church for myself. I placed my hand on the outside wall of the church and thought and prayed about the pain and tragedy that occurred within those walls and the ministry of reconciliation that this congregation is leading in the city, state, and nation. “Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers!”

April 28: We visited the childhood home of President Woodrow Wilson in Columbia, SC. Wilson’s father and uncle were both professors at Columbia Theological Seminary during the days of Reconstruction. His father eventually left the seminary over a dispute about where students were allowed to worship. The Historic Columbia organization now runs the home as a marvelous museum about Woodrow Wilson, and it is the first museum in the country devoted to telling the story of Reconstruction.

We had lunch and a moving devotional in the carriage house of the Robert Mills House in Columbia, SC. When this property was the old campus of Columbia Theological Seminary (before moving to Decatur, GA in the mid-1920s), the faculty decided to convert the carriage house into the school chapel—a decision they defended on the grounds that Jesus was born in a stable. It was in this chapel that Woodrow Wilson made his profession of faith and that Winthrop 14

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University began. After the seminary moved to Georgia they gave the original chapel to Winthrop University, located in Rock Hill, SC where it still stands. The current building is a historical replica of the original carriage house, converted to host events.

The last stop on our Presbyterian Heritage Tour was the old campus of Columbia Theological Seminary in Columbia, SC. The building was designed by the federal architect, Robert Mills, who also designed the Washington Monument.

This mansion was built as a family residence, but served as the home of the seminary for much of its first century. The main floor was used as classrooms and a faculty lounge. After receiving the Thomas Smyth Library from Charleston, the entire upstairs of the building became the seminary’s library. Originally, the bottom floor was living space for students, but as the school grew those rooms served many other purposes. Later, buildings were added to the seminary’s campus, including two dormitories (Simons and Law) and a refectory. Those buildings have since been torn down, and now the main building is the only one still standing from the original campus. After the seminary moved its location to Decatur, GA, the property went through various other institutions including Chicora College which eventually became Queens University in Charlotte, NC. The building came to be owned by the city in 1961 as a historical site called the Robert Mills House. It is now a beautiful museum devoted to South Carolina history, but one of the rooms contains an exhibit telling the early history of Columbia Theological Seminary, including a video of our own Dr. Erskine Clarke!

T R A N S F OR M AT I V E R EC ON C I L E R S : LIVING INTO TENSIONS W H AT D OE S I T TA K E T O B E A RECONCILING COMMUNITY? B Y M A R C I A Y. R I G G S , J . E R S K I N E L O V E P R O F E S S O R O F C H R I S T I A N E T H I C S

Dr. Marcia Y. Riggs was named a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology for 2017-2018. This article was originally delivered as a lecture to the CTS community during African American History Month 2017.

© 2001 Marcia Y. Riggs Please do not copy, reproduce, or distribute without written permission.

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HIS IMAGE REPRESENTS A CONSCIOUSNESS, A WORLDVIEW, A WAY OF LIFE, A WAY OF BEING AND DOING AS A MORAL AGENT THAT I HAVE BEEN COMMITTING TO INTENTIONALLY, DAY-IN-AND-DAY-OUT, FOR AT LEAST THE LAST 16 YEARS. THAT IS THE TIME WHEN I DREAMED THE IMAGE, THE PROCESS, AND THE NAME FOR THE PROCESS, RELIGIOUS ETHICAL MEDIATION (REM), INTO CONSCIOUSNESS. It has taken some time for me to embrace my dream of REM as an epistle from God than can benefit community. I continue to grapple to live as a religious ethical mediator and reimagine how I teach, how I do ministry, how I live religious ethical mediation. So, I share my REM dream for the benefit of this community. I do not offer these insights because I think they are right, but as an invitation to dwell in the space where the ethical emerges, in the overlap between deception and moral courage, caught up by the Holy Spirit during this dialogical moment in time. Succinctly, I am inviting you to affirm the following: • In the omnipresence of God’s justice, sustained within our contexts, by the working of the Holy Spirit (Spirit of God), in the omnipresence of violence, energies of conflict are transformed into energies that are generative and creative.

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• Conflict presents opportunities for engagement, for intercultural encounter, for relationship.

• Conflict represents energies that can be directed for creative, generative purposes (the ethical) rather than destructive purposes (violence).

What’s at Stake?

Black feminist social critic, bell hooks, poignantly offers a critique of the moral vision of Beloved Community in her book, Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995) when she writes: Some days it is just hard to accept that racism can still be such a powerful dominating force in all our lives. When I remember all that black and white folks together have sacrificed to challenge and change white supremacy, when I remember the individuals who gave their lives to the cause of racial justice, my heart is deeply saddened that we have not fulfilled their shared dream of ending racism, of creating a new culture, a place for the beloved community. Early on in this work for civil rights long before his consciousness have been deeply radicalized by resistance to militarism and global Western imperialism, Martin Luther King imagined a beloved community where race could be transcended, forgotten, where no one could see skin color. This dream has not been realized.

From its inception, it was a flawed vision. The flaw, however, was not the imagining of beloved community; it was the insistence that such a community could exist only if we erased and forgot racial difference.

Significantly, what some may see as the genius of the vision of Beloved Community during the Civil Rights era of the late Fifties through the Sixties (an effective synthesis between the best of liberalism and Christianity) is from hooks and my point of view its flaw. The moral vision of Beloved Community premised upon a liberalism that asserts that autonomous rational individuals bound contractually to other autonomous rational individuals wedded to a Christian theological orthodoxy that asserts that we share a common, disembodied humanity, could not (and does not) sustain a movement that had (and has) to face fluid understandings of racial and ethnic identity as well as the overall shifting racial and ethnic configurations of living beyond legal racial discrimination then (and covert and symbolic domestic and global racism now).

A 2013 Pew Research Survey entitled “King’s Dream Remains an Elusive Goal; Many Americans See Racial Disparities” revealed that 49% of White, Black, and Hispanic Americans believe that a lot more needs to be done to achieve racial equality.

Likewise, a 2016 survey found:

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An overwhelming majority of blacks (88%) say the country needs to continue making changes for blacks to have equal rights with whites, but 43% are skeptical that such changes will ever occur. An additional 42% of blacks believe that the country will eventually make the changes needed for blacks to have equal rights with whites, and just 8% say the country has already made the necessary changes.

A much lower share of whites (53%) say the country still has work to do for blacks to achieve equal rights with whites, and only 11% express doubt that these changes will come. Four-in-ten whites believe the country will eventually make the changes needed for blacks to have equal rights, and about the same share (38%) say enough changes have already been made.

Today, post-election protests by a cross-section of racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups in the face of economic and political power that still rests largely with a Western white male elite confirm that our theological ethical ideal and moral vision for justice—for Beloved Community—must be grounded in an understanding of our common humanity in incarnational terms. In incarnational terms means that we must not deny, forget, or transcend our particularities and differences as part and parcel of being created in the image of God.

Socio-ethically and Theo-ethically Speaking

Asking ethical questions on incarnational terms means that the moral anthropology is no longer one that holds rationality—our ability to reason—as the earmark of what makes us human, and thus capable of discerning what the ethical requires us to be and do. The moral anthropology that asks the ethical question from the ground of incarnation as socio-historic selves, holds that it is, relationality, our need and our ability to relate to one another as embodied beings that is the earmark of what makes us human, and thus capable of being and doing ethics. Thus, it is this moral anthropology of socio-historic relationality that is at the heart of my constructive ethical theory and practice, REM. At the heart of REM is an understanding of liberation ethics as intercultural encounter. In other words, that which is constitutive of the ethical is, on one hand, intrinsic to who we have been created to be—in relationship with others—and, on the other hand, emerges as we encounter others with whom we seek or find ourselves in relationship. Intercultural encounter is therefore not simply a description of a way that we need to live out our lives in a postmodern, pluralist, multicultural world. Rather, intercultural encounter is the norm of liberation ethics.

As the basis of lived morality, intercultural encounter means that we come to discern rightness and wrongness, ideals and duties, that which is fitting and liberating as we encounter others. This is the case because it is not until we have some particular others with whom to engage that we can most fully ask: Who am I to be? Who are we to be? What am I required to do? What are we required to do? These ethical questions are focused and moral meaning is constructed in the experience of encounter.

Theologically, for me, standing within Christian tradition, this understanding of ethics is driven by a particular interpretation of the imago Dei. This interpretation stresses that the image of God in each of us must not be relegated to something

At the heart of REM is an understanding of liberation ethics as intercultural encounter . . . .

[It] is the norm of liberation ethics.

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essentially human or to a way of relating to one another that is contingent upon our ability to transcend or ignore our embodied differences. This interpretation asserts that we in all of our socio-historic, embodied differences incarnate the imago Dei. We have been created by God in God’s image and that image begins to come into full focus when we encounter one another as we seek and experience relationship.

However, because we name and know ourselves through socially constructed lenses, we frequently see and experience one another out of focus. When we see and experience one another out of focus, we attribute meaning that, in effect, annihilates our socio-historic, embodied differences and often leads us to label one another in ways that judge, dismiss, objectify, and silence. When this happens, we do harm. The harm we do is sometimes psychological or emotional; other times, physical; frequently, oppressive, manipulative, coercive or exploitative. And, the harm we do, in any of these forms, is always violence, and a culture of deception thrives as harm is inflicted.

The primary values of a culture of deception are repression and silence. As we participate in this culture, our morality is driven by these two complex, interrelated fears: (1) fear concerned with loss (of power, status, and/or privilege) and (2) fear concerned with devaluation (of being dismissed, objectified, and/or misperceived).

Here at Columbia Theological Seminary the culture of deception thrives when we as faculty fail to commit explicitly to principles, such as anti-racism, gender inclusivity, anti-ableism and eco-justice, as organizing principles of the curriculum and as guides for what and how we teach. The addition of a few sections of books or articles on a syllabus by scholars of racial, gender, and ethnic groups who are deemed the “Other” only cultivates the culture of deception as students who are members of these groups are repressed and silenced from full participation in classes. Without professional development and training that nurtures multiple and diverse multicultural competencies for teaching and learning, the seminary classroom is a place of deception where the energies of conflict are static (at best), and repressed (at worst) as teachers and students alike give into their fears. Howard Thurman, the African American theologian and mystic, in his book Jesus and the Disinherited, says: “The penalty of deception is to become a deception, with all sense of moral discrimination vitiated.” (p. 64) In Christocentric theological terms, the ground of mitigating the violence, the harm of the culture of deception, is an affirmation that the reconciliation that God effects through Christ is re-creation (e.g. II Cor 5:11-21)—in Christ we are a new creation. God creates us, and God reconciles us; creation and reconciliation meet in Christ. We are socio-historic, embodied selves who are imago Dei, who are imago Christi. Reconciled and recreated in the image of Christ (the image of God), we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. Likewise, we are called to this ministry of reconciliation by the Holy

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Spirit as described by Diana Eck in Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras.

When we use the term Holy Spirit, we mean the active, creative, energetic, mysterious, presence of the One we call God. The Spirit does not read the fine print of the prayer book or the creed. The Spirit, though she gave birth to the church, is not the possession of the church, let alone its early church fathers or its modern theologians. The Pentecost experience reminds us that the Holy Spirit is above all, a gift, fullness, and outpouring. We cannot grasp it, we can only be attentive to it, awake to it and attest to its presence.

This ministry of reconciliation is thus driven by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, and it is the energy of a culture of moral courage, giving us the power to direct energies of conflict into generative, creative ways of living together. In the space of the culture of moral courage, we live as embodied, socio-historic selves who “live into the tensions” of our intercultural encounters. In the culture of moral courage, the primary values are empathy and nonviolence. When we participate in this culture, our being and doing find expression through responsive moral agency whereby we seek, find, and engender relationship with others that supports the surviving and thriving of one another and all species of Creation.

At Columbia Theological Seminary, the culture of moral courage happens when we make space for empathy as a communication strategy to happen, and the community becomes a space where nonviolence can thrive. If violence includes physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual harms that objectify persons, then nonviolence is not only about inhibiting such harms; it is more importantly about action that exposes the harms and offers a way forward toward healing. The nature of empathy as a virtue is critical if we are to see the image of God that all of us incarnate; without empathy, we are unable to seek and find authentic relationship with one another. Empathy as a value, as a social good of institutions and society, is critical for living authentically as people of faith amid our internal ecclesial diversity and interdenominational pluralism as well as in the multi-confessional, multi-religious, multi-cultural world into which we are called.

Conclusion

. . . the culture of moral courage happens when we make space for empathy as a communication strategy to happen and the community becomes a space where nonviolence can thrive.

REM is the praxis of ethics as intercultural encounter. REM is the praxis of a theology of reconciliation. REM is about mediating the tensions (shifting the energies of conflicts, transforming the energies of conflicts) of living with others, respecting our differences, embracing our particularities. REM means we people of faith live together being and doing ministries of reconciliation.

If we here at Columbia Seminary desire to be a community of intercultural empathetic encounter, then Tradition cannot be fixated upon—rigidly authoritative, and sacred texts will not serve as proof texts for exclusivity in the name of God. We must acknowledge the traditions that we are and the multiple interpretations of sacred texts that must be the stuff of our theological dialogue here. If we here at Columbia Seminary desire to practice being a reconciling community, we must acknowledge that living together requires dialogical interpretive processing of our diverse reading of texts — sacred texts and the bio-texts of one another. If we here at Columbia Seminary desire to live into the space where the culture of deception and moral courage overlap—in SUMMER 2017 / VANTAGE /

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the space where the ethical emerges—then we must fearlessly direct the energies of conflict generatively because we are embraced by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the God who has reconciled us to Godself.

Everyone is called to be engaged in the processes of self-criticism and mutual criticism so that the community can flourish morally. Everyone must ask themselves how they are living the moral life along three moral agency axes:

. . . What does it take to be a reconciling community? . . .

We need to dream— a leap of faith— living into the tensions of our intercultural encounters . . . .

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ETHICAL AXIS Complicity ↔ Accountability ↔ Responsibility SOCIAL JUSTICE Corrective ↔ Compensatory ↔ Distributive THEOLOGICAL/SPIRITUAL Confession ↔ Forgiveness ↔ Reconciliation We all must be engaged in intentional processes of living into the tensions—tensions of ambiguity, complexity, perplexity, fear and/or ignorance of one another, into tensions of conflict in ways that those tensions become opportunities for creative moral responses and agency to emerge. In other words, we will be practicing reconciliation as we live creatively into the tensions between rejection and invitation, between exclusivity and inclusivity, thus participating in the expansion and transformation of this moral community.

Finally, what does it take to be a reconciling community? We must commit to the quest for becoming Beloved Community, practicing reconciliation day-in-and-dayout. We need to see one another in visual dialogue. We need to embrace each other, affirming and respecting our differences. We need to dream—a leap of faith—living into the tensions of our intercultural encounters for the sake of openness to the new thing that God is doing in the churches and the world.

Womanist ethicist and alumna of Columbia Theological Seminary Barbara A. Holmes, in her book Dreaming, helps us understand why dreaming is part of our quest.

“Christians are betrothed to a God who dreams. I know that God dreams, because I do, and I am made in God’s image. As the book of Genesis unfolds, we find God busily untangling the chaos in the cosmos. The Spirit hovers over the waters, and at God’s command, the ordering of light and dark, day and night begins. What an exciting time, because everything is possible.”

Now is the time to open our hearts. Now is the time for dreaming.

H Y P E R F O C U S

NEW CTS MEDIA B Y M I C H A E L K . T H O M P S O N , D I R E C T O R O F C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

A new initiative is in progress to create more videos on behalf of Columbia Theological Seminary to share news on campus and tell the story about our great programs.

Below are a few of our first videos in this series: Message from President Leanne Van Dyk Published on Apr 11, 2017 Dr. Leanne Van Dyk introduces a new discussion about strategic planning and the latest news on campus.

between a person seeking spiritual guidance and a trained individual (the spiritual director). The Certificate in Spiritual Direction is a 2 1/2 year training program for those seeking to discern and develop their gifts and skills as spiritual directors.

JBC Library Partnership with re:loom Published on Jun 8, 2017 Our own John Bulow Campbell Library is preparing to welcome friends from the American Theological Library Association to a conference in Atlanta next week. They partnered with re:loom to create some beautiful bags for everyone to use.

3:52

3:27

Spirituality Program: "What Brought You Here?"

Published on Apr 12, 2017 Spiritual Direction, often called spiritual companioning or spiritual friendship, is an intentional relationship

2:53

For these and other videos, please visit us on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/ctsmedia.

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SERVICE

TRIP TO STILLMAN COLLEGE AND BROWN MEMORIAL CHURCH

BY WILLIAM YOO, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL HISTORY

A small group of eight people from Columbia Theological Seminary visited Stillman College and Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa, AL, from April 25 to April 26.

Founded in 1876, Stillman is the most prominent HBCU (historically black college or university) begun by Southern Presbyterians. Brown Memorial was founded four years later and is the oldest exisiting Black Presbyterian congregation in Alabama.

In March, we began working with Dr. Charles Nash, a Board Trustee for Columbia Seminary who lives in Tuscaloosa and attends Brown Memorial, to organize this visit.

Dr. Nash and Dr. Joe Scrivner, pastor of Brown Memorial and Assistant Professor of Religion at Stillman College, invited us to come on April 25 22

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and 26 when we could also see the Stillman College Choir performance.

In addition to our Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Betsy Lyles, our Dean of Students Brandon Maxwell, and myself, our group comprised five students—Khayla Johnson, DéShun Kilgore, Melva Lowry, Rachel Mathews, and Eliza Smith.

Dr. William Yoo with Dr. Charles Nash

We met with faculty and undergraduate majors in the Department of Religion at Stillman, attended several Religion classes to share about the virtues of theological education in general, and Columbia Theological Seminary in particular, and went to the Stillman College Choir Spring Concert at Brown Memorial. We also ate with church members from Brown Memorial and led a worship service with DéShun Kilgore preaching.

Beyond the opportunity for recruitment at Stillman College and building our relationship with Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, it was a contextual learning opportunity for us. We experienced firsthand the rich history, civil rights activism, and religious vitality of African American Presbyterianism through many robust conversations and informal tours. It is our hope that there will be further and deeper engagement with Stillman College and Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in the future.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF

STILLMAN COLLEGE STILLMAN COLLEGE, AUTHORIZED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1875, HELD ITS FIRST CLASSES IN 1876 AND WAS CHARTERED AS A LEGAL CORPORATION

BY THE STATE OF ALABAMA IN 1895. At that time, the name was changed from Tuscaloosa Institute to Stillman Institute. The Institute was a concept initiated by the Rev. Dr. Charles Allen Stillman, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa (and alumnus of Columbia Theological Seminary). The mandate for the Institution expanded over the years and it acquired its present campus tract of over 100 acres. A junior and senior high school was organized and the Institute established a junior college program, which was accredited in 1937. In addition, between 1930 and 1946, it operated a hospital and nurse training school.

Under the administration of (another Columbia Seminary alumnus) Dr. Samuel Burney Hay (1948-1965), the school sought to expand into a senior liberal arts institution and in 1948 the name was officially changed to Stillman College. The following year, Stillman expanded into a four-year college and graduated its first baccalaureate class in 1951. Stillman was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1953. Under Dr. Hay, seven new buildings were constructed: a gymnasium, a library, an administration-classroom building, two women’s residence halls, a prayer chapel, and a student center.

Dr. Harold N. Stinson (1967-1980) was the first African American to assume the presidency. Under his dynamic leadership, new programs designed to improve educational quality were instituted, and the physical plant was expanded with the addition of two men’s residence halls, faculty apartments, a maintenance building, and an academic center Under the leadership of Stillman’s fourth president, Dr. Cordell Wynn (1982-1997), the appearance of the campus improved dramatically. The enrollment grew beyond 1,000 students, the endowment increased significantly, and the educational program was broadened to include the Stillman Management Institute and a community-service component.

On July 1, 1997, Dr. Ernest McNealey was named the fifth president. Since then, Stillman has garnered national attention in the areas of technology, athletics and scholarly pursuits. In 2004 Stillman received its first-ever ranking among top tier schools in U.S. News and World Report and continues to hold this distinction.

On July 1, 2014 the Board of Trustees named Dr. Peter Edmund Millet as the College's sixth president. He was instrumental in organizational restructuring, enhancing Stillman's community presence and forging local and statewide partnerships. This past April, Dr. Cynthia Warrick was named as the seventh president after a successful fundraising campaign that brought in $2 million.

You can learn more about Stillman College at www.stillman.edu.

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KOREAN AMERICAN MINISTRIES

W

E NOW HAVE A NEW KOREAN LANGUAGE SECTION ON OUR WEBSITE FOR OUR KOREAN AMERICAN MINISTRIES. PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS CAN NOW LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FOLLOWING:

콜럼비아 신학교는 한국인 입학생을 위한 한국어 웹사이트를 제공합니다. 입학에 관심있는 학생들은 다음의 정보들을 한국어로 찾을 수 있습니다.

• 모든 학위과정에 있는 한인 1세, 1.5세 이하 재미한국인 및 아시아계 학생들을 지도한다.

콜럼비아 신학대학원 소개 학위과정 국제학생 입학안내 학교생활 평생교육원

• 한국교회, 미주 한인교회, 및 아시아교회를 위한 평생교육을 제공한다.

What KAM is about

Korean American Ministries at Columbia stands to serve the church of Jesus Christ: • Advising Korean, Korean American, and Asian students in all degree programs of the seminary • Providing lifelong learning programs for Korean American, Korean and other Asian American churches • Raising Korean American and Asian theological voices in U.S. and global context.

콜럼비아 신학대학원 한미목회 연구소 한미목회연구소 소개

• 미주 한인과 아시아계 교회의 이민신학을 펼치며 그 자원을 제공한다.

Contact

Kevin Park, ParkK@CTSnet.edu Associate Dean, Advanced Professional Studies; Assistant Professor of Theology; and Interim Director of Korean American Ministries

Learn more about CTS and our Korean American Ministries at www.ctsnet.edu/korean-americanministries.

180년이 넘는 오랜역사의 전통인 콜럼비아 신학대학원(미국장로교단)에 소재하고 있는 CTS 와 한미목회에 대한 더 많은 정보는 한미목회연구소는 미주 한인교회를 섬기는 WWW.CTSNET.EDU/KOREAN-AMERICAN것을 사명으로 다음과 같은 목적을 두고 있다. MINISTRIES 에서 찾을 수 있습니다.

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LIFELONG LEARNING

TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES

T

RANSFORMATION IS AT THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL. PERHAPS PAUL’S WORDS IN ROMANS 12:3 ARE SOME OF THE MOST WELLKNOWN ON THE TOPIC: “DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD, BUT BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MINDS, SO THAT YOU MAY DISCERN WHAT IS THE WILL OF GOD — WHAT IS GOOD AND ACCEPTABLE AND PERFECT.”

The Center for Lifelong Learning has a robust lineup of courses that encourage faithful people — clergy and other church leaders

When it comes to transforming communities, it takes time to discern God’s will together, and to then renew or reorient to a new intention, attitude or purpose.

Groups of people — leaders and followers — share in this vital task.

The Center for Lifelong Learning has a robust line-up of courses that encourage faithful people — clergy and other church leaders — in this process of transformation. While a complete line-up is at www.ctsnet.edu/events, and a list of upcoming courses beginning on page 27 in this issue, we want to highlight several that address various aspects of transformation within individuals and communities.

— in this process of transformation.

Please visit www. ctsnet.edu/events, and the list of upcoming courses on page 27.

Reformations Then and Now, January 22-25, will celebrate and examine “The Reformation” that started it all in the 16th century, with a robust schedule of workshops and plenary discussion. We will explore the many “Reformations” that have occurred since then and that continue to reshape communities on a global scale. Kirsi Stjerna, First Lutheran, Lost Angeles/Southwest Synod Professor of Lutheran History and Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University and faculty at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley and Helsinki University, Finland; and Brooks Schramm, Kraft Professor of Biblical Studies (OT/Hebrew Bible) at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania will lead three plenary sessions and offer one workshop apiece. They will be joined by at least 9 other workshop leaders, representing Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Protestant perspectives on education, preaching, theology and worship. Conference worship will reflect both classical Reformation forms and more global contemporary expressions.

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“Our hope is that . . . not only will participants be better prepared to engage and lead difficult conversations . . . but that they also will be encouraged to use their faith-focused power for the transformation of the communities of which they are a part.”

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Among our 10 (yes, 10!) online course offerings in the coming year, three offer particular approaches to the topic of transformation. The Rev. Cynthia McDonald, PhD, youth pastor at St. Philip AME in Atlanta will lead Hidden in Plain Sight: Storytelling for Learning and Transformation beginning January 8, 2018. In February, Dr. Bethany McKinney Fox and Mark Crenshaw, MTS, will explore how communities can revise shared leadership with Resetting the Table: Including People with Disabilities in Congregational Life. Fox and Crenshaw keynoted Being the Beloved Community: Welcoming Children of All Abiltiies to Church, in May 2016. Also in February, the Rev. Deedra Rich, DMin, will provide opportunities to consider the transformative role of prayer and other spiritual practices during Prayer: Deepening Your Experience with God. After this past year on sabbatical, Dr. Deborah Flemister Mullen returns in her new role as Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This academic year she will focus on the challenges of living together as communities of “just practice.”

In Creating and Caring for Communities of Just Practice: Strategies and Tools for Becoming Culturally Diverse, Antiracist, Welcoming Communities of Equity and Inclusion, Mullen will be joined by Fania E. Davis, JD, PhD, a civil rights attorney and co-founder and executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) and Dr. Marcia Riggs, J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics at the seminary.

“This aim of this event, led by a team of educators and activists, is to extend the seminary's commitment to advancing equity, diversity and inclusion into the lives of individuals and communities who are seeking to live together in ways that are authentically equitable, culturally inclusive, racial just, and radically hospitable,” says Mullen. “Our hope is that at the end of this three day workshop not only will participants be better prepared to engage and lead difficult conversations on race, antiracism, white power and privilege, but that they also will be encouraged to use their faith-focused power for the transformation of the communities of which they are a part.” Those who attend this conference will hear at least three plenary sessions and attend a workshop offered by each presenter, as well as engage in thoughtful small group conversations on campus April 30 – May 2, 2018.

LIFELONG LEARNING

COURSE SCHEDULE For church professionals and lay people, Columbia’s Center for Lifelong Learning provides non-degree courses and events— opportunities to learn with and from others for faithful discipleship.

Our offerings are biblically and theologically grounded, with a practical focus to help participants identify and address specific, reallife needs. At the same time, we see lifelong learning as recreation—time to step out of life’s busy routines and experience renewal of mind, spirit, body, and emotion. We hope you will browse through this list of current classes and visit our website to learn more, register, or see even more newly added classes.

Visit our complete class list at www.ctsnet.edu/events

THE CHURCH: A SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIPS August 7 – September 1, 2017 with Margaret B. “Meg” Hess Online Course This is an introduction to Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST) applied to the congregational context and to congregational leadership.

BREATHING FRESH AIR: A COLLOQUY FOR MID-CAREER CLERGY (BETHANY FELLOWS) August 7 – 12, 2017 This is a colloquy for mid-career clergy specially designed for the Bethany Fellows, a peerlearning community of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Participants are limited to members of this learning community by invitation.

READINGS IN SPIRITUAL CLASSICS September 11 – October 6, 2017 with Sharol Hayner Online Course Certificate in Spiritual Formation This four-week online course will invite reflection and dialogue

based on excerpts from several spiritual classics. Weekly prompts are intended to encourage and challenge personal spiritual formation.

LEADERSHIP IN MINISTRY: PORTLAND – SESSION II September 18 – 20, 2017 A Pastoral Excellence Program This is the second of two sessions in this cohort. Each annual workshop meets for two sessions (spring and fall) but the program is, by design, an ongoing leadership development program.

LEADERSHIP IN MINISTRY: LOST RIVER B – SESSION II September 25 – 27, 2017 A Pastoral Excellence Program This is the second of two sessions in this cohort. Each annual workshop meets for two sessions (spring and fall) but the program is, by design, an ongoing leadership development program.

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COURSE SCHEDULE continued

LEADERSHIP IN MINISTRY: BOSTON – SESSION II October 2 – 4, 2017 A Pastoral Excellence Program This is the second of two sessions in this cohort. Each annual workshop meets for two sessions (spring and fall) but the program is, by design, an ongoing leadership development program.

IMMERSION EXPERIENCE: AN INVITATION TO A DEEPER SPIRITUAL LIFE October 5 – 8, 2017 with Ryan Bonfiglio, Carl McColman, Stan Saunders, Debra Weir Certificate in Spiritual Formation Immerse yourself in the foundational course for the Certificate in Spiritual Formation program that explores communitybased Christian Spirituality.

YES, AND: IMPROVISATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF DIZZYING CHANGE October 10 – 12, 2017 with MaryAnne McKibben Dana and Marthame Sanders We will explore some of the biblical stories of a God who works with us in creative, surprising ways, learn and practice several principles of improvisation, and see how they guide us toward faithful lives as leaders of congregations.

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TEXTS OF TERROR October 15 – 18, 2017 with Ryan Bonfiglio Certificate in Spiritual Formation Montreat Conference Center How do troubling texts inform your sense of God? This course will engage a “charitable” interpretive approach to explore Biblical texts that challenge our theological and ethical understandings.

BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS October 15 – 18, 2017 Compass Points Certification Course This course will explore biblical foundations, methods of interpretation and resources for scriptural study within the unique context of camp and conference ministry.

MARRIAGE AND THE 21ST CENTURY CHURCH October 16 – November 17, 2017 with Kim Long Online Course Students in this course will explore the biblical, theological, and historical foundations of marriage and consider the how the 21st century church should respond to the realities of contemporary commitments.

LEADERSHIP IN MINISTRY: LOST RIVER A – SESSION II October 16 – 18, 2017 A Pastoral Excellence Program This is the second of two sessions in this cohort. Each annual workshop meets for two sessions (spring and fall) but the program is, by design, an ongoing leadership development program.

GROWING INTO TOMORROW…TODAY (Board of Pensions Retirement Planning Seminar) October 17 – 18, 2017 Planning for retirement can be challenging. This free-two-day seminar is for members of the PCUSA Board of Pensions and their guests who are planning to retire within the next fifteen years.

PROGRAM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION October 18 – 21, 2017 Compass Points Certification Course Learners in this course will encounter a variety of models of teaching, as well as methods of curriculum and program development, implementation, and evaluation in a camp and conference setting.

GETTING IN SHAPE FISCALLY (PCUSA Board of Pensions Financial Planning Seminar) October 19, 2017 How “fiscally fit” are you? This free one-day seminar is for members, seminarians, and guests looking to get their fiscal house in order. It’s an introduction to Board seminars and general financial planning.

LEADERSHIP IN MINISTRY: ATLANTA SESSION I November 13 – 15, 2017 A Pastoral Excellence Program This is the first of two sessions in this cohort. Each annual workshop meets for two sessions (fall and spring) but the program is, by design, an ongoing leadership development program.

TEACHING SPIRITUAL FORMATION IN THE CONGREGATION November 6 – 10, 2017 Certificate in Spiritual Formation with Jane Vennard This experiential class will include prayer, small groups, individual reflection, and silence as well as presentations and discussion.

SEA KAYAKING IN THE BAHAMAS: AN ECO-TRAVEL SEMINAR January 4 – 11, 2018 with Mark Douglas and Steve Harrington Celebrate the New Year amidst the unpredictable beauty of God’s creation. Participants in this eco-travel seminar will sea kayak through the Bahamas learning about environmental ethics.

CONTEMPORARY READINGS IN YOUTH MINISTRY AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION November 6 – December 1, 2017 with Anna Brown Online Course This four-week online course is part of the “Contemporary Readings Series” for persons interested in deepening their understanding of contemporary issues in Christian Education.

YOUR SPIRITUAL BRAIN: NEUROBIOLOGY AND FAITH January 8 - February 12, 2018 With Lisa Schrott Online Course How is our faith shaped by the neural processes that underlie our thoughts and actions? This six week online course will examine the reciprocal interactions between brain anatomy and physiology, and our life of faith. Topics include: 1) how our brain understands God, 2) what happens when we pray; 3) repentance and a changing brain; 4) community and our social brain. No previous knowledge of neuroscience or biology is necessary.

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: STORYTELLING FOR LEARNING AND TRANSFORMATION January 8 – February 2, 2018 with Cynthia P. McDonald Online Course Storytelling can be a source of creative agency and transformation in congregational educational ministry. This class will explore how to incorporate storytelling as a spiritual formation practice in educational ministry and communities of care such as prison ministry, campus ministry, Boys and Girls club, youth ministry and similar communities of care.

Participants will learn how to combine narrative, interviews and reflection to encourage others to explore their personal and spiritual views of the world around them and to use story as a tool to interpret, inform and reshape these perspectives.

REFORMATIONS THEN AND NOW January 22 – 25, 2018 with Kirsi Stjerna and Brooks Schramm Luther’s experience of the freedom of conscience is finding fresh expression in conversation with contemporary issues. This conference will include worship, plenary sessions and workshops in honor of the 500th anniversary of “The Reformation” that initiated many subsequent reformations.

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LIFELONG LEARNING

COURSE SCHEDULE continued

SACRED SURVIVAL ENGAGING AFRICAN AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY February 1 – 4, 2018 with Khalia Williams Certificate in Spiritual Formation Explore, engage and dialogue with the distinct and rich African American spiritual traditions.

Open to all who wish to enrich their spiritual journey through stories, songs, and rituals as a source of hope and healing.

MAKING LOVE WITH SCRIPTURE: ENGAGING THE BIBLE FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM February 5 – March 16, 2018 with Jacob Myers Online Course This course offers participants a different way of approaching the biblical text for spiritual nourishment and sociopolitical activism.

RESETTING THE TABLE: INCLUDING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN CONGREGATIONAL LEADERSHIP February 5 – March 9, 2018 Bethany McKinney Fox and Mark Curtis Crenshaw Online Course This course is designed to invite learners into dynamic conversations about why and how congregations and other organizations are including people with intellectual disabilities into leadership roles.

PRAYER: DEEPENING YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH GOD February 5 – March 9, 2018 with Deedra Rich Certificate in Spiritual Formation/ Online Course Are you seeking something more?

Are you restless in your spiritual life? Join us for this 5-week exploration of prayer and spiritual practices.

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FOSTERING PERSONAL CHANGE February 15 – 16, 2018 with Mark Biddle This workshop digs deeper into the concept called “Immunity to Change,” a term used to describe a well-organized autonomous immune system trying to keep us safe, but that also works against our best intentions and efforts, shielding us from the very progress we are so eager to make.

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS AND AFFIRMATIONS IN OLDER ADULTHOOD April 16 – 18, 2018 with Carolyn and Bruce Winfrey-Gillette Older Adult Ministry Certificate Course This course will explore theological doctrines and concepts, with a focus on how these relate to older adulthood. Using Scripture, creeds and confessions, and drawing upon assigned readings we will reflect theologically on our present and past understanding of these concepts.

SPIRITUAL FORMATION AND OLDER ADULTS April 18 – 20, 2018 with Mary Anona Stoops Older Adult Ministry Certificate Course The last third of life presents some of life’s richest spiritual, theological, and ethical challenges. This course will explore how congregations and other communities of faith can engage in conversations and practices that will allow older church participants to actively nurture spiritual formation into older adulthood.

T A U T A P A N T A

WE ARE ALL PART OF A LIVING TRADITION that reaches back to the earliest days of God’s people reflecting on their world, their experience of God, and their sense of God’s calling. Tauta Panta refers to “all these things,” as in “Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33).

These are notes from our journey as alumni, faculty, staff, and friends of Columbia Theological Seminary.

NEWS FROM CAMPUS

MARCH 31, 2017:

Two New Faculty Appointed At Columbia Seminary On Tuesday, March 28, the Board of Trustees of Columbia Theological Seminary approved the recommendations made by two search committees to President Leanne Van Dyk for the appointment of two new tenure-track faculty members: Dr. Melinda A. McGarrah Sharp as Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care, and Dr. Christine J. Hong as Assistant Professor of Educational Ministry. Both positions are effective July 1, 2017.

“We are very excited about the appointments of these two remarkable new colleagues to our faculty. Dr. McGarrah Sharp and Dr. Hong each bring to Columbia the gifts of rigorous and relevant scholarship, inspiring and skillful teaching, broad interdisciplinary knowledge, demonstrated leadership in the church and world, and a profound pastoral identity,” said Christine Roy Yoder, Interim Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs. “We are eager to learn from and serve alongside them for many years to come.”…

MAY 13, 2017:

Alumnus Davis Hankins Wins 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award For Theological Promise Columbia Theological Seminary alumnus Davis Hankins (’05) is one of this year’s winners of the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological

Promise, an international award given annually by Forschungsinstitut Internationale und Interdisziplinäre Theologie to outstanding first books in theology.

He received it for his work The Book of Job and the Immanent Genesis of Transcendence (Diaeresis.

Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2015).

He is among ten winners who will be recognized at a celebration to take place at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) later this month.

Dr. Hankins is currently Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC; and faculty affiliate in the Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies program and in the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies program.

He is completing a commentary on Ecclesiastes and its reception history with Dr. Brennan Breed, Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary and winner of the 2016 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise…

MAY 21, 2017:

Graduation, Awards For Class Of 2017 Celebrated At Columbia Seminary On Saturday, May 20, Columbia Theological Seminary held its annual commencement exercises at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA. At this year’s graduation, 55 students were awarded degrees in six graduate degree programs.

Four graduates received dual degrees in the Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and Master of Arts in Practical Theology (M.A.P.T.) programs. Other degrees received included Doctor of Theology in Pastoral Counseling (Th.D.), Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.), Master of Theology (Th.M), and Master of Arts in Theological Studies (M.A.[T.S.]).

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Notable among the graduates was Sharol Rhodes Hayner, wife of Dr. Steve Hayner, the ninth president of Columbia Theological Seminary, who passed away at the end of January 2015. Sharol Hayner previously received her M.Div. degree from Columbia Seminary and was working on her D.Min. at the time. By July, Sharol published the collected reflections she and Steve had shared on their CaringBridge website during the months before his passing in a book titled Joy in the Journey: Finding Abundance in the Shadow of Death (InterVarsity Press, 2015). She completed her D.Min. program this spring with the final approval of her dissertation Dying Well: Journeying Together into the Valley of the Shadow of Death…

MAY 24, 2017:

Dawson And Moore-Keish Approved to Faculty Chairs at Columbia Seminary During the Spring meetings for the Board of Trustees of Columbia Theological Seminary recommendations were approved to appoint Dr. Kathy Dawson and Dr. Martha Moore-Keish to occupy faculty chairs.

Dr. Kathy Dawson is now the Benton Family Associate Professor of Christian Education, previously held by Dr. Rodger Nishioka. Dr. Martha Moore-Keish is now the J.B. Green Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, previously held by Dr. George Stroup.

“Faculty are appointed to these chairs as an acknowledgement of the outstanding contributions made to their field of research and to the seminary,” said Dr. Leanne Van Dyk, President and Professor of Theology at Columbia Seminary. “Professors Dawson and Moore-Keish have consistently distinguished themselves as denominational leaders and effective mentors to the students we serve.”…

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JUNE 3, 2017:

Mark Douglas Receives Nohria Grant For War In A Warming World Columbia Theological Seminary’s Professor of Christian Ethics Mark Douglas has been awarded a grant from the Nohria Family Charitable Fund for $70,000.

He will use the grant to write the second of three projected volumes, tentatively collectively titled, War in a Warming World. The project explores the impact of climate change on war and how Christian traditions of pacifism, just war, and just peacemaking may shed light on climate-shaped conflict in an Environmental Age. The grant also makes it possible for Dr. Douglas to travel and do research at and with institutions that are at the forefront of environmental security studies.

“Climate change is certainly the most dramatic global threat since the advent of nuclear weapons. It may be the greatest threat to human flourishing that we’ve faced in eons,” said Dr. Douglas. “Not only is it beginning to have enormous and far-reaching effects on the natural world, it will increasingly shape and drive political conflicts and cause widespread violence. In a world drenched with religion, faith traditions are being asked to offer their own perspectives on and resources for addressing such violence. I’m deeply grateful to the Nohria Family Charitable Fund for this grant that makes it possible for me continue my own work in interpreting and shaping Christian responses to War in a Warming World.”…

JUNE 6, 2017:

CLL Receives Wabash Grant for Design of Classroom and Online Teaching Methods The Center for Lifelong Learning (CLL) at Columbia Theological Seminary announced the award of a small project grant to form a teaching and learning collaborative to explore teaching methods in classroom performance and design of online education. The project was made possible by a grant from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, which is funded by

Lilly Endowment Inc. and located at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Faculty who were trained in the face-to-face classroom and have taught in the face-toface environment for much of their careers continue to make the shift to the online and digital platforms. Columbia Seminary is using this opportunity to develop teaching skills to solidly make this shift.

The following six faculty members from Columbia Theological Seminary have been selected for the program: Dr. William Yoo, Assistant Professor of American Religious and Cultural History; Dr. Brennan Breed, Assistant Professor of Old Testament; Dr. Bill Brown, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament; Dr. Jake Myers, Assistant Professor of Homiletics; Dr. Raj Nadella, Assistant Professor of New Testament; and Dr. Anna Carter Florence, Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching. Each has expressed interest and need for knowledge and skills development for classroom instruction and online teaching….Dr. Israel Galindo, Associate Dean for The Center for Lifelong Learning and Director of Online Education, will serve as the project director...

For the full stories and more, please visit www.CTSnet.edu/columbia-connections.

“…LEADERSHIP IS ESSENTIALLY AN EMOTIONAL PROCESS RATHER THAN A COGNITIVE PHENOMENON…” —Edwin Friedman LEADERSHIP IN MINISTRY participants gain insight by learning with others who

share their unique vocational challenges and joys. Learn more about these dynamic post-graduate leadership learning opportunities, and register for cohorts in one of four convenient regional locations. See the program dates through early 2019 by visiting our website.

Atlanta · Boston · Lost River, WV · Portland leadershipinministry.org LEARN · EXPLORE · CONNECT

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ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES

Letter from Alumnus John Thomson ThM ’77

O

N JUNE 5, 1977, I GRADUATED THM, A DAY WHICH I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN. MY WIFE MARLENE WAS THERE, AS WERE MY PARENTS — THEIR FIRST TRIP ACROSS THE ATLANTIC TO THE “NEW WORLD”!

I just want to say thanks to Columbia Theological Seminary, and all the then staff and fellow students who made Marlene and me so welcome and so at home from the fall of ’76 to the June of ’77. We had a wonderful time, had great experiences, studied under great professors, with a team led by the late Rev. Dr. J. Davison Philips. Catherine Gonzales, Jim Gailey, Wade Huie, Ronnie Wallace, Charlie Cousar and many others played a part in helping me achieve my ThM — not forgetting Claude the cook! There were also many, many students, especially the intake of ’76, and too many to mention, lest I forget someone, who befriended us and introduced us to the ways of the Southern states of the USA. A very special thanks to Sally Henderson (now Sally Lodge Henderson Teal), Fahed Abu-Akel, and Frank Colladay who were the very first to welcome us on campus — or at least were the first students to welcome me on campus — the honour (?) of first welcoming me goes to Davison Philips who came out of the faculty meeting, shook my hand, and then hauled me into the faculty meeting and put me beside Charlie Cousar!

Although we have never been able to make it back to Columbia Seminary, it is a place that is embedded in our hearts, and always will be. For Marlene and me these were very happy times, with wonderful hospitable people who took us into their homes and made us feel part of their families, who helped us explore a little bit of America, and who will always be an essential part of who we were, and became, and continue to be.

Thank you CTS for being such a special part of our life.

Rev John M. A. Thomson TD JP BD ThM Hamilton, Scotland P.S. In case you are wondering, TD is the British “Territorial Decoration” awarded for long service (and undiscovered crime!) in the UK Armed Forces Reserve — it’s not a Doctorate — I’m still working on that one! And JP is Justice of the Peace — a local judge — I think like your county or district courts — so please don’t go speeding or causing a breach of the peace when visiting South Lanarkshire in Scotland!

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Thank you to everyone who sent us updates!

Now anyone can send us “alumni news & notes” through our Website at www.CTSnet.edu/update-my-info.

1950s | Robert L. Montgomery ’53 is

honorably retired in Black Mountain, NC. He wrote a book review in The Presbyterian Outlook Magazine (May 8, 2017), for Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas Friedman.

1980s

| Richard Hill ’87 was called as senior pastor for Covenant Presbyterian Church in Buckhead.

Howard Young-Kyong Kim ’87 received a DMin degree from Claremont School of Theology on May 16, 2017.

1990s | Sharon Core ’91 began a new call

on February 13, 2017 as General Presbyter for the Presbytery of the Western Reserve in Cleveland, OH. Julie Lehman MATS ’92 works now at Montreat Conference Center as the Director of the Montreat Fund and Major Gifts. Her husband Michael Poulos ’92 remains Associate for Youth and Outreach at First Presbyterian Church in Asheville, NC. Their two sons are leaders in their own Presbyterian networks including Queens University, Myers Park Presbyterian Church, WNC Presbytery Youth Council and Massanetta Middle School Conferences. Their two dogs are Presbyterian, but do not attend church.

Walt Tennyson ’93 is Mission Immersion Director at Memphis Youth Mission.

William Marvin Lindsay ’94 was awarded a PhD in History of Christianity in Spring 2017 from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA.

John C. Knapp MATS ’95 is the thirteenth president of Washington & Jefferson College effective August 1, 2017. He was previously the president of Hope College in Holland, MI. Danny C. Murphy DMin ’95, general presbyter for Trinity Presbytery, addressed the graduating class at the baccalaureate service for Presbyterian College on Friday, May 12.

Todd Green ’98 traveled to Europe to speak on behalf of the State Department as part of his time as Franklin Fellow at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. while serving as Luther College Associate Professor of Religion. Todd addressed audiences of journalists, non-governmental organizations, scholars, Muslim organizations and embassy staff at the U.S. Consulate in Hamburg, the U.S. Embassy in Berlin and the U.S. Embassy in Brussels.

J. Alexander (Al) Ward DMin ’98 has joined High Point University as Clergy in Residence after retiring as senior pastor of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in High Point, NC.

2000s | William Hunter Camp II ’01 was

installed as Senior Pastor at Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Augustine, FL.

Hyunsung Samuel Cho ’01 has been called as the congregational consultant of the St. Augustine Presbytery to work with the Evangelical Coalition of Korean American (ECKAM) Churches starting May 9, 2017.

Emily Heath MDiv, ’01, ThM, ’05 published a first book, Glorify: Reclaiming the Heart of Progressive

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Christianity, Pilgrim Press, 2016. Emily received a DMin degree from Andover Newton Theological School in May 2017.

Nathan Lane MATS ’01 is now the Associate Provost for Instruction effective June 1 at Palm Beach Atlantic University, where he has served as Associate Professor.

Dorie Griggs ’02 joined Mark Zuckerberg and a select number of Facebook group admins in June for the 2017 Facebook Communities summit to discuss how to build communities through social media. She was invited for the work she did building parent groups on Facebook for The Citadel for which she was given the 2014 Pioneer In Ministry Award by our Alumni Association.

Lanny Peters DMin ’05 has stepped down as the pastor of Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, GA, after nearly 28 years of service.

Jill Tolbert ’07 returned in 2015, after 20+ years out of the teaching classroom, as a math teacher at Winder-Barrow High School in Barrow County, GA. She currently teaches 9th grade Algebra and 12th grade Statistics and AP Statistics. WBHS is currently a Georgia Focus school as well as a Title I school, with over 70% of the student body on free or reduced lunch.

Many of her students simply long for acceptance and grace, and she does her best every day to model this to them, and to love them as Christ loves each of us . . . in spite of the fact that she is also charged with teaching them math!

2010s

| Leonard Ezell DMin ’12 was officially installed as pastor at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, LA.

Joe Evans ’06 was called as pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Marietta, GA.

Craig Kocher DMin ’12 was appointed university chaplain for the University of Richmond, effective May 15. He was the senior pastor of Oak Ridge United Methodist Church in Oak Ridge, NC.

Derek Wadlington ’06 is joining Wilson College as the Helen Carnell Eden Chaplain beginning August 2017.

Kim Wadlington ’07 is finishing her 10th year as Pastor of Middle Spring Presbyterian Church, her first call.

Kim is also serving as Moderator of Carlisle Presbytery for 2017.

Robert (Bobby) Newman ’15 was approved on March 25, 2017, for ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in The Presbytery of Coastal Carolina to serve as Associate Pastor at Highland Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, NC. His ordination service took place on April 30, 2017.

Ashley-Anne Masters ’07 has been called to lead Presbyterian Campus Ministry Raleigh. She has been serving as the interim manager for spiritual care for the Heartlight Program at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She wrote a two-page feature in The Presbyterian Outlook (May 29, 2017) titled, “Cancer doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints.”

Allison Wehrung ’15 was ordained March 26, 2017, at Davidson College Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Mark Douglas and the Rev. Kim LeVert participated in the service, along with CTS alumni the Rev. Landon Dillard ’16, the Rev. Lib McGregor Simmons ’79, and the Rev. Ron Nelson ’93. Allison is now serving the Presbytery of St. Andrew as Associate Executive Presbyter for Campus Ministry and the campus minister at UKirk Ole Miss.

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FACULTY & STAFF P U B L I C AT I O N S A N D A C T I V I T Y

JOHN AZUMAH, Professor of World Christianity and Islam, Director of International Programs, attended the second of a two-part consultation in Beirut on “Theological Education in the Context of Islam in the Majority World” organized by the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury during April 1-7. The Presbyterian College, Montreal, Canada, invited him as Convocation Speaker on May 11. During June 17-30, John was in Australia to speak in Sydney at the Annual Bishops Conference of the Anglican Church, and to give lectures on Islam at Moore Theological College in Sydney and at the Brisbane School of Theology in Brisbane.

RYAN BONFIGLIO, Lecturer in Old Testament, designed and taught a sixweek Lenten lecture series called “Praying the Psalms” at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, where he serves as the John H. Stembler Scholar in Residence.

In commemoration of the 500th year anniversary of the Reformation, Ryan delivered a lecture on June 11 entitled “Defacing Art: Images and Iconoclasm in the Reformation.” This summer, Ryan will also be leading a nine-week lecture series at First Presbyterian Church on “Great Figures of the Pentateuch” and will be teaching a four-week course called “The Bible in Translation: A Brief History” (August). In May, Ryan led 35 members of Atlanta area churches on a Study Abroad trip to Switzerland that explored the history, theology, and legacy of John

Calvin. Several articles will be published this summer including, “Visualizing Literacy: Images, Media, and Method” (Biblical Interpretation) and “Art, Agency, and Anti-Idol Polemics in the Hebrew Bible” (Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East), and an entry on “Religious Visual Culture” in The Dictionary of the Bible in Ancient Media (T&T Clark).

BRENNAN BREED, Assistant Professor of Old Testament, is teaching Sunday school classes on the history of Christology at Church of the Epiphany in Decatur, where he serves as Wister Cook Theologianin-Residence on most Sundays during the spring.

WILLIAM BROWN, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, brought the AAAS “Science for Seminaries” program for CTS to completion with a special reception this May. He published his new book, A Handbook to Old Testament Exegesis (Westminster John Knox). During March 17-18, Bill gave a series of lectures at Covenant Shores Retirement Center at Mercer Island, Washington, on wonder and the biblical accounts of creation: the Temple of Life, the Tree of life, and the Tempest of Life. He wrote a blog for ON Scripture for April 23, titled “Wounded Resurrection: The Body of Christ for the Body of Earth.” Bill preached at North Decatur Presbyterian Church on April 23, and taught Sunday School at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Atlanta in

The American Theological Library Association Serials (ATLAS) research database is available to Columbia alumni.

The database provides online access to more than 150,000 articles and citations—and to the full text of hundreds of peer-reviewed journals.

Columbia’s library provides funding for this valuable resource for alumni. It is a key tool for lifelong research, study, and sermon preparation.

For more information—and a login ID and password—contact Erica Durham (404-687-4661 or durhame@ctsnet.edu).

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FACULTY & STAFF continued

March and April. He has served as a confirmation leader at North Decatur Presbyterian Church throughout the year.

KATHY DAWSON, Benton Family Associate Professor of Christian Education, Director of the MAPT Program, did a workshop consultation with Central Presbyterian Church on children and worship issues. She attended a gathering for children’s ministry professionals at Decatur Presbyterian Church and an ATS Mid-career Faculty Conference in Orlando. In April, she led a church retreat for Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church at Montreat on the topic, “When God breaks in . . . ” There is also a new “Gracie the Fish” story out this spring, available at www.presbyterianmission.org/ wp-content/uploads/OGHS17Gracie-the-Fish-story.pdf .

SARAH ERICKSON, Director for Lifelong Learning, visited the JOY (Just Older Youth) of older adults at Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church in April, sharing information about the Center for Lifelong Learning and the seminary in general. Alumni Jody Reed Andrade, Andy Acton, and Jennifer Sankey all serve on staff at PHPC. She participated in “Come See Columbia Day” on campus as one of two break-out presentations. Sarah represented the Center for Lifelong Learning at the 7th Annual Conference on Ageing and Spirituality in Chicago in June as a partner with POAMN (Presbyterian Older Adult Ministries Network), a conference partner. Invitations to preach took her to Acworth Presbyterian, where Greg Moore MDiv ’04 is pastor in April; to Ray Thomas Memorial Presbyterian, Marietta, GA in May; and to Northminster Presbyterian, Macon, in June.

ANNA CARTER FLORENCE, Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching, once again gave a lecture and a sermon at the Festival of Homiletics in May this year, in San Antonio, TX. In May, Anna traveled to Calgary, Alberta, to lecture and preach at Grace Presbyterian Church for a weekend event entitled, "Preaching Grace." In July, Anna will be a preacher and lecturer for a week at the Bay

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View Association Chautauqua on Northern Lake Michigan. She will also be preaching for two Sundays at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, NY. In September, she will visit two churches for weekend events: The Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria, Virginia, and St. Simon's Presbyterian Church in St. Simon's Island, GA where Alan Dyer ’13 is a co-pastor.

ISRAEL GALINDO, Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning, Director of Online Education, published "The Arc of Stewardship in An Age of Abundance and Debt," for the Center for Stewardship Leaders at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, Lent 2017. In February, he attended the Center for the Study of Natural Systems Symposium, Houston, TX. Israel presented "Reciprocity in Emotional Systems," at the Leadership in Ministry workshops in Boston, Portland, and West Virginia. In March, he attended the Advisory Committee of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion.

For Come See Columbia Day in April, Israel delivered the message "Four Necessary Things I Will Not Teach Seminarians: Contrarian Thoughts From a Seminary Inmate."

Currently, he is editing a volume titled Leadership in Ministry: Bowen Theory in the Congregational Context to be released fall 2017. In June, Israel

taught the online DMin course “A Systems Approach to Congregational Leadership. He wrote several blog posts for Columbia Connections, including "Truisms in an Anxious System," "For the Bookshelf: Can Christians be Educated?" "For the Bookshelf: Five Worthwhile Books on Youth Ministry," "For the Bookshelf: Cultivating Perennial Churches," "Yes, But is It Valid?," “Cognition and Faith," and “For the Bookshelf: Women's Lives in Biblical Times." He also wrote “The Dean Unravels Wicked Problems,” in the Blog for Theological School Deans of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. Israel continues to consult with theological schools on curriculum development, design, and assessment. He attended a consultation for the Studying Congregations project in Boston during June 2017.

BILL HARKINS, Senior Lecturer of Pastoral Theology and Care, Director of the ThD Program, led the men’s retreat for Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church May 5-7 at Lake Logan Episcopal Conference Center near Canton, North Carolina; he was the Psychological Health faculty for the Episcopal Church Foundation Boot Camp at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, June 7-10; he served as Psychological Health faculty for CREDO ROC (newly ordained clergy) at Duncan Episcopal Conference Center, Delray Beach, Florida, June 12-19; Bill was a guest lecturer for the Doctor of Ministry seminar at the School of Theology, Sewanee, The University of the South, June 21-22; Bill served on the CREDO Health faculty working group on curricula in Memphis, June 26-28. He has authored a number of articles on staying healthy in ministry published in CPG and CREDO websites: http://pages.exacttarget. com/conditions/; Bill will lead the men’s retreat for Vanderbilt Divinity School alumni at Pingree Park, Colorado, July 22-29; he will serve as Psychological Health Faculty for a CREDO Hybrid conference at Beckwith Conference Center, in September 2017.

JAKE MYERS, Assistant Professor of Homiletics, will be leading a conference for pastors at Ghost Ranch, NM during July 24-19 titled “Preaching for the Love of God.” RAJ NADELLA, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Director of the MATS Program, was in Puerto Rico March 23-26 as part of his work with PC(USA)'s General Assembly Committee on Representation (GACOR). Raj was in Thailand (Bangkok) May 29-June 2 and presented at a forum on Land, Empire and People. The forum, organized by the Council for World Mission (CWM), brought together scholars from around the world working on issues of empire and immigration. Raj will travel to Bangalore in late July to give a public lecture at the United Theological College. He will also facilitate a planning meeting for the 2019 International SBL Meeting in India that Columbia Seminary is sponsoring. The planning meeting will be attended by heads of several theological institutions and Christian organizations in Bangalore. Raj will be in Berlin August 7-11 to present two papers at the International SBL meeting. On August 20, he will preach at Alpharetta Presbyterian Church. This summer, he will publish a piece titled, "What Presbyterians believe about the Bible" in Presbyterians Today. Recently, Raj also contributed to the American Values, Religious Voices project, a national campaign that features letters from 100 scholars of religion to the current administration and members of the Congress.

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FACULTY & STAFF continued

KEVIN PARK, Associate Dean for Advanced Professional Studies, Assistant Professor of Theology, and Interim Director of KAM, wrote an article for Presbyterians Today in March titled “KoreanAmerican churches navigate cultural changes.”

REBECCA F. SPURRIER, Associate Dean for Worship Life and Assistant Professor of Worship, participated in a collaborative learning and writing project with 14 other worship scholars during the 2016-17 academic year on a set of questions about diverse methods and approaches to the study of worship. This collaboration, sponsored by Liturgical Press, is called Liturgical Awakening, and it culminated in a three-day workshop at St. John’s Abbey, in Collegeville, MN, in May 2017. In April 2017 her review of Christian Scharen’s Fieldwork in Theology was published in the Practical Matters Journal. In June 2017 she attended the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability at Azusa Pacific University and lead a workshop entitled, “The Mouth of a Labyrinth: Beauty, Theology, and Disability Justice.”

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JEFFERY L. TRIBBLE, SR., Associate Professor of Ministry, preached Palm Sunday at New Life A.M.E. Zion Church (College Park, GA) as well as Easter Sunday at Faith A.M.E. Zion Church (Atlanta, GA). He attended the Academy of Religious Leadership April 2022 in Chicago, IL. He preached the ordination sermon for CTS graduate, Rev. Coenraad Brand ’12, pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church, ECO in Logansport, Indiana. He was honored by the Church and the Black Experience of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary as one of “45 outstanding Black Alums” May 10 in Evanston, IL. Jeffery was selected by President Van Dyk to join a cohort of divinity school leaders and scholars to meet Israelis and Palestinians, to hear their stories, and study the Land and the sacred texts that emerge from it. This journey is sponsored

by Interfaith Partners for Peace, which reaches across religious and cultural divides. This educational journey will take place August 2-11. Jeffery will preside over the Atlanta District Conference and Christian Education Convention of the A.M.E. Zion Church August 25-26 at New Life A.M.E. Zion Church (College Park, GA). On June 12, Jeffery was invited to a

consultation of a diverse group of practical theologians working at the intersections of theology and the social sciences, and are interested in forming faith leaders for public ministry today. This theological research consultation was convened

by Christian Scharen and Auburn’s Center for the Study of Theological Education.

LEANNE VAN DYK, President and Professor of Theology, gave a lecture entitled, “Does Christian Unity Matter Anymore?” at the June meeting of the Reformed Institute of Metropolitan Washington in Washington, DC. DEBRA WEIR, Associate Director Spirituality and Lifelong Learning, served as Co-leader with Jim Dant and practice group supervisor for the Certificate in Spiritual Direction program residency, Spiritual Direction, Discerned Action and Social Transformation, March 12-17, 2017. April 2-5, 2017, she co-taught with Carl McColman and Jim Dant the Certificate in Spiritual Formation course, Immersion Experience: An Invitation to a Deeper Spiritual Life at Montreat Conference Center. Debra was accepted to the Duke Divinity School Foundations of Christian Leadership program.

Debra co-taught with Maria Tattu-Bowen, Together in the Mystery Supervisor, Training for Spiritual Directors May 12-14, 2017.

WILLIAM YOO, Assistant Professor of American Religious and Cultural History, received the 201718 Florence Ellen Bell Scholar Award to support his archival research on “American Protestant Missions in a Changing World: New Transnational Partnerships and Uneasy Transitions at Home and Abroad, 19451965” at the United Methodist Archives and History Center at Drew University in Madison, NJ. He will co-lead with Rev. Dr. Beth Hessel, Executive Director of the Presbyterian Historical Society, a workshop on “Presbyterian History, Racial Reconciliation, and the Most Segregated Day of the Week: Exploring our Past, Present, and Future” at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Big Tent national meeting from July 6 to 8 in St. Louis, MO. His edited volume, The Presbyterian Experience in the United States: A Sourcebook (Westminster John Knox Press), will be published in August.

erience in

terian movement in the rough and contributed her essential documents t illustrate and illumine ace, ethnicity, sition. Readers will rigins as a Scots-Irish tional stage, from early eological debates, from the pursuit of social etreat into theologically h national and ves together a coherent f those who sought a el. Arranged both rical maps and photos, sta into the making and tates.

New Plans for Dr. Kimberly Bracken Long, Associate Professor of Worship KIM LONG is beginning a “new phase of life” as she and her husband, Tom, move to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. From there, she will serve as the editor of Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching and the Arts (the PCUSA worship journal), a position she held before coming to Columbia Theological Seminary. She will also continue working on various editing and writing projects, and lecture and teach at local churches and conferences. She will also be doing some online teaching for The Center for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary and for Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in the coming year. Additionally, on August 1 Kim will be the part-time pastor of two small United Methodist churches near her home, Antioch UMC and Spedden UMC. They are in what's called the "neck district," just outside her town of Cambridge. Each promontory is a separate neck, and although it's a relatively small area, there are distinct communities represented there.

Other Faculty Farewells SKIP JOHNSON, Senior Lecturer in Pastoral Theology and Care MICHAEL COOK, Lecturer in Pastoral Care and Counseling

Retirements from Staff

9780664262143

August • Paperback • $30.00 226 Pages • 6 x 9 Rights: World Shelving: Presbyterianism REL097000 Westminster John Knox Press

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BEST OF THE BLOG

APRIL 6 YES, AND… DISCERNING NUDGINGS

BY MARYANN McKIBBEN DANA, MDIV ’03

For the past several years, I’ve been fascinated by the connections between improvisation and the spiritual life.

The more I study and play with improv, the more I see it as a powerful metaphor for faith.

The basic rule of improv is to say “yes-and”—to accept what life offers us and to build on it in the most creative and vibrant way we can.

Accepting doesn’t mean we always like what happens to us, but improv means we look for the best “and” possible, even if we wouldn’t have chosen our circumstances.

I study improv, not as someone who comes naturally to it—I’m a type A organized person, whose backup plans have backup plans. (I’m a Presbyterian, for heaven’s sake!

Give me the strategic plan.) But the older I get, and the longer I serve as a pastor, the more I see the need for tools to help us live faithfully and improvisationally in a world that rarely goes according to plan…

MAY 11 THE CELTS: THE PEOPLE “AT THE END OF THE WORLD”

BY CARL McCOLMAN

The Celts are the people of the end of the world.

Visit the tip of the Cornwall peninsula and you will find a rocky placed called Land’s End, where the thundering surf of the Atlantic pounds mercilessly against the ancient rocks. But once upon a time, it was Ireland — at least in the imagination of mainland Europeans — where you made your last stop before the vast, boundless ocean.

The end of the world.

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All that lay beyond formed the stuff of myths and legends.

A few hardy voyagers ventured out into the deep, and came back with tales of lands like Tír na nÓg, the island of eternal youth. But except for those heroic wanderers, for most people the west coast of Ireland represented the edge of mystery, the gateway into an unknown and unseeable world.

Today we have lost that sense of the wondrous mystery just beyond the edge of the ocean. A traveler leaving the British Isles heading west arrives not at Tír na nÓg but rather comes to Boston or New York. So it may be difficult for us to appreciate that sense of mystery that informed the poetry and stories and spirituality of the Celts long ago…

MAY 29 A QUICK ASSESSMENT OF YOUR CONGREGATIONAL VITALITY

BY ISRAEL GALINDO, ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR LIFELONG LEARNING AND DIRECTOR OF ONLINE EDUCATION Assessment and evaluation are critical practices for any organization. Yet, many congregations do a poor job of assessing and evaluating the multiple and often complex facets of congregational life. There are several reasons for this: a lack of time on the part of leaders, a lack of resources, and a lack of expertise are some.

Regardless, failing to take time to periodically, and routinely, assess the state of affairs is a liability for any organization, including congregations. Evaluative practices provide a corrective to the liability of self-referencing: believing we’re doing a great job just because we say we are.

A church’s ministries will be shaped by several factors: its history, denominational relations, size, location, predominant social class, identity, life stage, and leadership, for example.

Below are essential congregational program and development

areas common to most churches. Use this as a quick check-up with your staff and church leadership. Be honest, remember that critique is not criticism. Evaluation and assessment is a matter of integrity: Are we living up to our vision? Are we fulfilling our mission? Are we doing the best we can toward what we are called to do and be?...

JUNE 1 MEET ALLY

BY ALLY MARKOTICH, SPIRITUALITY PROGRAM PARTICIPANT I’ve enjoyed ‘routine’ for as long as I remember. I wake early in order not to miss too much of any given day.

Three meals are not an option. The rhythm of four seasons elates me. When I gave birth to my eldest child, ‘routine’

took on a whole new meaning. I became a bit obsessed. Feeding time. Nap time. Bedtime. I set rules and followed them. Then, I became a prisoner to the routines I created. The ordinary nature of the same schedule each day overwhelmed.

Amidst all this monotonous day-in/day-out, I was learning about God, and how God is with me. But, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Where? If Christ is with me, then, where?” It was easy to see God’s hand in the wonderment of life, or to call on God in times of need, or to simply talk about faith with friends. However, noticing Christ at 2:00 am with a crying baby on my hip was an anomaly. This simple question, “Where?” began my quest to find the sacred in the ordinary…

For the full stories and more, please visit www.CTSnet.edu/columbia-connections.

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PRESBYTERIAN WOMEN COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PARTNERS TOGETHER! The Presbyterian Women Histories for local churches of the PC(USA) and PCUS are kept at Columbia Theological Seminary. The collection contains over 5,800 histories from churches across the United States.

Columbia Friendship Circle includes all who participate in the Presbyterian Women’s organizations throughout the synods of South Atlantic and Living Waters.

These women support students through prayer and financial scholarships, and visit the campus for Come See Columbia Day to learn more about the great things God is doing here.

Cloud of Witnesses: The Community of Christ in Hebrews (2017-18 Horizons Bible Study Leader Author’s Course) July 31 – August 2: This course is will provide an overview of major themes found in Hebrews and prepare participants to use the 2017-18 Horizons Bible Study, Cloud of Witnesses: Community of Christ in Hebrews, in women’s circles, church school or small group bible studies.

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