“Marshall Dunn is a pastor par excellence. For over 50 years he has led congregations and communities as a rigorous teacher and a practitioner of ministry that cares for the soul with competence and heart.”

“He has been for me and others what is best of the Disciples of Christ: working towards wholeness, modeling deep Christian spirituality, loving compassion, and a passion for justice.”

J. Marshall Dunn, Minister Emeritus of University Christian Church, Hyattsville, Maryland, will be honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award. The Alumni/ae Council will present the award on July 15 at DDH's luncheon at the General Assembly in Memphis.

Marshall Dunn entered the Divinity School as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar in 1965. Encouraging his fellow students in the new DMin program to live at DDH, he helped to usher in the ecumenical student community that exists to this day. He interned at the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations on Chicago's south side. When Dr. King came to Chicago to confront northern racism, Marshall's passion for racial justice grew. After his ordination, he served two south side congregations, which would merge under his leadership. He was the founder of Reach Out, an ecumenical crisis center for families in need. He became the first president of the Illinois-Wisconsin College of Ministers.

In 1974 he was called to University Christian Church near the University of Maryland, where he would serve for 31 years, building a multi-racial and culturally diverse congregation that has been deeply involved in vibrant worship, community outreach, and transformational ministry ever since. He led the church through significant decades in the relation of church and society, which included exemplary participation in Week of Compassion and Reconciliation programs and remarkable local action. For example, in the eighties and nineties, the congregation partnered with the high school next door and the Early Head Start program to support teen moms and their children. In 1991, he was honored with the Brotherhood/Sisterhood Award by the local chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews for his service to the community, especially for his efforts on behalf of the poor and his commitment to race relations and social justice. In 1995, he helped to found and then chaired Congregations United in Compassion and Empowerment (CUCE) a non-profit organization that provides a nexus of social services and information for the Prince George's County area that continues to this day.

His commitment to work with youth and young adults is legendary. He has spent the equivalent of more than one year of his life counseling or directing church camps--and only recently retired from that. He has been sought, too, as a mentor to rising generations of ministers.

After his retirement in 2006, Dunn provided interim leadership in local congregations, as regional minister in the Capital Area, and as Temporary Associate General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). His commitment to camp counseling and his responsive social compassion continued.

Dunn was elected to the DDH Board of Trustees in 2012. As chair of its House Committee, he is currently leading efforts to reimagine and renew DDH's two residential floors and to prepare for the future of ministry.

How can a 1928 Gothic building be readied for a future that is beyond present imagining? How can this old House provide for forms of learning and ministry that we cannot yet glimpse?

To catalyze student living and learning for the next one hundred years, the Board of Trustees has chartered a design and construction team that has expertise with historic buildings and an imagination of future possibilities. Plans focus on more climate resilient and welcoming conditions for the residential floors. Energy efficient air conditioning will not require intrusive mechanicals. All-gender bathrooms will provide private changing areas and more accessible facilities. New flooring and lighting will enhance each student room; old acoustical tile ceilings will be removed; sparkling lights will illuminate the atrium.

Disciples Divinity House is saddened to learn of the death of Mark G. Toulouse on March 2. A leading historian and theologian of the Disciples movement, ordained Disciples minister, and expert on Religion and Public Life, he was honored as the Alumnus of the Year by the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2018. A memorial service will be held at South Hills Christian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, on Sunday afternoon, March 9.  

Toulouse retired as Principal and Professor of the History of Christianity of Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto in 2017. Under his leadership, several new academic programs were introduced, including the PhD degree, the MA degree, and the Certificate of Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy, all offered conjointly with the University of Toronto. His work has included the creation of Muslim and Buddhist Studies programs. He was also Emeritus Professor of American Religious History at Brite Divinity School, where he taught from 1986 to 2008 and served as Dean and Executive Vice-President from 1999-2002. He began his teaching career at Illinois Benedictine College (1980-84) and served on the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary from 1984-86.

Mark Toulouse received his PhD in the History of Christianity from the University of Chicago in 1984, where he was a student of Martin E. Marty. Toulouse has written or edited ten books, including Joined in Discipleship: The Shaping of Contemporary Disciples Identity (1992 and 1997); Makers of Christian Theology in America (1997), Sources of Christian Theology in America (1999), Walter Scott: A Nineteenth-Century Evangelical (1999), God in Public (2006), and The Altars Where We Worship: The Religious Significance of Popular Culture (2016). His research and teaching were been supported by grants from the Association of Theological Schools, the Lilly Endowment, the Louisville Institute, the Wabash Centre for Teaching and Learning, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Connaught Fund at the University of Toronto.

He was serving as a member of the Disciples-ELCA Bilateral Dialogue, which met in Chicago the weekend before his death, and where he brought classic clarity, wisdom, and erudition.

Jaunty bow ties were a perennial feature of his wardrobe, signaling that he took the occasion seriously, but not himself. He entered a room with a quick step and, just as quickly, entered the flow of your life, your questions, and your ideas. He honored the time and space of the conversation.

- W. Clark Gilpin, "Martin Marty's Unfinished Conversations"

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.

The Alumni/ae Council welcomes new members to the class of 2028: Mark Miller-McLemore, Andrew Packman, and Sarah Zuniga. Miller-McLemore (entering class of 1975) taught leadership and ministry at Vanderbilt Divinity School for 25 years and served as the dean of DDH@Vandy. Packman (2009) is a theological ethicist and an assistant professor at United Theological Seminary the Twin Cities. Zuniga (2018) is an associate minister of Allisonville Christian Church in Indianapolis and co-moderates the Disciples Peace Fellowship. 

The Alumni/ae Council builds relations among alums and keeps alums connected with new Disciples Scholars and with DDH's ongoing mission. Laura Jennison Reed and Aaron Smith are co-presidents of the Council. Other continuing members are Amy Bertschausen, Brandon Cook, Tim Lee, Aneesah Ettress Veatch, Katherine Alexander, Cheryl Jackson, and Carol Sherman. Special thanks to Danielle Cox and Michael Stone, who concluded their service in December.  

The Council is in the process of selecting a Distinguished Alumna/us who will be honored at DDH's luncheon on July 15, at the General Assembly in Memphis. Registration for the General Assembly and tickets for the luncheon are available here.

At a DDH Forum on Monday, February 24, Bonnie Miller-McLemore discussed the complexities of calling and vocation--that it can change over our lives, that it can be something we didn't choose, that we can have more than one calling, and that they may conflict. She presented findings from her new book, Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling (Oxford University Press, 2024). Drawing on memoirs, biographies, and fiction, it guides the reader through six dilemmas one may face throughout life, from missed or conflicted callings to unexpected or relinquished passions. An alumna, she is the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture Emerita at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Pictured with her are (l to r): Kylie Winger, Isabelle Garcia, Miller-McLemore, Morganne Talley, and Delaney Beh.

On January 27, DDH will welcome Kristel Clayville and William Schweiker to discuss AI and Our Humanity. Both scholars have addressed the intersection of theological ethics and technology. The 7:00 pm forum will follow Monday dinner.

Clayville, a DDH alumna and PhD graduate of the Divinity School, is an ethicist and member of the Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her current work focuses on the intersection of religion and technology, including information and biotechnologies and the ethics of organ transplants. Her 2024 Genevieve Staudt Intercultural Lecture at Elmhurst University was “Dea Ex Machina: Using Feminine Images of God to Describe AI.” She is also a Senior Fellow at the MacLean Center of Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago and the former Acting Director of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science. She has taught medical ethics, served as member of hospital ethics committees, and worked as a hospital chaplain.

Schweiker is the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics at the Divinity School. His scholarship and teaching engage theological and ethical questions attentive to global dynamics, comparative religious ethics, history of ethics, and hermeneutical philosophy. He will keynote an upcoming Yale Divinity School conference, "AI and the Ends of Humanity." He is the author or editor of over twenty books and more than 135 articles. He was Chief Editor of A Companion to Religious Ethics (2004) and is Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics (3 vols.). He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Uppsala, and has held several international visiting professorships including as Mercator Professor at the Universität Heidelberg, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. He was President of the Society of Christian Ethics and Director and PI of The Enhancing Life Project (2014-17). Schweiker is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church and theologian-in-residence at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple.

Rachel Abdoler has been awarded a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship to support her research on thirteenth-century Coptic author’s interpretation of the passion of Christ and its background of Arabic Christian and Islamic writing. Her dissertation is titled Between Defense and Devotion: Butrus al-Sadamanti's Tafsir on the Passion of Christ in its Thirteenth Century Copto-Islamic Milieu. The award will underwrite six months of research work in the fall and winter of 2025-26 in the collections of the Vatican library in Rome and a library in Cairo, Egypt, on Christian texts written in Arabic. Abdoler is a DDH Scholar and a PhD candidate in the History of Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Joy and Francis Williams were salt of the earth, hardworking Midwesterners. The Christian Church in Clever, Missouri, was central to their lives and their relationship. Over the years they became delegates to Disciples state and regional conventions, focusing primarily on its outreach mission. "Nothing would have given my parents greater delight than knowing that a fund had been established in their honor to help others fulfill their educational dreams," says Ritch Savin-Williams, DDH entering class of 1971. He is now Professor Emeritus of Cornell University and author of ten books on adolescent development, gender, and sexuality. They would have viewed this gift as an expression of their outreach mission to give back what God had so generously given them. Read more here.

Sixteen students have been named Disciples Divinity House Scholars for 2024-25.

Four new Scholars enter the MDiv program: Grace Dearhamer, a 2024 graduate of Eureka College who hails from Oklahoma, was awarded the Drum and Tenant Scholarship, which remembers two women who were “do-ers” in the church. MariaIsabelle Garcia has been awarded the Oreon E. Scott Entering Scholarship. A 2022 graduate of Chapman University, Isabel brings experience in community organizing and with youth in schools. Bernard F. and Annie Mae Cooke Scholar, Hart Lang received his BA from Wake Forest University (2012) and an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers Camden (2021). He is a member of Gilead Church in Chicago. Kathleen (Katie) Varon is the William N. Weaver Entering Scholar. A 2024 graduate of Vassar College, she was a HELM Fellow. She grew up in Riverside Avenue Christian Church in Jacksonville, Florida. Entering the MA program is Emma Yeager, a West Virginia native with a strong ecumenical impulse, 2024 graduate of Moody Bible Institute, and aspiring historian and theologian, who has been awarded free housing.

Rachel Abdoler, the Barbara and Clark Williamson Scholar, is writing her PhD dissertation on a thirteenth-century Coptic author’s interpretation of the passion of Christ, and its background of Arabic Christian and Islamic writing. Delaney Beh, a second-year MDiv student and the M. Ray and Phyllis Schultz Scholar, is preparing for chaplaincy. Justin Carlson is the William Daniel Cobb Alumni/ae Scholar. He recently completed a ten-month full-time internship at First Christian Church in Tacoma, Washington, and now begins his final MDiv year. Marissa Ilnitzki, the Martin Family Scholar, is a fourth-year dual MDiv/MSW student preparing for chaplaincy. She will be the chapel speaker in November. Kevin Poe, a second-year MA student, was awarded the Henry Barton Robison Scholarship. This summer, he studied Sanskrit in Pune, India, and visited Buddhist/Hindu pilgrimage sites in northern India to conduct interviews. Luke Soderstrom is exploring how theological concepts of children shaped Moravian piety in his PhD dissertation. Tristan Spanger-Dunning has transferred to the MDiv program and enters his second year. A recipient of the Rolland and Laura Frances Sheafor Scholarship, he completed an internship this summer with the Disciples of Christ Historical Society this summer. Third-year MDiv Morganne Talley is the Dr. Geunhee and Mrs. Geunsoon Yu Scholar, which honors two outstanding Disciples leaders. She completed CPE at Rush University Medical Center this summer. Nate Travis, also a third-year MDiv, is the Blakemore Scholar, and was the DDH House Council President last year. He presented a paper at the Oxford Institute (UK) for Methodist Theological Studies in August. Virginia White, the E. S. Ames Scholar, is writing her dissertation on “Reckoning with Social Evils: Performativity as a Foundation for Reenvisioning Lament and Laughter as Moral Practices.” In August, she presented a paper in Denmark; she will speak at the Ricoeur conference in Chicago in October. Kylie Winger, a third-year MDiv who is a creative writing and teacher of writing, is also DDH’s Head Resident. She received the M. Elizabeth Dey Scholarship, created by Katherine Dey to remember her grandmother, who raised her and helped start a Disciples congregation in Arlington, Virginia.