STH Students Recognized for Leadership & Preaching
The students at Boston University School of Theology challenge and brighten our community through their leadership, preaching and service. STH congratulates the students who were recognized this year for their leadership.
Art J. Gordon – Donald A. Wells Preaching Prize
Art J. Gordon (MDiv ’16) was awarded the 2015 Donald A. Wells Preaching Prize by the Massachusetts Bible Society for a sermon entitled, “Overcoming the Wound of Racism?” Massachusetts Bible Society awards the annual prize for a sermon based on a biblical text that raises an issue of social justice in the contemporary world. Responding to the theme, “Challenges of Racial Justice,” Gordon noted the pain and the discouragement that so many felt after the justice system failed to indict officers who killed unarmed black men. He describes the danger of a racism that is difficult to prove because it “is conscious in its efforts to be anti-racist and subconscious in racism.”
Gordon reflects on Jeremiah 8:18-22 and the ways that the prophet Jeremiah saw his nation’s progress fall apart, creating “a situation so broken, so unjust, so depressed that Jeremiah loses hope for any cure.” Gordon calls for the church to create a living, prophetic witness that exposes and cuts out covert racism, and that lives out the meaning of the ethical teachings of Jesus.
Art J. Gordon is a Cum Laude graduate of Savannah State University where he majored in History with a concentration in African American History. At Savannah State University he served in leadership positions with Student Government Association and NAACP, and he has held internships with the United States Senate and the Georgia Department of Labor. At STH, Art serves in leadership positions as the Vice President of the School of Theology Student Association and Worship Intern at Marsh Chapel. He is on the ministerial team at the Historic Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury.
Lindsay Popper – David H.C. Read Preacher/Scholar Award
Lindsay Popper (MDiv ’15) was salutatorian of the Class of 2015 and received the 2015 David H.C. Read Preacher/Scholar Award, an award created by congregation of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. Popper received the award for two sermons, one from a New Testament text and one from an Old Testament text. In her examination of Genesis 1:1-5, she analyzed the Hebrew words in the text, reflecting on the fear of the unknown and the promise that the Spirit of God is brooding over the waters: “Above and within and around and among all the chaos of our lives, all the blustering blowing spin-drift sea-spray terror and near-drowning darkness of our lives, in all of that we find the Spirit of God, hovering over us like a gentle mother bird.”
Her New Testament sermon unpacked the metaphor that the kingdom of God is like yeast. Our task to provide the right conditions for the yeast—and then to wait, Lindsay preached: “Just as the success of bread rests ultimately on the presence and action of yeast, the bringing and the building of the kingdom of God rests ultimately on God’s action. … God frees us from our belief that we are the world’s last best hope.”
Lindsay Popper is a graduate of Warren Wilson College and has volunteered as a hospice volunteer, with an ecumenical campus ministry, and building community gardens at churches. She has served at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, and is currently serving as Minister for Christian Education at Allin Congregational UCC in Dedham.
Outstanding 2015 Graduates
STH would also like to congratulate the graduates who were nominated by faculty and staff to the 2015 STH Student Leadership Society:
Xochitl Alvizo
Bryanna Benedetti
Colin Cushman
Diliana De Jesus
Andrew Del Pilar
Johnny Gall
Sarah Holland
Haley Jones
Kim, Yoojin
Samuel Needham
Kristen Redford Hydinger
Nicholas Romeijn-Stout
Brian Teed
These students have been recognized for their enthusiastic leadership and ministry in STH’s Centers, programs, in student groups, and in the community life of the School of Theology.
Other award-winning graduates include Deborah A. O’Driscoll (MDiv ’15), who received the Order of St. Luke–Hoyt L. Hickman Award for Outstanding Liturgical Scholarship and Practice. Maggie Gann (MDiv ’15) and Samuel Needham (MDiv ’15) received the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts Award. Kristen Lee Redford Hydinger (MDiv ’15) received the Massachusetts Bible Society Award for excellence in liturgical reading of the Scriptures.