Congratulations to Joe Blosser (2005) who has received tenure at High Point University in North Carolina. He is the Robert G. Culp, Jr. Director of Service Learning and Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy.

Yvonne Gilmore (2001; associate dean) preached and led a workshop on “The Practice of Testimony” on September 24 at First Christian Church, Jefferson City, Missouri, where Beau Underwood (2006) is the senior minister. The event was part of a series funded by a grant from the Calvin Institute of Worship.

Congratulations to current House Scholar Andrew Langford who completed his midpoint dissertation colloquium on September 18. His dissertation considers how medicalized language (language of disease and disability) is used to pathologize religious opponents in the Pastoral Epistles.

In September, Melinda "Lindy" Keenan Wood (1997) became Senior Minister of Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Durham, North Carolina. She was previously Senior Minister of the Pershing Avenue Christian Church in Orlando, Florida.

Mark Lambert, House Scholar and PhD student in Theology, offers the first word in a roundtable on healthcare and religion. His essay, "The Trump Administration, Immigration, and the Instrumentalization of Leprosy", observes that leprosy has made a surprising appearance in current rhetoric about immigration. He explores how medieval and nineteenth-century contexts inform a "toxic petri dish" of  "media sensationalism, the healthcare debate, xenophobia, and religious rhetoric." The roundtable appeared in the September edition of the Religion & Culture Forum, edited by Joel A. Brown, House Scholar and PhD student in Religions in America.

On September 5, Alexis Vaughan Kassim (2009) became Associate Pastor of Little River United Church of Christ in Annandale, Virginia. 

John "Jack" Wesley Divine (1961) John “Jack” Wesley Divine died August 18. He was 82. Born in Perry, Oklahoma, his ministry began in 1957 and included a long career as a chaplain in the Veterans Administration. He served on the Lansing, Kansas, City Council and ran for the Kansas State Senate and the Kansas House.

He received a BA from Phillips University and a BD from Phillips Theological Seminary. He met his first wife, Wendy Matson, at Phillips, and
they were married in 1959. They traveled through Europe, and served together at a camp for displaced Hungarian women in Bad Gasten, Austria. He studied at the Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies in Bossey, Switzerland. He entered the University of Chicago Divinity School as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar in 1961, completing the MA in 1965.

He traveled to Mississippi to join the clergy march from Selma to Montgomery on “Turnaround Tuesday” in 1965. From 1965-72, he served as minister of the Community Church of Gurnee, Illinois. In 1970, he was appointed as a staff chaplain at the VA Hospital in Chicago. In 1973, Jack Divine married Anne Frances Benjamin; they would share 44 years of marriage. They moved to Danville, Illinois, where he was a chaplain at the VA Hospital. From 1978 until his retirement in 1996, he served as a chaplain and chief of chaplains for the Veteran Administration Medical Center in Leavenworth, Kansas. He was a longtime member of the First Christian Church of Leavenworth, and served it as an associate pastor for several years.

A lover of sports, conversation, and good stories, he is survived by his wife; his children, Jennifer (Laureen France), Mary (Greg Myers), and John Wesley “Sean” (Deb Malmon); and four grandchildren.More here. 

We extend sympathy to the family of James Dwight (Jim) Johnson. He died on August 11, 2017, at Carolina Meadows in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was 85. Mr. Johnson is an alumnus of the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a former resident and organist at Disciples Divinity House. In 1967 he moved from Chicago to become organist-choirmaster of St. Paul's By the Sea Episcopal Church from which he resigned in 1989 to become a distinguished piano teacher. Mr. Johnson is survived by his sister, Gwen Finlayson, nephew David Earnshaw (Stephanie), and a host of family and friends.  

Garry Sparks (2001) edited and translated his first book, The Americas’ First Theologies: Early Sources of Post-Contact Indigenous Religion, published by Oxford University Press. The Theologia Indorum by Dominican friar Domingo de Vico was the first Christian theology written in the Americas. Made available in English translation for the first time, it presents a selection of exemplary sections from the Theologia Indorum that illustrate Friar Vico's doctrine of god, cosmogony, moral anthropology, understanding of natural law and biblical history, and constructive engagement with pre-Hispanic Maya religion. This book also includes translations of two other pastoral texts (parts of a songbook and a catechism) and eight early documents by K'iche' and Kaqchikel Maya authors who engaged the Theologia Indorum.

Marjorie M. Thomas, widow of Robert A. Thomas (1941), died May 6 in Seattle, Washington. She was 95. Born Marjorie Bodine in Humansville, Missouri, she majored in music major at Drury College, where she met her husband. They were married in 1941 and moved to Chicago where Mr. Thomas attended the Divinity School of the University of Chicago as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar. Their children John and Judy were born in Chicago. Daughter Karen was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. They moved to Seattle, Washington in 1961, where he became the senior minister of University Christian Church. She sang in the choir, fashioned costumes for pageants, opened a craft studio in the church, and hosted visitors to the Seattle World's Fair. She attended the University of Washington, updating her teaching certificate, and taught in local grade schools. In 1970, Bob Thomas became President of the Division of Overseas Ministries in Indianapolis, where Marjorie met Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, hosting dinners for visitors all over the world. She continued her career as a math teacher and earned a Master of Science from Butler University at the age of 50. At retirement in 1983, the Thomases returned to Seattle and, later, to Indianapolis. Her son died in August 1996, and her husband died just a few months later. Marjorie and Bob Thomas had enjoyed 55 years of marriage.

Marjorie Thomas again returned to Seattle, where she volunteered in the public schools, did private math tutoring, and continued her music and stained glass art. Her glass work has been presented to the Pope and to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. She and Lynn Huff, her partner for the last fifteen years, enjoyed traveling. She is survived by Mr. Huff, daughters Judy Christianson (Wes) and Karen Foley (Michael), daughter-in-law Kathy Thomas, and by grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A memorial service was held on June 24 at University Christian Church in Seattle. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Disciples Divinity House where they will be added to the Robert A. and Marjorie M. Thomas Fund. More here.