News Releases
Teresa Hord Owens has been named the Divinity School Alumna of the Year for 2023 by Board of Trustees of the Baptist Theological Union upon recommendation from the Divinity School’s Alumni Council. She will deliver the Alumna of the Year address, “A New Church for a New World,” on Thursday, May 4, 2023, at 4:30 pm, in the Swift Lecture Hall. A reception will follow.
A descendant of one of the oldest African American free settlements in Indiana and a Disciple since young adulthood, Hord Owens was elected the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada in July 2017. She is the first person of color and second woman to lead the denomination – and the first African American woman to lead a mainline Christian denomination. Hord Owens earned her MDiv degree at the Divinity School as a DDH Scholar. Prior to her election as GMP, she served as Dean of Students at the Divinity School and as Senior Minister of First Christian Church of Downers Grove. Read the full news release from the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Alumna Yvonne Gilmore has been named the next Vice President and Chief of Staff of the Office of the General Minister and President. The OGMP provides leadership for the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada, and support for the General Minister and President, Teresa Hord Owens. She also leads the development and implementation of the Church Narrative Project, and had recently served as Interim Administrative Secretary of the National Convocation.
She served as Associate Dean of the Disciples Divinity House from 2013-20, helping to lead many initiatives such as the Constructive Theologies Project and the DDH StoryHour. Currently, she co-directs DDH's “Living Justice: An Anti-Racist Practicum” with Sandhya Jha, a justice learning and innovation lab that seeks to test out new approaches for connecting transformative Disciples leaders and ideas. She also serves as a core trainer with Reconciliation Ministries and as adjunct faculty at Lexington Theological Seminary. She earned her MDiv from the Divinity School as a House Scholar in 2001, and was DDH's 2022 Convocation speaker.
She will begin her Vice President and Chief of Staff role on May 1, 2023, succeeding alumna Lee Hull Moses in that role. Read more about the appointment here.
The Disciples Divinity House will mark the close of its 128th academic year and celebrate its graduates on Friday, June 2. Rebecca Anderson, DDH alumna and co-founding pastor of Gilead Church, will speak.
Rebecca is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She has a Masters in Divinity from the University of Chicago and a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Playwrighting from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Rebecca’s work can be found across a variety of media, including on Snap Judgment (radio), and podcasts including The Broad Experience and Broccoli & Ice Cream. Active in the Chicago storytelling scene, she’s performed with events like RISK!, 2nd Story, The Moth, and This Much is True. She has brought those experiences and skills to the DDH community through workshops and storyhours (at DDH, in the CCIW, and at the General Assembly). She has also been featured in the Boston Globe and The Christian Century.
Convocation is a formal service that marks the end of the academic year and celebrates the achievements of graduating Disciples House Scholars and ecumenical community members. The first DDH Convocation was held in 1933.
Cynthia Gano Lindner, exemplary minister and mentor, has been selected as the next recipient of the Distinguished Alumna/us Award of the Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago. For the past twenty-one years as the Director of Ministry Studies and Clinical Faculty for Preaching and Pastoral Care in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, she has nurtured, trained, and inspired generations of emerging religious leaders, including many DDH graduates and current students. Under her direction, the Divinity School’s ministry program has been transformed into a flourishing multi-religious program, including a new track in chaplaincy. The award will be presented on August 1 by the Alumni/ae Council in Louisville, Kentucky.
Ms. Lindner is the author of Varieties of Gifts: Multiplicity and the Well-Lived Pastoral Life (2016), and a frequent contributor to Sightings, a publication of the Martin Marty Center at the Divinity School. She directs the Chicago Commons Project, an early-career pastoral leadership development program funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. She also practices as a pastoral psychotherapist at the Center for Religion and Psychotherapy. Her teaching and research interests include contemporary ministerial identity and formation, multi-religious theological education, the practice and ethics of preaching and pastoral care in multicultural society, the role of religious communities in addressing communal violence and trauma, and the interface of corporate worship and public witness, and its impact on identity formation and congregational life.
An ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she previously served three congregations, most notably, a creative long-term pastorate and co-pastorate at First Christian Church in Albany, Oregon. Ms. Lindner’s service to the wider church and community includes an advisory role to the General Commission on Ministry, membership on the General Board of the denomination, and featured preaching and speaking events. In 2001, she was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Disciples Divinity House and continues to serve; prior to that, she had served as a member of the Alumni/ae Council, including as its president. She entered the Divinity School as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar in 1978, after earning her BA from St. Olaf College. She earned AM and DMin degrees from the University of Chicago. In addition, she holds a Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Under her leadership, ministry students live and learn together at the intersections of praxis and theory, exploring the models and methods of preaching and pastoral care which are necessary in a multicultural society, and sharing in the wisdom that she has cultivated throughout her career. In her own acts of pastoral presence, she leads by example to help attune those around her to their own multiplicities and possibilities. Frequent speaking engagements--at ordination services, weddings, funerals, conferences, and all manner of other liminal and ritualistic gatherings--testify directly to her centering presence and timely insights in a diversity of contexts. Through her practice as a pastoral psychotherapist, and through her generosity of wisdom, insight, time, attention, curiosity, and care for students and colleagues, she has left an indelible mark upon the spiritual formation of not only the University but the wider Chicago community. She models grounded spiritual leadership, care for the health of religious communities and their leaders, and lifelong service.
The Distinguished Alumna/us Award, established in 1979, recognizes individuals who are exemplars of varied forms of ministry and service; in some sense, they have each defined these forms. Alums and friends are invited to gather on August 1 at the DDH Luncheon at the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. The award will be presented and Cynthia Lindner will speak in response.
Tickets can be purchased online through the General Assembly Registration Page or by contacting the Disciples Divinity House.
For more information, please contact Jack Veatch, Director of Student and External Relations, at ddhadmin@gmail.com or 773.643.4411.
Alumni/ae and Friends are invited to regather together on August 1 for a Disciples Divinity House Luncheon at the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Louisville, Kentucky.
In addition to gathering together, the Distinguished Alumna/us Award will be presented by the Alumni/ae Council.
You can nominate an alumna/us for the award at this link:
Distinguished Alumna/us Award Nomination Form
Tickets can be purchased as part of your General Assembly Registration:
The University of Chicago Divinity School is pleased to announce the appointment of James T. Robinson, the Caroline E. Haskell Professor of the History of Judaism, Islamic Studies, and the History of Religions in the Divinity School and the College, as Dean of the Divinity School, effective December 1.
Jim has served as Interim Dean of the Divinity School since July 2021. The school has seen notable successes in numerous areas since that time, particularly in faculty and research growth and initiatives. These include hiring two new faculty scholars, expanding the school’s Teaching Fellows program for recent PhD graduates, and piloting the first year of successful teaching of the school’s new undergraduate Core sequence. Under Jim’s leadership, the Divinity School is currently searching for the newly created Tandean Rustandy Distinguished Service Professor in Global Christianities as well as faculty positions in race and religion, early modernities, rabbinic Judaism, and Japanese Buddhism. The school is further broadening and amplifying research and teaching in Jain studies and Islamic studies. Jim has also been instrumental in operationalizing the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion, developing new programming and research projects.
Jim conducts research focused on medieval Jewish intellectual history, philosophy, and biblical exegesis in the Islamic world and Christian Europe. Since joining the University in 2003, he has taught more than 25 courses in the field of medieval Judaism and was recognized with the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring in 2017. Jim is the author of four books, three edited volumes, and more than 40 articles and chapters and has been co-editor of The Journal of Religion since 2013.
In addition to his faculty roles in the Divinity School and the College, Jim holds appointments in the Program in Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, Fundamentals: Issues and Texts, and the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies. He is also an affiliated member of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Jim earned his MPhil in oriental studies (modern Jewish studies) from Oxford University, his MA and PhD in near eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University, and his BA in applied mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Four current or recent House Scholars traveled to Karlsruhe, Germany, to attend the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, August 31 to September 8. With the theme, "Christ's love moves the world to reconciliation and unity," the Assembly deliberated, sang, and prayed together. Attendees and communions built relationships and joined together to address global concerns--climage change, indigenous peoples' rights, economic justice, and for just peace in areas of conflict. In attendance were some five thousand participants from the 352 member churches. An international delegation of Disciples attended, including a good contingent from DDH. House Scholars Justin Carlson and Alexa Dava with alumnus Jack Veatch reported on the experience for the Board of Trustees on October 21.
A Disability Dialogue on October 17 featured author, Harvard public health researcher, and public theologian Diana Ventura. She spoke on "Ableism and the Public Square." "The societal 'people-with-disabilities-don't-matter-to-us" attitude says that people like me are 'less than' because of our embodied limitations," observed Ventura. "Such conceptions dominate the narrative of ableism in our society." Recounting parts of her life-long journey to overcome the obstacles of disability and ableism, she combined personal narrative and social analysis with historical and biblical resources. At 4:30pm, she was joined by Emily Griffith, Mark Lambert, and Luke Soderstrom for a conversation about stigma, silence, ableism, and theology. Ventura is a MDiv grad and a former DDH resident who earned her PhD from Boston University.
This year's Monday night dinners were inaugurated on September 26, taking advantage of the newly renovated backyard for gathering. It was a chilly but beautiful night for good food and good company. Classes began the next day. The following Monday, alumna and former Board President Lee Hull Moses preached for the opening chapel service on "Tears and Laughter." She is Vice President and Chief of Staff in the Office of the General Minister and President of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Brie Loskota, Executive Director of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the Divinity School, spoke on October 10. She studies how religious groups change and make change in the world, and the evolving landscape of religious communities across the US. Her lively talk imaged the Marty Center - and by extension DDH? - as a "seat" which can hold together and unite the myriad "legs" of academic research and higher education, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and public service. She challenged us to ask who benefits from our work? To whom are we accountable? See the full quarter's calendar of events.
Fourteen students have been named Disciples Divinity House Scholars for 2022-23. Two additional individuals have been named the inaugural Theological Education Leadership Fellows. Scholarship funds have been increased in recent years, allowing for the creation of several new scholarships that honor individuals, extend legacies of ministry and thought, and allow for innovative leadership.
NEW SCHOLARS: Oreon E. Scott Entering Scholar Morganne Talley is a first-year MDiv student. She graduated with honors from the University of Lynchburg with a major in Religious Studies. Morganne received the Allen B. Stanger Award for commitment toward preparation for ministry and the Virgil V. Hinds Award for demonstrating a high level of academic achievement. Kate Myers is a first-year Masters student at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She has been awarded free housing at DDH during her studies. Kate grew up at First Christian Church in Bloomington, Indiana, and served as a Disciples Peace Fellowship intern in 2021. Luther Young, a visiting PhD student in Sociology from The Ohio State University, is conducting field research this year on black churches in Chicago. Luther is an ordained Disciples minister and the moderator of Alliance Q. He has been awarded free housing at DDH during his research.
CONTINUING SCHOLARS: Rachel Abdoler, a PhD candidate and recipient of the Barbara and Clark Williamson Scholarship, is writing her dissertation on the hermeneutical strategies of thirteenth-century Christian theological texts written in Arabic against a backdrop of Christian and Islamic polemical writing. The W. Barnett Blakemore Scholarship for ecumenical vision and academic achievement has been awarded to Justin Carlson, a second-year MDiv student, who also serves as DDH’s head resident. Third-year MDiv student Alexa Dava has been awarded the Dr. Geunhee and Mrs. Guensoon Yu Scholarship which recognizes high promise for innovative pastoral and intellectual leadership, especially in multicultural contexts. Justin Carlson and Alexa Dava received additional support from the William Daniel Cobb Alumni/ae Scholarship to support their attendance this summer at the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Karlsruhe, Germany. The Rolland and Laura Frances Sheafor Scholarship was was awarded to Kerrigan Greene, a third-year MDiv student. Marissa Ilnitzki, is the recipient of the Martin Family Scholarship, which celebrates leadership, congregations, and women in ministry. In her second-year of the MDiv program, her field placement is Gilead Church. Charlie Platt, a second year MDiv, began his field work at the University of Chicago Office of Multicultural Student Affairs and Chicago Lights as the William N. Weaver Scholar. Danny Sanchez entered his third year of the MDiv program as the Drum and Tenant Scholar, a scholarship created by Katherine Dey in remembrance of dear friends. The Henry Barton Robison Scholarship has been awarded to Luke Soderstrom, a PhD student in theology. He completed his doctoral exams last year and is now preparing to submit his dissertation proposal. PhD candidate Virginia White has received the Edward Scribner Ames Scholarship for high academic achievement. She is writing a dissertation on “Reckoning with Social Evil: Performativity as a Foundation for Re-envisioning Lament and Laughter as Moral Practices.” Landon Wilcox and Hiatt Allen are joint recipients of the M. Ray and Phyllis Schultz Scholarship as they finish their studies. Landon is preparing for chaplaincy in the US Navy and anticipates receiving his MDiv degree in December. Hiatt is writing his senior ministry thesis on the role of church camps in faith formation while finishing a MDiv/Master of Public Policy dual degree.
THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION LEADERSHIP FELLOWS: Lijia Xie has been named the Bernard F. and Annie Mae Cooke Fellow. He is particularly interested in dynamics of self-formation and conscience, as well as theological discourse and fluency in community. Benny VanDerburgh is the M. Elizabeth Dey Fellow. Benny received his MDiv from the Divinity School in June as a House Scholar, and is seeking ordination in the UCC.