Letter from Dean Hempton

As I reflect on this past year, with all our community has done to keep the spirit of Harvard Divinity School alive and well, I find myself deeply moved. We often center the rigor and restless pursuit of excellence in our work within academia, but I also want to take this moment to genuinely appreciate the heart with which this work is done.

It takes a certain kind of care to explore religion, spirituality, culture, conflict, and the nuances found throughout some of our most deeply ingrained identities—and that care requires the work of both our hearts and our minds. I fully recognize that these past few years have left many of us feeling tender, if not abjectly raw. The disruptions to our everyday routines, to our sense of security, to the fabric of our society, can be jarring at best, dangerous at worst, and I know how exhausting it can be to persevere through ongoing challenges. Yet, we have. And my persistent hope is that lessons learned through adversity will provide a stronger foundation for a better future.

As I write this, we have just celebrated Harvard Divinity School’s 207th Convocation. Held on a beautiful late summer day, it was our first such gathering in three years—years marked by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, tumultuous events at home and abroad, and at last, our own careful return to a renovated and renewed campus. As I have shared in the past, and perhaps even more relevant these days, we gather at Convocation as a community to learn from our origins and our roots, to take a careful look at where we are, and to lay out a promising path to where we may go.

Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study delivered a moving Convocation Address on the report Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery that she guided to publication in spring 2022. She keenly observed: “We are an institution that values the search for truth through our scholarship and our teaching. It is not enough to focus our scholarly lens on those beyond the gates; we must look at ourselves, and we must do so even if what we learn is unsettling to our professional or our personal identities.” Dean BrownNagin’s brilliant insights are a testament to why reckoning with our past—the tragedies and the triumphs—is not just a noble pursuit but is necessary to bringing the ideals of peace and justice to fruition.

Change is not only possible; it is vital to the mission of our School. Honest inquiry, deep questioning, and thoughtful action grounded in what we learn is how we keep HDS strong, viable, and relevant—and change is certainly what we have experienced in the past year. New faculty have arrived to strengthen and deepen our academic pursuits. New staff have arrived, with fresh perspectives that add to our diversity on campus. New research efforts were launched, such as the Center for the Study of World Religion’s Transcendence and Transformation

Initiative. And the new master of religion and public life degree program brought its first cohort of creative and accomplished professionals to campus, adding their own voices and experiences to HDS. Our continued efforts to expand our international reach bore fruit as an impressive 25 percent of incoming students came to Cambridge from abroad.

For me personally, the academic year was framed by two opportunities to reflect on the role of religion in society worldwide. The first came in October 2021, when I had the privilege of delivering the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland. The principal question I explored throughout the lectures, titled “Networks, Nodes, and Nuclei in the History of Christianity, c. 1500–2020,” was: What difference would it make to reimagine the history of Christianity in terms of transnational networks, nodal junction boxes of encounter and transmission, and a greater sense of the core memes and messages of religious traditions and expressions?

The second opportunity came in June 2022, at the annual meeting of the European Academy of Religion in Bologna, Italy. The Academy asked that I reflect on the value of studying religion in a multifaith setting, as we do at HDS. “From Nonsectarian to Multifaith: An Educational Experiment in Religious Diversity at Harvard c. 1800–2020” allowed me to focus on this core part of our academic identity—why teaching and learning about the world’s great faith traditions in a nonsectarian, deliberately heterogeneous environment is so important to appreciating the deepest tenets and mysteries of spiritual life.

Reflection can often seem passive in nature. However, starting and ending the academic year with these retrospectives offered a keen reminder that honest, informed inquiry provides the opportunity to hold ourselves accountable as we explore new ways of thinking. Truth, in an academic sense, is an unfolding paired with reflection. Each discovery, each iteration, each moment of alchemy when one thought meets another unencumbered by presumptions—this is the foundation of education.

Before I introduce our newest faculty members for the 2022–23 academic year, I want to acknowledge two luminaries who have retired from active teaching as of 2022.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Krister Stendahl Research Professor of Divinity, is a pathbreaking scholar of biblical interpretation and feminist theology. She was the first woman president of the Society of Biblical Literature and has served on the boards of major biblical journals and societies. In 2001, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has published over a dozen works, including In Memory of Her, which has been translated into 13 languages.

Michael D. Jackson, Senior Research Fellow in World Religions, is an anthropologist and writer whose academic work has been strongly influenced by critical theory, American pragmatism, and existential-phenomenological thought. He has written numerous books, including the prize-winning Paths Toward a Clearing and At Home in the World. He has also published seven works of fiction, a memoir, and nine volumes of poetry.

Both Elisabeth and Michael have been instrumental in expanding HDS’s academic reach and deepening connections within our community. My thanks and admiration to both of them for their many years of service. I look forward to seeing how their influence in teaching and research continues to inspire new waves of leaders.

In the spirit of building our academic expertise, this year we welcomed five leading scholars to our exceptional Faculty of Divinity:

Benjamin Dunning, PhD ’05, Professor of New

Testament and Early Christianity

American Religious Studies

Tracey E. Hucks, AM ’95, PhD ’98, Victor S. Thomas

Young Murray Professor (Radcliffe Institute for

Advanced Study)

Terrence L. Johnson, MDiv ’00, Professor of African

American Religious Studies

Annette Yoshiko Reed, MTS ’99, Professor of New

Testament and Early Christianity

Ben and Annette have returned to Harvard to deepen our faculty expertise in early Christianity and its connections to Judaism. Ben, a former WSRP Research Associate, teaches primarily in the areas of early antiquity, critical theory, and gender studies. Annette’s research spans Second Temple Judaism, as well as Jewish-Christian relations in late antiquity, with a special concern for retheorizing religion, identity, and difference. Both Ben and Annette are back in Cambridge after spending time teaching in New York (Fordham University and New York University, respectively.)

Building on the School’s growing expertise in African and African American religious studies, Ahmad, Tracey, and Terrence were welcomed to the HDS community after robust faculty searches last year. Joining us from Northwestern University, Ahmad is a social historian and theorist whose research interests include critical Black studies, Black Atlantic religions in the Americas, and race, queerness, and sexuality in the context of African American and Caribbean religious

histories. Tracey, a nationally known and esteemed scholar of Africana studies and American religious history, is returning to Harvard from her leadership role as Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Colgate University (you can read more about her exceptional experience in the “Advancing Knowledge of Global Religion” section of this year’s report). Terrence is joining fellow alumni returning as faculty to bring his expertise in African American political thought, ethics, and the role of religion in public life to HDS. Terrence was most recently teaching in Georgetown University’s Department of Government.

In just the few short months that our new faculty members have been on campus, we have already seen the benefits of building upon our strong academic foundation. From expanded course offerings, such as “Judaism and the Making of Christianity” to “The Book of Baldwin,” to new publications advancing the field of religion, to a wider range of areas of study to interest current and prospective students, we are witnessing pluralism in action. I offer my heartfelt thanks to each of our teachers and researchers for establishing such a foundation and helping us grow with continued strength.

In addition to expanding our faculty this year, we bolstered our student community. With thanks to our admissions, communications, and financial aid teams for their concerted efforts, we welcomed an exceptional number of international students in the 2022–23 class. A quarter of our newest students joined the HDS community from abroad, representing 20 countries and 5 continents. We also expanded our financial aid offerings to make an HDS education more accessible, an effort I hope to continue in the coming years.

Harvard’s report on the legacy of slavery was not a culmination of intense research, but rather the beginning of a new, shared understanding of how much more needs to be done. In my address to the European Academy of Religion, I discussed this report and what it means for not just Harvard but for the world. Going back to some of the challenges mentioned earlier, increased access to information and expanded audiences has also brought issues related to representation, equity, and justice into clearer focus for many of us. Whose voices have been centered and whose voices have been subjugated? What perspectives have dominated the narrative and what perspectives have been underrepresented? And it’s not enough to simply recognize subjugation and injustice. Rather, a genuine look at our past must also involve meaningful action to do better now and build a just future for all.

In the words of our School’s Associate Dean for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, the Rev. Melissa Wood Bartholomew, this is both hard and heart work. I mention Melissa because she has deftly offered her expertise in actively building an anti-racist and anti-oppressive Harvard Divinity School, which means that our students, staff, faculty, alumni, supporters, and anyone who engages with the community are learning valuable lessons about how to address bias, promote equality, and understand intersectionality. This year’s Common Read and Reorientation program led by the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging will center the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery report. In doing so, we will bear witness to this history and engage with one another to ensure that no such reports are needed in the future.

I also want to thank the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, and the many others who are helping us grapple with the difficult dichotomy shared by institutions within higher education— institutions that simultaneously represent truth and knowledge while steeped in histories entangled with injustice. The care our community has taken with building an anti-racist and antioppressive HDS is just one example of actively working toward a just world at peace.

HDS creates connections across the University and across the globe in a number of ways—most notably through our research and our network of exceptional leaders. We could quadruple the length of this report and still not have enough room to cover all the events and intellectual exchanges that took place in the last year. That said, I want to recognize the many fellows, research associates, and visiting monastics brought into the HDS community by way of the Center for the Study of World Religion, Religion and Public Life, the Women’s Studies in Religion Program, the Office of Ministry Studies, and one of our newest initiatives, the Yang Visiting Scholars of World Christianity. These community members expand the reach of the School while building strong academic networks with their home institutions throughout the world.

Our programs also create learning opportunities across Harvard, such as the Spiritual Lives of Leaders course (offered in partnership with Harvard Business School) and our Professional and Lifelong Learning programs (giving more people the opportunity to benefit from the teaching and learning at HDS). Building on our success with virtual and in-person events, this past year also saw the creation of Weather Reports, a series of conversations about the climate crisis. This new effort is perhaps the quintessence of cross-collaboration. A conversation that started between HDS Writer-in-Residence Terry Tempest Williams and colleagues Diane Moore, Charles M. Stang, and Sam Myers (from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) grew into a series of events with authors, artists, and activists that garnered over 3,000 unique audience members (an average of 1,011 registrants for each event). In just the first session, audience members joined from Ghana, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, and all corners of the United States. We also had guest speakers from around the globe, including Bernadette Demientieff from the Gwich’in community in Northern Alaska and Wanjira Mathai from the World Resources Institute in Kenya. I encourage you to read more about how religion and climate are connected in the “New Resources for Teaching and Learning” section.

From the Swartz Hall opening and Preston N. Williams Chapel renaming celebrations in the fall to in-person Gomes Honors and Commencement events in the spring—I cannot fully express the joy of seeing our community together again. I also want to share my appreciation for the School’s volunteer leadership groups, such as the Dean’s Council, the Global Task Force, and the Alumni/Alumnae Council, who graciously offer their guidance throughout the year. By helping us think about the best ways to connect with prospective students, engage with graduates, and strengthen our international networks, the support offered by HDS alumni and friends brings our work to fruition.

One of the main points from my address to the European Academy of Religion is that the idea of multireligious education, at least at Harvard, is very much a present-tense evolution. HDS is still an educational experiment, and only time will tell where the future of religious diversity in education will take us. That said, we do know there is truth to be found in reckoning with our past and important questions to explore for the future. Notably, what were the engines driving the transition from nonsectarian to multireligious at HDS, and what were the major characteristics and limitations?

To answer the first question, we must pay attention to the profound cultural shifts in the post–Second World War era, including deep unease over colonialism and the impact of decolonization, the rise of feminism and women’s participation in higher education, the influence of multiculturalism and

pluralism, the growth of international travel and experiences of globalism, and the widening of educational opportunities to different social groups. The School, to my knowledge, never set out with a clear ideological agenda or institutional plan to become a multifaith institution. As much driven by student demand as by institutional strategy, the multireligious move was episodic, pragmatic, and contested. The trajectory was nevertheless consistent in an increasingly diverse direction throughout the decades, with cardiograph-like spikes around the formation of some of our biggest initiatives, the Center for the Study of World Religions (1950s), the Women’s Studies in Religion Program (1970s), the Pluralism Project (1990s), and Religion and Public Life (2020s).

The second question about characteristics and limitations is easier to figure out, if not always straightforward. HDS grew out of settler colonialism, religious independence and a progressive bent that has always been part of its tradition. There are some obvious ironies. HDS has always been better at critiquing other people’s empires than paying attention to the religious traditions of native or enslaved peoples, or even the religious consequences of America’s own imperial entanglements in places like the Korean peninsula. There is still no established chair at HDS on the religions of Indigenous people, and only recently could one say that Africana diasporic and African American religious traditions have been treated with the seriousness they deserve.

What one can say with certitude from this brief survey of an important educational experiment is that the categories for studying religion have steadily expanded over the past two centuries. If current trends continue, HDS will be enrolling more and more students who self-identify as religiously unaffiliated, or as spiritual but not religious, and who have growing interests in religious traditions beyond the conventional paradigm. As the climate crisis becomes more urgent, there will be a special interest in religious traditions, ancient and modern, that have wisdom to offer a burning and flooding planet. As ever, students and the wider culture will help determine this evolution, and we will continue to explore how the concept of multifaith has changed from encountering other traditions in order to missionize them, to learning about them out of curiosity, to learning from them out of epistemic humility, and, inexorably, to learning with them.

Reckoning genuinely with the past, using the present day to serve our mission faithfully, being mindful that we can do better in the future—this is the work of HDS today. We have an important job at Harvard and in the wider world: to foster ethical leadership, to train the compassionate and committed graduates of the future, and to bear witness to truth as we learn through deep inquiry. This work is a responsibility. It is a privilege. And it is not possible without the wise, honest engagement of our larger community.

David N. Hempton Dean of the Faculty of Divinity Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies John Lord O’Brian Professor of Divinity