Disciples Divinity House

Warren Rush Copeland, died January 22, 2024, in Springfield, Ohio, following a three-month illness. He was 80. He was born on September 20, 1943, in Davenport, Iowa, and grew up in Silvis, Illinois. He graduated from MacMurray College in 1965. Two weeks later he married his college sweetheart, Clara Coolman. He received his MDiv from Christian Theological Seminary in 1968 and was ordained as a Disciple of Christ pastor.

He entered the Divinity School as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar that same fall, and received his PhD in 1977. For four years he directed the Illinois Conference of Churches. In 1977, he joined the faculty of Wittenberg University as an associate professor in religion, teaching social ethics. He later became the director of Urban Studies and, in 2008, he was named the faculty director of the Hagen Center. He was honored with the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995; in 2018 he received the Medal of Honor for forty-one years at Wittenberg.

He co-edited Economic Justice and Issues of Justice (1988), and authored two books in religious social ethics, And the Poor Get Welfare (1994) and Doing Justice in Our Cities (2009). The latter offered ethical reflections on his time in the city government of Springfield, Ohio. He was appointed to the Springfield City Commission in 1988. He served as mayor from 1990-94 and from 1998 until he retired in 2023.

He is survived by Clara Coolman Copeland, a now retired kindergarten teacher; their three children, Scott (Laura), Karen (Carl) and Angel; and seven grandchildren.