2023 Commencement Program

May

Graduate Theological Union Commencement Exercises

The Graduate Theological Union academic procession begins with the members of the Consortial Council comprised of representatives of the member schools processing in alphabetical order by school name. The GTU Deans of the member schools follow. Members of the Faculty come next, followed by the GTU President, the GTU Academic Dean, the Associate Dean of Students, the Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, and the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees. The Graduates complete the procession in alphabetical order by last name; Certificate graduates enter first, followed by the Master of Arts graduates and then the Doctor of Philosophy graduates.

This academic procession symbolizes the GTU as the sum of its significant parts. The Faculty is the centerpiece of our academic endeavors anchored by the cooperative and collaborative leadership of the consortium-wide Presidents and Deans and the GTU Board and administration. The Graduates, on this special day, are the focus of our attention. Graduates process through and are greeted by all the many family and friends that have supported them through this journey.

commencement.gtu.edu

Invocation

Dr. Robert David Coolidge

GTU Doctoral Graduate

Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion

Greetings and Remembrances

Uriah Y. Kim President

Graduate Theological Union

Announcements and Introductions

Jennifer W. Davidson

Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Announcement of the 2023 Excellence in Teaching Award Recipient

And Introduction of the Commencement Speakers

Remarks by a Faculty Member

Arthur G. Holder Professor of Spirituality

Graduate Theological Union

“The Price of Wisdom”

Graduate Theological Union Commencement Exercises

Conferral of Degrees

Uriah Y. Kim, President, GTU

Jennifer W. Davidson, Dean, GTU

William Glenn, Chair, GTU Board of Trustees

Remarks by a Graduate

Dr. Raphael Mkuzi

GTU Doctoral Graduate

Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion

“On a Mission to be ‘a’ and not ‘THE’ Solution in the World”

Benediction

Dr. Olga Yunak

GTU Doctoral Graduate

Interdisciplinary Studies

Master of Arts

Huzaifah Bharucha

Contradictions between Āhād hadīth and Qiyās within the Hanafī Madhhab

Center for Islamic Studies

Munir Jiwa (Coordinator)

Marianne Farina, C.S.C.

The paper analyzes the claim that Abu Hanīfa would reject solitary Hadīth that contradicted qiyās if the narrator was not a jurist. The paper argues that this claim cannot be reliably attributed to Abu Hanīfa and was introduced into Hanafi texts by later scholars.

Elvira Bitran Miller

Pedagogy of Empathy: Healing Society with Middle School Students

Center for Jewish Studies

Deena Aranoff (Coordinator)

Sam S.B. Shonkoff

Cynthia Scheinberg, Rodger Williams University

This paper presents an alternative pedagogy that creates a rapprochement between middle school students of different faith backgrounds. In this pedagogy of empathy, students engage in chevrutah (partner work) and group learning to foster an understanding of each other’s heritage, sacred texts, values, and traditions. The goal of this pedagogy is to develop the students’ empathy and their ability to resist prejudices and fears of “the other.”

Master of Arts

Julie Carpenter

Adi Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta and Environmentalism: A Transcendentalist Lens

Center for Dharma Studies

Rita D. Sherma (Coordinator)

Devin Phillip Zuber

The Advaita Vedānta vision, expounded by the eighth-century scholar, Adi Śa ṅkara, teaches students environmentally responsible behavior. Some scholars have misunderstood the embedded pedagogy and portrayed the vision as antithetical to environmental awareness. The importance of using the correct pedagogy is highlighted by comparing Adi Śa ṅkara’s traditional pedagogy to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s and Henry David Thoreau’s approach to the search for non-duality.

Jonathan Croes-Lanspeary

Don’t Fear the Reaper: Familiarity with Interreligious Death Traditions Bolsters Resiliency and Facilitates Aid

Graduate Theological Union WITH HONORS

Arthur G. Holder (Coordinator)

Rebecca Esterson

Death studies, like religious studies, require openness to practices outside of an individual’s tradition to understand how to offer appropriate aid to those mourning a loved one. Using interreligious studies, psychology, and the nomos as theoretical backgrounds, this thesis examines death traditions and world events to recognize the significance of the similarities and differences of various death cosmologies.

Master of Arts

Michaela J. Eskew

Agony in the Garden: Vincent Van Gogh’s Spiritual Vision of the Olive Grove at St. Rémy

Graduate Theological Union

Kathryn Barush (Coordinator)

Anselm Ramelow, O.P.

Anh Q. Tran, S.J. Frances Fowle, University of Edinburgh

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Reformed pastor’s son who failed at following in his father’s ministerial footsteps, but shared his faith through his art. This paper explores the embedded theological concepts of Vincent van Gogh’s Olive Trees series and defends the Olive Trees series as an aesthetic vision for Jesus’ Agony in Gethsemane.

Noel Magee Heyden

Towards a Comprehensive Solution to the Problem of Desire in the Bhagavad-Gītā: A Study of the Philological Evidence from the Sannanta, Vidhi Liṅ, Lot, and Krtya Verbal Forms and Kṛṣṇa’s ‘Beloved’ Priya

Center for Dharma Studies WITH HONORS

Rita D. Sherma (Coordinator)

James Lawrence

Graham M. Schweig, Christopher Newport University

Desire is commonly interpreted as the cause of bondage in the Bhagavad-Gītā. This study generated a concordance of exhortative language present in the text in order to reveal instantiations where the text understands desire to be instrumentally valuable. This model of desire was then applied to the concept of devotion to reveal Lord Kṛṣṇaʼs devotional desires in the text.

Master of Arts

George V. Hudgins, III

Blessed Be the Tie That Binds: Toward A Sonic Theology

Graduate Theological Union

Mary McGann, R.S.C.J. (Coordinator)

Jennifer W. Davidson

T. Carlis Roberts

This essay argues that a sonic theology is constructed in ritual context between individuals participating in worship and over time. More than simply about sound itself, a sonic theology is holistic and performative, the sonic elements of the music carrying a variety of theological meanings found in lyrical text, in the ritual context and its performative strategies, in the embodied interpersonal relationships between liturgical participants, as well as participants’ memories of past performances of the hymn.

Reem Javed

Beyond Khadijah and Aisha: Female Role Models and Islamic Education

Graduate Theological Union

Judith Berling (Coordinator)

Boyoung Lee, Iliff School of Theology

Nadeem Memon, University of South Australia

This thesis developed a critical pedagogical praxis for teachers to support Muslim female students in attaining an egalitarian education in North American Muslim schools.

Master of Arts

Austin J. Keith

Standing with Moral Injury: What It Is, What Has Been Done, and a Buddhist Prescription for Care

Institute of Buddhist Studies

Scott Mitchell (Coordinator)

Daijaku Judith Kinst

Moral injury (MI) has existed for as long as humans have committed transgressive acts. This paper will focus on the transgressive acts that occur during war. This paper seeks to daylight what moral injury is when it is confronted by Buddhist truths not included in previous western studies of moral injury.

Jaeseol Lee

A Theological Consideration of the Ecological Crisis: Focusing on Lynn White’s Argument

Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences

Ted F. Peters (Coordinator)

Kirsi Stjerna

In The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis, Lynn White raises the question of the causes of the ecological crisis and points to Christianity and the human culture derived from it. This study echoes that critique and call for a responsible Christian role. It also seeks to contribute to solving the environmental problems facing humanity by rethinking the biblical view of ecology.

Master of Arts

Morris Alexander Lipsett

Come Out, Oh Bride: The Haggadic Element in the Rituals of a Queer Synagogue

Center for Jewish Studies

WITH HONORS

Sam S.B. Shonkoff (Coordinator)

Deena Aranoff

Naomi Seidman, University of Toronto

This paper explores how queer Jews approach the challenge of relating to Jewish tradition. It looks at a specific set of queer Jews, the members of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, and one specific ritual, the Kabbalat Shabbat ritual. It explores this ritual through Walter Benjamin’s theories and assisted by the interpretations of his work by Judith Butler and James Martel.

Omar Naisan

Decrypting the Son of Man Problem: An Inquiry into the Dominant Approaches to the Son of Man Problem and its Conspicuous Application in Mark 8:27-31

Pacific School of Religion

Susan Abraham (Coordinator)

Matthew J. Thomas

James Nati

This project is a journey through the scholarship on the three perspectives of the Son of Man problem: the collective, individual, and representative perspectives. Each of these perspectives apply to Jesus’ use of the Son of Man phrase in Mark 8:27-31 along with the use of the ‘one like a son of man’ in Daniel 7:13.

Master of Arts

Todd Dennis Oswald

To Live and Die in Dixie: Theopolitics at the Four Corners of Law

Graduate Theological Union

Lizette Larson-Miller (Coordinator)

Judith Berling

Charles Hirschkind, University of California, Berkeley

The burial of the third crew of the CSS H. L. Hunley affords scholars an opportunity to utilize methodologies in studying public ritual. This project employs an interdisciplinary approach grounded in liturgical studies and sociocultural anthropology to investigate ritual practices at the intersection of the secular and the sacred.

Laura J. Prickett

Outcomes of Spiritual Practices Documented in First-Person Accounts by Two Twentieth Century Author-Practitioners from Hindu and Christian Traditions

Center for Dharma Studies WITH HONORS

Rita D. Sherma (Coordinator)

James Lawrence

This analysis of first-person accounts by two mystics, Swami Sivananda Radha and Reverend Morton Kelsey identifies affinities and distinctions in how they experienced spiritual growth and how they communicated with people outside their traditions about tradition-based spiritual practices, illuminating key aspects of the contributions by each through contrasting them with parallels in a comparison partner.

Doctor of Philosophy

Sean David Allen Albrecht

A Broken Record: Trauma’s Failure of Signification in the Structure and Formation of the Book of Jeremiah

Sacred Texts and Their Intrepretation

LeAnn Snow Flesher (Coordinator)

Julián Andrés González-Holguín

Kent Puckett, University of California Berkeley

Several structural patterns in the Book of Jeremiah parallel psychic trauma in individuals and large communities. This dissertation examines patterns that mimic symptoms of trauma imbedded in structure of the text (i.e., repetition of horrifying content, unexpected gaps, and temporal distortions). In this way, the trauma that makes the book so chaotic also holds every part of the book together.

Mary A. Ashley

Toward a Catholic and Integral Ecology: Scotist and Animalist

Conceptions of Moral Action in Dialogue

Ethics and Social Theory

Lisa Fullam (Coordinator)

Mary Beth Ingham, C.S.J.

Kenneth Joel Shapiro, Animals and Society Institute

A conversation between intentionalist theories of praxis and of value—namely a Merleau-Pontyan “animalism” and Scotus’s “order of freedom”—reveals Laudato Sí’s commitment to God’s love for “each” organism to entail a Friendship Paradigm that both promotes the progressive and parallel emancipation of all animate beings and serves to govern a more-basic Kinship Paradigm concerned with the distribution of resources.

Doctor of Philosophy

Phillbert John Cheng

Likeness and Unlikeness in Proclus Diadochus and Dionysius the Areopagite

Theology and Ethics

Thomas Cattoi (Coordinator)

Matthew J. Thomas

Mark D. Delp, Zaytuna College

This dissertation examines how Proclus Diadochus and Dionysius the Areopagite answer five questions regarding likeness and unlikeness: 1) whether there are forms of them; 2) whether they are distinct from sameness and otherness; 3) whether they are superior to sameness and otherness; 4) whether likeness is superior to unlikeness; and 5) what is the nature of their opposition?

Robert David Coolidge

'Abd and Dāsa: A Muslim Understanding of Chaitanya Vaiṣṇavism

Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion

Munir Jiwa (Coordinator)

Rita D. Sherma

Graham M. Schweig, Christopher Newport University

This dissertation is the first scholarly study conducted by a Muslim of the 500-year-old Hindu tradition begun by the charismatic preacher Chaitanya. This research situates the history and doctrines of Chaitanya Vaiṣṇavism within the 1000-year history of Muslim scholarly engagement with the Hindu tradition, in hopes of inspiring a revival of Muslim scholarly interest in the Hindu Other.

Doctor of Philosophy

Hyehyun Han

Somatic Spirituality for those Traumatized by Sexual Objectification in Korea: Art-Based Spiritual Practice as a Form of Contemplative Prayer

Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion

Kirsi Stjerna (Coordinator)

Kathryn Barush

Min-Ah Cho, Georgetown University

This research explores the relationship between the body, trauma, and spirituality, employing the concept of somatic spirituality to help victims of sexual violence. This work presents an integrated somatic model of spirituality for people who have been traumatized by sexual objectification so that they might recognize their dignity and inner strength through a spiritual experience of their bodies, their inner selves, and the divine.

Doctor of Philosophy

Loretta Eleanore Johnson

Katherine Sonderegger: Undermining Feminist Trinitarian Theology in View of Trinitarian Monotheism

Systematic and Philosophical Theology

Ted F. Peters (Coordinator)

Susan Abraham

Christopher M. Hadley, S.J.

Fred Sanders, Biola University

This dissertation compares Katherine Sonderegger’s theology against a paradigmatic example of feminist and social trinitarianism found in the theology of Elizabeth Johnson. Implementing feminist methodology, it finds that Sonderegger undermines radical feminist objectives while Johnson’s trinitarian theology better promotes images of the Trinity that help the reader grasp hold of how the life of the divine persons may be conceptualized and thus brought into meaningful connection with the lives of women.

May T. Kosba

The Race Question: Egyptian Intellectualism on the Periphery of the African Diaspora

Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion

Munir Jiwa (Coordinator)

Devin Phillip Zuber

Keith P. Feldman, University of California, Berkeley

Jovan Lewis, University of California, Berkeley

The triangulated effect of Islam, Arabness, and anti-colonial nationalism influenced modern Egyptian perceptions of race and Blackness and informed an Egyptian anti-colonial identity that entertained an affinity with whiteness while rejecting colonial dominance.

Doctor of Philosophy

Jihoon Lee

The American YMCA and Moral Reform in Korea, 1903–1913: The Possibilities and Limits of Evangelical Moral Reform in Early Twentieth-Century Korea

History

Randi J. Walker (Coordinator)

Joseph P. Chinnici, O.F.M.

Kenneth M. Wells, University of Canterbury

This dissertation explores the early history of moral reform in Korea (1903-1913), focusing on the work of the YMCA. In this period, many Koreans embraced the idea that moral reform would lead to the nation’s advancement. The YMCA presented a new path in the history of the Korean nationalist movement by adding a Christian perspective to this moral reform idea.

Raphael Dickson Mkuzi

Interreligious Peacebuilding through Promoting Economic Justice in the Context of Malawi, Africa

Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion

Marianne Farina, C.S.C (Coordinator)

Munir Jiwa

Khalid Kadir, University of California Berkeley

Promoting economic justice, peace, and the mutual flourishing of Malawi’s religious and culturally diverse communities requires a grassroots, integral economic framework called Morally Empowered Village Economics (MEVE). The framework explores critical economic components that foster economic justice and integral human development so that people in Malawi can secure lasting positive peace. Thus, the dissertation asserts the link between economic justice and positive peacebuilding processes.

Doctor of Philosophy

Matata Mukengeshayi

Ancestor Worship in Today’s Changing Japanese Family System

Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion

James Lawrence (Coordinator)

Devin Phillip Zuber

Mark Blum, University of California, Berkeley

This dissertation explores ancestor worship in Japan’s system today. It aims to find out how Japanese people understand ancestor worship, and it scrutinizes how the socioeconomic shifts over the past two decades and the changing structure of the family system have reshaped the traditional religious beliefs and practice of ancestor worship.

Laura Jean Torgerson

Crossing Contexts: Nicaraguan Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation in Church and Seminary

Interdisciplinary Studies

Jean-François Racine (Coordinator)

Julián Andrés González Holguín

Laura Sterponi, University of California, Berkeley

This multi-site ethnography considers Nicaraguan Pentecostal biblical interpretation in churches and seminary classrooms as literacies. Learning to read the Bible in each interpretive community is a socialization process. This study finds that conflicts between church and classroom literacies extend beyond assigning meanings to particular texts, implicating students’ worldviews, identities, and daily lives.

Doctor of Philosophy

Marvin Lance Wiser

Belonging to Work and Working to Belong: Dissimilation and Differentiation among Deportables Beyond the River Sacred Texts and Their Interpretation

Aaron J. Brody (Coordinator)

James Nati

Gregory L. Cuéllar, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Utilizing comparative Latinx studies framed by postcolonial anthropological and sociological understandings of theories of migration and ethnicity, e.g., mestizaje, the study derives a nuanced understanding of representations of Judean ethnicity during the Persian period as found in the biblical books of EzraNehemiah and Ruth, primarily revealing that just as much as the present and future are hybrid, so too is the past.

Olga Yunak

Theophanes the Greek as an Artist and a Theologian Interdisciplinary Studies

John Klentos (Coordinator)

Judith A. Berling

Rossitza B. Schroeder,

St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

Kathleen Maxwell, Santa Clara University

This dissertation introduces Theophanes the Greek, a Byzantine artist working in 14th-century Russia, to English-speaking scholarly audiences and re-evaluates his role not only as an artist but also as a theologian. For art history, the case of Theophanes demonstrates how, in the medieval Orthodox world, the artist could go beyond simply creating a backdrop for a ritual to generate a theological posture through his artistic choices.

GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION

The Graduate Theological Union, located in Berkeley, California, brings together scholars of the world’s great religious and wisdom traditions to grow in knowledge, thrive in spirit, and unite in solutions. With an academic program that brings the arts, sciences, and humanities into the heart of religious studies—and close working relationships with major public and private universities—the GTU offers unique opportunities to expand knowledge through critical and creative interdisciplinary scholarship.

The member schools of the GTU individually train religious leaders in their respective faith traditions while uniting to grant common doctoral and master’s degrees in religious and theological studies. Students and faculty pursue their work in an atmosphere of multi-religious freedom, curiosity, respect, and dialogue.

As partners committed to positive change, GTU students, faculty, and alumni address the challenges and conflicts that shape our global society. Underscoring how religions and wisdom traditions can illuminate solutions, our interdisciplinary educational approach enlightens, prepares, and inspires scholars, educators, and community leaders to choose a vocational life devoted to positive change.

Graduate Theological Union Board of Trustees

William Glenn, Chair

Uriah Y. Kim, President

Mary Jo Potter, Vice Chair

LaRae Quy, Secretary

Heidi Hadsell, Treasurer

Laura Barnes

James Brenneman, BST

Josefina Card

La Mikia Castillo

Linda Dakin-Grimm

Marianne Farina, C.S.C., DSPT

Rabbi Yoel Khan

Dale W. Lum

David Matsumoto, IBS

Tony Millette

Ejaz Naqvi

Tammy Nathan

Kathy Ogren, GST-Redlands

Julie Petrini

Raymond Pickett, PLTS-CLU

Katie Rosson

Julie Hanlon Rubio, JST-SCU

Rita Semel (trustee emerita)

Moina Shaiq

Rita D. Sherma (faculty trustee)

Kirk S. Smith, CDSP

David Vásquez-Levy, PSR

Dale Walker

Graduate Theological Union Commencement Exercises

Graduate Theological Union

Consortial Council

Berkeley School of Theology

James E. Brenneman

Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Kirk S. Smith

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology

Marianne Farina, C.S.C.

Graduate Theological Union

Uriah Y. Kim

Institute of Buddhist Studies

David Matsumoto

Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Julie Hanlon Rubio

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University

Raymond Pickett

Pacific School of Religion

David Vasquez-Levy

University of Redlands Graduate School of Theology

Kathy Ogren

Graduate Theological Union Council of Deans

Berkeley School of Theology

LeAnn Snow Flesher

Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Ruth Meyers

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology

Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

Graduate Theological Union

Jennifer W. Davidson

Institute of Buddhist Studies

Scott Mitchell

Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Edward Stewart

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University

Alicia Vargas

Pacific School of Religion

Susan Abraham

University of Redlands Graduate School of Theology

Christopher Ocker

Graduate Theological Union Commencement Exercises

GTU Core Doctoral Faculty

Deena Aranoff, CJS

Jerome Baggett, JST-SCU

Kathryn Barush, GTU/JST-SCU

Judith Berling, GTU (emerita)

Aaron Brody, PSR

Ronald Burris, BST

Thomas Cattoi, JST-SCU

Peter Choi, NHS

Jennifer W. Davidson, GTU

Rebecca Esterson, CSS

Marianne Farina, C.S.C., DSPT

Eduardo Fernández, S. J., JST-SCU

LeAnn Snow Flesher, BST

Laurie Garrett-Cobbina, UR-GST

Shauna Hannan, PLTS-CLU

Gina Hens-Piazza, JST-SCU

Christopher Hadley, S. J., JST-SCU

Arthur Holder, GTU

Munir Jiwa, CIS

Uriah Y. Kim, GTU

John Klentos, PAOI

Bryan Kromholtz, O.P., DSPT

James Lawrence, CSS/PSR (emeritus)

Elizabeth Liebert, S.N.J.M, UR-GST (emerita)

Gregory Love, UR-GST

Scott MacDougall, CDSP

Hilary Martin, O.P., DSPT (emeritus)

Mary McGann, R.S.C.J., JST-SCU

Ruth Meyers, CDSP

Valerie Miles-Tribble, BST

Scott Mitchell, IBS

Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, PLTS-CLU/CDSP

Braden Molhoek, CTNS

Ron Nakasone, GTU (emeritus)

James Nati, JST

Christopher Ocker, UR-GST

Eugene Park, UR-GST

Sangyil Park, BST

Richard Payne, IBS

Ted Peters, PLTS-CLU (emeritus)

Susan Phillips, NCB

Julia Prinz, V.D.M.F., JST-SCU

Anselm Ramelow, O.P., DSPT

Julie Hanlon Rubio, JST-SCU

Robert Russell, CTNS (emeritus)

Rita D. Sherma, CDS

Sam S.B. Shonkoff, CJS

Kirsi Stjerna, PLTS-CLU

Matthew Thomas, DSPT

Anh Tran, S.J., JST-SCU

Devin Phillip Zuber, CSS

Academic Centers

Center for the Arts and Religion (CARe)

Center for Dharma Studies (CDS)

Center for Islamic Studies (CIS)

Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies (CJS)

Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS)

Affiliates

Center for Swedenborgian Studies (CSS)

Newbigin House of Studies (NHS)

New College Berkeley (NCB)

Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute (PAOI)

Wilmette Institute (WI)

Graduate Theological Union Commencement Exercises

Special Thanks

First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley

The GTU Student and Academic Affairs’ Offices

The GTU Institutional Events Team

The GTU Strategy, Advancement and Outreach Office

Diamano Coura West African Dance Company

www.diamanocoura.org

In the unlikely event of an emergency, please remain calm. Remain in your seats for official instructions unless you hear a fire alarm; immediately evacuate the building if you hear a fire alarm. If it becomes necessary to evacuate the building, walk, do not run, to the nearest exit. All exits are clearly marked by lighted exit signs. If you require assistance, remain calm, someone from the event staff will assist you. Event staff located at all the exits will guide you.