Faculty

Jon Berquist, visiting professor of Old Testament, was excited to see the translation of his book, Judaism in Persiaʼs Shadow, published in Korean by Hagiesowon Publishers in 2020. The translator was Taek-Joo Won. This is Berquist’s second book to appear in translation. The first was Incarnation, which was translated into Italian in 2011 and published by Claudiana Editrice, the publisher for the Waldensian Church, which is the Calvinist/Reformed denomination in Italy. This past year, he has been active in the Presbytery of Riverside, California, working with the New Worshipping Communities Committee. He also provides adult-education instruction on the Bible and immigration for First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo. He is teaching at the Summer Process Institute in 2021.

Teresa Chavez Sauceda, director of Advanced Pastoral Studies and senior clinical professor of ministry, reports that the newest concentration in the Doctor of Ministry program is underway with the first cohort of students to complete the last of three required courses in fall 2021. There is increased interest in the chaplaincy/spiritual care research literacy concentration in the Doctor of Ministry program, and it is designed particularly for chaplains, directors of spiritual care, and Association for Clinical Pastoral Education educators working in health care and other settings where literacy in evidence-based research is a critical skill. Increasingly, spiritual care providers in health-care settings are asked to be part of a research team or sit on ethics panels. This concentration, designed and led by Shaw Chaplaincy Institute Director and Associate Professor of Pastoral Care and Education Rev. Dr. Laurie GarrettCobbina, provides critical skills and the opportunity for participants to design their own research projects. The core required courses for this concentration are taught in the fall and spring semesters in a hybrid model (weekly synchronous online classes with one weekend on campus at the end of the semester) to better accommodate the schedules of professional chaplains. The next cycle for the chaplaincy/spiritual care research literacy concentration core courses will start fall 2022.

Chavez Sauceda is also teaching a new course, Issues and Methods in Contextual Theology: Dismantling Racism, during the Doctor of Ministry program’s summer session. The course starts with a very personal question: “What is the theology we need to equip ourselves and our communities of faith to be agents of change in the struggle to dismantle the systems and structures of race in our faith communities and the larger society?” The course will focus on exploring theological and biblical studies, and critical race theory. Chavez Sauceda will draw from her work with anti-racism training and cultural proficiency in the PCUSA. The course will examine students’ lived experiences using tools that they may also use with their own congregations or other constituency groups. With the leadership of Associate Director of Advanced Pastoral Studies Rev. Ruth T. West, the course will include a spiritual practice each day to provide space for both personal reflection on students’ conversations and models for sustaining/ nurturing their spiritual lives for this work.

Wendy Farley, director of the Christian spirituality program and Rice Family Chair of Spirituality, published Beguiled by Beauty: Cultivating a Life of Contemplation and Compassion (Westminster John Knox Press, 2020). She also published “Becoming Children of Light: Falling in Love with Truth During Dark Times” in Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s Insights in fall 2020 and “Gender and the Image of God” in Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry in spring 2019. In August 2020, Farley led the online retreat, Arise My Fair One: Journeying with the Divine Beloved in Dark Times, and gave a talk: “Arise My Fair One: Thoughts On Radical Compassion and Contemplation in the Work Against Racism.” Farley’s teaching includes developing a section on queer theology for a capstone course, working on incorporating a section on “the spirituality of non-hatred” in spirituality courses, and creating a new course, Interfaith Theology. In this year of living digitally, she also attended online retreats exploring Mahamudra, a Buddhist form of meditation; Courage of Care, a retreat combining contemplative practices and social engagement; and Christianity and the mystery religions.

Marcia McFee, Ford fellow, Center for Innovation in Ministry, and visiting professor in worship, developed a new course, Practices & Pilgrimages: Event Design and Pedagogy for Spiritual Entrepreneurs, that she will teach in fall 2021. The course is designed for the new Certificate in Spiritual Entrepreneurship offered by the Graduate School of Theology (GST). It is also available as a three-credit course suitable for the Master of Divinity or Master of Arts in Theological Studies electives. The course will be online with two occasions for synchronous online and/or in-person participation.

“The art of gathering together for purposes of spiritual growth, support, and nurture is as old as humanity,” says McFee. “Whether within traditional religious institutions or not, spiritual entrepreneurs who are addressing the spiritual needs of society will find themselves gathering people together for various purposes. The ‘events’ in this course are defined as ‘occasions of learning and spiritual growth.’ This can be interpreted in many ways, many practices, many formats, including retreats, travel trips, small group online study, or conferences, for example. The common thread is the possibility of energizing people for their personal and communal spiritual journeys. The ‘design’ of these events will depend on the desired spiritual purpose and pedagogical goal. Students will come up with a project and then move through several ‘building blocks’ that must be considered when designing an event. Special attention is paid to design and facilitation in the communication of a theme and message, as well as skills and organizational/business acumen to carry that out successfully. Whether you consider yourself a ‘spiritual entrepreneur’ or not—and I happen to think churches will benefit from leaders who have these skills—this is a course for exploring how

to create amazing experiences for people to deepen their spiritual journeys.”

The two required books are The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters and The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred. Email McFee, marcia_mcfee@redlands.edu, with questions or to get a copy of the syllabus.

Christopher Ocker, professor of church history, was on leave for the 2020-2021 school year. During that time, he was the inaugural director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies program in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia. He worked with an international group of ambitious scholars, supporting their individual research and developing a collaborative research project on “religious mobilities,” while continuing his own research. “I learned the practices and subtleties of an ambitious, publicly funded, Catholic-affiliated, diverse university situated in an incredibly vibrant international city,” says Ocker. “I also completed a number of articles on various dimensions of late medieval and Reformation intellectual and cultural life, and a book, Hybrid Reformations, which I hope will be in print next year.”

For five months, Ocker was recently a senior fellow of the Research Center for the Comparative Study of Monasticism at the University of Dresden studying material dimensions of monasticism and religious conflict before the Reformation. He also continues as editor of the Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions series and as co-editor of Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte. “I learned an awful lot in these two years, and a pandemic is an unusual time to expand one’s horizons,” says Ocker. “It has been the first time I’ve lived in Australia or in a post-communist country, and both experiences were full of mind-opening surprises and very little entertainment! I left with mixed feelings on the same day the San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) joined University of Redlands, knowing the warm and enthusiastic welcome the faculty had received from Redlands colleagues and seeing opportunities to realize in a newly effective way, opportunities that the SFTS faculty had been discussing and exploring since the 1990s. I, like my colleagues, felt a deep intellectual and—I think this may be the best word for it— spiritual affinity with so many people at U of R. We discovered that Redlands shares SFTS’s long-standing commitments to an education for social justice. We saw many opportunities to expand and deepen pedagogy and curriculum for ministerial formation in collaboration with other Redlands programs. Under Former Dean Childers’ careful leadership, and thanks to Professor Marcia McFee and the faculty’s hard work in this last year, the Seminary has created a new Certificate in Spiritual Entrepreneurship associated with the School of Continuing Studies and is developing new program possibilities in spirituality, an undergraduate pathway into the Graduate School of Theology (GST). A multiple-listed course dedicated to understanding migrations in past and present is planned for Salzburg next summer, which will be open to undergraduates, GST students, alumni, and friends for continuing education credit. We will be looking to lay groundwork for several additional initiatives in the next year with each of the Redlands schools. All this, while the faculty continues to adapt their teaching in the Master of Arts, Master of Divinity, and Doctor of Ministry programs to the lingering demands of the pandemic; continues to contribute to doctoral education in the Graduate Theological Union; and continues to pursue ground-breaking scholarship in the fields of bible, theology, history, pastoral care, homiletics, and worship, which is so essential for genuine innovation in learning.

“I am looking forward to many things in this next academic year: celebrating SFTS’s 150th anniversary, rejoining colleagues and friends in San Anselmo and Berkeley, developing new relationships with colleagues in Redlands, continuing the integration of the GST into the University, reconnecting with the Seminary’s amazing alumni, witnessing new life on the Seminary’s beautiful campus, and much more.”9

Photo by Cali Godley SFTS faculty members meet during Preview Weekend.