Martin E. Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity at the Divinity School, died February 25 at the age of 97. He was the author or editor of more than sixty books, including Righteous Empire, which won the National Book Award. He advised 115 dissertations. When he retired in 1998, the Divinity School's Center for the Advanced Study of Religion was renamed the Martin E. Marty Center. His M.E.M.O. column ran in every issue of The Christian Century from 1972 to 2008. More here and here. W. Clark Gilpin, former Dean of DDH, wrote this remembrance.

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, partial House Scholar and MA student Emma Yeager presented a paper at the fifth annual Yale Graduate Conference in Religion and Ecology, presenting ancient theological perspectives on ecological preservation from the medieval north.

Gilead Church has voted to close after eight years of ministry on the North Side of Chicago. The congregation, founded in 2017 by House alumna Rebecca Anderson (2007) and Vince Amlin, Divinity School alumnus, was an experiment in community, radical hospitality, and creative liturgy, gathering in bars and nightclubs. Many students at DDH interned or were deeply influenced by the vision and worship of Gilead and the leadership and vision of Anderson and Amlin. The last service will be on Saturday, April 19.

Kris Culp (1982) was invited to present a paper on creeds and affirmations of faith to the February 20-22 meeting of the ELCA-Disciples Bilateral Dialogue. The discussion anticipates the upcoming World Conference of Faith and Order, Nicaea 2025, to be held near Alexandria, Egypt, in October. She serves as the Disciples representative on the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC. See the joint Disciples-ELCA news release.

Bethany Lowery (2006), MDiv graduate, and former Doctoral Student at the Divinity School in the History of Christianity, 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.

DDH Alumni/ae Council welcomes three new members, starting a three-year term in April: Mark Miller-McLemore (1978), Andrew Packman (2009), and Sarah Zuniga (2018).

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.

DDH resident Lilia Ellis reviewed Norman Wirzba, Love's Braided Dance, in the January issue of The Christian Century. She is conducting her MDiv field education with the magazine.

Sympathy to Laird Thomason (1962) on the death of his spouse, Evelyn Kay Betts Thomason. She died January 15 at the age of 82. She practiced law in Maryland. They were married for more than sixty years.