Seminary news

2007-03-28

by Toya Richards Hill

ATLANTA, GA * An anonymous donor has made a $1 million pledge to Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary [http://www.itc.edu/pages/smith.asp] for its $15 million "Building for the Future Campaign." The gift will be used to endow the position of dean of the seminary, named "The Jane Berry Smith Deanship." The campaign, launched by a $4 million challenge grant from Sue and John Wieland, has been in full swing for nearly five months and has realized $5.5 million in gifts and pledges.

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AUSTIN, TX * P. Mark Achtemeier and Jack B. Rogers will discuss the Church's struggle with homosexuality at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary's [http://www.austinseminary.edu/] spring President's Colloquium on April 4. Achtemeier is associate professor of systematic theology at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary and was a member of the PC(USA)'s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. Rogers is professor of theology emeritus of San Francisco Theological Seminary and was moderator of the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The colloquium title:
"Whom shall we send? Whom shall we not? The Church's struggle with homosexuality."

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CHICAGO, IL * McCormick Theological Seminary [http://www.mccormick.edu/] graduate David Barnhart has announced the screening of his documentary film "Reclaiming Hope, Reclaiming Life" at the Carter Center in Atlanta on May 20. Part of a series of projects commissioned by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Barnhart's film captures the stories of four families living in the tsunami-affected regions of Indonesia. A 2005 graduate of the seminary, Barnhart has filmed in war-torn regions of the Democratic of Congo, agricultural communities in Haiti, and the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. While completing his masters of divinity degree at McCormick, he spent a year as an exchange student in Seoul, Korea, documenting the story of a community of elderly Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. This work was later developed into Barnhart's first documentary film, "The House of Sharing."

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DECATUR, GA * Columbia Theological Seminary's [http://www.ctsnet.edu/] 2007 Colloquium, "The Word for a Warming World: The Bible, the Church, and the Groanings of Creation," will take place April 16-18. The colloquium focuses on the church's encounter with the emerging ecological crisis that is now gaining increased national and international attention. Through plenary presentations, panels and workshops participants will explore the broad contours of the crisis, develop Biblical perspectives for Christian care of the creation and offer resources for ministry in times of travail. Keynote speakers will be Barbara Rossing and Terence E. Fretheim; and workshop leaders include seminary faculty Stan Saunders, Bill Brown and others. For additional information, go to Columbia Theological Seminary's Web site.

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DUBUQUE, IA * Gary Neal Hansen, assistant professor of church history at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, [http://udts.dbq.edu/] has received a $40,000 grant from The Louisville Institute's Christian Faith and Life Grant Program. The funding will support a project titled "Doing the Work of God: Historical Models of Christian Prayer." The nine-month Christian Faith and Life Grant will fund the development of a two-book project on 10 historical models of Christian prayer, intended to help Christians experience prayer in richer ways and to equip ministers and priests to be more effective spiritual directors. Funds from the grant will support Hansen's research and writing at the University of Iowa, where he will be a visiting scholar in the Department of Religious Studies. In October 2007 he will present a paper on portions of this research at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Minneapolis, MN. The Christian Faith and Life Grant program supports research projects by academics and pastors designed to make more accessible to religious believers the themes of Christian faith in relation to the realities of their contemporary lives.

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PRINCETON, NJ * Karen Jackson-Weaver, executive director of the New Jersey Amistad Commission, will give the annual Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary [http://www.ptsem.edu/] on April 4. Her lecture is titled, "Unfulfilled Dreams: A Socio-historic Analysis of Dr. King's Leadership and the Women Who Shaped It."
Jackson-Weaver is a scholar and lay minister with research interests in African-American religious history. Among other things, she has been a fellow at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University and a visiting scholar at the King Center Library and Archives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she completed research for her dissertation, "Lift Every Voice: Black Women's Invisible Leadership and Faith during the Civil Rights Era." She has taught at Columbia University and served as faculty at Princeton Seminary's Institute for Youth Ministry. Under Jackson-Weaver's administration, the New Jersey Amistad Commission has been featured on CNN News and CBS News, and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Black Enterprise, Newsweek and Forbes for its innovative approach to integrating African-American history into the social studies curriculum in New Jersey's public schools. For more information on the King lecture, call (609) 497-7760 or visit the seminary's Web site.