faculty news & notes

The Austin Seminary Board of Trustees has called Dr. Ángel J. Gallardo to be assistant professor of church history, effective July 1, 2022.

“We are thrilled that Ángel will be joining the Austin Seminary community,” says President Ted Wardlaw. “He is an accomplished scholar, lecturer, and colleague, and he will inspire our students with respect to the love of church history. It will be a pleasure to welcome the Gallardo family to Austin.”

Dr. Gallardo is currently the associate director of the Intern program and serves on the faculty of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He earned the PhD from SMU in 2018; the subject of his dissertation was “Mapping the Nature of Empire: The Legacy of Theological Geography in the Early Iberian Atlantic.” He holds a BA in theological studies at Eastern University and an MDiv from the Duke University Divinity School where he later served on the Board of Visitors. He is an active lay member of the United Methodist Church.

In addition to Perkins, he has had teaching experience at Lexington Theological Seminary, House of Hispanic Studies at Duke, CEPAS, a non-profit educational center for at-risk youth in Brazil, and Seminario Metodista, Huancayo in Perú.

Dr. Gallardo is looking forward to beginning his teaching at Austin Seminary. “I am excited to invite seminarians to explore, and be shaped by, the complex and enthralling legacy of the global Christian movement,” he says. “I also look forward to developing courses that examine the origins of race and religion in the Americas. Ultimately, I hope my students can learn to reimagine themselves, their congregations, and their contexts in light of God’s broader story of redemption by critically engaging the history of Christian thought.” Ángel Gallardo is deeply involved in academic conversations, currently co-chair of the Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society program unit of the American Academy of Religion & Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL). He participated in the roundtable “Making Sense of /from the 2020 U.S. Election” at the AAR/SBL conference in 2020, and he served as an officer of La Comunidad, the Association of U.S. Latino/a Scholars of Religion and Theology (2015-19). He presented a paper at the Latinx Studies Now: DC 2018+, Latina/o Studies Association 3rd Biennial Conference Panel: “Toward a Nepantla Poetics: Exploring Decolonial Options in Latinx Theology.” He also holds membership in the Hispanic Theological Initiative at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Dr. Gallardo and his wife, Kendrea Tannis, are parents to two young children, and they will make their home in Austin this spring.

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The Reverend Dr. Sarah Allen (MDiv’ 07, DMin’19) has joined the Austin Seminary faculty as director of Ministerial Formation and Advanced Studies. The Austin Seminary Board voted to call her on November 2 and she began work on January 1, 2022, following the retirement of The Reverend Dr. Paul Hooker. Allen earned her Master of Divinity degree from Austin Seminary in 2007 and the Doctor of Ministry degree in 2019. A summa cum laude graduate of Austin College (religion and Spanish), she has served First Presbyterian Church, Austin, for the past fourteen years as pastor for children, youth, and families.

“In interviews that the advisory committee conducted with candidates over the summer, Rev. Allen emerged as the obvious choice for this important faculty position,” says Academic Dean David Jensen. “She brings to the position a keen intellect, a warm pastoral heart, extensive ministry experience at the local and presbytery levels, and creative leadership for the future of the church.”

Allen also brings teaching experience—both in churches and at the Seminary as an adjunct professor. Reflecting on this transition in her ministry, Reverend Allen noted: “I am excited to return to the Austin Seminary community once again, this time as a member of the faculty. I look forward to the partnerships with students, pastors, and congregations. Both the Supervised Practice of Ministry as well as the Doctor of Ministry programs at Austin Seminary have been significant in my own ministry, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to direct these important programs and equip others for service in Christ’s church.”

Phil Helsel (pastoral care) convened the 2022 Williamson Conference, March 7-8, in which seven scholars from across the country presented and responded to papers on emerging concerns for pastoral care.

Cynthia Rigby (theology) was a keynote speaker for the international conference “Negotiating Good Life in Times of Crisis” put on by Protestant Theological University in The Netherlands, April 4-7. The other keynoters included two from Europe and Allan Boesak from South Africa.

Melissa Wiginton (Methodist studies) led the Round Rock Presbyterian Church Women’s Retreat, trained as an on-boarding coach with the Rio Texas Conference, and cofacilitated two cohorts of Methodist clergy for the Texas Methodist Foundation’s Courageous Leadership Imperative.

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Eugene F. Rogers Jr., Blood Theology: Seeing Red in Body- and God-Talk (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)

Eugene Rogers is one of the most compelling and creative theologians writing today. He is also impossible to characterize with adjectives that signify different “camps” within the wider church (evangelical, progressive, conservative, liberal, historical, systematic). In this most recent book, Rogers notes that language about blood occurs far more frequently in the New Testament than language about the cross. And yet, this preponderance of blood-talk rarely gets explored in contemporary theology. Conservatives invoke the symbolism of blood without examining its underlying meaning. Liberals act as if the language of blood isn’t there at all. Rogers offers a much-needed corrective, in perhaps the first book-length Christian theological treatment of blood for a contemporary audience. Readers will find it challenging and rewarding as he interprets blood in both old and new veins. The book is also a delight to read, for few theologians can match Rogers’s craft for turning a phrase. Some sentences will send readers scurrying for a dictionary; others will leave them laughing out loud. Indeed, wit and humor are some of the gifts of Rogers’s book since laughter can dismantle resistance to new perspectives.

Rogers admits that his book doesn’t have a single thesis. Instead, the book unfolds in a series of chapters devoted to a particular theme: sacrifice, Jesus and blood, purity and blood, creation and blood, the Eucharist, etc. Each of these chapters stands on its own as a gem of historical and constructive theology. One of the most salient themes of the book is an implicit critique of liberal understandings of the symbolism of blood as mired in cycles of violence. Legion are the critiques of Christianity that see in its blood language only the propensity to re-enact senseless violence. But Rogers sees more in sacrifice: of shed blood that bespeaks human solidarity with other creatures; of Jesus’s blood that is as procreative as it is sacrificial (and thus an example of how Jesus “queers” gender). Rogers also offers astute lessons in how blood-talk in Christian discourse can stray (such as fixations on blood purity) and presents a stunning refutation of Christian creationism that draws from the wells of patristic theology. Creationism, he claims, offers a static account of sin and salvation, rather than the dynamic, evolutionary cosmos redeemed in Jesus Christ that emphasizes our blood kinship with all creatures. Near the end of the book, Rogers offers an arresting interpretation of the Eucharist, illustrating how the sacrament communicates the end for us and all creation: communion with God.

Rogers’s probing examination of blood thus results in an exploration of much more than blood. Blood, he notes, “seeps in where it hardly seems to belong.” Those who read his book won’t see red in quite the same way again.

—Written by Dr. David Jensen, Academic Dean and Professor in the Clarence N. and Betty B. Frierson Distinguished Chair of Reformed Theology

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In December, Austin Seminary celebrated two cherished members of the faculty who retired in 2021, The Reverend Dr. David Johnson, associate professor of church history and Christian spirituality, and The Reverend Dr. Paul Hooker, associate dean in the Office of Ministerial Formation and Advanced Studies.

David Johnson joined the faculty in 2002 to direct the Supervised Practice of Ministry and Certificate in Spiritual Formation programs. He later assumed supervision of the DMin program and additional teaching responsibilities. He is the author of Trust in God: The Christian Life and the Book of Confessions (Geneva Press, 2013).

Much beloved by colleagues and students alike, Johnson was honored this spring by an issue of Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary. In the introduction, President Wardlaw wrote, “David is, all at once, a seasoned pastor, a brilliant theologian, an enchanting and honest preacher, a connoisseur of fine wines and exotic teas, and a remarkable intellect who also appreciates whimsy.” A student wrote, “His quiet ability to bring an entire classroom into an introspective, empathetic, and thoughtful mindset is one of the most impressive things about him.”

Paul Hooker joined the faculty in 2012 to oversee the Doctor of Ministry, Certificate in Ministry, and Supervised Practice of Ministry programs (following Dr. Johnson).

Prior to coming to Austin Seminary, he was executive presbyter and stated clerk in the Presbytery of St. Augustine for thirteen years. Hooker’s extensive experience in writing and interpreting the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was a gift to the church and Austin Seminary students—as was his bass accompaniment as a founding member of the faculty band, Faculty Meeting.

Dr. Hooker wrote a commentary on 1 and 2 Chronicles and co-authored a book on biblical history and literature. In recent years, his intellect and heart turned to less prosaic expression as he published two volumes of poetry: Days and Times: Poems from the Liturgy of Living (Resource, 2018) and The Hole in the Heart of God (Resource, 2021). Excerpts from the latter were used in Austin Seminary’s Easter Vigil last spring.

Austin Seminary has been richly blessed by these two amiable and poetic scholars among us. Their wit, wisdom, and creative imaginations will long be treasured by this community.