Congratulations to Muhammad Hassan (current resident), who will be continuing next fall in the PhD program at the Divinity School in Religion of the Americas, studying histories of American Christian missionaries in the Middle East.

"A spiderweb is strong yet flexible; it can withstand pressure without breaking. ... nobody benefits from a faith that’s so rigid that one doubt will bring down everything." Morganne Talley, DDH Scholar and third-year MDiv, has published a book review for the Christian Century on Meredith Miller's Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From.

Ethan Yu, resident and first year MA student, presented a paper in March at the annual conference for LACK, an organization promoting Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and German idealism, held at Otterbein College in Ohio. His paper was titled, “Transcending Transcendence through the Signifier: The Lacanian Theology of Mari Ruti." The keynote speaker was Slavoj Žižek.

A 2022 essay by Mark Lambert (2011) for Sightings, "Reckoning with Re-education: Christianity’s Role in Native American Boarding Schools," was quoted in a Huffington Post article in relation to comments made by the nominee for US Secretary of Education.

On February 21, Emma Yeager, current MA student and DDH Scholar, presented a paper at the fifth annual Yale Graduate Conference in Religion and Ecology. She considered ancient theological perspectives on ecological preservation from the medieval north.

Mark Toulouse (1977) was serving as a member of the Disciples-ELCA Bilateral Dialogue at the time of his death. Kris Culp (1982; dean), who is the Disciples representative to the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC, joined their meeting on February 21 to present a paper on creeds and affirmations of faith. The Disciples-ELCA discussion anticipates the upcoming World Conference on Faith and Order, Nicaea 2025. See the joint Disciples-ELCA news release.

Bethany Lowery (2006) has begun a three-year program towards an MFA in fiction-writing at Butler University in Indianapolis. As part of her studies, she works on the staff of Booth, Butler's literary magazine.

Mark Miller-McLemore (1978), Andrew Packman (2009), and Sarah Zuniga (2018) have begun service on the Alumni/ae Council as members of the class of 2025-28.

Time, karma, and narrative in Northern Indian Buddhist and Hindu pilgrimage was the theme of a Forum by Kevin Poe on February 10. A DDH Scholar and MA student, he studied Sanskrit in Pune, India, this summer and conducted interviews at Buddhist and Hindu religious sites in Northern India, such as Bodh Gaya, Varanasi, and Sarnath.

Bonnie Miller-McLemore (1978) will be at DDH on Monday night, February 24, 2025 to talk about her new book, Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies About Calling (OUP). Drawing on memoirs, biographies, and fiction, she guides the reader through six dilemmas one may face throughout life, from missed or conflicted callings to unexpected or relinquished passions.