Blogs

Roger Nam Full disclosure: I struggle with the Korean language. Although I completed an M.Div. degree in Seoul, Korean is still a second language to me. Through an odd combination of reading Korean theology books and listening to 1990s K-pop, I have a decent, albeit strange, vocabulary. But my Korean sentence construction...

Marcia Y. Riggs, Ph.D. J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics Columbia Theological Seminary Why does an African American woman--a Womanist black liberationist religious ethicist-- in her right mind teach for twenty-three years in a historically white seminary in the South? I have asked myself this question many, many times, and most of those times in prayer on my knees to a God that I am sure is the “one that I have found in myself” and love fiercely (re: Ntozake Shange). There you have the answer: there is this call to teach that is the “fire in my bones”...

Nekeisha Alayna Alexis Coordinator Intercultural Competence and Undoing Racism Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Safwat Marzouk Assistant Professor of Old Testament Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Recent spates of lethal violence against people of color—and black men and women in particular— are devastating reminders of the high cost of unaddressed oppression. The race- and class-based killings of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; John Crawford in Beavercreek, Ohio; Eric Gardner in Staten Island, New York; and Renisha McBride in Dearborn Heights, Mich.; to name a few, undercut illusions of how close we are to a “post-racial” or just society. However, these tragedies must...

Deans understand that in a very real sense the curriculum is "the engine" that drives the seminary as an educational institution. Many elements and dynamics impact that educational engine, including entering student enrollment. Deans do well to work with their...

Kate Blanchard Maybe you’ve been here before. It’s the middle of the semester. Your undergraduate survey class has been rolling along fine. Students are fairly engaged, and you feel you have a good rapport. Then along comes the mid-term, and you realize that the situation is not what you thought....

Rev. Gerald C. Liu, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Worship Arts Drew Theological School I teach preaching at Drew Theological School. Two sets of questions guide my pedagogy. One involves hermeneutics: I compel my students to ask, ‘How does “preaching” manifest beyond our words and in the larger world?’ and ‘Why should we pay attention to what others have to say?’ The other set wrestles with theodicy: ‘How do we keep the faith when our words do not suffice?’ The killing of Michael (Mike) Brown haunts those homiletic interrogatives because he made a proclamation before being gunned down. Brown.

Greg Carey, Ph.D. Professor of New Testament Lancaster Theological Seminary My friend Chuck Melchert took a significant risk once when we were playing a round of golf together. Chuck retired after serving as Dean of the Presbyterian School of Christian Education, and he knows more about teaching than just about anybody I know. He also sits in on my classes from time to time. “Can I tell you something?” Chuck asked. “When African American students in your class speak from their experience, you almost always follow up by explaining why you understand what they’re talking about.” Chuck’s words were hard to...

Eric D. Barreto On the eve of my doctoral comprehensive exams, I felt like the smartest person in the world. I had drunk deeply from the well of New Testament scholarship over several months. From Origen to Bultmann, I had read and digested texts, ancient and modern. My stack of...

Miguel A. De La Torre, Ph.D. Professor of Social Ethics and Latino/a Studies Iliff School of Theology While teaching at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, I was traveling with a local colleague to an engagement. Along the way, I ribbed him concerning some native cultural idiosyncrasy; at which point he turned to me in jest calling me “just another imperial gringo.” Although a humorous retort in our banter, I confess that I was taken aback. Of all the things I have been called throughout my life, this was the very first time I was ever called a gringo.... Read

Mindy McGarrah Sharp, PhD Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Ethics Phillips Theological Seminary As I followed the #FergusonSyllabus twitter conversation just before this semester began, I considered ways to address race in a new way in my pastoral care course. Unmasking structures of suffering and developing anti-racist pastoral care practices are already important to both my research and my pedagogy. What is different about race matters this semester? With only one required pastoral theology class in the curriculum, I take seriously my moral obligation to prepare students to be present and responsive to the personal and structural dynamics of...