Alumni News
Rev. Frank “Skip” Danforth (’62)
Please keep the family of the Rev. Frank "Skip" Danforth in your prayers. Rev. Danforth, 82, died March 31, 2018.
Rev. Danforth served a number of churches in Massachusetts including Memorial UMC in Taunton and First UMC in Westfield before retiring in 2001.
Those of you who remember Skip will appreciate his wife Mary Ann's remark: "I'm sure that Skip immediately found things to do on Easter Sunday in heaven."
Arrangements are pending. Cards and notes can be sent to his family at P.O. Box 1747, West Chatham, MA 02669
You can read more about Rev. Danforth here.
Our thoughts and prayers extend to Rev. Danforth's family.
An Easter Message from Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore
Beloved Community, in these days of the Jewish Passover and Christians’ Holy Saturday, I am thinking of you, and I offer you a meditation. The meditation is Christian, arising from my tradition, but it echoes the groans of tragedy and hope in other traditions, without being the same. We are all different but we travel on Howard Thurman’s common ground. Such ground requires that each of us goes deeply into our own traditions to be formed and transformed, to be formers and transformers, and to live together as Holy human community.
Death of Hope – Flicker of Promise
Good Friday ---
Personal acts of destroying others – threatened and real
Deportation of immigrants – threatened and real
Damaged recovery efforts in Puerto Rico and Syria – threatened and real
Lives cut short – Alton Sterling and Stephon Clark – threatened and real
Blockades to asylum seekers in Lesbos and beyond – threatened and real
Threats to health care, peaceful protestors, and the working poor – real each day!
Has hope died?
Has King’s “arc of the moral universe”* bent away from justice?
Holy Saturday ---
Groaning pain in personal lives – tragic loss of loved ones by accident, suicide, illness
Groaning pain in the cosmos – tragic loss of ice caps, habitats, life-sustaining climate
Groaning pain in society – tragic venom toward “others” by race, class, region, religion
Groaning global pain – posturing power, ignoring potential for justice and peace!
Has tragedy become the last word?
How can we live with such deep loss?
Easter ---
God’s promises emerge from the tomb –
faintly, quietly, but realized and real in personal encounters with Jesus!
God’s promises ring out in trumpet blasts and loud praise –
holding the tragic while looking toward hope!
God’s promises appear –
in tiny acts of kindness,
critiques of our own practices and prejudice,
visible protests of injustice,
persistent reshaping of structures and policies,
tiny acts of kindness!
May you hold the real suffering of Good Friday and Holy Saturday
While you celebrate and live into the real hope of Easter!
Blessed Easter to you!
Blessings,
Mary Elizabeth
*Martin Luther King, Jr., “Out of the Long Night,” The Gospel Messenger, 8 February 1958, 14; Original source in Theodore Parker, “The Present Aspect of Slavery in America and the Immediate Duty of the North,” Speech delivered in State House before Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention, 29 January 1858.
Rev. Dr. Merle Jordan
Rev. Dr. Merle Jordan passed on March 25, 2018. He is known as a shaper of BU School of Theology and many benefited from his teaching and mentorship.
You can view his 2012 address at the Danielsen Institute's Merle Jordan Conference here.
More information on his wake and funeral can be found here.
Rev. Dwight Haynes (62′, 63′)
Reverend Dwight Hynes passed away on March 24, 2018. Funeral Home Services for Dwight are being provided by Bennett Funeral Home of Concord, NH.
You can read more about Rev. Haynes and leave a note for the family here.
School of Theology Welcomes Two New Full-Time Faculty Members
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kimberly Macdonald
Marketing & Communications Manager
617-358-1858
kmacd@bu.edu
Boston University School of Theology Welcomes Two New Full-Time Faculty Members
Boston, MA – March 28, 2018 – Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) is pleased to announce the new appointment of two full-time faculty members, beginning with the 2018-2019 academic year. Rev. Dr. Shively T. J. Smith will join the faculty as an Assistant Professor of New Testament, and Dr. Nicolette Manglos-Weber will join as Assistant Professor of Religion and Society.
Rev. Dr. Shively T. J. Smith joins the BUSTH faculty from Wesley Theological Seminary, where she previously served as Assistant Professor of New Testament. She received her MDiv from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, her ThM from Columbia Theological Seminary, and her PhD from Emory University. She is a well-published biblical interpreter through exegetical essays, lectionary resources, and social-cultural interpretations of biblical texts. She is a sought-after public teacher, speaker, and preacher and itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church where she serves as resident scholar at the historic, Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC. Rev. Dr. Smith writes and teaches on all books of the New Testament, but her specialized focus is on the traditions of Peter, diaspora studies, African-American and womanist approaches to the Bible, and biblical theology and ethics about the treatment of historically marginalized and vulnerable populations and local and global hospitality to strangers.
Rev. Dr. Smith’s research trajectory is evident in her book Strangers to Family: Diaspora and 1 Peter’s Invention of God’s Household, which exemplifies her interdisciplinarity, arguing that 1 Peter represents an early Christian discourse on diaspora existence that betrays a double conscious social strategy prevalent within Hellenistic Jewish discourses (e.g., Daniel court tales, Letter of Aristeas, and Philo’s writings). Her research contributes to New Testament studies and also to emerging discourses on diaspora and immigration, marginality and power, and cross-cultural identities and conversations. More information on Rev. Dr. Smith’s research can be found on her website at shivelysmith.com.
Dr. Nicolette Manglos-Weber joins the BUSTH faculty from Kansas State University, where she most recently held the position of Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work. She received her MA and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, both in the area of Sociology. As a sociologist, she has studied religion, political sociology, immigration, and international development, and she is an expert in research design. Dr. Manglos-Weber studies the connections between religion and global inequalities, with a particular interest in how positive social transformation can be effected in and through religious practice. She also writes about sociological theories of motivation, trust, and identity.
Dr. Manglos-Weber’s main sociological research focuses on religious congregations and communities in postcolonial Africa and among immigrants in the United States. Her first book, Joining the Choir: Religious Memberships and Social Trust among Transnational West Africans, was published in March 2018 by the Oxford University Press. The book analyzes religious communities of transnational Ghanaians and explores issues of identity and social trust. Through her research, Dr. Manglos-Weber discovers that religious membership for these transnational immigrants provides a portable basis of social trust, on which they rely as they negotiate their identities and aspirations. More information on Dr. Manglos-Weber’s research can be found on her website nmanglosweber.weebly.com.
“We are thrilled that these two outstanding scholars and teachers will join our world-class faculty,” said Rev. Dr. Mary Elizabeth Moore, Dean of the Boston University School of Theology. Drs. Smith and Manglos-Weber are both generative as teachers and ground-breaking in scholarship, while also being committed to active service in the School of Theology, BU, and the larger community. Faculty and students welcome them with joy.”
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Since 1839, Boston University School of Theology has been preparing leaders to do good. A seminary of the United Methodist Church, Boston University School of Theology is a robustly ecumenical institution that welcomes students from diverse faith traditions who are pursuing a wide range of vocations – parish ministry, conflict transformation, chaplaincy, campus ministry, administration, non-profit management, social work, teaching, justice advocacy, peacemaking, interfaith dialogue, and more. Our world-renowned faculty and strong heritage help students nurture their academic goals and realize any ministry imaginable. For more information, please visit www.bu.edu/sth.
Rev. Art Gordon (’17) Named FASPE Fellow
Rev. Art Gordon, a 2017 graduate of the School of Theology, has been named a Theology Fellow for The Fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE). FASPE challenges graduate students and future leaders to recognize and confront their ethical responsibilities as professionals by analyzing the decisions and actions of Nazi-era professionals. You can read more about the FASPE fellows here.
Congratulations, Art!
Dr. Sarah J. Mount Elewononi (’15) Writes on Upcoming UMC Anniversary and The UMC’s Future
Dr. Sarah J. Mount Elewononi ('15) reflections on the Commission on the Way Forward and the upcoming UMC Anniversary celebration can be read here.
Rev. Dr. David Glusker’s (’68) “Words for Your Wedding” Helps Craft A Perfect Ceremony
In the excitement of planning a wedding in all its detail, the beauty and meaning of the words exchanged can sometimes be overlooked. To help you find and create the perfect ceremony, ministers David Glusker and Peter Misner have compiled this do-it-yourself guide that walks you through the entire wedding ceremony, offering both contemporary and traditional readings and prayers.
From the gathering words to the final blessing, this collection of wedding traditions lets you design a ceremony that is right for you—whether it is an established service, a combination of elements from various traditions, or a newly created celebration of your own.
More on Rev. Dr. Glusker's work and purchasing options can be found here.
Rev. Dr. Neal Fisher (’60) Featured on The Christian Century Website
Rev. Dr. Neal Fisher's ('60) introduction to his recent work Christian Faith: A Deeper Way of Seeing has been shared by The Christian Century in an article titled "What Rules Apply to Everyone?" You can read the full article here.
Building Sustainable and Resilient Communities: Summer Course Offered to UMC Students
Dr. Mark Davies (STH'01), in partnership with the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, Oklahoma City University, and the Oklahoma Annual Conference, will be offering an inaugural course to students at United Methodist-related colleges and universities, titled “Building Sustainable and Resilient Communities”.
The June 3-17 two-week course will take place at both Boston University and Green Mountain College in Vermont. The first week of the course will take place in Boston, and will be assisted by School of Theology Assistant Professor Becky Copeland.
Please read the full article at https://um-insight.net/in-the-world/advocating-justice/inaugural-course-on-building-sustainable-communities-offered/.
Students are invited to sign up at bit.ly/UMCSummer to register for the course.