Vantage Summer 11

Beginnin g

Vantage Summer 2011

Vantage

Vol. 103, No. 3, Summer 2011 Published by Office of Institutional Advancement Columbia Theological Seminary E d i to r

Genie Hambrick De s i g n

Lucy Ke C ov e r A rt

Byron Birdsall P h o t o g r ap h y

Coenraad Brand ’13 Scott Chester Stanley Leary C o n t r i b u to r s

Artique, Ltd. Claudia Aguilar ’11 Darlene Barr ’11(DMin) David Bartlett Charlie Berthoud ’12(DMin) Ralph Bush, Jr. Randy Calvo, Jr. ’81 Richard Carr ’11 Miguel Chavez Scott Chester Pam Cottrell Mary Lynn Darden Sarah Erickson ’03/’10(DEdMin) Alexander Wier Evans ’11(DMin) Joe Evans ’06 Rachel Ezzo John Fawcett ’13 Bryan Franzen ’11(DMin) Jane Gleim Katelyn Gordon ’09 Sharon Gregory ’12 Tiffany Greer Hamilton ’11(DMin) Steve Hayner Joy Heaton ’11(DMin) Vivian Hodo Ann Brownlee Jahnes ’11(DMin) Khalia J. Jelks ’11 MA(TS) Christin Johnson ’12 Melanie Johnson ’12 Eun-Gee Jun ’11(DEdMin) Henry G. Kaira ’11(ThM) Christine Kaplunas ’11 Emily Keifer Debbie Kromis ’11 Stanley Leary Mia Levetan-Setzer ’12/’13(MAPT) Kimberly Bracken Long Dorothy Lott ’12 and Eugene Lott Dawn Martin ’12 Denise McLeod ’11 Mike Medford Linda Morningstar ’98 MA(TS) David Musil Kathleen O’Connor Elizabeth Orth Katie Owen ’11 Carson Overstreet ’11 Jeff Peterson-Davis ’11(DMin) Barbara Poe Ross Reddick ’11 Jody Sauls Nick Setzer ’11/’12(MAPT) Marvin Simmers Lauren Slingerland ’11 George Stroup Doug Taylor Sandra Taylor Marshall Turkel Cynthia J. Wakeland ’11(DEdMin) Robin Williamson ’10 Christine Roy Yoder

President’s Message

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olumbia is a community of both memory and hope.

In every present moment we are fed by both the memories of our past and the hopes for our future.

We have a rich history which includes faithful and diverse alumni/ae, illustrious faculty, campus development, and interesting, miraculous, and sometimes odd twists and turns along the way in our service to the Church. I love to hear the stories. Some are well-known and others are very personal as they come from the experiences and through the perspectives of those on whose shoulders we stand. It is vital to our future that we always keep roots planted deeply in the soil of our traditions, values, and strengths. The past tells us a great story about whose we are, and helps us mark a course for the future which is embedded in God’s Story of creation, covenant, redemption, and mission.

While the past is a key to understanding our present, we are also a community of hope and beginnings. Every new alumnus and alumna who receives a diploma or certificate—every new faculty member— every new dream for a more fruitful and Spirit-filled Church—draws sustenance not only from the past, but also from our faith that God is moving ahead of us, guiding us into new opportunities.

. . . the landscape before us stretches into eternity.

Alexander the Great, who conquered some of the greatest empires that the world had ever known, is said to have wept as he looked across the Indus River, because there were no more worlds to conquer. But the landscape before us stretches into eternity. Christ’s work for our salvation is finished through the cross and resurrection, but his work for the restoration of all creation goes on.

The good news is that Christ invites us every day to be a part of this new work. There are always more people to love, more injustices to engage, more creation to heal. There are new Spirit-given dreams and visions to be explored.

Every day of our journey, God takes us to a new beginning. At Columbia we are praying and planning as we nourish tomorrow’s leaders. We are listening to God who says, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43.19)

Joyfully,

S t e v e H ay n e r

Byron Birdsall

Mt. McKinley as seen through Plum Branches and Parakeet (Ume ni Inko) — after Hiroshige Watercolor. 17 inches x 12 inches 2009 used with permission of the artist Born in Arizona and raised in California, self-taught Alaska artist Byron Birdsall is a graduate of Seattle Pacific University and a former teacher and fire fighter. Since his first solo exhibition in 1967, Mr. Birdsall has had more than 50 one-man shows and in 1992 provided the artwork for a U.S. postage stamp commemorating the building of the Alcan Highway. Today his paintings are included in numerous private collections as well as those of museums, public institutions, and corporations including Alaska Airlines, British Petroleum, and the Russian Orthodox Church of Alaska.

Mr. Birdsall’s paintings of frozen landscapes and haunting nightscapes are for many collectors the quintessential expression of “the last frontier.” His work is inspired by travels throughout Alaska, India, Italy, and Japan, and is strongly influenced by Japanese wood-block printing. He is also a noted painter of religious icons produced in acrylics, pearls, rhinestones, and gold leaf.

Mr. Birdsall says that with each painting he tries to engage the culture and make the world better.

“With every brush stroke, I try to remember that 100 years from now, all that will be left is the art.” n

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he seminary’s Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of Ralph C. Basui Ralph Watkins .

Watkins as associate professor will join . of evangelism and church growth. He will join the Columbia’s faculty faculty this summer and begin teaching during the fall term.

Dr. Watkins comes to Columbia from Fuller Theological Seminary, in California, where he was assistant dean of the African American Church Studies Program and associate professor of society, religion, and Africana studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, in California. He was also serving as executive pastor of the 15,000-member First African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Los Angeles. Concerned with the development of future leaders for the church, Dr. Watkins has focused his academic work and ministry on building bridges between youth and young adults and the church.

He received the Ph.D. in sociology of religion from the University of Pittsburgh. Previously he had earned degrees from two theological institutions of the Presbyterian Church (USA): the Master of Arts in religion at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, and the Doctor of Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He received a B.A. in political science from California State University at Sacramento.

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Prior to and throughout his academic career, he has been actively engaged in ministry. He is ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and has served in senior positions at African Methodist Episcopal and Baptist congregations in Georgia, California, and Pennsylvania.

Dr. Watkins’s scholarship includes more than 250 publications and conference presentations. He is the author of five books: Leading Your African American Church Through Pastoral Transition (2010); From Jay-Z to Jesus: Reaching and Teaching Young Adults in the Black Church (2008), co-authored with Benjamin Stephens; The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (2007); I Ain’t Afraid to Speak My Mind (2003); and Hip-Hop Redemption: Finding God in the Music and the Message, which will be released this summer.

Announcing the appointment of Dr. Watkins, Columbia’s president, Steve Hayner, said, “I am excited about this appointment.

Ralph will bring his deep commitment to Christ, his enthusiastic love for the church, his passion for evangelism, and his amazing energy as a teacher to this new role. We are looking forward to having him as a colleague in our great faculty.” n

Doug Taylor named Vice President for Institutional Advancement

n March, the seminary’s Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Doug Taylor as vice president for institutional advancement. Mr. Taylor comes to Columbia from Seattle Pacific University, a Christian institution with a current enrollment of approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students, in Seattle, WA. Mr. Taylor had been senior major gifts officer at Seattle Pacific since 2009. He had served there as director of alumni relations from 1996-2009, returning to Seattle from Madison, WI, where he had worked for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He has also run a small manufacturing plant with 50 employees and has been a sales representative for manufacturers of medical and surgical supplies.

Mr. Taylor and his wife, Jean, have three children, Maggie (13), Fiona (11), and Logan (8).

They have been active members at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle for 15 years, where he chaired the Development Committee. For the past three years, he has been a teaching leader for the interdenominational, multi-ethnic Seattle Downtown Men’s Bible Study Fellowship.

“I have personally known Doug since his college years in the 1980s,” says Columbia’s president, Steve Hayner. “He is a wonderfully relational, committed, curious, entrepreneurial person with a keen ability to cross cultural boundaries. He comes to us with a deep sense of call to Columbia and to this position. He will be an excellent addition to our administrative team.” n Until now we have been enjoying fruit from trees we did not plant. As we enter ministry, we begin planting trees for others to enjoy in the future, and we point them to Christ, . who called us here and sends us out.

— Lauren Slingerland, MDiv ’11

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News Historic and contemporary views on Jesus— New book by George W. Stroup

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eorge W. Stroup, the J. B. Green Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary, is the author of Why Jesus Matters, released this spring by Westminster John Knox Press. Incorporating new, diverse voices of theologians and thinkers from around the world, Dr. Stroup offers a concise presentation of historic and contemporary views about Jesus Christ.

This volume is a revision of his book Jesus Christ for Today, published in 1982.

“I didn’t write this new book for professional theologians,” Dr. Stroup says. “It’s really for people without formal theological education who are interested in thinking about important topics in Christian faith. And certainly there is no topic more important for them than Christology.

“As a living Christ, Jesus asks each new generation who they believe him to be,” says Dr. Stroup.

“I first tried to address that question in Jesus Christ for Today. Now, nearly 30 years later, I am a different person and we live in a different world—a world in which people other than Western males have said some important things about Jesus. In Why Jesus Matters I attempt to assess the contribution these new voices have made to our understanding of Jesus.”

Dr. Stroup’s previous work also includes The Promise of Narrative Christology, Before God, and Calvin. He is a member of the editorial board of Feasting on the Word. n

Eucharistic theology and f rontier revivalism—.

New book by Kimberly B. Long

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acramental occasions, or “Holy Fairs,” practiced by Scots-Irish Presbyterians in mid19th-century America were intended to bring conversion to nonbelievers and spiritual renewal to baptized Christians. In The Eucharistic Theology of the American Holy Fairs, released in March by Westminster John Knox Press, Kimberly Bracken Long examines the chief texts of American revivalism—sermons, devotional writings, and catechetical materials—to gain insights into the sacramental theology at work in these events, as well as into the nature of revivalism in the American Presbyterian context. She also explores several implications for 21st-century Reformed and Presbyterian worship.

“These ‘Holy Fairs’ took the form of outdoor revivals that lasted for several days,” says Dr. Long.

“Held annually between May and November, they included services of preparation, preaching and exhorting, and private meditation. The week culminated in a communion service on Sunday and ended with a Monday thanksgiving service, after which people traveled back to their homes.

Once thought to be a quintessentially American phenomenon, the camp meeting has its origins in the sacramental revivals of Ulster and the Scottish Lowlands.

“In my research, I found the significant—and somewhat surprising—use of language from the Song of Songs, as well as other biblical marital imagery, to describe the believer’s union with Christ in communion. By considering how certain medieval writers used spousal and sexual metaphors to describe the believer’s relationship with Christ, examining Calvin’s understanding of mystical union, and comparing the American sources with their Scottish antecedents, I argue that the American sacramental occasions exhibited a Eucharistic theology that was solidly Reformed yet included a mystical strain, expressed within the context of frontier revivalism.”

Dr. Long is assistant professor of worship and coordinator of worship resources for congregations at Columbia. She is the author of The Worshiping Body: The Art of Leading Worship, also published by Westminster John Knox. n

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he Association of Theological Schools (ATS) has awarded Lilly Theological Research Grants to Columbia faculty members Kimberly Bracken Long, assistant professor of worship, and Haruko Nawata Ward, associate professor of church history. Supported by the Lilly Endowment, the ATS grants program is in its fourteenth year. Twenty-two grants were awarded this year.

“Ask any group of pastors about weddings,” says Dr. Long, “and you will hear groans, stories, and assertions that one would rather preside at ten funerals than at one wedding. Ministers complain that they feel like functionaries and question whether they ought to serve as agents of the state. Furthermore, issues surrounding the rights and privileges of marriage and the longevity of these unions are constantly in the news. Today’s church and its ministers are no longer sure about the nature of Christian marriage and the church’s role in it.”

Through her research, and informed by current sociological analyses of marriage long and civil unions, the history of Christian marriage rites, and important Protestant and Roman Catholic theologies of marriage, Dr. Long will construct a practical theology of Christian marriage for churches in North America. Through bibliographic and ethnographic research, she will re-think the church’s involvement in weddings and offer a distinctively Christian understanding of marriage that is rooted in baptismal vocation and is eschatological in nature.

In her research project, Dr. Ward will study the Christian theology of martyrdom as manifested Wa r d among women martyrs in the Jesuit mission in Japan (1549-1650). Through the analysis of primary source texts, both published and archival, she will examine how women martyrs in Japan appropriated the Jesuit missionary theology of martyrdom in their Shinto-Buddhist-Confucian contexts. Her project expands the comparative study of early modern martyr Supported by the. theology beyond Europe to Japan where the state executed 20,000 Christians.

Lilly Endowment,. She will conduct some of her archival research in Rome and Portugal.

Dr. Ward says, “In martyrdom, Christian women found a priestly vocation the ATS grants program equal to male clergy. Women martyrs saw themselves united with the crucified Christ, who gave them authority to resist against the oppressive regime. They is in its fourteenth year. proclaimed their theology non-violently through martyrdom. North American Twenty-two grants were Christian communities have just begun to see the possibility of becoming religious minorities, like these women. The project provides insights from the historical awarded this year. memories of this persecuted minority Christian community as we face our own changing religious landscapes.” n

Kimberly Long and Haruko Ward receive ATS grants from Lilly

The John Bulow Campbell Library has launched an upgraded version of its archives online catalog, containing new content and providing new and more powerful features for users The new content includes catalog records for the Local Church History collection, part of an ongoing project that began about 1930 among women in the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). The collection consists of annual histories of congregations and the work of the Presbyterian Women in those congregations. The addition of these records to the archives catalog marks the first time that researchers have been able to view the list of approximately 5,600 congregational histories online.

New features for researchers include improved searching options, more choices for displaying, printing, saving, and sharing results and collection descriptions, and links to “hot topics” and “core collections” links. “Hot topics” are dynamically generated results lists for specific subjects. These presently consist of lists of congregational records organized by state. Additional topics will be added in the future.

To try out the new catalog, visit the library’s archives online catalog page at . http://www.ctsnet.edu/Library/ArchivesOnlineCatalog.aspx Please send comments, suggestions, or questions to archives@ctsnet.edu.

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he Board of Trustees of Columbia Theological Seminary has elected six new members.

Elected to three-year terms are Pam Driesell, Atlanta, GA; Lucie Barron Eggleston, Columbia, SC; Andrew Kintz, Nashville, TN; Jan Scott Owen Swetenburg, Charlotte, NC; and Thomas W. Walker, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. Laura Auman Cunningham, New City, NY, was elected as a student representative for a one-year term.

Six new trustees elected by Columbia board

L a u r a C u n n i n g h a m ’98 is pastor of Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church, Pearl River, NY. She has also served churches in the Washington, DC, area. She is now a student in Columbia’s Doctor of Ministry program. She grew up in Atlanta, and her parents, Nancy and Charles, are members of the President’s Advisory Council.

P a m D r i e s e l l , a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, is pastor of Trinity

Presbyterian Church, Atlanta. Rev. Driesell came to Trinity following the successful organization of a new Presbyterian congregation in Oconee County, GA, a rapidly growing area with a mix of long-time rural residents and many newer members of the University of Georgia faculty and administration.

L u c i e B a rr o n E g g l e s t o n is president of Letter-Perfect Communications, Inc.

She is a member and elder at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, Columbia, SC. Ms. Eggleston earned the Master of Arts in Teaching (English) from Georgia State University. She is the daughter of N. G. ’37 and Ruby Barron, who was a member of the President’s Advisory Council. Her brother is Bill Barron ’67/DMin ’83.

A n d r e w K i n t z is a member of St. Bartholomew’s Church, Nashville, TN, and a founding

member of Kairos Church, a new Presbyterian congregation in Atlanta. He earned the MBA degree from the University of Georgia and is senior vice president and managing director of SunTrust Sports and Entertainment Specialty Group. He manages SunTrust offices in Atlanta and Nashville that serve clients in the music business.

J a n S w e t e n b u r g is a member of Myers Park Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, NC, where she has been an elder and deacon and serves now as coordinator of the program “Every Member Has a Ministry.” Ms. Swetenburg has master’s degrees from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked as a teacher for 17 years with pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade students.

T h o m a s W. Wa l k e r ’89 is pastor of The Palms Presbyterian Church, Jacksonville

Beach, FL. Dr. Walker earned the Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He has taught master’s and doctoral level courses at Columbia, as well as at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis. His study of Luke was published in 2000 by Geneva Press Interpretation Bible Studies, and he has written several other published articles and essays. n

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If anything, completion of my DMin project and graduation mark for me a new way to think of ministry. This new approach to ministry calls me to involve members of my congregation in the exploration of theology and faith development in a cooperative ministry.

—Bryan Franzen, DMin ’11

The 2011 Baccalaureate Sermon

T h e B e s t K e p t Se c r et Genesis 45.1–8

Kathleen M. O’Connor

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t the beginning of the past academic year, Dean Cameron Murchison reflected on the ecological crisis that forms the backdrop of every ministry today. Recent floods and tornadoes as well as Japan’s multi-leveled tragedies amplify that “long emergency” in our consciousness. Dr. Murchison reminded us that the biblical figure of Joseph formed state policy in the face of famine that threatened to destroy the ancient world.

He urged us to “recognize that we are living on borrowed time,” and then to participate in the formulation of policy “at both congregational and public levels,” and to find our hope in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The biblical character of Joseph also signifies another related and long emergency: the long emergency of displaced people. Around the globe today people are dislodged from their communities by ecological upheavals, military invasions, civil wars, economic deprivation, and food scarcity.

Joseph is a displaced person. Although his father dotes on him, his jealous brothers hate him, abandon him in a pit to die, and then sell him into slavery in Egypt. There, Joseph is a Hebrew among Egyptians, an outsider, demeaned, falsely accused, an innocent and forgotten prisoner, an utterly abandoned soul. The only way to make him more of an outsider would be to make him a woman. We might call her Josephina.

Joseph comes from a family history of displaced people:

Yet according to Genesis, it is because of the gifts of this displaced figure that Egypt and the world survive the famine at all. The displaced person alone has the wisdom, skill, ideas, analysis, policies, administrative plans, and the spiritual strength to feed the world’s hungry so that everyone lives. Joseph reminds us that it is outsiders, foreigners, the rejected and unwanted who often are the source of creativity and rebirth for society, and, I want to insist, for theology, biblical studies, and for the churches.

In the face of laws actual and pending in this country and this state to dehumanize and cast out immigrants, Joseph’s story can stop us in our tracks. Even where ministry takes place in racial, economic, and religious sameness, the wider world lives next door, down the street, across town, and that reality invites us to open our doors and thereby expand our lives.

And if this is so, pastors, ministers, and just plain disciples of Jesus Christ have a clear mandate from Joseph’s story to be like another one of the characters, to be like Pharaoh—of all people—who calls forth the talents of the shamed Hebrew, who listens, trusts, and even honors him. To do this would put us native-born among the displaced, dislodge us from the role of the fixers and from being the only ones with the truth.

But Joseph’s story points to still another form of displacement that may haunt many of us. When we meet him in Egypt, Joseph has displaced himself. He has lost part of his story and has separated from his history. I know just the littlest bit of what this means from my own life. It means not to live well in your own skin, not to trust yourself, not to have confidence in your own perceptions and insights, and then that means to feel cut off from God, not to be able to taste the presence of God in your own experience.

Joseph abandons his native identity to assimilate as an Egyptian. He gets an Egyptian name, marries an Egyptian woman, rises to the top of his new society. Then tellingly he names one of his children Manasseh, meaning “forgetfulness, making to forget” . . . “for he said, ‘God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house’” (Genesis 41.51).

He builds his new life upon amnesia. Selective amnesia is a terrific survival tactic, but the loss of one’s own story undermines inner power and a sense of God’s presence in one’s life.

Many years later in a meeting with his murderous brothers,

Our ancestors in faith were dislocated people, immigrants and refugees who moved around to survive.

Joseph’s story gathers up this reality and brings it into focus.

Abraham and Sarah migrate from Ur of the Chaldees.

Hagar is a slave from Egypt.

Isaac’s wife Rebekah comes to Canaan from Nahor.

Ishmael wanders in the desert.

Jacob too, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, is a refugee who escapes from the violence of his murderous brother Esau and then, with his four wives, from a vengeful father-in-law.

Our ancestors in faith were dislocated people, immigrants and refugees who moved around to survive. Joseph’s story gathers up this reality and brings it into focus.

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The 2011 Baccalaureate Sermon Joseph’s past comes back before him in what must have been a brutal moment of truth. By now the brothers are themselves displaced, forced to flee to Egypt with hordes of other people in search of food. When they gain an audience with Joseph and bow before him, they are completely unaware that the one to whom they are appealing for help is their lost brother Joseph.

They do not recognize him because he is Egyptian, second in authority only to Pharaoh. But Joseph recognizes them.

I imagine at this moment that all Joseph’s past suffering sweeps over him, stuns, confuses, and silences him. His forgotten life comes back upon him, and now he must consciously face it and emotionally relive it. Pain overtakes him, so how can he possibly respond to the mortal enemies standing before him?

Yet somehow, Joseph gains control of himself and the complicated emotions of the situation. He bides his time, hides his identity, and hatches a plot to test them.

In Genesis 45.1–8, something new happens. Joseph finally steps forward and reveals himself.

The Hebrew is quite clear about this. He “made himself known to his brothers.” Here for me is the crux of the story and a cause of deep curiosity. Why didn’t Joseph scream violently at them, or send them back to die in the famine, or have them slaughtered on the spot? What happened to this character that he did not seek revenge, that he could take off his mask, face his enemies, be vulnerable before them, embrace them, and make himself known to them and, yes, to himself?

The story does not tell us how this happened but it does give us clues. It implies that Joseph was able to do these things because he sought to live with God, stood before God, walked with God, desired to know God. We can infer from the story that Joseph had a rich inner life, a spiritual life.

As a young boy, Joseph trusts his divinely-sent dreams and declares his experience of divine revelation to his family, and that unleashes all the violence and pain that follow. The narrator tells us that later as a slave in Potiphar’s house, God was with Joseph and made everything he did prosper. Then, when he refuses the sexual advances of Mrs. Potiphar, he asks her, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” For that refusal, he suffers in prison, betrayed again, and yet rather than sinking into despair, he becomes a responsible citizen in the jailhouse, rising to leadership “for the Lord was with him.” There, he not only receives divine inspiration in dreams, he also becomes an interpreter of dreams, a kind of spiritual mentor to other

prisoners and then to Pharaoh. When Pharaoh hears Joseph’s interpretations, he asks the people around him, “Can we find anyone else like this—one in whom is the spirit of God?” Still, the strongest evidence of Joseph’s deep spiritual life emerges in his meetings with his brothers. His relationship with God may be why, at the crucial moment when the brothers show up, he remains surprisingly self-contained, cautious, trying to discern his brothers’ hearts, whether they too have changed after the tragedy that severed the family.

Instead of killing them in an effort to gain closure on the past and dancing in the streets—perhaps a deeply understandable impulse—he finds another way. He becomes a theologian of his own life: “I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into slavery.

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. . . .

So it was not you who sent me here but God” (45.4–5).

Joseph’s testimony reinterprets his life story, finds in the whole bitter mess a site of divine revelation. He integrates his past suffering into his present reality and reframes all the family’s pain theologically. “You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good.” By interpreting his life theologically, Joseph saves the family of Israel from disintegration, opens up space for healing, and he forgives them. He moves from being a kind of split personality, a man with a world of pain sealed off from consciousness, to become a mature, integrated human being and a savior of his people. How could he do this? How could he become a theologian of his life and therefore of Israel’s life?

Such transformation does not happen because we will it or think our way toward it, or rely upon the experiences of others in a kind of second-hand theology. Transformation into adult faith comes about because we do what some of us moderns call inner work, or take the journey of the spiritual life, or what others refer to as a contemplative life, a life fueled by prayer. We try to live open to grace.

To become theologians of our own lives requires a continual seeking for God day in and day out, no matter how busy, no matter how good or bad things seem. It involves listening for God in the world around us as well as in the inner-most recesses of our beings. Evil, sin, dark secrets, and gaping wounds are not simply out there in the systems and institutions we occupy; they are of a piece with our own humanity. To adopt an explicit life of prayer requires all our being, an opening to grace, so that like Joseph we can see how God has been present in our life stories.

He becomes a theologian . of his own life: .

“God sent me before you to preserve life. . . . .

So it was not you who sent me here but God ” (45.4–5).

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The 2011 Baccalaureate Sermon Maybe the best kept secret of Christianity is that the call to such inner life in the Spirit comes to every one through Baptism.

To become theologians of our own lives we do not have to become Buddhists, practice yoga, or learn new age meditation—though we may learn from them. Through Baptism, all are invited to live with God, personally, deeply, utterly. But I believe that living a deep spiritual life is the sine qua non of ministry, that without which nothing. In urging its pursuit, I am not talking about narcissistic efforts at self-improvement to become a calmer, more efficient person. Nor am I speaking of a relationship with God insulated from the world, a Jesus-and-me duo.

I am speaking of a fearsome, frightening, ground-shaking quest for God in season and out.

I am talking about falling into the arms of the living God, of becoming the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies for the sake of life to come, unthinkable life beyond anything we can ask or imagine.

To stand before God rooted in prayer and reflection does not mean to escape the pain and conflicts of the world, but to engage them, confront them, to sink into the wounds. Genuine relationship with God always, always, always leads outward toward care for the earth and its peoples. From this inner place—

in conversation with the tradition and the community of the faithful—we become theologians of our own lives.

Without an interior life with God, we can do much harm to others, projecting our fears, rages, and wounds onto others, distorting reality, acting out our issues on the public stage, trying to fix others, oblivious to the plank in our own eyes.

To live with God in a reflective way is a life-time pursuit. To become theologians of our lives, most of us need habits of quiet, prayer, and meditation that fit with busy lives, and some of us need therapy. But I believe that going inward to meet the chaos of our sin, shame, fear, despair, and false pride is also a way to learn compassion, a way to find authentic resources for ministry, a way to avoid burn out. My dear graduates, this is what I want for you, for all the churches, and for myself—to glimpse the light of God, to meet the One who comes in love to meet us, and like Joseph, to learn forgiveness. n

To stand before God rooted in prayer and reflection does not mean to escape the pain and conflicts of the world, but to engage them, conf ront them, to sink into the wounds.

www.atthispoint.net F ait h an d F ee l ing What role do emotions play in Christian life? What role should they play? Is the Christian faith about feelings or thoughts? Or might attention to the way emotions shape our spiritual lives help us discover that the thought-vs.-feeling dichotomy is false?

Join Old Testament scholars Matthew Schema and Christine Yoder, theologian George Stroup, and pastoral counselor Skip Johnson in their reflections on the significance of feeling for faith. n The faculty journal of Columbia Theological Seminary is available free and only online at www.atthispoint.net. Back issues are also available. Mark Douglas, associate professor of Christian ethics, is the journal’s editor. Contact Dr. Douglas at douglasm@ctsnet.edu).

Kathleen O’Connor is the William Marcellus McPheeters professor emerita. She retired from the seminary in May 2011. See page 27.

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2011 Graduates Doctor of Ministry Dennis M. Adams

Greenville, NC A.B., Atlantic Christian College M.Div., Duke Divinity School

J. Douglas Adkins

Madison, GA B.S., Cumberland College M.Div., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Nathan William Attwood

Montgomery, AL B.A., Oral Roberts University M.Div., Candler School of Theology

Walter Jacob Baer

New Orleans, LA B.S., University of Wisconsin M.Div., Nashotah House Theological Seminary

Darlene Marie Barr

Phoenixville, PA B.S., Cheyney University M.Div., Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Debra Jean Kevern Bronkema

Pleasantville, NY B.S., Central Michigan University M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary

Beunghoon Choi

Peoria, IL B.E., M.E., Kookmia University M.Div., Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary M.A.T.S., New Brunswick Theological Seminary

Thomas Richard Daniel

Decatur, GA A.B., Davidson College M.Div., Columbia Theological Seminary 10

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Patrick Donovan Dunkley

Ann Brownlee Jahnes

Gregory Vaughn Eason, Sr.

Melvin Gore Lowry

Portmore, St. Catherine, Jamaica B.Th., Jamaica Theological Seminary M.A., Caribbean Graduate School of Theology Atlanta, GA B.A., Morris Brown College M.Div., Interdenominational Theological Center Th.M., Columbia Theological Seminary

Alexander Wier Evans

Richmond, VA A.B., Davidson College M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in Virginia S.T.M., Yale University

Bryan James Franzen

Southport, NC B.A., Rollins College M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary Augusta, GA B.A., Wofford College M.Div., Interdenominational Theological Center

George Marchinkowski

Edenvale, South Africa B.A., B.D., Rhodes University

James Wilton McTyre III

Maryville, TN B.S., West Virginia University M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in Virginia

Naperville, IL B.A., Millikin University M.Div., San Francisco Theological Seminary

Matthew Leonard Mitchell

Timothy R. Green, Jr.

John B. Morgan III

Hephzibah, GA B.S., University of Central Oklahoma M.Div., Interdenominational Theological Center

Tiffany Greer Hamilton

Seneca, SC B.S., Clemson University M.Div., Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

Joy Cooper Heaton

Richmond, VA B.S.A., Amberton University M.Div., Campbell University Divinity School

Glenda Lee Hollingshead

White Pine, TN B.S., Carson-Newman College M.Div., Emmanuel School of Religion

Dacula, GA B.B.A., LaGrange College M.Div., Candler School of Theology Atlanta, GA B.S., Presbyterian College M.Ed., University of West Georgia M.Div., Columbia Theological Seminary

Jeffrey Doyle Peterson-Davis

Solon, OH B.A., Westmont College M.Div., Columbia Theological Seminary

William Stewart Rawson

Columbia, SC A.B., Davidson College M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in Virginia

2011 Graduates

Cynthia Joyce Reid

Cory Russell Smith

Robert Borron Woodruff

Mason Fuller Smith

Richard P. Zimmerman

Bridgeport, Jamaica B.A., University of the West Indies Dip.Ed., Mico Teacher’s College Dip.Min.Std., United Theological College of the West Indies

Creola, AL B.S., University of Southern Mississippi M.Div., Candler School of Theology

Douglas Bruce Resler

Whiteville, NC B.A., Campbell University M.Div., Duke University Divinity School

Parker, CO B.A., University of Colorado at Boulder M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary

Stephen Charles Robertson

Washington, DC B.S., Butler University M.A., Union Theological Seminary in Virginia M.Div., Columbia Theological Seminary

Shirley Ellen Shepard

Roswell, GA B.S., Texas A&M University M.C.E., Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary

John-Peter Cornelius Smit Toronto, Canada B.A., University of Toronto M.Div., Knox College

Theophilus James Stanford

Atlanta, GA B.S., Georgia Institute of Technology M.Div., Interdenominational Theological Center

Christopher Austin Thacker

Alexandria, LA B.A., East Texas Baptist University M.Div., Truett Theological Seminary

Ollie Rix Threadgill III

Sugar Hill, GA A.B., Davidson College M.Div., Columbia Theological Seminary

Kyle M. Walker

Bryan, TX B.S., West Texas A&M University M.Div., Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Albuquerque, NM B.A., Lewis & Clark College M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary Hillsboro, OR B.A., University of Washington M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary Th.M., Regent College

Doctor of .

Educational Ministry Eun-Gee Jun

Richmond, VA B.A., M.Div., M.A., Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary Th.M., Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary M.A., Liberty University

Cynthia Jean Wakeland

Decatur, IL B.S., Southeast Missouri State University M.A., Scarritt Graduate School

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2011 Graduates Master of Theology

Master of Divinity

Johnathan Elliott Alvarado

Claudia Lizette Aguilar Rubalcava

Conyers, GA B.A., Morehouse College M.A., Luther Rice Seminary M.Div., Church of God Theological Seminary D.Min., Regent University

Henry Gacheru Kaira

Nairobi, Kenya B.D., St. Paul’s University M.Div., Columbia Theological Seminary

Helen Kang

Mexico City, Mexico B.A., Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey

Travis Ross Allen

Graham, TX B.S., Texas A&M University

Carrie Ann Bowers

Summerville, SC B.S., Presbyterian College

Lynda Alyssa Brooks

Seoul, South Korea B.A., M.A., Ehwa Womans University M.Div., Th.M., Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary

Bronx, NY B.B.A., Bernard M. Baruch College, City University of New York M.B.A., University of Maryland, College Park

Young Hyun Kim

Tara Webster Bulger

Seoul, South Korea B.Th., Asian Center for Theological Studies and Mission M.Div., Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary

Sarah L. Mueller

Stevens Point, WI B.A., North Central University M.Div., Interdenominational Theological Center

Brian Stewart Powers

Atlanta, GA B.S., North Carolina State University M.Div., Columbia Theological Seminary

Seok Hoon Seo

Pohang, South Korea B.A., Hallym University M.Div., Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary

Athens, GA B.A., University of Georgia

Richard Watkins Carr III Spartanburg, SC B.A., Presbyterian College

Evan Peabody Carter

Augusta, GA B.S., Georgia Institute of Technology

William Christopher Caruso

Chattanooga, TN B.S., M.B.A., University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Enoch Chang

Charlotte, NC B.S., Georgia Institute of Technology

William Bennett Christians Birmingham, AL B.A., Auburn University

Laura Hudson Davis

Lilburn, GA B.J., University of Missouri

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Sara Biggs Dorrien

Kalamazoo, MI B.A., Western Michigan University

Mary Kathleen Duncan Anderson, SC B.S., Clemson University

Michael Christopher Frandsen Tallahassee, FL B.A., University of Florida

Mathew Burl Frease

Knoxville, TN B.A., Maryville College

Margaret Erin Fulghum Concord, NC B.A., Duke University

Jason Scott Hammersley Indianapolis, IN B.S., Indiana University M.A., Ball State University

David Scott Hill

Toccoa, GA B.S., B.S., Colorado State University

Nathan Kisung Hong

Decatur, GA B.S., Embry-Riddle Aeronautical School

Diane Marie Hunter

Charlotte, NC B.A., Queens University at Charlotte

Daniel Ray Jessop

Rock Springs, WY B.A., Hastings College

Laura Arlowyn Lee Jones

Carlsbad, CA B.A., University of California at Santa Barbara

Christine Thomas Kaplunas Lawrenceville, GA B.M., University of Georgia

Nancy Clifton Kinzer Decatur, GA A.B., Davidson College

Debra Ann Kromis

With Honors in the Historical Doctrinal Area Port Richey, FL B.A., Eckerd College

John Eunjin Lee

Atlanta, GA B.A., University of Alabama

Neill Duncan McKay

Wagram, NC B.S., East Carolina University

Denise Ann McLeod

Washington, DC B.A., St. Andrews Presbyterian College

Elizabeth Crawford Meador Flowood, MS B.A., Furman University

Duncan Shanahan Meadows Decatur, GA B.A., Berry College

Emma Lee Ouellette Allen Park, MI B.A., Alma College

Carson Montgomery Overstreet Charlotte, NC B.S., Lynchburg College

Kathryn Elizabeth Owen Topeka, KS B.A., Duke University

Ross Marshall Reddick

Trussville, AL B.A., University of Alabama

Kathryn Suzanne Salmons

Ponca City, OK B.M., Oklahoma State University

Lauren Wheeler Scharstein

Darlington, SC B.A., Washington and Lee University

Joshua Alexander Scruggs

Atlanta, GA B.B.A., University of West Georgia

David Nicholas Setzer Hanahan, SC B.A., Newberry College

John Douglas Shillingburg

Decatur, GA B.A., The College of William and Mary M.P.A., The University of Texas at Austin

Rebecca Summerville Shillingburg Decatur, GA B.S., Auburn University M.S., Texas A&M University M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology

Sarah Lauren Slingerland

Seneca, SC B.A., M.A., Furman University

Daeseung Son

Orlando, FL B.A., University of Central Florida

Camille Sheron Turner-Townsend Kingston, Jamaica B.A., Virginia State University M.S., Troy University

Andrew Clark Whaley Knoxville, TN B.A., Rhodes College

Zachary Kenton Wolfe Lincoln, NE B.A., Doane College

Tommy H. Yi

Atlanta, GA B.B.A., Georgia State University

Master of Arts in .

Theological Studies MaryBeth Heidrich Hamburger

Lilburn, GA B.A., Washington University in St. Louis Ph.D., University at Albany, State University of New York

Khalia J. Jelks

Los Angeles, CA B.B.A, Florida Memorial University M.I.B.A., Nova Southeastern University

Scott Santibanez

Kristin Faye Stroble

Decatur, GA B.A., M.D., West Virginia University M.P.H.T.M., Tulane University

Cassandra Ann Todd

* Awarded the degree at commencement . exercises at United Theological College of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica

Stow, OH B.Mus.Ed., The College of Wooster Davisburg, MI B.A., Michigan State University

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2011 Prizes and Awards These graduates were honored during the 2011 commencement service.

For more information about the awards, go to Vantage Online at http://vantage.ctsnet.edu.

C a rr i e A n n B o w e r s , MD i v

Carson Montgomery Overstreet, MDiv

R i c h a r d Wa t k i n s C a rr III , MD i v

K a t h r y n E l i z a b e t h O w e n , MD i v

James T. and Celeste M. Boyd Book Fund Ludwig Richard Max Dewitz Biblical Studies Award (Old Testament) James T. and Celeste M. Boyd Book Fund

E n o c h C h a n g , MD i v

William Dudley Fund Award

William Dudley Fund Award

Harvard A. Anderson Fellowship Presbyterian Women of the Presbytery of St. Andrew Preaching Award Wilds Book Prize

Claudia Lizette Aguilar R u b a l c a v a , MD i v Fannie Jordan Bryan Fellowship

A l e x a n d e r W i e r E v a n s , DM i n George and Sally Telford Award

K a t h r y n S u z a n n e S a l m o n s , MD i v

Michael Christopher F r a n d s e n , MD i v

L a u r e n W h e e l e r S c h a r s t e i n , MD i v

Harold J. Riddle Memorial Book Award William Rivers Waddey Award

A n n B r o w n l e e J a h n e s , DM i n The John Nelsen Award

K h a l i a J. J e l k s , MA ( TS ) Columbia Graduate Fellowship

E u n - G e e J u n , DE d M i n Julia Abdullah Award

D e br a A n n K r o m i s , MD i v Columbia Friendship Circle Graduate Fellowship

E l i z a b e t h C r a w f o r d M e a d o r, MD i v Anna Church Whitner Fellowship

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The Robert Ramey, Jr. Christian Leadership Award

Fannie Jordan Bryan Fellowship

D a v i d N i c h o l a s S e t z e r , MD i v William Rivers Waddey Award

J o h n D o u g l a s S h i l l i n g b u r g , MD i v Indiantown Country Church Award

S a r a h L a u r e n S l i n g e r l a n d , MD i v Abdullah Award – Moral and Spiritual Values

K r i s t i n F a y e S t r o b l e , MD i v The Toms-McGarrahan Award

A n d r e w C l a rk W h a l e y, MD i v

Emma Gaillard Boyce Graduate Fellowship Abdullah Award — Bible Emma Gaillard Boyce Memorial Award Lyman and Myki Mobley Prize Wilds Book Prize

The 2011 Best Student Sermon

Mark 5.21–34 is a focal text for students in the Introduction to Preaching course taught by professors Anna Carter Florence, Peter Marshall Associate Professor of Preaching, and Matt Flemming, instructor in preaching. Having wrestled in the classroom with it, this text came alive for me during my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) experience at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO, during the summer of 2010. This is a sermon that helps name the ways in which our ancient texts are still alive and transformative for Christians today. — Katie Owen ’11

For this sermon, Ms. Owen received the Presbyterian Women of the Presbytery of St. Andrew Preaching Award, presented during commencement. In addition to this honor, she was a finalist for this year’s David H. C. Read Preaching Award given by Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City. Immediately following graduation, she was awarded the William P. Wood/First Presbyterian Church (Charlotte, NC) “Excellence in Ministry” Scholarship to be used for advanced graduate studies.

Rea c h ing O u t in F ait h

Mark 5.21–34 From the sermon preached by Katie Owen ’11 at First Presbyterian Church, Topeka, KS

A crowd has heard about this man named Jesus traveling about the Sea of Galilee... farmers and small business owners, tax collectors and trash collectors, religious leaders and curious seekers, women and children, able-bodied athletes, and wheelchair-bound folk.

Y

our faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (Mark 5.34) That’s a happy ending if I ever heard one. Don’t we all like a story with a happy ending? We live for the fairy tale ending—the girl gets her prince, the family is reunited, the battle is over, the dragon is slain, the woman is made well. We like a clean story with a happy ending so much that we’ll pay $15 at the box office to see it acted out for us on screen. We journey through life looking for our fairy tale ending or at least for a story that fills us with purpose and value. Our fairy tale adventures take us on a quest for meaning in all sorts of places—in doctors’ offices and yoga studios, in bars and shopping malls, in friends’ backyards and in synagogues and churches and communities of faith like this one.

We’re all hoping to find our “happily ever after.” But the truth is, Life isn’t a fairy tale. It’s dirty and challenging; it is full of wonderful highs and gut-wrenching lows; it is full of joys and sorrows, pain and suffering. More often than not, life is as messy as the last 12 years of the life of the woman in this story.

Our hemorrhages may be external and visible for all to see—the kind that people notice walking down the street and that can tear at our sense of worth. Or the bleeding may be internal, a pain deep within ourselves preventing us from feeling whole—the kind we experience in silence that cuts into our ability to see ourselves as worthy of another’s love.

So we find some familiarity with the crowd in this story, a crowd like us on a similar quest for wholeness and meaning. A crowd who has heard about this man named Jesus traveling about the Sea of Galilee. The writer of the gospel doesn’t tell us who is in the crowd, but we can imagine that there were folk from many walks of life: the first century equivalents of farmers and small business owners, tax collectors and trash collectors, religious leaders and curious seekers, women and children, ablebodied athletes and wheelchair-bound folk. Jesus was surrounded by a crowd of people who were defined by their place in society—however grand or small—whose worth was derived from their relationship to the rest of their community. Some were there to hear and to witness, but no doubt many had come because they sought healing themselves.

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The 2011 Best Student Sermon

Even at church, we claim to be welcoming, but our welcome does not extend beyond our comfort zone.

Immediately she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

What an electrifying moment for this woman— to know in an instant that something was different....

Her hand outstretched in faith had helped to make her well.

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In the midst of this mixed up clamor of people stood a woman, just another face in the crowd.

Where many like Jairus were defined by their successes, by their relationships and their status, her condition had stripped her of any status at all. She is nameless, a woman of no value. Her hemorrhages made her impure, preventing her from marriage, friendship, or gathering for worship, business, or social functions. She had been shunned, physically and spiritually isolated from the rest of society. In desperation, she had sought the care of doctors, but first century medicine had failed to relieve her suffering. She was left poor and sick, stripping her of what little worth she had left. To the world, she was defined by her disease.

This is not just a first century issue. Society continues to define people by their disease. He’s a cancer patient. She’s obese. The boy is autistic. The man has had four heart attacks. The one over there is mentally ill. And while these individuals are not nearly as shunned by the world as they used to be, the isolation is much more passive—a silent suffering happening in plain view. Children gather for recess at the playground, and circles of “normal” kids shoot judging glances, turn and giggle at the kid who is different. High school students are bullied for claiming their differences in sexual orientation. Even at church, we claim to be welcoming, but our welcome does not extend beyond our comfort zone. You’ve heard the conversations: “I just feel so sorry for those parents, but I don’t want to say anything because I might offend them.” Or worse yet, “I hear he is sick. I wish there was something I could do to help, but I’m just so busy I don’t even want to offer.” Still today, there are many in the crowd looking for Jesus who are not so different from the hemorrhaging woman: defined by their disease, hoping for healing.

Even though the whole crowd could see her only for her ailment, something inside the woman told her that she still had worth. A faith that kindled deep in her heart told her that God redeems to make us whole and maybe, just maybe, God values even her. As the Psalmist cried out from the depths, the woman’s heart cried out with hope that “with the Lord there is…great power to redeem” (Psalm 130.7).

Her faith told her that this man named Jesus of Nazareth could heal and that the opportunity to be well was worth risking what little dignity she had left. So this nameless, diseased woman joined the crowd pressing in on Jesus in a quest for well-being and wholeness. She ducked past a Pharisee and weaved in between a pair of blind men and nudged one of the disciples aside until she was finally within reach of Jesus. And then she reached out in faith with all she had left. The lingering fibers of her being sought to graze the fibers of his cloak.

Immediately she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. What an electrifying moment for this woman—to know in an instant that something was different, to feel her seeping womb close up; that rush of blood that had bled from her for twelve years now cycled through her body with a new pulse of energy. Her hand outstretched in faith had helped to make her well. But immediately healing her did not immediately heal us. And the story is not yet over.

Jesus, aware that a power had left him, turned about in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” Jesus’ power isn’t tightly controlled and protected, and the disciples were clearly not a very good secret service detail. Surrounded by a crowd, Jesus left himself open and accessible to all. There were no doubt four or five people bumping into him at any given moment, and the disciples recognize the ridiculousness of his question. “Jesus, what do you mean, ‘who touched me?’ Look around at this crowd.”

But Jesus wasn’t going anywhere without his question answered because the question wasn’t for the disciples. The question was for the woman. For an individual who had been living in silent suffering, it may be the first time in years that anyone had said anything to her. And the woman knew the question was for her. Mark tells us “the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him and told him the whole truth” (Mark 5.33).

Can you imagine standing before Jesus and telling him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? This woman who had risked much to be there, who had reached out in faith for healing, was invited to speak. Someone who had no voice and no worth, who was nothing more than her disease, was suddenly given the mic, and she told the whole truth. What would you say?

I was recently given insight into what “the whole truth” might sound like. I spent the summer [2010] with leukemia patients, and I was sitting at the bedside of a woman who invited me to share her story with you. She is a woman with a complicated medical history who had been significantly obese for most of her life and defined by that disease. She described her experiences of being ostracized and

judged by a culture that craves skinny and fit, and she spoke of her search for wellbeing, her failed efforts at dieting, and her choice to have gastric bypass surgery. After the surgery, she felt like she had a new lease on life, but then other health problems emerged.

When she was diagnosed with leukemia, her doctors looked at her medical history and told her that there were only a few things they could try. They would take a conservative treatment to buy her some time but they were unwilling to consider any advanced therapies. She left the appointment in shock, feeling defeated, hopeless, and more than anything, judged. Like the hemorrhaging woman, she felt stripped of worth. She prayed, and she cried out of the depths of her soul, and she found a faith that told her that her life was still worth something. And so she picked up a pen, reached out in faith, and wrote her doctor.

Dear Doctor, If you’re going to treat me, you need to know who I am. I am more than what you see in my medical history. I am more than my blood tests and my diagnosis. I am a wife and a mother who . wants to see her daughter grow up. I am a volunteer court advocate for foster children, and there . is a teenage girl who is counting on me. I am a woman of faith. And I have more life left to live. .

I thought you needed to know.

Sincerely, Linda Just as Linda’s letter rested vulnerably in front of the doctors that held the hope of healing in their hands, the hemorrhaging woman’s whole truth lingered in the air in front of Jesus. The woman’s truth telling was public, as was Jesus’ response. When she stretched out her hand in faith, she touched the back of his cloak, perhaps feeling unworthy to approach him, perhaps trying to avoid a public scene—her healing was personal, or so she thought. But with the power that flowed from Jesus to the woman, her healing could not be contained or restricted. Jesus gave her the opportunity to speak from the depths of her heart. His ears were attentive to her need. With steadfast love and great power, he looked her in the eye in front of the whole crowd and acknowledged her as whole and worthy of his attention. “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5.34). Jesus spoke to her with affection and, in two simple sentences, affirmed her value before the whole community. She was more than her disease. She was a child of God. You see, healing is a community event that breaks down the barrier walls that hinder wholeness. Healing happens with outstretched hands in faith received by one who can strip away society’s definitions of worth and reveal one’s essential being as a child of God. Healing restores relationships and enables the crowd to see worth in one another.

At Linda’s next appointment, there was an immediate change in her doctor’s approach. He thanked her for her letter and was willing to discuss options for treatment (no doubt with some risk). Her cure wasn’t instant, but her healing was. The relationship was restored and he could see her as more than her disease. Her faith cleared a path toward life that retained her agency and worth. While she fights and prays for a cure, her faith has made her well. The act of reaching out in faith has restored her hope and given her a sense of wholeness and worth.

We don’t learn of the crowd’s reaction from the writer of Mark. But as I stood at Linda’s bedside, I realized I stand as one in the crowd in this story. One who can get caught up in society’s definitions of a person’s worth, and one who hopes for new eyes to see others not by the world’s labels but by God’s claim on us as children worthy of love. I was given a front-row seat to a woman seeking healing and saw how reaching out in faith can restore wholeness and make us all well.

What would the world look like if we all could strip away the toxic labels that hinder our ability to see one another as children of God? Even if all cannot be cured, might we all be healed? Might we all be able to see one another as whole and holy and precious? Might we learn to recognize the hand outstretched in faith among us? Because the truth is, we all are deserving of healing and wholeness.

Jesus’ healing encounter with the woman blossomed from the swift touch of his robe to a public pronouncement of wellness, because for the incarnate God, there is never a time that our worth is defined by our illness. God is one who continues to make all things new, who looks at each of us in the crowd as a precious part of this good creation, who can say, “You are not your disease, you are my daughter, you are my son, and your faith has made you well.” There is no disease or ailment that can prevent us from being whole and precious children of God. And that, my friends, is better than a fairy tale ending. n

You see, healing is a community event that breaks down the barrier walls that hinder wholeness.

Healing happens with outstretched hands in faith received by one who can strip away society’s definitions of worth and reveal one’s essential being as a child of God. Healing restores relationships and enables the crowd to see worth in one another.

Even if all cannot be cured, might we all be healed?

Might we all be able to see one another as whole and holy and precious?

Might we learn to recognize the hand outstretched in faith among us?

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tauta panta

TAUTA PA NTA

The alumni/ae, faculty, staff, administration, and students of Columbia Theological Seminary are part of a living tradition that reaches back to the earliest days of God’s people reflecting on their world, their experience of God, and their sense of God’s calling. The title of this section of Vantage reminds our readers of our common connection to this venerable and ever-changing stream of witness. Tauta Panta refers to “all these things,” as in “Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6.33).

Columbia Seminary Alumni/ae Association .

Honors Three Graduates

T

hree Columbia graduates were honored on April 26 during the annual awards luncheon of the Columbia Theological Seminary Alumni/ae Association. Bert Carmichael ’67 and Harry Barrow ’74 received the Distinguished Service Award. Jennifer Fouse ’02 received the Pioneer in Ministry award.

Bert Carmichael ’67 is a graduate of the

University of Georgia. After completing seminary studies in 1967 he was commissioned as a chaplain in the U.S. Army. He served for two years, including a year’s assignment as chaplain for the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh, Vietnam. In the early 1970s, he was pastor of two yoked Presbyterian congregations in the coal mining region of eastern Kentucky. After completing barrow carmichael a three-year program in Clinical Pastoral Education, he became a hospital chaplain and later the chaplain to an oncology practice. In 2001, he joined the staff of the seminary as Director of Alumni/ae and Church Relations, serving in that position for the next six years. . . . In all of his ministry, Bert has followed the example of the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep.

He has not been a hireling who flees when the wolf comes, but a pastor who goes to his people and stays with them through the hurts and dangers of life, bringing understanding and deep Christian compassion, and often a funny story to lighten the way and to remind us all of God’s amazing grace . . . Erskine Clarke ’66

Harry Barrow ’74 is a graduate of Louisiana State University. In addition to his degree from

Columbia Seminary, he completed a Doctor of Ministry degree at Louisville Theological Seminary.

From 1974-1977, he served as associate pastor of Raleigh Presbyterian Church, in Memphis, TN. He was director of admissions at Columbia from 1977-1984, when he became pastor of Newnan Presbyterian Church, Newnan, GA. He continues to be actively involved with the seminary, serving as a supervising pastor in Columbia’s contextual education program and pursuing lifelong learning opportunities with current and retired faculty members. . . . Harry Barrow has distinguished himself through the demonstration of an obedient and faithful ministry, leadership in the service of God, courage in his conviction, and the desire to continue to grow and learn in ministry to the larger church while fulfilling the intentions of his seminary training . . . Ann Kelly ’92

Jennifer Fouse ’02 is a graduate of Presbyterian College, Clinton,

SC, and since 2003 has served as Presbyterian campus minister at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, TN. She had served previously as the chaplain at Metro State (Georgia) women’s prison and at a psychiatric hospital and drug and alcohol detox facilty outside of Atlanta. She is well known for her leadership roles in the Presbyterian Church in worship, small group ministry, college conferences, and recreation ministry. . . . God calls out to this Pioneer in Ministry, “ You, Jennifer, are my beloved, and with you I am well-pleased. You, child of God, are a Truth telling source of laughter and joy. You, with your beautiful evangelistic feet, sister Fouse, are enough.” Anne H. K. Apple ’01 n 18

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a Colloquium a April 25–26, 2011 at Columbia Theological Seminary

1

a

2

5

3

4 During Colloquium 2011, alumni/ae, family, and friends pondered the “odd and wondrous” calling of ministry and enjoyed each other’s good company. 1. Getting to know the youngest members of the CTS family.

2. From the Class of 1951, Calvin Chesnutt (left) and Charles Moffatt

celebrate their 60th reunion. 3. 50th anniversary celebrants from the Class of 1961. 4. Assistant Professor Jeffery Tribble, Sr., and Joe Johnson ’85/’98 (DMin). 5. Mary Miller Brueggemann and Randy Calvo, Jr. ’81, director of alumni/ae and church relations.

Alumni/ae News and Notes

retired as pastoral counselor in Raleigh, NC . . . Clarence O. Magee ’72 is pastor at Trinity Lutheran (ELCA) and LaMarque Presbyterian Church, LaMarque, TX . . . Barry Ferguson ’79 has retired as pastor-chaplain at the Abbey Fellowship Campus Ministry, Junction City, GA.

1950s Joe Conyers ’57 received the M. L. Lamar Lifetime Service Award from the Austell (GA) Business Association at its April 2011 meeting.

1960s H. Gudger Nichols ’67 retired as minister-at-large, Brentwood, TN . . . Phil Leftwich ’69 has retired as executive presbyter, Middle Tennessee Presbytery.

1970s James Stanford ’70 has retired as pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Sylacauga, AL . . . Thomas Tyndall ’70 retired as minister-at-large, Brentwood, TN . . . Charles Van Wagner ’70

1980s Robert Gamble ’82 (DMin) is interim pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Cumberland, MD . . . Merritt Schatz ’84 is designated pastor, Grove Presbyterian Church, Aberdeen, MD . . . Donald Stiens ’86 retired as pastor of Kingston Presbyterian Church, Conway, SC. 1990s Dan Milford ’93 is pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, Vantage Summer 2011

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Alumni/ae News and Notes San Antonio, TX . . . Rita Cochrane ’94/ ’95 (ThM) retired April 1 and is enjoying traveling . . . Doug Hilliard ’95 retired in Rabun Gap, GA . . . Carol Seaman ’95 has retired as minister-atlarge, Kingsport, TN . . . Mary Katherine Robinson ’97 is now associate pastor of Oakland Avenue Presbyterian Church, Rock Hill, SC . . . John Cook ’99 was nominated for the second annual University of South Carolina Hero Award and recognized in March along with 35 other nominees.

2000s Sherry Edwards ’00 retired as pastor in Libby, MT . . . Jane Fahey ’01 received her DMin degree from McCormick Theological Seminary . . . David Ezekiel ’03 (ThM) began service in May as interim synod executive for the Synod of the Rocky Mountains . . . Chris Ham ’03 has accepted a call as pastor at All Villages Presbyterian Church, Port St. Lucie, FL . . . Shannon ’05 and Jonathan ’04 Ball have a new baby boy, Daniel Thomas Ball, born March 22. Shannon is chaplain at Metro Atlanta Prison for Women and Jonathan is director of chaplaincy services and director of CPE, Grady Memorial Hospital . . .

Tim Bostick ’05 is pastor of Harrisburg Presbyterian Church, Harrisburg, NC . . . In February, Martin Mwangi ’08 (ThM) and Francia Njoroge ’05 (ThM) started a DMin program at African International University, in Kenya. Twenty-three students are enrolled . . . Brandon Brewer ’06 married Camille-Kay Brewer November 6, 2010, at Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church, Severna Park, MD. Brandon has been accepted into the CPE program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He completed requirements for gatekeeper certification through the QPR Institute for Suicide Prevention and requirements at the Jason Foundation In-Service Program on the Awareness and Prevention of Youth Suicide . . . Meg Flannagan ’06 has joined the staff of the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation as hymnal marketing manager, a new position in which she will oversee all marketing, promotion, and communication related to the forthcoming denominational book of song, slated for a fall 2013 release . . . Patrick Laney ’06 is pastor of Cynthiana Presbyterian Church, Cynthiana, KY . . . Kate McGregor Mosley ’06 and her husband, Larry, have a new son, Walker Evans Mosley, born February 4 . . . Bethany McKinney ’06 is working as the co-director of student ministries at First Presbyterian Church, Hollywood, CA. She is also continuing her work on her PhD in Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary. . . On February 27, Bill Searight ’06 was ordained and installed as solo pastor serving a yoked community, the Presbyterian Churches of Plain Dealing, LA. The community includes the First Presbyterian Church of Plain Dealing, Cottage Grove Presbyterian Church and Rocky Mount Presbyterian Church. Bill will continue to serve as stated supply for the Keatchie Presbyterian Church,

Keatchie, LA . . . Michael York ’06 is pastor of Oakdale Presbyterian Church, Clover, SC . . . Morgan Hay ’07 and her husband, Robert, announce the birth of Anderson Lynn Hay born May 11 . . . Rob McClellan ’07 is acting pastor of Tabernacle United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA . . . Kyle Schmidt ’07 married Amy Logan Roberts, a doctor of physical therapy on July 10 in Morristown, TN. Gary Kelly ’84 and the Rev. Matt Roberts presided at the service. Kyle is associate pastor for youth at First Presbyterian Church, Morristown . . . Sara Hayden ’08 was recently named to the board of the Fund for Theological Education . . . Libby Shannon ’08 was installed as associate chaplain during a special worship service March 7, in Wireman Chapel at Eckerd College . . . Thomas Carrico ’09 graduated from the American University of Paris (France) in May, 2010, with an MA in Middle East and Islamic Studies. He will begin a PhD in religion, ethics, and philosophy at Florida State University this fall . . . Anthony (A. J.) Mealor ’09 is associate pastor for youth and young adults at Warminster Presbyterian Church, Warminster, PA . . .

Claude Tatro ’09 is pastor of Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, Stone Mountain, GA . . . Matt Baker ’10 is pastor of Macedonia Presbyterian Church, in Candor, NC . . . Kevin Calhoun ’10 is church business administrator at First Calvary Baptist Church, Durham, NC . . . Jamison Collier ’10 is the Howard Thurman Project Program Coordinator at Boston University School of Theology . . . Joan Gandy ’10 has been called as pastor of Rock Creek Presbyterian Church, Erwin, TN . . . Laura Palmer ’10 is interim associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg, SC. n

In Memoriam H e n r y K e i t h H i l l ’50 — June 3, 2009 G e o r g e T. W i n g a r d ’50 — December 19, 2010 Wa y n e A u g h i n b a u g h ’52 — July 26, 2010 R i c h a r d G. S h e l o r ’54 — March 9, 2010 P a u l S. M i x o n ’61 — August 7, 2010 B a c h m a n B. H a rr i s ’63 — July 30, 2010 R o b e r t E. J o h n s t o n ’64 — February 1, 2011 H a r v e y H. Wa l t e r s ’69 — September 25, 2010 J. S pr o l e L y o n s ’70 — February 23, 2010 J o h n R i c h a r d S t a n f o r d ’7 4 — March 25, 2011 J o h n C. D o u b l e s ’07 ( DM i n ) — November 12, 2010

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Vantage Summer 2011

Alumni/ae News and Notes

This is a new beginning as I have a dream fulfilled, a job to find, a deployed husband home, . a daughter college bound, and God’s new plan for me. A beginning, an adventure, patiently waiting, and filled with the Holy Spirit. A beginning, . a new life waiting to be lived.

— Cynthia J. Wakeland, DEdMin ’11

The winter/spring issue of Vantage included an archive photograph taken of seminarians in the early 1900s when the seminary was still located in Columbia, SC. Richard Gillespie IV ’80 identified his grandfather, Dr. Richard Gillespie II, in that image. Richard IV writes, “[He] was most likely a student at that time. I think he graduated in 1907 (not certain about that), so the photo is probably closer to 1905 to 1907. He married after seminary, and my dad was born in 1909. Dr. Gillespie was elected President of CTS at the General Assembly of 1924 or 1925, and was commissioned to remove the seminary from Columbia, SC, to Decatur, GA.” Dr. Gillespie’s granddaughter (and Richard IV’s sister) is Mary Gillespie Amos ’85. Their nephews John R. Richardson ’06 and Richard Gillespie Proctor ’09 are Dr. Gillespie’s great-grandsons. n

“ The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.”

(Maya Angelou) Graduating from CTS is the horizon of ministry leaning forward, offering me space to place new steps of change in the church and in the academy.

— Khalia J. Jelks, MA(TS) ’11

The voice of God, accepting Jesus Christ, growing in faith, hearing a call, preparing for service, living the ministry, studying to grow...each step on the journey is a new beginning and a process of continual transformation. We are not home yet.

— Tiffany Greer Hamilton, DMin ’11

God is always my true beginning! Excitement is the beginning I breathe; old dead ends I chose to leave. My new journey is a chosen one, not because of me but by God’s SON. This degree is not because I’m that smart. All honor to Jesus who’s in my heart!

— Darlene Barr, DMin ’11

To begin a course is one thing and to end is another.

It marks the start, birth, prelude, and the first mile of a journey. This gives imaginative vision of the future. The beauty of the beginning is always the end, which marks another beginning. Never despise a small, humble beginning with God. — Henry G. Kaira, ThM ’11

AT L A S for Alumni/ae The American Theological Library Association Serials (ATLAS) research database is available to Columbia alumni/ae. The database provides online access to more than 150,000 articles and citations—and to the full text of hundreds of peer-reviewed journals.

Columbia’s John Bulow Campbell Library is able to offer this resource to alumni/ae by participating in a program of the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) funded by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. For more information—and a login ID and password— contact the Reference Desk (404-687-4620 or ref-desk@ctsnet. edu) or the Library Director, Sara Myers (404-687-4547 or myerss@ctsnet.edu). n Vantage Summer 2011

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Tauta Panta: Faculty/Staff

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1

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In April, a Columbia delegation visited South Korea and China to deepen the seminary’s relationships with partner churches and institutions in that part of Asia.

The seminary “team” included included Steve Hayner, president; Deb Mullen, executive vice president and dean of the faculty Paul Huh, assistant professor of worship and director of Korean American ministries; Rev. James Jung, a member of the seminary’s Board of Trustees and pastor of Korean Community Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, Duluth, GA; and Rev. Insik Kim, who for 35 years was the .

Asia coordinator for the PC(USA). They are pictured here after chapel at Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary (PCTS), Seoul, Korea.

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calvo

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Vantage Summer 2011

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1. Dr. Huh; 2. Dr. Mullen; 3. Jae-Duk Choi (New Testament Professor); .

4. Young-Ihl Chang (President of PCTS, ThM ’79); 5. Unyong Kim (Preaching and Worship Professor, ThM ’94); 6. Dr. Hayner; 7. Young Sang Ro (Ethics Professor); .

8. Kyu Min Lee (Christian Education Professor, CTS Visiting Scholar, Fall 2011); 9. Hae-Young You (Spirituality Professor, CTS Visiting Scholar, 2007); .

10. Rev. Kim; 11. Kyoo-Hoon Oh (Pastoral Care Professor); 12. Rev. Jung; .

13. Myung-Yong Kim (Theology Professor); 14. Jung Yn Shin (Pastor of Korean Presbyterian Church of Miami, FL, MDiv ’93, ThM ’02; 15; Kyung-Taek Ha (Old Testament Professor).

William Brown, professor of Old Testament: Led worship and lectured at the Presbytery of St. Augustine; lectured at Covenant Church, Charlotte, NC; gave the Landiss Lectures on “The Wonder of It All: The Bible, Creation, and Science” at the Georgia Institute of Technology; served on the Lilly Fellowships Selection Panel; led Sunday School at Morningside Presbyterian Church, Atlanta; led a conference of pastors of the United Church of Canada near Toronto; presented at the Institute for Reformed Theology on religion and science in Richmond, VA. . . .

Randy Calvo, Jr. ’81, director of alumni/ae and church relations: Led officers’ training event for the Newnan Presbyterian Church; spoke at the 25th anniversary celebration of William Wade ’80(DMin), Covington (GA) Presbyterian Church; with Ben Beasley ’10, pastor of Allenhurst (GA) Presbyterian Church, facilitated a student-preaching weekend in southern Georgia. . . . Pamela Cooper-White, Ben G. and Nancye Clapp Gautier Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling: Soloist in a gala Rodgers & Hammerstein concert benefitting the Adams County School of Musical Theatre, Gettysburg, PA. Steering Committee of the Psychology, Culture & Religion Group, American Academy of Religion. Began serving as Assisting Priest at Holy Trinity Parish, Episcopal, Decatur, GA in January 2011. Keynote speaker, panel presentation on “Religious Perspectives on the Rape of Tamar,” Spelman College. Co-presenter/performer, “Women Out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World” at the American Association of Pastoral Counselors national meeting on the theme “Embodying Justice: Privilege, Power, and Possibility,” Phoenix, AZ. Plenary presentation (with David Lott, Editor at Fortress Press), “Writing for Tenure and Publication.” Workshop presentation on “Got Ghosts?: Planning Ethnographic Research of Spirit and Culture in the Gettysburg Ghost Tour Phenomenon,” Society for Pastoral Theology Annual Study Conference, Denver, CO. . . . Kathy Dawson ’94, associate professor of Christian education and director of the Master of Arts in Practical Theology program: Travels — with DEdMin students to Costa Rica for seminar on ethnic biblical interpretation; to Kenya as a guest of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and Martin Mwangi ’08, speaking numerous times within the Thindigua Parish and for the denomination’s General Administrative Committee.

Attended the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators Conference in Albuquerque, NM. Teaching: for First Presbyterian Church, Albuquerque, on “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Children/Youth, and the Church”; for children at Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Decatur, GA, on Maria Stewart for Black History Month; for an adult class on “Spiritual Practice for Families” during Conyers, GA, Presbyterian Church’s Vacation Bible School. Spoke to several groups within the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association as plans are finalized for the new certification program

Tauta Panta: Faculty/Staff in Camp and Conference Ministry that begins next fall. . . . Mark Douglas, associate professor of Christian ethics: Taught a DMin travel seminar in South Africa; at First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, taught courses on money and the Bible (with David Bartlett, professor of New Testament), on Lent, and on love and justice; taught a six-week series on science and religion at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Atlanta. . . . Sarah F. Erickson ’03/’10(DEdMin), director of Lifelong Learning: Presented “Lifelong Learning: the Role of Peer Groups for Ministry” with former S3 participant and chair of the Alumni/ae Association Council, Anne H. K. Apple ’01 during “On Our Way: Living into God’s Future,” the Lilly Endowment’s Sustaining Pastoral Excellence event, Indianapolis. Co-leader of the 2011 confirmation class at N. Decatur (GA) Presbyterian Church. . . .

Steve Hayner, president: Preaching and speaking — Santa Barbara Presbytery Mission Conference, Santa Barbara, CA; First Presbyterian Church Mission Conference, Gainesville, GA; J. J. White Memorial Presbyterian Church Mission Conference, McComb, MS; Cincinnati Presbyterian Evangelism Conference; Crestview Presbyterian Church, West Chester, OH; Campus Ministry Colloquium, Tallahassee, FL; baccalaureate service, Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC; Festival2011, Spring Hill Presbyterian Church, Mobile, AL. World Vision board and Malaria Project visits, Zambia. Montreat Conference seminary leader.. . . . Kimberly Bracken Long, assistant professor of worship and coordinator of resources for congregations: Ecumenical observer to the Episcopal Church’s Blessing Project. Taught Worship and Sacraments course for educator certification at APCE in Albuquerque, NM; participated in the ordination of Sharon Junn ’08, in Atlanta; led the SC5 Leader of Leaders event in Fort Mill, SC; preached at Atlanta Taiwanese Presbyterian Church on Easter; leader (with Michael Morgan, seminary musician) for the St. Philip’s Presbyterian Church Retreat, Houston, TX; made three presentations for the Uniting Church of South Australia in Adelaide. . . . Martha Moore-Keish, associate professor of theology: Elected to a two-year term on the Academy Committee of the North American Academy of Liturgy; taught Sunday school at First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta; preached for the installation of Ken Hughes as associate pastor at Decatur Presbyterian Church, Decatur, GA; keynote speaker, Tallahassee Music Conference, Tallahassee, FL; co-chair of the international ecumenical dialogue between the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity (attended first meeting of this dialogue in Rome, Italy); keynote speaker, Women’s Conference, Mo-Ranch, Hunt, TX; liturgist for Montreat Music and Worship Conference, Montreat, NC. . . . Michael Morgan, seminary musician: Lectures on the Psalms and a Psalm Festival, Houston Baptist University, Houston, TX; presentation on the English Bible, Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church, Duluth, GA; presentation on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible at Columbia Seminary and Central Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA; represented Columbia at the Church Music Institute, Dallas, TX; leader (with Assistant Professor Kim Long) for the St. Philip’s Presbyterian Church Retreat, Houston, TX; Routley Lecturer at Mo-Ranch Worship and Music Conference, Hunt, TX. . . . D. Cameron Murchison, professor emeritus: Twomonth sabbatical residency, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, England. Began two-year term on Board of AMERC (Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center), Berea, KY. Editorial board member, Feasting on the Gospels, a new partnership between Columbia Seminary and Westminster/John Knox Press. Preached Easter Sunday at Montreat (NC) Presbyterian Church. . . .

Rodger Y. Nishioka, Benton Family Associate Professor of Christian Education: Congregational retreats/preaching/presentations and/or lectures — Overlake Presbyterian Church, Bellevue, WA; Davidson College Presbyterian Church, Davidson, NC; First Presbyterian Church, Hartsville, SC; First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta; Sardis Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, NC; Lenten Preaching Series, Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, TN; Idlewild Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN; First Presbyterian Church, Durham, NC; Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church, Richardson, TX; First Presbyterian Church, Asheville, NC; theologian-in-residence, White Memorial Presbyterian Church, Raleigh, NC; keynote speaker and/or workshop leader — officer training day, South Alabama Presbytery, Mobile, AL; Interim Ministry Consortium annual meeting, Calvin Center, Hampton, GA; Presbytery of Eastern Virginia’s Conference on Emerging Strategies for Youth Ministry, Makemie Woods Camp and Conference Center, Lanexa, VA; respondent for a panel on Immigration, Borders, and Boundaries for the Pacific, Asian, and North American Women in Theology and Ministry conference, Atlanta; Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod Assembly of the

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nishioka

While serving communion I collapsed.

I found out that I had blood cancer.

Every day is a beginning for me. Finishing my doctoral degree is a beginning of all the things I want to do now that I am in remission. Even death is a beginning. What a gift—everlasting life!

— Joy Heaton, DMin ’11

Vantage Summer 2011

23

Tauta Panta: Faculty/Staff

patton

santiago-vendrell

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Evangelical Lutheran Church in America meeting, Philadelphia; National Episcopal Youth Event meeting, Minneapolis, MN; Montreat Youth Conferences, Montreat, NC. . . . John Patton, professor emeritus: Supervision of students in clinical pastoral education program of Covenant Counseling Institute, Snellville, GA; Supervisory sessions for lay ministers, adult Sunday School teacher, Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church, Atlanta. Two lectures at the annual meetings of the College of Pastoral Supervisors and Psychotherapists, in Virginia Beach, VA. . . . Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell, lecturer in world Christianity: $5,000 Summer Fellowship from the Wabash Center to conduct research on Gender and Ministry in Puerto Rican Pentecostalism. Lecture: “The Holy Spirit: Mediator of Christ, Commissioner of Dialogue, and Guardian of Justice,” Asbury Theological Seminary, School of Urban Ministry, Orlando, FL. . . . Haruko Nawata Ward, associate professor of church history: Begins a year-long sabbatical this summer with two grants: William Scheide Fellowship and Resident Membership, Center for Theological Inquiry, Princeton, NJ; and a Lilly research grant (see page 6). Served as the seminary’s liaison for Tri-Presbytery (GA) community and multi-cultural partnership conversations. For Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Decatur, wrote “Litany for Grieving Mothers and Orphans in the Asian Natural Disasters” for Mother’s Day service.

Presentations: the International Symposium, “Reception of the Religious Other in Intercultural Exchange (16th-18th Centuries),” Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany; “Women Helping Women?: Catholic Conversions of Hindu, Muslim, and Ethiopian Christian Women in the Jesuit Missions in Portuguese Goa,” Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, University of Massachusetts at Amherst; “Early Modern History and Christian Women Crossing Boundaries,” 26th Annual Conference of the Pacific Asian North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry, Atlanta, GA. Co-teacher: church history section for Taste of Seminary, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL.

Publications

New books by Kimberly Long and George Stroup. See page 4.

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Vantage Summer 2011

William Brown, professor of Old Testament: Translated the Psalms for the Common English Bible; “Good Friday and Earth Day: A Providential Convergence,” co-written with Stan Saunders, associate professor of New Testament and published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on April 21 . . . . Pamela Cooper-White, Ben G. and Nancye Clapp Gautier Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling: “Intimate Violence Against Women: Trajectories for Pastoral Care in a New Millennium,” Pastoral Psychology, April, 2011, available online; “Preaching on Faith and Healing,” Journal for Preachers, Easter 2011; “Bushels and Lampstands, Loose Lips and Martyrs: A Response to Jonathan Malesic,” @ This Point: Theological Investigations in Church and Culture (available on line www.atthispoint.net); “Praying with the Labyrinth,” The Trumpet: Holy Trinity Parish, Lent 2011; two chapters in “Stop Being Silent! Identifying, Overcoming and Preventing Clergy Sexual Misconduct with Women,” World Student Christian Federation Handbook/International Ecumenical Peace Convocation, Jamaica, May 2011; “Re-enactors: Theological and Psychological Reflections on ‘Core Selves,’ Multiplicity, and the Sense of Cohesion,” in In Search of the Self: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personhood, ed. Wentzel vanHuyssteen and Erik Wiebe (Eerdmans), May 2011 (for her contribution to this publication, honored in absentia at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton Theological Seminary); edited Journal of Pastoral Theology,Vol. 20/2 (Winter 2010) on theme of “Science and Spirituality in Pastoral Theology,” and Vol. 21/1 (Summer 2011), first online issue. With this issue, Dr. Cooper-White concludes a four-year term as publications editor of this journal. . . . Martha Moore-Keish, associate professor of theology: “Resurrection and Religious Otherness,” Presbyterian Outlook (April 18, 2011). . . . Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell, lecturer in world Christianity: Book proposal submitted to Wipf & Stock Publishers: Walking in the Spirit: Mission, Ecumenism, and Interreligious Dialogue in Hispanic Christianity; “Walking in the Spirit: an Invitation to Formulate a Latino(a) Pneumatology of Religions,” Apuntes: Theological Reflections from the Hispanic Margins (Spring 2011). . . . Iwan Russell-Jones, former faculty member: An award-winning filmmaker, theologian, and writer, Dr. Russell-Jones will join Regent College, in British Columbia, as Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Head of the Christianity and the Arts Program. On the Columbia faculty for four years, he set up a department to explore the interaction between faith, media, and contemporary culture. n

Tauta Panta: Faculty/Staff Congratulations!

K a t h y D a w s o n ’94 , associate professor of

Christian education and director of the Master of Arts in Practical Theology program, was made an honorary member of the Presbyterian Church in East Africa and given the name Nyambura for her arrival in the rainy season.

S t e v e H a y n e r , president, received an

honorary degree, the Doctor of Divinity, from Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC, during the college’s 2011 commencement service.

Dr. Hayner also preached the baccalaureate sermon.

B r i a n A . W r e n , professor emeritus,

received the first-place award in an international hymn competition for “If Christ is Risen from the Dead,” which was publically sung for the first time at the Easter service of St. Andrew’sWesley United Church, Vancouver BC, Canada.

T h ank y o u !

The seminary community recognized seven faculty and staff members for their years of service—135 altogether— at the annual end-of-year luncheon on May 11.

Welcome!

D o m i n i q u e R o b i n s o n joined the

seminary in May as staff associate for Contextual Education. She has an MDiv and ThM from Emory University-Candler School of Theology.

At Emory, she won a preaching award, served as a teaching research assistant, and was an IT specialist. Dominique is an ordained itinerant Elder of the A.M.E. Zion Church.

Godspeed!

J e n n i e L a w , copy cataloger and children’s librarian, left Columbia in March to join the DeKalb County Public Library system as the librarian for children and young adults at the Hairston Crossing branch.

Doug MacMillan, director of development,

left Columbia in April to become associate vice president of advancement at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, VA, where both he and his wife, Nichole, received the MDiv degree in 1999.

A shley D evore P ieper ’09 , staff associate

in Admissions, left the seminary in June to begin a CPE residency at Abbey Hospice, Social Circle, GA.

2 5 Y ea r s

George Stroup

J. B. Green Professor of Theology

Diane T horne

Gift Records Coordinator, Institutional Advancement 2 0 Y ea r s

Marcia Riggs

For many this new beginning is none but the beginning of anxiety, fear, and deep questions about one’s call to ministry. Just as many cry tears of sorrow as others do joy. May God help us hold one another as we face these beginnings together — Ross Reddick, MDiv ’11

J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics

Stan Saunders

Associate Professor of New Testament 1 5 Y ea r s

Judy Graves

Administrative Assistant, Student Services

Linda Morningstar

Associate Director, Lifelong Learning

This is the day the Lord has made…

(Psalm 118.24a) I woke up in the same house today, with the same family, the same dog, serving the same church.

Yet today is a NEW day, a new beginning, an extravagant gift from God. I will live, love, and serve with joy!

— Jeff Peterson-Davis, DMin ’11

Elizabeth Orth

Administrative Assistant, Institutional Advancement Vantage Summer 2011

25

Tribute: Barbara Brown Taylor Why I Love B a rbar a B r o wn Tay lor

by David Bartlett

H

Beginnings are leaps of faith. Uncertainty and fear surround beginnings. It can be overwhelming. But beginnings are also exciting. As intimidating as graduation can be, it is also a time for new adventures, to make new friends, and to serve God in new ways.

— Claudia Aguilar, MDiv ’11

ere are some of the ways in which I cherish Barbara Brown Taylor.

I love to listen to her sermons. I love to listen to her sermons when she preaches them and I even like listening to her sermons when somebody else preaches them without attribution.

I love how she helps students, even students who have been at it a long time, find their own voices and in doing so hear God’s voice more clearly.

I love working with her. Every congenial laggard should have a compulsive partner to make sure that essays get written on time and that column A always has exactly the same number of bullet points as column B. I love her lover’s quarrel with the church. The quarrel part has had the most publicity lately, but the lover’s part is a lot more clear to those of us who know her.

I love her enthusiasm, her sense of humor, and eating lunch at Feast restaurant together praying as that her dog in the little carrying bag under the table will keep quiet through the meal.

I love the fact that Feasting on the Word, which has helped the church and enriched Westminster John Knox and keeps Columbia Theological Seminary before the eyes of many has also made us friends for life.

That’s what I love the most. n

I love her . lover’s quarrel with the church.

The quarrel part has had the most publicity lately, but the lover’s part is a lot more clear to those of us who know her.

Barbara Brown Taylor retired in May as Adjunct Professor of Christian Spirituality. With David Bartlett, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, she is editor of the lectionary series Feasting on the Word. Her most recent books are An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (2009) and Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith (2006). Dr. Bartlett gave this tribute to her at the annual year-end . faculty/staff luncheon during which this year’s retirees were honored.

Beginnings: Taking another step with God and seeing the beauty of God’s splendor.

Beginnings: Taking another step with God, knowing that I and the world around me are ever changing. Beginnings: thanking God for endings and praying for new possibilities.

— Denise McLeod, MDiv ’11

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Vantage Summer 2011

God has worked through many at Columbia to nourish, strengthen, and equip my colleagues and myself so that we might go from this community we know as home and help others live, as Dr. Hayner says, “the imagination of God.” — Carson Overstreet, MDiv ’11

Tribute: Kathleen O’Connor For S hare d G lim p s e s “

A tribute to Kathleen M. O’Connor by Christine Roy Yoder

I

was captured,” Kathleen said, “by the joy that moving around in texts creates, as if the text were a room full of beautiful furniture, wall paintings, colors and fabrics, populated by people filled with pain and love, deception and hatred, hope and despair, with us walking around trying to glimpse the mystery of meanings hidden there.”

She went on.

It is not about trying “to nail down God, to explain the unexplainable, nor to give... a history of mystery;...it is a creative process, a spiritual process of reading, of interpretation of our sacred texts driven by hope of discovery, a process that can itself be a taste of ecstasy, a participation in the mystery of meaning, where more eludes us than appears to us, where, in the process, someone greets us, welcomes us, and forms us into a community.”

Her hands moved like a dancer’s. She looked people right in the eye. She smiled knowingly.

And sure enough, everyone was hooked.

That happens a lot, in my experience, when Kathleen speaks.

She stirs our imaginations about the biblical text as a room with dimensions, textures, and colors.

She encourages us to move around in it, to peek behind the curtains, linger in the corners,

consider every detail, and breathe the air.

She urges us to know ourselves as readers, our histories, our brokenness, our hopes.

And she insists that we listen carefully to others milling about in the room—

people filled with life and from all corners of it.

The walking around is the thing—the staying in motion.

Refusing to sink quickly into the well-worn chair, to put our feet up on the coffee table and limit our gaze to one painting, one window.

Refusing to curl up yet one more time with the same old company

and tell the same old settled reading.

Instead, Kathleen teaches us, it is about discovery,

a taste, a glimpse, a momentary grasp of the mystery of meaning

as the room itself and the someone—the One—who greets us there

keeps moving powerfully and wondrously in the world.

In the end, Kathleen reminds us, what we do here is really all about love—

“infectious, imperfect, elusive love”—

love of God, love of texts, love of students, love of the world.

And she has shown us time and again what that love looks like

by teaching with passion, creativity, and clarity,

honoring the voices and interpretations of the marginalized,

inspiring and caring for students,

engaging in first-rate scholarship for the sake of the world,

serving the community with wisdom, humility, and humor,

encouraging and challenging colleagues,

extending generous and warm hospitality—often with her beloved Jim—

and pointing us ever through it all to the Giver of Life and Hope and Joy. We are so very fortunate, Kathleen, to have moved about the room with you these many years,

for shared glimpses of the mystery of meanings hidden there

and the worthy struggle to express them.

We are the better for your gracious companionship and strong leadership.

And we will miss you terribly.

May the One who has so skillfully woven our lives and work together for this very good season

be and abide with you always. n

Kathleen M. O’Connor . retired in May as the .

William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament. .

This tribute to her was given .

by Christine Roy Yoder, . associate professor of .

Old Testament, at the annual faculty/staff luncheon during which this year’s retirees . were honored. All quotations . in this tribute are from .

Professor O’Connor’s talk . titled “The Mystery of .

Meaning” which she . delivered at the invitation of The Association of Theological Schools at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 2010, in Atlanta, GA. See Theological Education, Vol. 46, No. 1 (2011), pp. 55-66.

Dr. O’Connor has been named professor emerita. Her portrait will hang along with others in the seminary’s refectory.

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Tribute: Cam Murchison What We Didn’t Know about Ca m M u r c h i s o n

a tribute by George W. Stroup

C

am Murchison did not join the faculty as the academic dean. He came to us as professor of ministry, but a very unusual professor of ministry, because, in addition to many years of parish experience, he also has a PhD in theology. So from the very beginning we knew we were getting someone with what is sometimes described today as “a diverse skill set.” But little did we know how many and how diverse are Cam’s skills.

We didn’t know that he is a walking, talking computer geek!

We didn’t know that nothing makes him happier than to come to your home on a Saturday afternoon and fix your computer or install your new high definition television. After a while I half expected to see Cam’s extension listed with Leon Harris’s and Chip Carter’s [the seminary’s information technology staff ] as an IT resource for the seminary.

But that is not the end of it. We all have different things we enjoy doing. However, it is almost impossible for me to understand how anyone could actually enjoy reading the Faculty Handbook.

Not just reading it once or twice, but poring over it, hour after hour, revising it constantly. Surely you would have to be more than just a little strange to enjoy doing something like that. And yet, the result of all those hours and all that work revising the Faculty Handbook is that Columbia is no longer what it once was—a seminary that conducted its affairs privately, with a wink and a handshake—but now an institution with established policies and open and fair procedures.

And that’s not all we didn’t know about Cam. We also didn’t know that he is a visionary, that he could envision Columbia offering theological education in new ways and in a different form to people who have not usually studied here. Even more importantly, we didn’t know that Cam is not only a visionary, but a visionary who knows how to make the vision a reality.

There has always been more to Cam than meets the eye, and I have a strong suspicion that we have still more yet to learn. I don’t know everything that is brewing up on that hill in Black Mountain, but I have no doubt there will be many more folks, like us, who will benefit from his remarkable gifts.

Of course Cam is not the only one who is leaving us. There is also THE HAMMER—that is, Joan Murchison. In my humble opinion the most important thing that has happened at CTS recently is not our new buildings, not even the successful completion of the capital fund campaign.

The most important contribution Columbia has made to the church’s ministry is Feasting on the Word, which would not have become the great success it is without the hard work, persistence, and dedication of Joan, who serves as the project coordinator for that lectionary series.

Cam and Joan, come back often. Thank you for the countless ways you have enriched all of our lives. n

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George Stroup is the J. B. Green Professor of Theology. The original version of this tribute was presented .

by Dr. Stroup during the annual year-end faculty/staff luncheon, when this year’s retirees were honored. .

Dr. Murchison has been named professor emeritus and his portrait will be hung in the seminary refectory this summer.

Tribute: Carolyn Jordan O u r B e l o ve d Ma m a C

C

aring about people is one thing. .

Caring for them means paying attention to them as individuals, and that’s what Carolyn Jordan has done for every member of the entire seminary community.

She came to the seminary as assistant director of the Aramark food service in March, 2002.

She had celebrated her 25th anniversary with Aramark in October, 2010, having begun in 1985 at the old Fulton County Stadium.

From there, she moved to the new Turner Field, and then, after about three years at Emory University, she came to Columbia.

For nine years, “Ms. C” or “Mama C” or “Miss Carolyn” has made our cavernous refectory a welcoming, homey place. Already we miss her sweet smile and gentle voice. .

We absolutely adore her.

Yes! Angels do don aprons, love to wear pink, and readily wink and flash million-dollar smiles! I know this because at Columbia we have been blessed with “Miss Carolyn,” our own angel-inresidence. She has ministered to one and all in the refectory, with her magnetic heart drawing folks to her and her overflowing supply of love, joy, fun, laughter, smiles, comfort, and kindness.

Selfishly, no one wants her to retire, but we rejoice for her “other family” that they will have more time to enjoy the gift of her presence and for all who will be blessed by the ongoing ministry of her life.

— Sandra Taylor, staff associate, institutional advancement I have come to think of Ms. C as my “professor of incarnational ministry” over these last three years. The love and compassion she has shown to me and others has been just as formative to my ministry as any class I have taken here at the seminary.

— Christine Kaplunas ’11 Mama C, you will be so missed. I always look for your smiling face and warm hugs when I enter the refectory. Take care of yourself and enjoy your God-given journey in life.

— Denise McLeod ’11 I appreciate the care Carolyn has given students with workstudy assignments in the refectory. She always made an effort to understand them and made their campus worksite a place of hospitality and a place of safe-keeping when some of them needed more attention—and maybe even a little more food.

For all of them, and for me personally, she is a model of Christian service.

— Vivian Hodo, director of student financial planning

Mama C has been an inspiration to me. Entering Greek school in 2009, I worked in the refectory for the summer.

The atmosphere there is very “family,” and Mama C makes it that way. She shows a great deal of care for each worker. I was touched by how well she knew the students and faculty. Mama C was a good supervisor with strict standards but aware of personal needs. I will miss her greatly!

— Sharon Gregory ’12 Mama C is the beloved Mother of our community. She makes sure that stomachs are fed and hearts are warm with love. She has been a treasured gift of this community and she will be dearly missed. We love you, Mama C! — Dawn Martin ’12 Ms. C hugged my neck, she listened to me preach in the chapel so I wouldn’t have to preach to an empty room for my first sermon tape, she fed me a lot. She served communion for our senior chapel service, and she made me feel like a pastor before I dared feel like one on my own. “You’re going to be all right, Joe,” she said to me one day when I was sure no church would have me, and I needed to hear her say that because we don’t become pastors on our own. We needed Ms. C and today I thank God she was there when I needed her.

— Joe Evans ’06 When the comedian Phyllis Diller remarked that “a smile is a curve that sets everything straight,” she must have had Miss Carolyn in mind. On cloudy, rainy days—mentally and physically—a huge, reassuring smile along with a kiss on the cheek from Miss Carolyn made the most difficult situation seem

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Tribute: Carolyn Jordan less threatening. I will miss my beloved friend but wish for her all of the happiness her heart can hold. Hugs and kisses!

— Pam Cottrell, director of annual giving Students care about Carolyn and they love her because she is always taking care of their needs as if they were her own kids.

— Miguel Chavez, facilities coordinator Mama C, your warm and nurturing spirit were always so comforting during my time at CTS. Your care for each and every student was evident through your knowledge of “what was really going on.” Thank you for caring so much! You made a real difference.

— Robin Williamson ’10 Dear Mama C, you are a truly skilled and experienced professional who raises up leaders in the church. Thank you for teaching us the importance of hospitality and good humor in ministry. Our Columbia community will sincerely miss your smile and your hugs, both of which are gifts you offer us every time we walk through the refectory line. Your ministry of presence will be remembered and cherished by many.

— Christin Johnson ’12 Ms. C, I was so amazed that you asked me my name once, and then never forgot it. You always said hello and asked me how I was—even when I was having a bad day, you made me smile.

Your warm hospitality defied my belief that any day could be bad.

I’ll miss you!

— Debbie Kromis ’11 Dear Mama C, for the past nine years, you have fed, encouraged, and cared for the Columbia community. Thank you for your faithful service to the seminary and for genuinely caring about the students, faculty, and staff. You have been a blessing to so many people! Enjoy retirement and may God continue to bless you and your family!

— Katelyn Gordon ’09 Mama C is one of the most welcoming and loving people I have met in my life. I will never forget how she spent time with my mother (who does not speak English at all) and became friends with her despite the language barrier. She makes everyone feel welcomed and cared for when they walk in. Her example is a true inspiration for ministry.

— Claudia Aguilar ’11 As a DMin student, I’m on campus only once or twice a year.

But every time I come, I know I will be welcomed with a big smile and warm words in the refectory. Thank you Mama C for teaching us about hospitality, loving one another in words, in deeds, and with food!

— Charlie Berthoud, DMin ’12 30

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Carolyn knows that I love Brussels sprouts, and if I didn’t make it to the refectory when they were on the menu, she made sure someone brought a bowl to me. Along with all the rest of her seminary family, I know that I am in her heart, and she is surely in mine.

— Genie Hambrick, director of communications Whenever I came to the refectory, I was always amazed at how pleasant Mama C always was, even after being on her feet for hours. She not only took responsibility for nurturing our bodies, but she was also the source of much needed “soul food.” Mama C, I’m happy for your retirement, but I’m going to miss your ready smile and special way of caring for us all!

— Melanie Johnson ’12 Psalm 107.1 says, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” Congratulations on your retirement. May the Lord continue to forever bless and lead you all the days of your life. We love you. Blessings.

— Dorothy ’12 and Eugene Lott Mama C, you reached out to me the first day I was here and it felt like I’d already known you for 10 years. The love and affection you bring to us students day to day is crucial because there are days when we need your words. You’re always good about checking in with us. It’s going to be hard not having you around to comment on my loud singing while I’m washing dishes.

— John Fawcett ’13 Ms. C! What a joy you are to everyone who knows you.

I so appreciate getting a hug whenever I am in the refectory, and I also am grateful to you for your excellent care of all of us.

You will be greatly missed! HUG! — Mary Lynn Darden, president’s office Mama C, you are a friend to all the students even though we can be a nuisance.You are caring, humble, generous, and wise, and you make the best sweet potato pies.You have graced the refectory for many years. Your leaving has brought many tears.

Mama C, you are what’s really goin’ on!

—Mia Levetan-Setzer ’12 (MDiv)/’13 (MAPT) and Nick Setzer ’11 (MDiv)/’12 (MAPT) Our thanks to thee, dear Mama C, for all your blessings we’ve received—your hugs, your smiles, your special care for us, so generously shared. As you depart from your work here, our hearts will always hold you near. Our prayers for you are lifted up: may God’s love overflow your cup. We send you off with songs of praise, with tears, our testimonies raise, though none compare with all you’ve given; on earth, you’ve shared a glimpse of heaven.

— Sarah Erickson ’03/’10(DEdMin), director of Lifelong Learning n

Lifelong Learning The Spirituality Program

The courses listed below count toward completion of the Certificate in Spiritual Formation, a program offered through Columbia’s Center for Lifelong Learning in partnership with Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. You are most welcome to participate in any of these courses without being enrolled in the certificate program.

For more information and to register for courses, go to www.ctsnet.edu > Lifelong Learners > Courses and Events, and scroll to the dates of the events you wish to attend.

Or contact the Spirituality Program office at 404.687.4557 or spirituality@ctsnet.edu. Unless otherwise noted, events take place on the seminary campus, in Decatur, GA, and meals and lodging are extra.

line shes an on li b u p g in n ar Lifelong Le r, Journeying Together du). newslette er.ctsnet.e

eyingtogeth ht corner (http: journ the top rig t a ” in jo “ e, click on To subscrib e page. of the hom

September 15 – 18 The Spiritual Lives of Children and Youth Dr. Kathy Dawson. $265 ($190 Certificate program graduates) October 6 – 9 Immersion Experience: An Invitation to a Deeper Spiritual Life This course is the starting place for the Certificate in Spiritual Formation. Participants not enrolled in the Certificate in Spiritual Formation are welcome! $315 October 27 – 30 Retreat Leadership Dr. Julie Johnson. $390 ($315 certificate program graduates) At Montreat Conference Center, Montreat, NC November 3 – 6 Thomas Merton and Contemplation Dr. Ben Campbell Johnson. $275 ($190 certificate program graduates). At Peace Presbyterian Church, Winterville, NC November 14 – 18 Men’s Contemplative Retreat Dr. Jim Dant. $565 ($490 certificate program graduates) At the Monastery of the Holy Spirit Conyers, GA

Living Into Sabbath October 30 – November 4

Spiritual Formation Open to Certificate in Spiritual Formation participants and nonparticipants

A deep rhythm between work and rest flows palpably through our bodies, hearts and lives—in celebrations, hardships, challenges, revelations, moments of grace. In this week of refreshment and renewal, you will reflect on your own life rhythm and find support for “living into Sabbath” with helpful tools, exercises, and simple meditations. Morning plenary sessions with Wayne Muller and specialized learning tracks in the afternoon.

The course fee is $265, which includes lunches (lodging and additional meals are extra). For more information about . this event and to register online for one of the tracks, go to www.ctsnet.edu

with Wayne Muller, author of A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough, and Melissa Bane Sevier

> Lifelong Learners > Courses and Events and scroll to October 30.

Guthrie Scholars Week 2011 “Living into Sabbath” plenary sessions are open to Guthrie Scholars who will convene on campus October 30 – November 4. Applications are due September 15 and priority will be given to those whose study interests relate to the event topic. Information and the application are available online. Go to www.ctsnet.edu > Lifelong Learners > Special Programs.

Creative Sabbatical Planning For clergy, educators, and other church professionals

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NonProfit Org aniz at ion U. S. Postage PAI D Per mit No. 40 Dec at ur, GA

P. O. Box 520 Decatur, GA 30031 404-378-8821

www.ctsnet.edu

c o ntent s President’s Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 New faculty member in evangelism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 New VP for institutional advancement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 New books by faculty members. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Faculty members receive Lilly ATS grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Seminary library’s archives catalog online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Six new trustees named to Columbia board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 New issue of @thispoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2011 Commencement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7–15 Baccalaureate sermon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Graduates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Prizes and awards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Student sermon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 T a u ta P anta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18–31 Alumni/ae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Faculty and staff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Tributes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26–29 Barbara Brown Taylor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Kathleen O’Connor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Cam Murchison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Carolyn Jordan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Lifelong Learning Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

I

The value of a promise

n Genesis 12, God does an amazing act, “popping” into Abram and Sarai’s life, with a simple yet complicated command. “You must go,” God says. Gods tells them they must leave the security of their family and the land which provides for their living, and they must do this merely on the value of a promise—a promise of a future destination—which was yet to be revealed. And then, trusting in the mysterious God who was so completely interrupting the course of their lives, Abram and Sarai stepped out in faith and into the mystery of God’s imagination.

About four years ago, my wife and I were wrestling with a major decision in our own lives—whether or not to come to seminary. I was in the fourteenth year of a business career, and my wife was in her eleventh year as a stay-at-home mother to our three children. This was a terrifying decision for us because we were struggling with the fear of leaving our secure reality to risk entering into God’s imagination for our lives.

Imagination did win the day, however, and arriving at Columbia three years ago, we found a host of other wandering souls just like us, and our own story of risk in the face of calling

melded in with the myriad of other couples and single people, too, who had done the same.

For all of us, our futures lay solely within God’s grand imagination.

Over the past three years my colleagues and I have studied together, prayed together, and sometimes cried together. And in the process we have been nurtured by this wonderful institution.

Now we stand on the cusp of ministry, entering into the reality of God’s calling for our lives.

We could not have taken our leaps of faith without the prayers and generous financial support of those who believe in Columbia’s mission. Our tuition is one-third of what it really costs to educate us. Our rent is one-third of what it really costs to live in Decatur. In fact, without you seminary education would be unimaginable for the vast majority of us. Thank you and may God bless you.

Sincerely, R i c h a r d C a rr , MDiv ’11 Pastor, First Presbyterian Church Moultrie, GA n