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Seminary News
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Faculty Notes
from
a recent edition of Praxis
Efrain Agosto introduced Professor Wayne Meeks at a Seminary Educational Outreach event in April. Professor Meeks, a retired religion professor from Yale University, presented a movie on the Apostle Paul in honor of the “Year of Paul.” A second “Year of Paul” event at the Seminary took place in May, in which Agosto moderated a Christian-
Muslim panel discussion of faculty on the topic of “Paul, the One whom Christians Call ‘Apostle’.” Agosto gave a talk entitled “Reflections on Pentecostalism & Evangelism” for
an adult forum at St. Anthony-St. Paul Roman Catholic Church in Hartford on April 29. On May 19, he concluded a year-long, Wabash Center sponsored grant on Latino/a pedagogy in theology at the Seminary by hosting a faculty workshop on multicultural
pedagogy. June was particularly busy for Agosto, as he traveled to Boston for a conference on Interfaith Theological Education at Andover Newton Theological School and Hebrew College and attended a week-long closing colloquy in Indiana sponsored by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religionand Theology dealing with issues of theological pedagogy in Latino/a religious and theological studies. A publication and small grant will be forthcoming from this three-part colloquy that included some 20 Hispanic colleagues from around the country. At the Hispanic Summer Workshop of the Hispanic Theological Initiative at Princeton Seminary, Agosto moderated a panel discussion on mentoring Latino/a Ph.D. students in religion and theology and co-led a day-long career orientation workshop. At the end of July, Agosto attended a major national conference at Notre Dame sponsored by the American Bible Society and Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. At the conference, whose theme was “Camino a Emaus: The Word of God and Latino Catholics,” he presented a paper, “The Way of Justice: A Latino Protestant Reading of Luke 24:13-35.” This spring and summer also brought the publication of three pieces: “The Apostle Paul,” an essay for the Blackwell Companion to the Theologians; “Sola Scriptura and Latino/a Protestant
Hermeneutics: An Exploration,” a chapter in Building Bridges, Doing Justice: Constructing a Latino/a Ecumenical Theology; and the exegetical essay on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 for the August 30 lectionary resources published by the journal Lectionary Homiletics (August/September 2009 edition).
Steven Blackburn spoke in March to a class at St. Joseph College in West Hartford, CT, on the Qur’an and its Language. Another Seminary graduate, who teaches at the Salisbury School in Salisbury, CT, met with Blackburn at the end of March to discuss reference resources, including electronic databases, on the subject of World Religions for a new course that is to be offered at Salisbury. Blackburn continued his evaluation of
Wesleyan University’s Arabic program with several class visits in December and consulting with Wesleyan’s dean. In April, Blackburn hosted a group of undergraduate students from Connecticut College and the University of Hartford who came to the Seminary to hear about the Library’s collections in Islamic Studies as well as to learn about graduate study opportunities at the Macdonald Center. Later in the month Blackburn spoke to a group of West Hartford Public High School teachers on Islam’s views on topics such as morality, warfare, and personal and social freedoms. Also in April, Blackburn was a member of the Connecticut Library Association’s panel on Religious Issues and Libraries, addressing the question “Can Christmas Trees Get You in Trouble?” at the association’s 118th annual meeting. During the week of June 14-20, Blackburn delivered about a dozen lectures and led half a dozen scripture (biblical and
qur’anic) studies as part of the fifth annual Pastors’ Institute on Muslim-Christian Understanding, cosponsored by the Macdonald Center and Georgetown University.
In April, Heidi Gehman was asked to contribute to a new religion website, www.patheos.com, which has “gateways” for the various religious traditions, including
Islam, Catholicism, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Pagan.
Writing for the Mainline Protestant gateway, Gehman has contributed short 11 articles on such topics as Creation, Salvation, Pentecost, Abortion, Marriage, and Same-Sex Marriage.
Heidi Hadsell did a presentation on Interfaith Theological Education to leaders from Saint Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn, which was holding its annual retreat at Hartford Seminary in April. Along with Yehezkel Landau and Mahmoud Ayoub, Hadsell participated in the program, “Jews, Christians and Muslims: Sharing the Abrahamic Legacy and Blessing,” sponsored by the Interfaith Cooperative Ministries of New Haven and held at Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden, CT. In May, Hadsell participated in a conference sponsored by the Parliament of World Religions on “Consultation on Theological and Interfaith Initiatives.” In June, she participated on a panel during the
conference, “Educating Christian, Jewish and Muslim Leaders in an Age of Religious Diversity: Advancing the Conversation at Boston Theological Institute and Beyond,” held in Boston. Hadsell delivered the sermon “Insiders and Outsiders: Who Gets to Decide” at First Presbyterian Church in Hartford. In July, she was invited to attend the Council on Foreign Relations’ 3rd Annual Religion and Foreign Policy Summer Workshop in New York City. At the end of July, Hadsell was Chaplain of the Week for the Chautauqua United
Church of Christ Society conference at Chautauqua, NY.
During his sabbatical, Uriah Kim gave a sermon in April at Yonsei University’s Chapel Service, titled “A Reflection on Bruce Almighty and Job.” He gave a talk for Yonsei’s School of Theology’s graduate students at their annual Ecumenical Retreat on “Leadership in Multicultural Society: King Saul and King David” and a lecture at Methodist Theological
University (Seoul, Korea). The title was “Wisdom Literature.” In May, Kim spoke at Yonsei’s School of Theology’s 40th Annual Lecture on “The Transgressive Power of
Hybridity: King David and President Obama.” This lecture will be published in Yonsei’s
Theological Forum. Kim finished an article in June titled “Reading the David Story with Asian Americans” to be published in Kevin Park, ed., Reading the Bible and Doing Theology in Asian American Context: Essays in Honor of Sang Hyun Lee (forthcoming).
In July, he wrote his first blog entitled “Postmodern and the Church” for Ephphatha
Poetry (ephphatha-poetry. blogspot.com). He also wrote an editorial for Reviews in Religion and Theology (issue 17:1, January 2010) titled “You’re the Standard,
Sir!” which is a reflection of his stay in Korea.
In April, Yehezkel Landau participated in a roundtable on religious peacemaking sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.; received the annual “Living Spirit Award” from the Spiritual Life Center in Bloomfield, CT, at a dinner/ceremony at the Pond House in West Hartford, CT; was Scholar-in- Residence at Mishkan Shalom synagogue in Philadelphia, delivering two talks over the course of the Sabbath; gave a Jewish perspective on the morality of warfare as part of a Jewish-Christian-Muslim
panel at the Lutheran Theological School in Philadelphia; and delivered the annual
Dorothy Walker Bush Lecture at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, CT. Landau also joined Heidi Hadsell and Mahmoud Ayoub on an interfaith panel addressing “Sharing the Abrahamic Legacy and Blessing” at Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden, CT. In May,
Landau convened a day-long seminar on the Building Abrahamic Partnerships (BAP)
interfaith training program for educators at other seminaries, sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation. He spoke on grass-roots peacebuilding in Israel/Palestine, with Open
House in Ramle as a case study, at Beth Hatikvah synagogue in Summit, N.J., and co-led a Scripture study session for Christian seminarians and rabbinical students under the auspices of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. In June, Landau spoke about the BAP program on a panel of interfaith educators, as part of a two-day conference on training Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
religious leaders, co-sponsored by the Boston Theological Institute and Hebrew
College in Newton Centre, MA; led a morning session of Prof. Benjamin Watts’s course on “Dreams as a Resource for Ministry,” exploring the meaning of dreams in Jewish and
Islamic traditions; and delivered the keynote address, and spoke on a multi-faith panel, at
an Interfaith Summit on “An Emerging Ethical Renaissance” in Huntsville, AL. Landau’s essay on “Shi’ite Mahdism and Jewish Messianism: The Ambivalent Mingling of Piety and Politics” was posted under “Resources” at www.abrahamicfamily reunion.org.
In July, Adair Lummis attended the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in Anaheim, CA, for the Episcopal Church Center. Part of her work there included getting responses to a survey for the Strategic Planning Committee of the Episcopal Church. An enjoyable event she attended was the Virginia Theological Seminary dinner, with greetings at the entrance by former Hartford Seminary
Dean Ian Markham, now dean and president of VTS, and Leslie Markham. Ingrid Mattson has been involved for the past few months in consultations with the Interreligious Task Force of President Barack Obama’s Faith Advisory Council. The Council develops ideas to promote interreligious cooperation on projects that promote the common good. Mattson also traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in the National Religious
Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) public witness and to call for a commission of
inquiry to investigate U.S. sponsored torture. NRCAT leaders met with senior White
House officials after the public witness. Mattson returned to Washington on Independence Day weekend to participate in the Islamic Society ofNorth America’s 46th annual convention held there this year. She is president of ISNA. Back in Hartford,
Mattson taught a summer class, The Qur’an and its Place in Muslim Life.
Yahya Michot accompanied Dr. Reza Mansoor, a trustee, in April to speak about the Seminary to a group of imams at the Bosnian mosque in Hartford. At the end of April, at the invitation of the French National Center for Scientific Research, Michot went to Paris and animated a seminar on “Qur’an Exegesis in Avicenna’s ‘Epistle on Actions and Passions’.” In May, Michot gave a public lecture on “Astronomy & Astrology in the Muslim World” at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, CT. He also participated in an interfaith discussion on “Paul, whom the Christians call Apostle,” organized at the Seminary. Besides his regular classes, Michot held weekly sessions during which he read, with three Turkish students, an Ottoman manuscript of the 17th century: the
unpublished Risâleh of the puritanical reformist Ahmed Rûmî al-Aqhisârî.
During May, James Nieman was a keynote speaker at the Seventh International Symposium of Practical Theology, sponsored by the Graduate School of Practical Theology in Icheon, Korea. He spoke about the ecclesial identity of small congregations,
and a vision for ministerial leadership in congregations. He also lectured at Yonsei University in Seoul about developments in practical theology in theUnited States, and aboutteaching homileticsas a practice. DuringJune, he was a lecturerat a conference
entitled, “Human Flourishing: Exploring Protestant Goods in Changing Contexts,”
held in Kampen, The Netherlands, and sponsored by the Protestantse Theologische
Universteit. Later in June, he participated in a meeting of the Congregational Studies Project Team on Cape Cod, Mass. The Team currently mentors younger scholars interested in congregational studies through its “Engaged Scholars” fellowship
program, for which Nieman is the director.
Wayne G. Rollins, Adjunct Professor of Scripture, wrote an extensive article on “John the Evangelist,” that appeared in The Blackwell Companion to the Theologians, published in 2009 by Wiley-Blackwell Press, Oxford, U.K. The article concluded with a postscript on the role of John as a “Gospel for all seasons” in the history and life of the church. In mid-
April, Rollins offered a retreat at the First Congregational Church of Guilford, CT, on “Paul: Fully Alive,” The three interactive and illustrated sessions focused on “Paul the Man, Warts and All, and How to Read Him,” “Paul and the Christian Life: How Do I Decide What’s Right and What’s Wrong?”: and “Paul for The Road: Words to Live By.” In early May, Rollins presented a morning and evening lecture at the Asylum Hill Congregation Church (UCC), Hartford, on “The Psyche and Human Wholeness: Where Psychology
and Religion Meet in the Thought of C.G. Jung.” The lecture concluded with a slide presentation on Jung’s life, focusing on the observation Jung made after sixty years
as one of the West’s premiere analytical psychologists, that “Religions are psychotherapeutic systems in the truest sense of the word.”
In early June Scott Thumma released a major study on megachurch attenders that was written about in more than 30 newspapers including USA Today, the New York Times, Christian Century, Forbes, Time, Le Pointe (France) and the Guardian (United Kingdom). He recorded three radio interviews and a web broadcast and was featured in a megachurch documentary film entitled “The Alpha and the Mega” that premiered in July.
During the past few months Thumma was occupied extensively in transitioning the Seminary’s technology support to an outsourced company. Additionally, he delivered a paper entitled “The View from the Comfy Padded Pew: New Data on Megachurch Attendees” at the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture conference in Washington, D.C., and spoke at Alliance Seminary in New York on megachurches. Thumma wrote three encyclopedia entries, two for the Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity on megachurches and Internet religion and one on megachurches for the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. He authored
two chapters, “Creating a New Heaven and a New Earth: Megachurches” and
“The Re-engineering of America’s Spiritual Soil” in Engineering Earth: The Impacts
of Mega-Engineering Projects and wrote “Suburban Mega-Religion and the Future
of Faith in America” for the Cambridge History of Religions in America as well as taught classes in spring and summer.
In April, Miriam Therese Winter gave a series of keynote presentations on spirituality in a quantum universe at a weekend gathering of the graduating class and former graduates
of the Lay Ministries Outreach Program affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Forth Worth, Texas. She spent the first week of June in London doing research on an
ongoing project related to world mission; and mid-month was keynote speaker at Worship Matters, the bi-annual gathering of church musicians and leaders of worship for the United Church of Canada, meeting this year in Ottawa.
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Faculty
Notes