The constructive theologies project planning team met in Chicago last week: Yvonne Gilmore (project director), Jose Morales (PhD student DSF), Allie Lundblad (MDiv student DDH), Andrew Packman (PhD student DDH), Christian Watkins (MDiv grad Yale), and, not pictured, Alexis Kassim (MDiv grad DDH). The project seeks to ensure space for the peer development of creative, faithful, risk-taking theological thinking.

The project envisions cultivating innovative ideas that "move" across racial, vocational, intellectual and economic lines to address the challenges and possibilities that face the Disciples of Christ. Young Disciples leaders are already responding to these questions as they minister in traditional and transforming congregations, labor in the non-profit world, plant new congregations, and engage these questions in the academy. ("Young" here means persons who are still in or just out of graduate school.) While there is a loose network of such persons, they are dispersed across the country and are often located at the margins of the church, outside of formal denominational structures. This project seeks to connect them to one another and to galvanize shared constructive theological work. It is funded by a grant from the Oreon E. Scott Foundation.

Students have been enjoying the rewards of recent renovations to DDH's Herbert Lockwood Willett Library and to the offices. New lighting makes for better reading and for better work on computers and tablets, and it is more aesthetically pleasing and energy-efficient. A new paint color scheme, inspired by the Indiana limestone on the building's exterior, brightens everything. Furnishings that were original to the building have been repurposed for offices and for new workstations in the library; entirely redone electrical wiring supports those spaces.

Dean Yvonne Gilmore's office is now on the first floor, a boon for her collaboration with students and with the dean. New "old" doors match existing woodwork and demarcate the deans' offices from the foyer. In the mailroom and cloakroom, ceilings have been restored to their original height and new built-in furnishings have been added to create workspace for student office assistants and storage; colors inspired by the chapel ceiling glimmer from the back of new, larger student mailboxes.

The project first took shape in conversations about the library among students and architect Paul Steinbrecher, a trustee who regularly attends Monday dinners and programs, and in planning for office spaces that support collaborative work between the dean and associate dean.

The project gained momentum when the Capital Area of the Christian Church included funding toward Willett Library refurbishment in its capital campaign.

While Emily Dickinson's posthumously published poetry and letters "contain many explicitly religious themes and concepts, throughout her life she resisted joining her local church and rarely attended services." Clark Gilpin's new book, Religion Around Emily Dickinson, begins with this seeming paradox. He proposes, "first, that understanding the religious aspect of the surrounding culture enhances our appreciation of Emily Dickinson's poetry and, second, that her poetry casts light on features of religion in nineteenth-century America that might otherwise escape our attention. Religion, especially Protestant Christianity, was "around" Emily Dickinson not only in explicitly religious practices, literature, architecture, and ideas but also as an embedded influence on normative patterns of social organization in the era, including gender roles, education, and ideals of personal intimacy and fulfillment. Through her poetry, Dickinson imaginatively reshaped this richly textured religious inheritance to create her own personal perspective on what it might mean to be religious in the nineteenth century." This perspective proved to be far more than "merely" personal: "Dickinson's creative engagement with the religion around her has stimulated and challenged successive generations of readers in the United States and around the world." Listen to an interview with Clark Gilpin about his new book here.

W. Clark Gilpin is the Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity and Theology in the University of Chicago Divinity School and the Interim Director of the Martin E. Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion. He is also the former Dean of the Disciples Divinity House, where he serves on the Board of Trustees and leads an ongoing seminar on Disciples History and Thought.

A pilot group of MDiv alumni/ae--who have been actively engaged in ministry landscapes and who graduated between 2007 and 2010--returned to Chicago on October 3-4 for a time of peer-driven reflection and renewal. They gathered to share updates and case studies, to worship, to eat together and see a play, and to converse about glory, vulnerability and multiplicity in relation to their vocations and contexts of ministry. The Resourcing Young Clergy Leaders event arose from an initial idea by DDH alumnus Beau Underwood and former DDH resident Ben Varnum to their fellow Divinity School MDiv alumni/ae. Associate Dean Yvonne Gilmore developed the project in collaboration with Cynthia Lindner, Director of the Ministry Program at the Divinity School and a DDH trustee. Fourteen alumni/ae returned for the event which was held at the Divinity School and at DDH.

The project was jointly funded by the Divinity School and by an Oreon E. Scott Foundation grant to DDH. The Disciples Divinity House was awarded a $15,000 grant from the Scott Foundation to launch, test, and evaluate two peer-driven projects in leader development (see story below).

Four new persons joined the ranks of Disciples Divinity House Scholars beginning in the 2014-15 academic year.

Joel A. Brown enters the PhD program in Religions in America. He comes with a ThM degree from Brite Divinity School, where his thesis treated three Dallas-Fort Worth area seminaries and their response to the Civil Rights movement. He writes, “My research interests took new shape as a result of better understanding the complexity and diversity within American religious historical scholarship today." He received the Disciples of Christ Historical Society’s Isaac Errett Award for his paper on Alexander Campbell’s views on race and class, and he is the author of “Concern for the Poor in the Nashville Bible School Tradition: David J. Lipscomb and James A. Harding,” Restoration Quarterly (2013). He is a 2009 summa cum laude BA graduate and a 2012 summa cum laude MDiv graduate of Abilene Christian University. He grew up in Oregon and is the child of ministers. He and his spouse, Erin James-Brown, were part of the leadership team of Galileo Christian Church, a new Disciples congregation in Mansfield, Texas.

Mark M. Lambert returns to pursue a PhD in Theology, having received his MA from the Divinity School in 2013 as a Disciples House Scholar. He served as House Council President in 2012-13. He is interested in leprosy and its stigma as “stubborn sections of the symbolic structure of Christianity, and potent parts of religious parlance. … [W]hen a bodily and medical condition becomes culpable in the sway of one’s social status, the result is a value-laden landscape which I believe theology is best equipped to navigate.” He is a 2010 magna cum laude BA graduate of Truman State University, where he majored in Philosophy & Religion (with Honors) and was selected as the department’s Outstanding Undergraduate Student. He was elected to Theta Alpha Kappa (Religion) and Eta Sigma Phi (Greek and Latin) honorary societies. In 2011, he was honored for “Best Undergraduate Paper” at the Midwest AAR meeting for “Baldwin IV: a Curious Case of Leprosy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,” and he presented a paper at the 2013 SBL meeting.

Virginia Johnston White enters the MDiv program. She is a 2013 magna cum laude BA graduate of Rice University, where she majored in Sociology and History and earned departmental honors and the University’s highest research prizes. She worked with Rice's Religion and Public Life Program as an undergraduate and then post-baccalaureate research fellow, managing the “Religious Understandings of Science” study funded by the Templeton Foundation. Her undergraduate thesis examined African American Protestants’ views of science education. She has co-authored review articles and presented academic papers. She was a HELM Fellow, a volunteer writing tutor, an intern at the Journal of Feminist Economics and at the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy, and leader of student groups; she studied abroad in London and participated in the NCC’s Young Women’s Leadership Experience at the UN. She writes: “I understand ministry as an act aimed toward revolutionizing communities toward positive change, focused on caring for others even when it is difficult, and acknowledging the dual brokenness and potential for good in all persons.” A life-long Disciple and “preacher’s kid,” her home church is University Christian, Austin, Texas.

“Van” VanBebber enters the AMRS program to explore long-standing interests in religion and next steps in his second career. He reflects that, as the child of a minister, he has long been deeply interested in “that which my Dad and family committed their entire lives, with the concomitant sacrifices, in the care and education of others in the service of their beliefs…. In my case, [following those interests] traveled the circuitous path through prior academic and professional pursuits....” Van earned the BS and MS in Business and Accounting at the University of North Texas, graduating summa cum laude. In 1993 he earned a JD at Columbia University with Stone Scholar honors, where he was a Stone Moot Court Semi-Finalist, served on the Human Rights Law Review, Law Revue show cast, Columbia-Harlem Tutorial Program, and Reunion Committee. Later, he was elected an equity partner in the Trial and Litigation Section of the Dallas firm, Hughes & Luce, LLP. He has served as an adjunct professor in law and in business. He was active in the Dallas Bar Association, especially in its mentoring program for at-risk Dallas public school children. He left law practice to pursue a PhD at UNT in Interdisciplinary Information Science, which he received earlier this year.

Disciples Divinity House has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the Oreon E. Scott Foundation to launch, test, and evaluate two peer-driven projects in leader development: 1) The Constructive Theologies project and 2) a Resourcing Young Clergy Leaders event. Both projects effectively move “the House” beyond “the House,” insofar as the reach of each project extends beyond current Disciples Divinity House students, not only to DDH alumni/ae who serve across the U.S., but also to other emerging Disciples theological leaders, in one project, and, in the other, to their former ecumenical classmates (and now fellow graduates) at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. The grant provides resources for these projects to develop in conversation among alumni/ae and student leaders. Associate Dean Yvonne Gilmore will serve as project manager.

Disciples students Andrew Packman (PhD student in Theology and co-founding pastor of Root and Branch, a new church start), Allie Lundblad (MDiv student), and Christian Watkins (2014 Yale MDiv graduate) initiated the Constructive Theologies project with an interest in connecting with peers from across the Disciples of Christ. The project envisions cultivating innovative ideas that “move” across racial, vocational, intellectual and economic lines--an "idea trust" ensures space for the peer development of creative, faithful, risk-taking theological thinking. Participants in this project are peers in the sense that they share a common generational frame of reference (ages 25 to 35) and a common hope to create effective roads to personal and ecclesial transformation, and especially to becoming a pro-reconciling and anti-racist church.

The Resourcing Young Clergy Leaders event was developed out of an appeal by alumnus Beau Underwood and former resident Ben Varnum to their fellow Divinity School MDiv alumni/ae. It will initially take the form of a “Ministry Alumni/ae Retreat” in collaboration with the Divinity School on October 3-4, 2014, in Hyde Park. A pilot group of MDiv alumni/ae who have been actively engaged in ministry landscapes and graduated between 2007 and 2010 have been invited to return for a time of peer-driven reflection and renewal.

The North American Pacific Asian Disciples (NAPAD) will hold its 18th Biennial Convocation in Hyde Park, August 6-9. The gathering will bring 150 Disciples together for worship, fellowship, business meetings, and educational events. Sixty years ago in June 1954, David T. Kagiwada, a second generation Japanese American Disciple who suffered internment during the Second World War, graduated from DDH and the Divinity School and was ordained. Together with Soongook Choi and Harold Johnson, he became a founding force in the establishment of the American Asian Disciples (later NAPAD). A pastor and compassionate advocate for justice, he would become its first convener and the first of many DDH graduates to give leadership to NAPAD and the first of many connections between NAPAD and DDH. NAPAD moderator-elect John Roh and past moderator and historian Timothy Lee are DDH alumni, as are Disciples and NAPAD leaders April Lewton, Vy Nguyen, and Sandhya Jha. Key NAPAD figures also provide leadership at DDH: JoAnne Kagiwada, a retired attorney and nonprofit leader, is a longtime DDH trustee; April Lewton and Gaylord Yu also currently serve as DDH trustees.

On July 20, the First Christian Church of Downers Grove, Illinois, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. The congregation, started in 1964 by William E. Crowl, who was then a DDH Scholar, is now led by alumna Teresa Hord Owens, who serves as Senior Minister and also as Dean of Students at the Divinity School. “Our congregation has a real heart for our community, a love that stretches from Downers Grove to children across the globe in Belarus,” Terri Owens says. That commitment goes back to the church’s early years. Bill Crowl tells the story of the Planning Commission hearing to approve the plans for the building in 1967. When a local resident asked, “Do you sing with the windows open?,” he replied, “[W]e are not only a people who sing their faith in the building, we are also a people who live out our faith outside the building.” Commitment to and support of ministry students has been an important part of the congregation’s ministry. Katherine Newman Kinnamon was the first of many Disciples House Scholars to complete field education there. Others include Nancy TannerTheis, Peter Browning, Randall Russell, Susan Miller, Doug Job, Katy McFall, Andy Snyder, Michael Karunas, Sarah Chenoweth West, Tish Duncan and Brandon Cline, and current Scholars Hye In Park and Danielle Cox.

(adapted from HELM press release) - The board of directors of Higher Education & Leadership Ministries (HELM) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has called Bernard "Chris" Dorsey to serve as its next president effective August 1, 2014. A dynamic and creative leader, Mr. Dorsey is currently an Assistant Professor of Theology and Preaching at Western Theological Seminary. He is a PhD candidate in Theology at the Divinity School, where he entered as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar, and holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (BS) and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (MDiv). An ordained Disciples minister, he previously served as a local church pastor, university chaplain at Clark Atlanta University, and as Vice President of Development and Marketing at Chicago Theological Seminary.

Recognizing a transitional point in the life of HELM's witness and ministry as well as current challenges facing local congregations and faith-based institutions, the HELM board invited applications for a transitional 3-year presidency. Board chair Ed Strong commented, "We were pleased with the success of the search process that led to the calling of Rev. Dorsey. The enthusiasm he engendered during this process is indicative of his desire and ability to guide HELM during its transitional period as it seeks to determine how best to serve the colleges, universities, theological institutions, and students in the task of developing and fostering leadership within the Church and society." Chris Dorsey responded, "I look forward to building on HELM's success of leadership development and finding new ways to equip people with the skills and tools needed for successful ministry and service in a rapidly changing world."

Dennis Landon retired as President of Higher Education and Leadership Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on June 30. He became president of the general ministry in 1997, when it was known as the Division of Higher Education. The ministry represents "over a century of organized Disciples commitment to the ministries of higher education as manifested in colleges and universities, campus ministries, and graduate theological education."

Dennis led the Board of Directors and staff in focusing on leadership development--"identifying, cultivating, equipping and supporting transformative leaders"--as the core work of the general ministry. The inauguration of HELM's Leadership Fellows program for Disciples college students was a centerpiece of the new focus; it also represented the creative marshaling of limited financial and staff resources and a response to a gap in recruitment of younger leaders. HELM also became known for zany and winsome interpretive work, especially at General Assemblies, that often featured  Dennis and Leadership Fellows. Meanwhile, Dennis and staff continued to work with undergraduate institutions, campus ministries, graduate theological education institutions, and Disciples faculty to connect and strengthen those organizations' and individuals' work. An ordained Disciples minister who is a graduate of Columbia University as well as of the Disciples Divinity House and the University of Chicago Divinity School, Dennis Landon served as a minister in Disciples congregations and as the executive for a cluster of colleges before coming to HELM. He and spouse Lana Hartman Landon, who is herself a DDH alumna, are planning to move to Pennsylvania.