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Who's Who
Associate Dean, Academic Administration
Phone:
404-687-4524
Email:
Office:
CH114 / Box 11F
President
Phone:
404-687-4514
Email:
Office:
CH110 / Box 13F
The Rev. Dr. Victor Aloyo, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., is the son of the late Esperanza Aloyo and Victorino Aloyo from Vieques, Puerto Rico. He has been married to Suzette Aloyo for over thirty-six years and is blessed with two daughters, Kayla Cristen, an aerospace engineer working in Huntsville, AL, and Alyssa Nicole, serving as a DEI administrator in Nashville, TN. Victor currently serves as the eleventh President of Columbia Theological Seminary. Previously he served as the Associate Dean of Institutional Diversity and Community Engagement at Princeton Theological Seminary and as Organizing/Lead Pastor of Iglesia Presbiteriana Nuevas Fronteras in North Plainfield, NJ. Victor received a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and Sociology from the College of New Rochelle, a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate in Executive Higher Education Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, focusing his dissertation on navigating diversity and inclusion within a framework of social justice.
As the Chief Diversity Administrator at Princeton, Dr. Aloyo was directly responsible to the seminary president on diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence. Victor served as the institution’s Primary Designated School Officer with the United States Customs and Immigration Service, the Title IX and Title VI Coordinator, and the Director of the Office of Multicultural Relations. Victor led the institution in developing a Diversity Action Blueprint detailing specific goals, objectives, and assessment criteria for all DEI and Belonging Initiatives. Victor served as Interim Director of Alumni Relations within the Advancement department, a member of the Committee on Accreditation for three cycles, Task Force on the Historical Audit on Slavery, and Long-Range Strategic Cohort. Victor also directed the Seminary’s Urban Ministry and community engagement efforts by cultivating sustainable partnerships with community organizations, educational institutions, worship centers, and community residents in the City of Trenton and Greater Mercer County.
Dr. Aloyo’s leadership responsibilities included service as Director of Urban Ministry at the New York City Mission Society, Senior and Organizing Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of The Redeemer of East Brooklyn for ten years, moderator of the Presbytery of New York City, and chair of the General Council of the New York City Presbytery. Victor also served as a member of the board of trustees of the New York Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center in Holmes, N.Y., and the New York City Presbytery, while spearheading the organization of La Promesa Presbyterian Church in Flushing, Queens (currently Iglesia Cristiana La Promesa). Dr. Aloyo, with a cohort of elders, deacons, and young adults from churches in New York, New Jersey, Long Island, and Pennsylvania, for over thirty years, directed a youth & young adults ministry predominantly from inner-city contexts at the Presbyterian Center in Holmes, N.Y. Victor is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Presbyterian Foundation, the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, and the Covenant Architects Network. For eighteen years in Plainfield, NJ, Victor served as a field education supervisor/mentor for over sixty-three seminarians creating a unique teaching church ministry model.
Dr. Aloyo mentions that he “is blessed and humbled” in leading, with the support of the Board of Trustees, Faculty, Students, and Administrative Staff, a world-class institution serving the Southeast, the nation, and the globe. At Columbia Seminary, Dr. Aloyo posits that in collaboration, “we will continue to bring to life the Seminary’s critical mission of inspiring and challenging every student to a life of leadership and purpose for the glory of God. We will strive to embrace every story through our curriculum, policies, campus life, and virtual platforms because we belong to each other on this journey to become world changers, discoverers, explorers, curators, and stewards of God’s abundance and grace.”
Coordinator for Seminary Relations
Phone:
404-687-4623
Email:
Office:
CH112 / Box 12F
Cataloging Librarian
Phone:
404-687-4614
Email:
Office:
JBCL211
Senior Director, Alumni and Church Relations
Phone:
404-687-4593
Email:
Office:
RC110
Executive to the President; Director of Strategic Engagement
Phone:
404-687-4515
Email:
Office:
CH108 / Box 13F
This is Lucy’s bio
Staff Associate, Center for Lifelong Learning
Phone:
404-687-4577
Email:
Office:
HC209
Chief Engineer
Phone:
404-687-4607
Email:
Office:
BLC110 / Box 47F
Director, Lifelong Learning
Phone:
404-687-4526
Email:
Office:
HC202 / Box 42F
Staff Accountant
Phone:
404-687-4567
Email:
Office:
CH106 / Box 46F
Administrative Assistant, Student Formation and Campus Culture
Phone:
404-687-4562
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Office:
CH214 / Box18F
Academic Coach
Phone:
404-687-4632
Email:
Office:
JBCL228
Associate Professor of Old Testament and Director of the QEP
Brennan Breed teaches Old Testament at Columbia, and directs the Quality Enhancement Plan at Columbia, which is focused for the next five years on increasing students’ capacities in intercultural communication. He also serves as the Theologian-in-Residence at First Presbyterian Church of Marietta. Brennan teaches and preaches at various churches most Sundays of the year, and loves being involved in local congregations.
At Columbia, Brennan teaches courses in ancient Hebrew, Old Testament survey, the exegesis of prophetic books and wisdom literature, the history of ancient Israel, the use of the Bible in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim visual art, and the use and interpretation of biblical texts in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities throughout history.
Brennan has written the monograph Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History (Indiana University Press, 2014) and co-authored Carol Newsom’s Daniel: A Commentary for the Old Testament Library series (Westminster John Knox: 2014). Both of these volumes trace the ways that various communities throughout history have understood particular biblical texts, generated unique interpretations, and produced art, liturgy, music and more in response to them.
Currently, Brennan is co-authoring a history of the early Hellenistic period (third century BCE) in the southern Levant, which includes Judaea, with Davis Hankins. This book explores the radical changes that occurred during this first century of Greek rule in the ancient Near East and how they precipitated the emergence of the earliest known apocalyptic literature, the first Jewish explorations of science, and the first book of Jewish philosophy. Brennan is also writing a commentary on Daniel for the Interpretation series from Westminster John Knox and a commentary on Ecclesiastes for the Eerdmans Illuminations series. Brennan has authored more than twenty book chapters, journal articles, and other academic publications that focus on the uses of biblical texts over time. He received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise at the University of Heidelberg in 2016.
Education:
Denomination: Episcopal
Subjects of expertise: Old Testament, Biblical Studies, books of Job, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Apocalyptic literature, prophetic literature, the use of the Bible in politics, religious history, art, music, literature
William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament
William P. Brown (but you can call me, Bill) is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. My writings explore the intersecting issues of ecology, justice, faith, and science from various biblical perspectives. Throughout my many years of teaching (over thirty now), I’ve written a few books along the way, including Wisdom’s Wonder, The Seven Pillars of Creation, Seeing the Psalms, Sacred Sense, Handbook to Old Testament Exegesis, and most recently Deep Calls to Deep: The Psalms in Dialogue amid Disruption. Much of my work is driven by the desire to promote constructive dialogue among diverse participants to foster mutual understanding and equity. I am also known as an “evangelist of wonder” in my teaching and writing. I love to teach biblical interpretation as an exercise in wonder, the kind of wonder that is ever open to being surprised by the text, by God, by creation, and by each other. And wonder, it must be said, often leads to wondering, which doesn’t shy away from asking hard questions about the text, God, and each other. Such an approach invites interdisciplinary approaches, some far afield of traditional biblical research. I spent a year, for example, studying the social and theological implications of astrobiology at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, which blew my mind and instilled in me a cosmic perspective whenever I talk about God and life, human and otherwise.
I am currently working on a Psalms commentary for the Old Testament Library series and on a collaborative project on biblical aesthetics with Dr. Ralph Watkins. I am ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and love preaching and teaching. Gail and I are the proud parents of two amazing daughters, Ella and Hannah: one is a landscape architect and organic farmer, while the other is a primatologist studying the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. Talk about wonder!
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Professor Emeritus
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1986-2003 William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament
Connector
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Associate Dean, Information Services; Senior Director, John Bulow Campbell Library
Dr. Kelly Campbell is passionate about equipping people for learning and life, strategizing to develop best practices, and providing high-quality service. Kelly serves as the Associate Dean of Information Services/Senior Director of the John Bulow Campbell Library at Columbia Theological Seminary. She brings a unique breadth of experience to this role, having served in various educational and library settings, including elementary, public, and private schools and large and small public libraries. She has demonstrated success in strategic planning, organizational development, and change management. Before obtaining her Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine University, Kelly also holds a Master in Library Science and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies.
An experienced and seasoned library leader, Dr. Campbell is involved globally with theological librarians, serves on the Editorial Board of the Books@Atla Open Press, and is a community member of the American Board for Funeral Service Education Committee on Accreditation. Additionally, she is active in the Association of Theological Schools initiatives, working on global awareness and intercultural sensitivity. Her denomination is Southern Baptist, and Kelly enjoys quilting, cooking, and reading when not traveling and teaching.
Education:
Denomination: Southern Baptist
Associate Dean, Academic Programs
Phone:
404-687-4503
Email:
Office:
CH114 / Box 11F
Professor Emeritus
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1983-2009 Associate Professor of Supervised Ministry
Assistant to Dean, Office of Worship Life
Phone:
404-687-4531
Email:
Office:
CH301
Professor Emeritus
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1973-2008 Professor of American Religious History
Housekeeper
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Office:
Buildings and Grounds / Box 350
Associate Director, Creative Services
Phone:
404-687-4636
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Office:
RC208 / Box 22F
Digital Access Librarian
Phone:
404-687-4611
Email:
Office:
JBCL203 / Box 7F
Senior Director, Strategic Communications
Phone:
404-687-4530
Email:
Office:
RC208 / Box 22F
Benton Family Associate Professor of Christian Education and Project Director for the Wonder of Worship Grant
Dr. Dawson is interested in the fields of life course development, teaching and learning methods, the spiritual lives of children, and intergenerational learning and worship. Her current research is focused on how we can best nurture children in their worship and prayer lives. She was named Educator of the Year by the Association of Partners in Christian Education in 2015.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Collection Management Specialist
Phone:
404-687-4546
Email:
Office:
JBCL119 / Box 7F
Professor of Christian Ethics; Lead Professor ThM Program
Mark Douglas is Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the ThM Degree at Columbia Theological Seminary. He teaches on a wide range of subjects, including environmental ethics, religion and politics, medical and economic ethics, science and religion, and theological and philosophical ethics. His current area of research explores the connections between environmental degradation and conflict with particular attention to religious responses to such conflicts. His two most recent books, Christian Pacifism for an Environmental Age and Modernity, the Environment, and the Christian Just War Tradition (both with Cambridge University Press) explore this work and he is currently working on another book, Wars in a Warming World: Religion, Resources, and Refugees, on the topic.
He holds a B.A. with distinction in biology from Colorado College, an MDiv and a ThM from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in religious ethics from the University of Virginia.
Mark is a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and currently serves the denomination as a member of its Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy and a member of it Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee. He also serves on the Institutional Review Board of Northside Hospital and the Ethics Commission for the City of Decatur as well as various editorial boards and professional societies.
Mark grew up in rural Colorado and, even after several decades on the faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary, is still adjusting to the fact that he lives in Atlanta. His wife, the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Armstrong directs new church development for the PCUSA in the greater Atlanta area and they have one child, a daughter, Logan, currently completing doctoral work in museum studies and postcolonial theory at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
He is comfortable talking about a wide range of public issues, including any related to his teaching foci.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Central Services Coordinator
Phone:
404-687-4630
Email:
Office:
CH5 / Box 345
Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching
Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and holds degrees from Yale University (BA) and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv and PhD). Before joining the Columbia faculty in 1998, Anna served as an associate pastor for youth and young adults at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.
Anna’s books include Preaching as Testimony, Inscribing the Word, and Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God’s Word in Community, based on her 2012 Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School. Her newest book is A is for Alabaster: 52 Reflections on the Stories of Scripture. She has also published articles and chapters in numerous books and journals, including a year’s worth of lectionary text commentaries for www.WorkingPreacher.org.
Anna’s research focuses on testimony, preaching pedagogies, and creative strategies for communities to engage and encounter the biblical text for our present context. She is a frequent preacher and teacher in the U.S. and abroad, which gives her plenty of opportunity to do what makes her happiest: sitting around a table with a group of people, a big passage of Scripture, and a big block of time to dive into it. She and her husband, the Rev. David Carter Florence, have two grown sons, Caleb and Jonah. They also have two dogs, two cats, and way too much knitting yarn.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Associate Dean, Lifelong Learning
Israel Galindo, Ed.D. serves as Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at the Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur GA where he directs the Pastoral Excellence Programs of the Center for Lifelong Learning. He is the author of numerous books, including The Hidden Lives of Congregations (Rowman & Littlefield) selected as one of the “ten best books of 2005” by the Academy of Parish Clergy, and Perspectives on Congregational Leadership: Applying systems thinking for effective leadership (Didache Press). His latest books include Mastering the Art of Instruction (Didache Press), Stories of the Desert Fathers (Didache Press), Leadership In Ministry: Bowen Theory in the Congregational Context (Didache Press), and Reframing Ministry Leadership: New Insights From a Systems Theory Perspective (Didache Press). He is a frequent seminar and workshop presenter, and writes for several blogs, including the blog for theological school deans of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology. Galindo is an ordained minister with the American Baptist Churches USA.
Education:
Denomination: American Baptist
Dean of Students Emeritus
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Office:
1985-2003 VP for Student Life and Dean of Students
Media and Marketing Coordinator, Center for Lifelong Learning
Phone:
404-687-4566
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Office:
HC209 / Box 42F
Professor Emerita
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1974-2002 Professor of Church History
Professor Emerita of Church History, Dr. Catherine Gunsalus Gonzalez shares memories of many of the first women in theological education at Presbyterian seminaries (including herself) from the 70s through the 90s.
Systems Administrator
Phone:
404-687-4561
Email:
Office:
BLC304 / Box 28F
Director, Center for Academic Literacy
Phone:
404-687-4633
Email:
Office:
JBCL224 / Box 29F
Director, Strategic Giving
Phone:
404-687-4506
Email:
Office:
CH101 / Box 12F
Director, Instructional Design and Technology
Phone:
404-687-4560
Email:
Office:
JBCL223E / Box 11F
Director, Chapel Music
Phone:
404-687-4531
Email:
Office:
CH301 / Box 31F
Associate Professor of Theology
Tim Hartman is Associate Professor of Theology. He holds a B.A. in History from Stanford University, a MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a MA in Religious Studies and a PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Culture from the University of Virginia. He is the author of two books: Theology after Colonization: Kwame Bediako, Karl Barth, and the future of theological reflection (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) and Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity (Fortress Press, 2022/Langham Publications, 2021), and has published articles in Modern Theology, Black Theology, and Cross Currents. He is an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and served in a congregation in Los Angeles and a new church development in Baltimore. He previously served as the board chair of Emergent Village and of Amahoro Africa. During his yearlong sabbatical funded by a Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant, he served as Visiting Scholar in the Desmond Tutu Center for Religion and Social Justice at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. He teaches courses such as Christian Theology 1 & 2, Reformed Theology, Antiracist Theologies, Theology and Community, Jesus Christ in Global Perspective, and Contextual Immersions. His scholarly interests include: contemporary Christian theologies worldwide, Christology, Lived Theology (the interrelationship between religious beliefs and practices), Election/Predestination, antiracist theologies, ecclesiology, postcolonial mission, and the work of Karl Barth, Kwame Bediako, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and James Cone.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Vice President, Business & Administration
Phone:
404-687-4512
Email:
Office:
CH106 / Box 46F
Professor Emeritus
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1980-1993 Director of Advanced Studies; Associate Professor of Pastoral Studies
Adjunct
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/ Box 22F
Associate Professor of Educational Ministry; Lead Professor DEdMin Program
The Rev. Dr. Christine J. Hong (she/her) is the Associate Professor of Educational Ministries at Columbia Theological Seminary. She is a PC(USA) minister and holds degrees from Claremont School of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Washington.
Dr. Hong is an interreligious and religious educator passionate about storytelling as a decolonial pedagogy for spiritual communities. In her teaching, she guides students and spiritual communities through decolonizing their religious and spiritual traditions. With years of experience in the field of practical theology, interreligious and religious education, Dr. Hong has worked on numerous research projects and has published articles and books on the Korean American experience, pedagogy, and decoloniality. She is a frequent workshop leader and conference speaker on decolonial pedagogy, spirituality, and JEDI (Justice Education, Diversity, and Inclusion) in educational and spiritual spaces. Her current research projects include story circles with Asian and Asian American women to combat rising Anti-Asian hate, re-indiginizing Korean spiritualities in diaspora, and recovering and reclaiming stories from the Korean War and Ceasefire as intergenerational spiritual practice for Korean North Americans.
You can read Dr. Hong’s research in her books, Decolonial Futures: Intercultural and Interreligious Intelligence for Theological Education (Lexington), and Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church (Palgrave). A third book is forthcoming with Dr. Anne Walker called, Candidly Speaking: Refusing a White Supremacist World Through Dialogue and Story.
Dr. Hong is also the lead professor for the DEdMin Program at Columbia Theological Semiary. She currently serves as the JEDI Officer for the Religious Education Association, a board member of FTESEA (The Fund for Theological Education in Southeast Asia), a board member of PANAAWTM (Pacific Asian North American Women in Theology and Ministry), and a doctoral mentor for the Louisville Institute and FTE.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Vice President, Advancement
Phone:
404-687-4568
Email:
Office:
CH101 / Box 12F
Academic Coach, Center for Academic Literacy
Phone:
Email:
Office:
JBCL230 / Box 29F
Controller, Assistant Treasurer
Phone:
404-684-6513
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Office:
CH106 / Box 46F
Professor Emerita
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1998-2018 J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament
Administrative Assistant, Academic Affairs
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404-687-4534
Email:
Office:
CH113 / Box 11F
Director, Bibliographic Access Services
Phone:
404-687-4612
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Office:
JBCL120 / Box 7F
Thriving Congregations Grant Project Director Assistant
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Associate Director, Spirituality Programs
Phone:
404-687-4557
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Office:
HC204
Coordinator, Transnational Ministry
Phone:
404-687-4672
Email:
Office:
BLC101
Director, Development
Phone:
404-687-4588
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Office:
CH107 / Box12F
Institutional A/V Technologist
Phone:
404-687-4637
Email:
Office:
BLC301 / Box 57F
Network Systems Administrator
Phone:
404-687-4570
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Office:
BLC305 / Box 28F
Security Officer
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Associate Director, Contextual Education
Phone:
404-687-4519
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Office:
BLC101 / Box 27F
Director, Intercultural and Global Services
Phone:
404-687-4673
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Office:
CH212 / Box 18F
Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care; Lead Professor MAPT Program
Dr. McGarrah Sharp is interested in theologies and practices of pastoral care that take into account diversities, multiplicities, and our shared colonial histories. To this end, she teaches and studies decolonial or postcolonial pastoral theology, grief and loss, and recognizing and responding with care and creativity in the face of complicities in harm. She works with research partners and students to imagine healing possibilities of truth-telling and repair. She has also researched and written about teaching practical theology, including in the unique contexts of travel/immersion courses and online courses. Dr. McGarrah Sharp currently serves as the lead professor of the Master of Arts in Practical Theology program at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Education:
Denomination: United Methodist
Affiliate Professor of Worship & Seminary Musician
Dr. Tony McNeill, affectionately known as “Dr. T.,” is a sought-after workshop clinician, lecturer, consultant, mentor, and choral conductor. “Dr. T” serves as an Affiliate Professor of Worship and Seminary Musician (2023-2024) at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. He served as Director of Choral Activities and Chairman of the Department of Performing Arts at Clinton College in Rock Hill, SC, from 2019-2022. Dr. McNeill also served four and a half years as the Director of Worship and the Arts at Atlanta’s Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, “America’s Freedom Church.” In February 2022, Dr. McNeill was Artist-in-Residence for Covenant Presbyterian Church (Charlotte, NC). He later served as Interim Minister of Worship at Myers Park Presbyterian Church (Charlotte, NC). During the first quarter of 2023, he was Interim Minister of Music at Myers Park Baptist Church (Charlotte, NC)
In addition to his work in church worship ministry, he spends significant time in the academy. During the 2022-2023 year, he was an adjunct professor of music and worship at Campbell University (Buies Creek, NC), Clinton College, The Interdenominational Theological Center (Atlanta, GA), and Union Presbyterian Seminary (Charlotte, NC). Dr. McNeill has lectured for Duke Divinity School, Hampton University Ministers Conference, The Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, American Choral Directors Association, Shaw University Ministers Conference, and The Association of Partners in Christian Education (PCUSA). Dr. T. led music for the 2022 Montreat Youth Conference (Omega, Weeks 5 and 6) and was a service musician and workshop leader for the 2023 Worship and Music Conference sponsored by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. He has curated and led worship for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies’ Space for Grace Conference, the Forum for Theological Exploration, The Black Theology and Leadership Institute at Princeton Theological Seminary, Faith Coordinating Center at Wake Forest School of Divinity, The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, The National Children’s Defense Fund, and The Montreat Conference Center. He is a former member and assistant director of the renowned recording group Donald Lawrence & The Tri-City Singers.
Dr. Tony earned a bachelor of music education degree from Appalachian State University, with an emphasis in piano and choral music; a master’s degree in choral conducting from Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL); and a doctorate of worship studies from The Robert Webber Institute for Worship Studies (Jacksonville, FL). His dissertation is entitled, “From Funeral to Feast: Renewing The Celebration of Holy Communion Through Congregational Singing in African American Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina.” His article “Lift Every Voice and Sing: Forming Congregations for Justice” is featured in the Augusts 2021 edition of CALL TO WORSHIP: LITURGY, MUSIC, PREACHING, AND THE ARTS, a journal published by the Presbyterian Church USA. He published “Hiding in Plain Sight: A Reflection on Leading Worship” for INSIGHTS: THE FACULTY JOURNAL OF AUSTIN PRESBYTERIAN SEMINARY (Austin, TX). He also contributed to “Going to Wait: African American Church Worship Resources—Pentecost through Advent” and “Waiting to Go: African American Church Worship Resources—Advent through Pentecost,” by James Abbington and Linda Hollies (Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, 2002 and 2003). In 2016, Dr. McNeill was also profiled in the acclaimed BET.com documentary, “Holler If You Hear Me: Black and Gay in the Church,” curated by Clay Cane.
He is a member of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity. He is the Founder/Curator of THE CALL 2 WORSHIP GROUP, an online community of musicians and clergy.
Registrar, Academic Affairs
Phone:
404-687-4576
Email:
Office:
CH113 /Box 11F
President Emerita
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2000-2009 President
Assistant Director, Public Services
Phone:
404-687-4617
Email:
Office:
JBCL220 / Box 7F
J.B. Green Professor of Theology
Martha Moore-Keish is the J.B. Green Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary. She has taught at the seminary since 2004, offering classes on Christian, Reformed, comparative, and feminist theologies, as well as a range of special topics. Dr. Moore-Keish has published books on eucharistic theology and prayer, a theological commentary on the book of James, and an edited volume, Karl Barth and Comparative Theology. Her latest publication is a co-edited reference volume The T&T Clark Handbook on Sacraments and Sacramentality (2023).
After growing up and attending public school in Tallahassee, Florida, Dr. Moore-Keish went to Harvard College, where she studied comparative religions. Following her graduation, she spent a year studying ancient Indian history and culture at Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal, India. Dr. Moore-Keish then attended Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, where she earned the MDiv degree and met and married her husband Chris. She earned the Ph.D. in theological studies from Emory University in 2000. Following graduation and ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she worked as an Associate in the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship, developing liturgical resources and educational events for church leaders. From 2003-04, she served on the faculty of Yale Divinity School and the Institute for Sacred Music as Assistant Professor of Liturgical Studies.
For several years, Dr. Moore-Keish served on official ecumenical dialogues between Reformed and Roman Catholic churches, most recently as Reformed co-chair of the international ecumenical dialogue between the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. In addition to research on liturgical and sacramental theologies, she has a long-standing interest in interreligious issues, particularly Christian-Jewish relations and religions of India. A Reformed theologian committed to theology for the church, she has recently been appointed to the new PC(USA) committee to consider a new confession for the Book of Confessions.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Evening Library Associate
Phone:
404-687-4610
Email:
Office:
JBCL / Box7F
Professor Emerita
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2010-2016, Executive VP/Dean of Faculty and Associate Professor of American Christianity and Black Church Studies, 2017 VP, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Professor Emeritus
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2001 - 2011 Dean of Faculty & Executive VP; 1996 - 2011 Professor of Ministry
Wade P. Huie, Jr. Associate Professor of Homiletics
Jake Myers serves as the Wade P. Huie, Jr. Associate Professor of Homiletics at Columbia Theological Seminary. He’s an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA).
Jake has written numerous books and essays, the latest of which is entitled “Stand-up Preaching: Homiletical Insights from Contemporary Comedians” (Cascade, 2022). He has a forthcoming book in press with Lexington Book’s Religion and Pop Culture series connecting theology and ethics with stand-up comedy, which he is co-authoring with Dr. Nicole Graham, a religious studies professor at King’s College London. He provides online homiletical resources and sermon coaching at www.preachingdr.com.
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Professor Emerita
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2007 - 2012 Director, John Bulow Campbell Library and Professor of Theological Bibliography
Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament
Dr. Raj Nadella is the Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. His research interests include postcolonial biblical interpretation, migration and New Testament perspectives on economic justice. Nadella is the author of Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (Bloomsbury, 2011), co-editor of Christianity and the Law of Migration (Routledge, 2021) and co-author of Postcolonialism and the Bible (Bloomsbury, forthcoming in 2024). Nadella serves on the editorial boards of Currents in Biblical Research, Review of Biblical Literature and Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies. He has written for publications such as The Huffington Post, Sojourners, Christian Century and Working Preacher.
Dr. Nadella is a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is actively involved in the academy and the Church on issues such as race, economic justice and immigration. He chairs the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)’s Committee on Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession (CUREMP).
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Vice President, Enrollment Management and Vocational Outreach
Phone:
404-687-4516
Email:
Office:
BLC210 / Box 6F
Professor Emerita
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2005 -2010 William M McPheeters Professor of Old Testament; 1995 - 2004 Professor of Old Testament
Associate Dean, Contextual Education and International Partnerships
Dr. Sue Kim Park is interested in theologies and practices of interreligious and contextual education that center lived experience and identity formation. She teaches contextual education courses that ask questions about identity, expressions and embodiment of faith, wholeness of human spirituality, and complexities of the human web. In her role as the Associate Dean of CEIP, she is always researching pedagogies of experiential and immersion courses that seek to transform one’s understanding of the self and the other.
Associate Dean, Student Formation and Campus Culture
Phone:
404-687-4664
Email:
Office:
CH214 / Box 18F
Professor Emeritus
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1965-2001 Professor of Pastoral Theology/Director of ThD Program
Director, Public Services
Phone:
404-687-4661
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Office:
JBCL208 / Box 7F
Professor Emeritus
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1979-1995 Professor of Ministry
Professor Emeritus
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1999-2009 Associate Professor of Theology; Director of Advanced Studies
Director, Archives
Phone:
404-687-4615
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Office:
JBCL306 / Box 7F
Director, Admissions and Enrollment Operations
Phone:
404-687-4517
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Office:
CH201 / Box 6F
Professor Emerita
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1991-2023 J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics
Dr. Riggs is interested in the relationship between social oppression and socio-religious ethical praxis, ethical discourse that bridges the gap between womanist religious scholarship and the Church’s practice of ministry, the moral foundations for public policy, and the Church`s role in social justice ministry. She was named as a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology for 2017-2018.
Dr. Riggs is the Founder of an applied ethics non-profit center called Still Waters: A Center for Ethical Formation and Practices, Inc. Still Waters’ mission is to provide education in conflict transformation theory and practices, particularly focusing upon the intersection of religion and violence. The Center’s latest program is REM (Religious Ethical Mediation) PLAY, interactive dialogues for envisioning practical ways to engage during times of conflict.
Education:
Denomination: Non- Denominational
Certificate Programs Coordinator and Thriving in Ministry Grant Project Director Assistant
Phone:
404-687-4592
Email:
Office:
HC203 / Box 42F
Public Services Archivist
Phone:
404-687-4628
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Office:
JBCL313
Director, Human Resources; Title IX Coordinator
Phone:
404-687-4654
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Office:
CH112 / Box 56F
Faculty Emeritus
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1991-2020 Associate Professor of New Testament
Dr. Saunders’ research interests include “eschatology” in early Christian understandings of “the last days,” the nature of the Church, spirituality, and ecclesial self-definition, with a special interest in the Gospel according to Matthew.
Education:
Denomination: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Associate Director, Development
Phone:
404-687-4622
Email:
Office:
CH7 / Box 12F
Director, Vocational Outreach
Phone:
404-687-4501
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Office:
CH201 / 6F
Associate Director, Strategic Communications
Phone:
404-687-4548
Email:
Office:
RC208 / Box 22F
J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament
Dr. Mitzi J. Smith is the J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA and Professor Extraordinarius at the Institute for Gender Studies, University of South Africa (UNISA). Smith’s research interests are Africana and womanist interpretation, ancient enslavement, and translation. Smith has authored, co-authored, or edited ten books and many essays and articles. Her book publications include Chloe and Her People: A Womanist Critical Dialogue with First Corinthians (Cascade, 2023); We are All Witnesses: Toward Disruptive and Creative Biblical Interpretation (co-authored with Michael Newheart; Cascade, 2023); Bitter the Chastening Rod. Africana Biblical Interpretation After Stony the Road We Trod in the Time of BLM, SayHerName, and MeToo (co-edited w/Angela Parker and Ericka Dunbar; Fortress Academic, 2022); Womanist Sass and Back Talk: Social (In)Justice, Intersectionality, and Biblical Interpretation (Cascade, 2018); Insights from African American Interpretation (Fortress, 2017); and I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader (edited; Cascade, 2015). Smith’s works in progress include a book about Luke’s Jesus (Cascade) and The Oxford Handbook of the Bible, Race, and Diaspora, co-edited with Raj Nadella and Luis Menéndez-Antuña. She proposed and is the first chair of the Womanist Interpretation program unit of the Society of Biblical Literature. Smith is also a member of the Society for the Study of Black Religion (SSBR) and the Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS). With a small grant from the Wabash Center, Smith launched the Beyond the Womanist Classroom podcast on Sept 2, 2022.
EDUCATION:
PhD, Harvard University
MA, The Ohio State University
MDiv, Howard University School of Divinity
DENOMINATION: Nondenominational
Administrative Coordinator, Enrollment Management and Vocational Outreach
Phone:
404-687-4539
Email:
Office:
CH201 / 6F
Associate Dean for Worship Life; Assistant Professor of Worship
Dr. Rebecca F. Spurrier is Associate Dean for Worship Life and Assistant Professor of Worship at Columbia Theological Seminary. She integrates a focus on disability studies and liturgical theology in the classroom with the formation of worship leaders through weekly chapel services. She is interested in a theology and practice of public worship that reflects the beauty and tension human difference brings to Christian liturgy.
Engaging ethnographic theology, disability studies, and liturgical aesthetics, her research explores the hope of human interdependence and the importance of liturgical access for religious practice and Christian community. She is the author of The Disabled Church: Human Difference and the Art of Communal Worship (Fordham University Press, 2019) and other chapters and articles on worship, disability theology, and ethnographic theology, such as “Disability, Human Difference, and the Sacramentality of Access,” in T&T Clark Companion to the Sacraments and Sacramentality and “Disabling Eschatology: Time for the Table of Our Common Pleasure,” in the journal Liturgy.
A Mennonite with commitments to ecumenical worship, her current research involves a collaborative team of researchers and writers, who are developing a liturgical resource constructively informed by the wisdom of disability experience that responds to ableism in Christian worship.
She serves as co-chair of the Ecclesial Practices Unit of the American Academy of Religion, as a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, and as a board member of the Friendship Center at Holy Comforter Church.
Education:
Denomination: Mennonite
Campus Minister
Phone:
404-687-4569
Email:
Office:
CH214 / Box 18F
Phone:
Email:
Office:
J.B. Green Professor of Theology 1984-2014
Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics
Dr. Symmonds is the Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics. Her work sits at the intersection of Christian ethics and women, gender, and sexuality studies. She explores Black women’s embodiment, particularly the practices of liberative embodiment they craft as a method of resistance to domination and as a simulation of freedom. Dr. Symmonds’ research qualitatively engages issues around faith-based sex trafficking interventions and commercial sex work, Caribbean cultural practices such as Carnival masquerading and embodied celebration, and she theorizes how trends in popular culture around performances of race, sex, and sexuality reveal and/or conceal opportunity for ethical reflection. Her other interests include Catholic moral theology from a womanist standpoint, cultural criticism, literature as a moral genre, and the intersections of horror and religion. Dr. Symmonds identifies as Black Catholic, a religious tradition that follows the rite of the Roman Catholic Church but is driven by the spirit of Blackness in all its forms according to Black people’s diasporic origins and heritage. She is a parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes, the Mother Church of African-American Catholics in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
Education:
PhD, Emory University
MDiv, Emory University, Candler School of Theology
BS, Florida A&M University
Denomination: Catholic
Security Officer
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Security Officer
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Operations Coordinator, Business Office
Phone:
404-687-4510
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Office:
CH106
Maintenance
Phone:
404-687-4607
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BLC110
Contract ATLA Grant Project Archives Assistant
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Assistant Director, Advancement Operations
Phone:
404-687-4525
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Office:
CH101 / Box 31F
Vice President and Dean, Student Formation and Campus Culture
Phone:
404-687-4522
Email:
Office:
CH216
Associate Professor of Ministry; Lead Professor DMin Program
Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr. has been a member of the teaching faculty of Columbia since 2007. He currently serves as the Lead Professor of the Doctor of Ministry Program and is tenured as Associate Professor of Ministry. He is a practical theologian and qualitative researcher and teaches a variety courses in the practice of ministry, theories and practices of leadership, church administration, qualitative research methodology and theological research, and supervised ministry for Doctor of Ministry Students. His institutional leadership has included service as Associate Dean for Advanced Professional Studies, Chair of the Institutional Review Board, Chair of the Advanced Degrees Committee, Chair of the Practical Theology Area, Becoming Implementation Task Force, Pathway to Tomorrow Vision Steering Committee, and Strategic Blueprinting Task Force. Dr. Tribble’s academic credentials are Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Doctor of Philosophy in Practical Theology and Congregational Studies from the Joint Program of Northwestern University and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Master of Divinity from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University. An ordained Elder of The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, he is a practitioner scholar with over thirty years of ministry leadership as a pastor and presiding elder with service and teaching on all levels of the A.M.E. Zion Connectional Church. A researcher and consultant of congregational ministries as well as an active member of a local church, he is keenly interested in the quality of pastoral leadership, the vitality of congregational ministry, and the varied roles of congregations in their communities.
Education:
Denomination: Africian Methodist Episcopal Zion
Director of Academic Technology
Phone:
404-687-4635
Email:
Office:
BLC309 / Box 57F
Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Counseling
Chanequa Walker-Barnes is a womanist pastoral theologian, clinical psychologist, and ecumenical minister who serves as Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care. At the core of Dr. Walker-Barnes’s work is a deep commitment to dismantling oppression and promoting justice and healing in the Christian church and the broader US society. She teaches course on pastoral care for couples and families, womanist pastoral care, mindfulness and self-care, and racial justice/reconciliation. She is the author of three books – Sacred Self Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation, and Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength, as well as two dozen book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles in theology, clinical psychology, and child development. Her faith has been shaped by Methodist, Baptist, Buddhist, and evangelical social justice communities. She was ordained by an independent fellowship that holds incarnational theology, community engagement, social justice, and prophetic witness as its core values.
Education
Denomination: Post-Denominational
Areas of Expertise: Mental health, self-care, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, racism & racial justice/reconciliation, faith-based activism, womanist theology, African American women
Professor of Church History
I am Haruko Nawata Ward, Professor of Church History. My primary research field is Reformations Studies (or Early Modern global Christianities). As a historian, I like to listen attentively to the voices in the primary sources in the archives and old books. I am especially interested in finding women reformers’ voices, the interior worlds of women martyrs and martyrologists, and the interpretations of the Gospel and their implications for the socio-theological-moral (in)justices in early modern colonial missions. While I prefer hearing from the dead, I am happy to publish these findings for general audiences and to engage with professional societies who can talk back to me. I also like to introduce my research in teaching and converse with my students about what history means today as we dismantle myths, half-truths, and untested beliefs. Since 2002, I have created and taught general courses in the History of Christianities (from the beginnings to the modern period), addressing critical topics, agents, and issues in church history while honoring diverse ecumenical traditions throughout history. I enjoy teaching my elective courses on various subjects in the global Reformations and co-teaching integrative courses with my colleagues. We make the learning space/time together, weaving the primary voices from history and using creative and imaginative tools, such as songs, foods, and reenactments, be it in classrooms, the cyber world, or chapel services.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
The Peachtree Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth
Ralph Basui Watkins is known as “the scholar with a camera!” He does work at the intersections of spirituality, photography, documentary film and social justice. He is the author of six books, and over thirty chapters and articles. He is a sought-after speaker, workshop leader and panelist. His television show Talk it Out with Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins was one of the top-rated shows on the Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting network for over four years (2012-2016). He is also the producer / director of four full length made for television feature documentaries: She Is The Pastor (2012), Our Journey to Palestine: A Story of the 43rd Delegation of Interfaith Peace Builders (2013), Africana Theology and the Roots of Our Faith: A Journey Through Egypt (2018) and Seeing the Future of the African American Church in the Rainbow (2023). In recent years, Watkins has been the artist in residence at the Velvet Note, a nationally recognized jazz club. He has been awarded a Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant, Collegeville Institute Sabbatical Residency Grant, Governor’s Teaching Fellowship, Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Fulbright Hayes Fellowship for study in Ghana, a Wabash Teaching Fellowship, and various awards and grants to study in Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Ghana. You can see his work at https://futureofblackchurch.org/
Education:
Denomination: African Methodist Episcopal
Central Services Coordinator
Phone:
404-687-4564
Email:
Office:
CH5 / Box 345
Senior Director, Leadership Support
Phone:
404-687-4671
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Office:
CH101 / Box 31F
Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs
Phone:
404-687-4521
Email:
Office:
CH114 / Box 11F
Professor Emeritus
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Email:
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2000-2007 Conant Professor of Worship
Senior Vice President and Dean of Faculty; J. McDowell Richards Professor of Biblical Interpretation
Phone:
404-687-4596
Email:
Office:
CH114 / Box 11F
Dr. Yoder’s research interests include Israelite and ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature; the social-historical and theological dynamics of the post-exilic period; the short stories of Ruth, Esther, and Jonah; and biblical conceptions of the moral self.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Associate Professor of American Religious and Cultural History; Director of MDiv Program
Dr. Yoo has previously written about the transnational histories of American Protestant world missions in Korea and Korean American immigrant religious communities as well as the histories of Presbyterianism and Protestant theological education in the United States. His latest book covers the history and legacy of slavery and anti-Black racism in American Presbyterianism. His current research interests include tracing the histories of racial injustice, settler colonialism, and slavery in the United States and examining Indigenous, Black, and Asian American theologies of freedom and resistance.
He is also a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who desires to write, teach, and preach honest narratives of the past integrating Reformed understandings of confession and illumination. His conviction is that deeper engagement with history will aid us in more faithful and effective participation in our present ministries exhibiting God’s love, justice, grace, and righteousness. When studying the development of Christianity in the antebellum United States, he is motivated to find both beautiful moments of awe-inspiring faith and ugly episodes where it is difficult to discern the divine presence. He began teaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2014. He and his spouse, Sarah, a middle school educator in Atlanta Public Schools, reside in Decatur, Georgia with their two teenage children and two cats.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Associate Professor of Old Testament and Director of the QEP
Brennan Breed teaches Old Testament at Columbia, and directs the Quality Enhancement Plan at Columbia, which is focused for the next five years on increasing students’ capacities in intercultural communication. He also serves as the Theologian-in-Residence at First Presbyterian Church of Marietta. Brennan teaches and preaches at various churches most Sundays of the year, and loves being involved in local congregations.
At Columbia, Brennan teaches courses in ancient Hebrew, Old Testament survey, the exegesis of prophetic books and wisdom literature, the history of ancient Israel, the use of the Bible in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim visual art, and the use and interpretation of biblical texts in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities throughout history.
Brennan has written the monograph Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History (Indiana University Press, 2014) and co-authored Carol Newsom’s Daniel: A Commentary for the Old Testament Library series (Westminster John Knox: 2014). Both of these volumes trace the ways that various communities throughout history have understood particular biblical texts, generated unique interpretations, and produced art, liturgy, music and more in response to them.
Currently, Brennan is co-authoring a history of the early Hellenistic period (third century BCE) in the southern Levant, which includes Judaea, with Davis Hankins. This book explores the radical changes that occurred during this first century of Greek rule in the ancient Near East and how they precipitated the emergence of the earliest known apocalyptic literature, the first Jewish explorations of science, and the first book of Jewish philosophy. Brennan is also writing a commentary on Daniel for the Interpretation series from Westminster John Knox and a commentary on Ecclesiastes for the Eerdmans Illuminations series. Brennan has authored more than twenty book chapters, journal articles, and other academic publications that focus on the uses of biblical texts over time. He received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise at the University of Heidelberg in 2016.
Education:
Denomination: Episcopal
Subjects of expertise: Old Testament, Biblical Studies, books of Job, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Apocalyptic literature, prophetic literature, the use of the Bible in politics, religious history, art, music, literature
William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament
William P. Brown (but you can call me, Bill) is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. My writings explore the intersecting issues of ecology, justice, faith, and science from various biblical perspectives. Throughout my many years of teaching (over thirty now), I’ve written a few books along the way, including Wisdom’s Wonder, The Seven Pillars of Creation, Seeing the Psalms, Sacred Sense, Handbook to Old Testament Exegesis, and most recently Deep Calls to Deep: The Psalms in Dialogue amid Disruption. Much of my work is driven by the desire to promote constructive dialogue among diverse participants to foster mutual understanding and equity. I am also known as an “evangelist of wonder” in my teaching and writing. I love to teach biblical interpretation as an exercise in wonder, the kind of wonder that is ever open to being surprised by the text, by God, by creation, and by each other. And wonder, it must be said, often leads to wondering, which doesn’t shy away from asking hard questions about the text, God, and each other. Such an approach invites interdisciplinary approaches, some far afield of traditional biblical research. I spent a year, for example, studying the social and theological implications of astrobiology at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, which blew my mind and instilled in me a cosmic perspective whenever I talk about God and life, human and otherwise.
I am currently working on a Psalms commentary for the Old Testament Library series and on a collaborative project on biblical aesthetics with Dr. Ralph Watkins. I am ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and love preaching and teaching. Gail and I are the proud parents of two amazing daughters, Ella and Hannah: one is a landscape architect and organic farmer, while the other is a primatologist studying the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. Talk about wonder!
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Adjunct
Phone:
Email:
Office:
/ Box 22F
Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament
Dr. Raj Nadella is the Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. His research interests include postcolonial biblical interpretation, migration and New Testament perspectives on economic justice. Nadella is the author of Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (Bloomsbury, 2011), co-editor of Christianity and the Law of Migration (Routledge, 2021) and co-author of Postcolonialism and the Bible (Bloomsbury, forthcoming in 2024). Nadella serves on the editorial boards of Currents in Biblical Research, Review of Biblical Literature and Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies. He has written for publications such as The Huffington Post, Sojourners, Christian Century and Working Preacher.
Dr. Nadella is a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is actively involved in the academy and the Church on issues such as race, economic justice and immigration. He chairs the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)’s Committee on Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession (CUREMP).
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament
Dr. Mitzi J. Smith is the J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA and Professor Extraordinarius at the Institute for Gender Studies, University of South Africa (UNISA). Smith’s research interests are Africana and womanist interpretation, ancient enslavement, and translation. Smith has authored, co-authored, or edited ten books and many essays and articles. Her book publications include Chloe and Her People: A Womanist Critical Dialogue with First Corinthians (Cascade, 2023); We are All Witnesses: Toward Disruptive and Creative Biblical Interpretation (co-authored with Michael Newheart; Cascade, 2023); Bitter the Chastening Rod. Africana Biblical Interpretation After Stony the Road We Trod in the Time of BLM, SayHerName, and MeToo (co-edited w/Angela Parker and Ericka Dunbar; Fortress Academic, 2022); Womanist Sass and Back Talk: Social (In)Justice, Intersectionality, and Biblical Interpretation (Cascade, 2018); Insights from African American Interpretation (Fortress, 2017); and I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader (edited; Cascade, 2015). Smith’s works in progress include a book about Luke’s Jesus (Cascade) and The Oxford Handbook of the Bible, Race, and Diaspora, co-edited with Raj Nadella and Luis Menéndez-Antuña. She proposed and is the first chair of the Womanist Interpretation program unit of the Society of Biblical Literature. Smith is also a member of the Society for the Study of Black Religion (SSBR) and the Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS). With a small grant from the Wabash Center, Smith launched the Beyond the Womanist Classroom podcast on Sept 2, 2022.
EDUCATION:
PhD, Harvard University
MA, The Ohio State University
MDiv, Howard University School of Divinity
DENOMINATION: Nondenominational
Senior Vice President and Dean of Faculty; J. McDowell Richards Professor of Biblical Interpretation
Phone:
404-687-4596
Email:
Office:
CH114 / Box 11F
Dr. Yoder’s research interests include Israelite and ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature; the social-historical and theological dynamics of the post-exilic period; the short stories of Ruth, Esther, and Jonah; and biblical conceptions of the moral self.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Professor of Christian Ethics; Lead Professor ThM Program
Mark Douglas is Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the ThM Degree at Columbia Theological Seminary. He teaches on a wide range of subjects, including environmental ethics, religion and politics, medical and economic ethics, science and religion, and theological and philosophical ethics. His current area of research explores the connections between environmental degradation and conflict with particular attention to religious responses to such conflicts. His two most recent books, Christian Pacifism for an Environmental Age and Modernity, the Environment, and the Christian Just War Tradition (both with Cambridge University Press) explore this work and he is currently working on another book, Wars in a Warming World: Religion, Resources, and Refugees, on the topic.
He holds a B.A. with distinction in biology from Colorado College, an MDiv and a ThM from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in religious ethics from the University of Virginia.
Mark is a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and currently serves the denomination as a member of its Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy and a member of it Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee. He also serves on the Institutional Review Board of Northside Hospital and the Ethics Commission for the City of Decatur as well as various editorial boards and professional societies.
Mark grew up in rural Colorado and, even after several decades on the faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary, is still adjusting to the fact that he lives in Atlanta. His wife, the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Armstrong directs new church development for the PCUSA in the greater Atlanta area and they have one child, a daughter, Logan, currently completing doctoral work in museum studies and postcolonial theory at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
He is comfortable talking about a wide range of public issues, including any related to his teaching foci.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Associate Professor of Theology
Tim Hartman is Associate Professor of Theology. He holds a B.A. in History from Stanford University, a MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a MA in Religious Studies and a PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Culture from the University of Virginia. He is the author of two books: Theology after Colonization: Kwame Bediako, Karl Barth, and the future of theological reflection (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) and Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity (Fortress Press, 2022/Langham Publications, 2021), and has published articles in Modern Theology, Black Theology, and Cross Currents. He is an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and served in a congregation in Los Angeles and a new church development in Baltimore. He previously served as the board chair of Emergent Village and of Amahoro Africa. During his yearlong sabbatical funded by a Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant, he served as Visiting Scholar in the Desmond Tutu Center for Religion and Social Justice at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. He teaches courses such as Christian Theology 1 & 2, Reformed Theology, Antiracist Theologies, Theology and Community, Jesus Christ in Global Perspective, and Contextual Immersions. His scholarly interests include: contemporary Christian theologies worldwide, Christology, Lived Theology (the interrelationship between religious beliefs and practices), Election/Predestination, antiracist theologies, ecclesiology, postcolonial mission, and the work of Karl Barth, Kwame Bediako, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and James Cone.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
J.B. Green Professor of Theology
Martha Moore-Keish is the J.B. Green Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary. She has taught at the seminary since 2004, offering classes on Christian, Reformed, comparative, and feminist theologies, as well as a range of special topics. Dr. Moore-Keish has published books on eucharistic theology and prayer, a theological commentary on the book of James, and an edited volume, Karl Barth and Comparative Theology. Her latest publication is a co-edited reference volume The T&T Clark Handbook on Sacraments and Sacramentality (2023).
After growing up and attending public school in Tallahassee, Florida, Dr. Moore-Keish went to Harvard College, where she studied comparative religions. Following her graduation, she spent a year studying ancient Indian history and culture at Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal, India. Dr. Moore-Keish then attended Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, where she earned the MDiv degree and met and married her husband Chris. She earned the Ph.D. in theological studies from Emory University in 2000. Following graduation and ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she worked as an Associate in the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship, developing liturgical resources and educational events for church leaders. From 2003-04, she served on the faculty of Yale Divinity School and the Institute for Sacred Music as Assistant Professor of Liturgical Studies.
For several years, Dr. Moore-Keish served on official ecumenical dialogues between Reformed and Roman Catholic churches, most recently as Reformed co-chair of the international ecumenical dialogue between the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. In addition to research on liturgical and sacramental theologies, she has a long-standing interest in interreligious issues, particularly Christian-Jewish relations and religions of India. A Reformed theologian committed to theology for the church, she has recently been appointed to the new PC(USA) committee to consider a new confession for the Book of Confessions.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics
Dr. Symmonds is the Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics. Her work sits at the intersection of Christian ethics and women, gender, and sexuality studies. She explores Black women’s embodiment, particularly the practices of liberative embodiment they craft as a method of resistance to domination and as a simulation of freedom. Dr. Symmonds’ research qualitatively engages issues around faith-based sex trafficking interventions and commercial sex work, Caribbean cultural practices such as Carnival masquerading and embodied celebration, and she theorizes how trends in popular culture around performances of race, sex, and sexuality reveal and/or conceal opportunity for ethical reflection. Her other interests include Catholic moral theology from a womanist standpoint, cultural criticism, literature as a moral genre, and the intersections of horror and religion. Dr. Symmonds identifies as Black Catholic, a religious tradition that follows the rite of the Roman Catholic Church but is driven by the spirit of Blackness in all its forms according to Black people’s diasporic origins and heritage. She is a parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes, the Mother Church of African-American Catholics in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
Education:
PhD, Emory University
MDiv, Emory University, Candler School of Theology
BS, Florida A&M University
Denomination: Catholic
Associate Professor of American Religious and Cultural History; Director of MDiv Program
Dr. Yoo has previously written about the transnational histories of American Protestant world missions in Korea and Korean American immigrant religious communities as well as the histories of Presbyterianism and Protestant theological education in the United States. His latest book covers the history and legacy of slavery and anti-Black racism in American Presbyterianism. His current research interests include tracing the histories of racial injustice, settler colonialism, and slavery in the United States and examining Indigenous, Black, and Asian American theologies of freedom and resistance.
He is also a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who desires to write, teach, and preach honest narratives of the past integrating Reformed understandings of confession and illumination. His conviction is that deeper engagement with history will aid us in more faithful and effective participation in our present ministries exhibiting God’s love, justice, grace, and righteousness. When studying the development of Christianity in the antebellum United States, he is motivated to find both beautiful moments of awe-inspiring faith and ugly episodes where it is difficult to discern the divine presence. He began teaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2014. He and his spouse, Sarah, a middle school educator in Atlanta Public Schools, reside in Decatur, Georgia with their two teenage children and two cats.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
President
Phone:
404-687-4514
Email:
Office:
CH110 / Box 13F
The Rev. Dr. Victor Aloyo, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., is the son of the late Esperanza Aloyo and Victorino Aloyo from Vieques, Puerto Rico. He has been married to Suzette Aloyo for over thirty-six years and is blessed with two daughters, Kayla Cristen, an aerospace engineer working in Huntsville, AL, and Alyssa Nicole, serving as a DEI administrator in Nashville, TN. Victor currently serves as the eleventh President of Columbia Theological Seminary. Previously he served as the Associate Dean of Institutional Diversity and Community Engagement at Princeton Theological Seminary and as Organizing/Lead Pastor of Iglesia Presbiteriana Nuevas Fronteras in North Plainfield, NJ. Victor received a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and Sociology from the College of New Rochelle, a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate in Executive Higher Education Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, focusing his dissertation on navigating diversity and inclusion within a framework of social justice.
As the Chief Diversity Administrator at Princeton, Dr. Aloyo was directly responsible to the seminary president on diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence. Victor served as the institution’s Primary Designated School Officer with the United States Customs and Immigration Service, the Title IX and Title VI Coordinator, and the Director of the Office of Multicultural Relations. Victor led the institution in developing a Diversity Action Blueprint detailing specific goals, objectives, and assessment criteria for all DEI and Belonging Initiatives. Victor served as Interim Director of Alumni Relations within the Advancement department, a member of the Committee on Accreditation for three cycles, Task Force on the Historical Audit on Slavery, and Long-Range Strategic Cohort. Victor also directed the Seminary’s Urban Ministry and community engagement efforts by cultivating sustainable partnerships with community organizations, educational institutions, worship centers, and community residents in the City of Trenton and Greater Mercer County.
Dr. Aloyo’s leadership responsibilities included service as Director of Urban Ministry at the New York City Mission Society, Senior and Organizing Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of The Redeemer of East Brooklyn for ten years, moderator of the Presbytery of New York City, and chair of the General Council of the New York City Presbytery. Victor also served as a member of the board of trustees of the New York Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center in Holmes, N.Y., and the New York City Presbytery, while spearheading the organization of La Promesa Presbyterian Church in Flushing, Queens (currently Iglesia Cristiana La Promesa). Dr. Aloyo, with a cohort of elders, deacons, and young adults from churches in New York, New Jersey, Long Island, and Pennsylvania, for over thirty years, directed a youth & young adults ministry predominantly from inner-city contexts at the Presbyterian Center in Holmes, N.Y. Victor is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Presbyterian Foundation, the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, and the Covenant Architects Network. For eighteen years in Plainfield, NJ, Victor served as a field education supervisor/mentor for over sixty-three seminarians creating a unique teaching church ministry model.
Dr. Aloyo mentions that he “is blessed and humbled” in leading, with the support of the Board of Trustees, Faculty, Students, and Administrative Staff, a world-class institution serving the Southeast, the nation, and the globe. At Columbia Seminary, Dr. Aloyo posits that in collaboration, “we will continue to bring to life the Seminary’s critical mission of inspiring and challenging every student to a life of leadership and purpose for the glory of God. We will strive to embrace every story through our curriculum, policies, campus life, and virtual platforms because we belong to each other on this journey to become world changers, discoverers, explorers, curators, and stewards of God’s abundance and grace.”
Associate Dean, Information Services; Senior Director, John Bulow Campbell Library
Dr. Kelly Campbell is passionate about equipping people for learning and life, strategizing to develop best practices, and providing high-quality service. Kelly serves as the Associate Dean of Information Services/Senior Director of the John Bulow Campbell Library at Columbia Theological Seminary. She brings a unique breadth of experience to this role, having served in various educational and library settings, including elementary, public, and private schools and large and small public libraries. She has demonstrated success in strategic planning, organizational development, and change management. Before obtaining her Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine University, Kelly also holds a Master in Library Science and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies.
An experienced and seasoned library leader, Dr. Campbell is involved globally with theological librarians, serves on the Editorial Board of the Books@Atla Open Press, and is a community member of the American Board for Funeral Service Education Committee on Accreditation. Additionally, she is active in the Association of Theological Schools initiatives, working on global awareness and intercultural sensitivity. Her denomination is Southern Baptist, and Kelly enjoys quilting, cooking, and reading when not traveling and teaching.
Education:
Denomination: Southern Baptist
Benton Family Associate Professor of Christian Education and Project Director for the Wonder of Worship Grant
Dr. Dawson is interested in the fields of life course development, teaching and learning methods, the spiritual lives of children, and intergenerational learning and worship. Her current research is focused on how we can best nurture children in their worship and prayer lives. She was named Educator of the Year by the Association of Partners in Christian Education in 2015.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching
Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and holds degrees from Yale University (BA) and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv and PhD). Before joining the Columbia faculty in 1998, Anna served as an associate pastor for youth and young adults at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.
Anna’s books include Preaching as Testimony, Inscribing the Word, and Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God’s Word in Community, based on her 2012 Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School. Her newest book is A is for Alabaster: 52 Reflections on the Stories of Scripture. She has also published articles and chapters in numerous books and journals, including a year’s worth of lectionary text commentaries for www.WorkingPreacher.org.
Anna’s research focuses on testimony, preaching pedagogies, and creative strategies for communities to engage and encounter the biblical text for our present context. She is a frequent preacher and teacher in the U.S. and abroad, which gives her plenty of opportunity to do what makes her happiest: sitting around a table with a group of people, a big passage of Scripture, and a big block of time to dive into it. She and her husband, the Rev. David Carter Florence, have two grown sons, Caleb and Jonah. They also have two dogs, two cats, and way too much knitting yarn.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Associate Dean, Lifelong Learning
Israel Galindo, Ed.D. serves as Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at the Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur GA where he directs the Pastoral Excellence Programs of the Center for Lifelong Learning. He is the author of numerous books, including The Hidden Lives of Congregations (Rowman & Littlefield) selected as one of the “ten best books of 2005” by the Academy of Parish Clergy, and Perspectives on Congregational Leadership: Applying systems thinking for effective leadership (Didache Press). His latest books include Mastering the Art of Instruction (Didache Press), Stories of the Desert Fathers (Didache Press), Leadership In Ministry: Bowen Theory in the Congregational Context (Didache Press), and Reframing Ministry Leadership: New Insights From a Systems Theory Perspective (Didache Press). He is a frequent seminar and workshop presenter, and writes for several blogs, including the blog for theological school deans of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology. Galindo is an ordained minister with the American Baptist Churches USA.
Education:
Denomination: American Baptist
Associate Professor of Educational Ministry; Lead Professor DEdMin Program
The Rev. Dr. Christine J. Hong (she/her) is the Associate Professor of Educational Ministries at Columbia Theological Seminary. She is a PC(USA) minister and holds degrees from Claremont School of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Washington.
Dr. Hong is an interreligious and religious educator passionate about storytelling as a decolonial pedagogy for spiritual communities. In her teaching, she guides students and spiritual communities through decolonizing their religious and spiritual traditions. With years of experience in the field of practical theology, interreligious and religious education, Dr. Hong has worked on numerous research projects and has published articles and books on the Korean American experience, pedagogy, and decoloniality. She is a frequent workshop leader and conference speaker on decolonial pedagogy, spirituality, and JEDI (Justice Education, Diversity, and Inclusion) in educational and spiritual spaces. Her current research projects include story circles with Asian and Asian American women to combat rising Anti-Asian hate, re-indiginizing Korean spiritualities in diaspora, and recovering and reclaiming stories from the Korean War and Ceasefire as intergenerational spiritual practice for Korean North Americans.
You can read Dr. Hong’s research in her books, Decolonial Futures: Intercultural and Interreligious Intelligence for Theological Education (Lexington), and Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church (Palgrave). A third book is forthcoming with Dr. Anne Walker called, Candidly Speaking: Refusing a White Supremacist World Through Dialogue and Story.
Dr. Hong is also the lead professor for the DEdMin Program at Columbia Theological Semiary. She currently serves as the JEDI Officer for the Religious Education Association, a board member of FTESEA (The Fund for Theological Education in Southeast Asia), a board member of PANAAWTM (Pacific Asian North American Women in Theology and Ministry), and a doctoral mentor for the Louisville Institute and FTE.
Education:
Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA)
Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care; Lead Professor MAPT Program
Dr. McGarrah Sharp is interested in theologies and practices of pastoral care that take into account diversities, multiplicities, and our shared colonial histories. To this end, she teaches and studies decolonial or postcolonial pastoral theology, grief and loss, and recognizing and responding with care and creativity in the face of complicities in harm. She works with research partners and students to imagine healing possibilities of truth-telling and repair. She has also researched and written about teaching practical theology, including in the unique contexts of travel/immersion courses and online courses. Dr. McGarrah Sharp currently serves as the lead professor of the Master of Arts in Practical Theology program at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Education:
Denomination: United Methodist
Affiliate Professor of Worship & Seminary Musician
Dr. Tony McNeill, affectionately known as “Dr. T.,” is a sought-after workshop clinician, lecturer, consultant, mentor, and choral conductor. “Dr. T” serves as an Affiliate Professor of Worship and Seminary Musician (2023-2024) at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. He served as Director of Choral Activities and Chairman of the Department of Performing Arts at Clinton College in Rock Hill, SC, from 2019-2022. Dr. McNeill also served four and a half years as the Director of Worship and the Arts at Atlanta’s Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, “America’s Freedom Church.” In February 2022, Dr. McNeill was Artist-in-Residence for Covenant Presbyterian Church (Charlotte, NC). He later served as Interim Minister of Worship at Myers Park Presbyterian Church (Charlotte, NC). During the first quarter of 2023, he was Interim Minister of Music at Myers Park Baptist Church (Charlotte, NC)
In addition to his work in church worship ministry, he spends significant time in the academy. During the 2022-2023 year, he was an adjunct professor of music and worship at Campbell University (Buies Creek, NC), Clinton College, The Interdenominational Theological Center (Atlanta, GA), and Union Presbyterian Seminary (Charlotte, NC). Dr. McNeill has lectured for Duke Divinity School, Hampton University Ministers Conference, The Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, American Choral Directors Association, Shaw University Ministers Conference, and The Association of Partners in Christian Education (PCUSA). Dr. T. led music for the 2022 Montreat Youth Conference (Omega, Weeks 5 and 6) and was a service musician and workshop leader for the 2023 Worship and Music Conference sponsored by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. He has curated and led worship for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies’ Space for Grace Conference, the Forum for Theological Exploration, The Black Theology and Leadership Institute at Princeton Theological Seminary, Faith Coordinating Center at Wake Forest School of Divinity, The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, The National Children’s Defense Fund, and The Montreat Conference Center. He is a former member and assistant director of the renowned recording group Donald Lawrence & The Tri-City Singers.
Dr. Tony earned a bachelor of music education degree from Appalachian State University, with an emphasis in piano and choral music; a master’s degree in choral conducting from Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL); and a doctorate of worship studies from The Robert Webber Institute for Worship Studies (Jacksonville, FL). His dissertation is entitled, “From Funeral to Feast: Renewing The Celebration of Holy Communion Through Congregational Singing in African American Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina.” His article “Lift Every Voice and Sing: Forming Congregations for Justice” is featured in the Augusts 2021 edition of CALL TO WORSHIP: LITURGY, MUSIC, PREACHING, AND THE ARTS, a journal published by the Presbyterian Church USA. He published “Hiding in Plain Sight: A Reflection on Leading Worship” for INSIGHTS: THE FACULTY JOURNAL OF AUSTIN PRESBYTERIAN SEMINARY (Austin, TX). He also contributed to “Going to Wait: African American Church Worship Resources—Pentecost through Advent” and “Waiting to Go: African American Church Worship Resources—Advent through Pentecost,” by James Abbington and Linda Hollies (Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, 2002 and 2003). In 2016, Dr. McNeill was also profiled in the acclaimed BET.com documentary, “Holler If You Hear Me: Black and Gay in the Church,” curated by Clay Cane.
He is a member of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity. He is the Founder/Curator of THE CALL 2 WORSHIP GROUP, an online community of musicians and clergy.
Wade P. Huie, Jr. Associate Professor of Homiletics
Jake Myers serves as the Wade P. Huie, Jr. Associate Professor of Homiletics at Columbia Theological Seminary. He’s an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA).
Jake has written numerous books and essays, the latest of which is entitled “Stand-up Preaching: Homiletical Insights from Contemporary Comedians” (Cascade, 2022). He has a forthcoming book in press with Lexington Book’s Religion and Pop Culture series connecting theology and ethics with stand-up comedy, which he is co-authoring with Dr. Nicole Graham, a religious studies professor at King’s College London. He provides online homiletical resources and sermon coaching at www.preachingdr.com.
Education:
Associate Dean, Contextual Education and International Partnerships
Dr. Sue Kim Park is interested in theologies and practices of interreligious and contextual education that center lived experience and identity formation. She teaches contextual education courses that ask questions about identity, expressions and embodiment of faith, wholeness of human spirituality, and complexities of the human web. In her role as the Associate Dean of CEIP, she is always researching pedagogies of experiential and immersion courses that seek to transform one’s understanding of the self and the other.
Associate Dean for Worship Life; Assistant Professor of Worship
Dr. Rebecca F. Spurrier is Associate Dean for Worship Life and Assistant Professor of Worship at Columbia Theological Seminary. She integrates a focus on disability studies and liturgical theology in the classroom with the formation of worship leaders through weekly chapel services. She is interested in a theology and practice of public worship that reflects the beauty and tension human difference brings to Christian liturgy.
Engaging ethnographic theology, disability studies, and liturgical aesthetics, her research explores the hope of human interdependence and the importance of liturgical access for religious practice and Christian community. She is the author of The Disabled Church: Human Difference and the Art of Communal Worship (Fordham University Press, 2019) and other chapters and articles on worship, disability theology, and ethnographic theology, such as “Disability, Human Difference, and the Sacramentality of Access,” in T&T Clark Companion to the Sacraments and Sacramentality and “Disabling Eschatology: Time for the Table of Our Common Pleasure,” in the journal Liturgy.
A Mennonite with commitments to ecumenical worship, her current research involves a collaborative team of researchers and writers, who are developing a liturgical resource constructively informed by the wisdom of disability experience that responds to ableism in Christian worship.
She serves as co-chair of the Ecclesial Practices Unit of the American Academy of Religion, as a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, and as a board member of the Friendship Center at Holy Comforter Church.
Education:
Denomination: Mennonite
Associate Professor of Ministry; Lead Professor DMin Program
Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr. has been a member of the teaching faculty of Columbia since 2007. He currently serves as the Lead Professor of the Doctor of Ministry Program and is tenured as Associate Professor of Ministry. He is a practical theologian and qualitative researcher and teaches a variety courses in the practice of ministry, theories and practices of leadership, church administration, qualitative research methodology and theological research, and supervised ministry for Doctor of Ministry Students. His institutional leadership has included service as Associate Dean for Advanced Professional Studies, Chair of the Institutional Review Board, Chair of the Advanced Degrees Committee, Chair of the Practical Theology Area, Becoming Implementation Task Force, Pathway to Tomorrow Vision Steering Committee, and Strategic Blueprinting Task Force. Dr. Tribble’s academic credentials are Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Doctor of Philosophy in Practical Theology and Congregational Studies from the Joint Program of Northwestern University and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Master of Divinity from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University. An ordained Elder of The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, he is a practitioner scholar with over thirty years of ministry leadership as a pastor and presiding elder with service and teaching on all levels of the A.M.E. Zion Connectional Church. A researcher and consultant of congregational ministries as well as an active member of a local church, he is keenly interested in the quality of pastoral leadership, the vitality of congregational ministry, and the varied roles of congregations in their communities.
Education:
Denomination: Africian Methodist Episcopal Zion
Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Counseling
Chanequa Walker-Barnes is a womanist pastoral theologian, clinical psychologist, and ecumenical minister who serves as Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care. At the core of Dr. Walker-Barnes’s work is a deep commitment to dismantling oppression and promoting justice and healing in the Christian church and the broader US society. She teaches course on pastoral care for couples and families, womanist pastoral care, mindfulness and self-care, and racial justice/reconciliation. She is the author of three books – Sacred Self Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation, and Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength, as well as two dozen book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles in theology, clinical psychology, and child development. Her faith has been shaped by Methodist, Baptist, Buddhist, and evangelical social justice communities. She was ordained by an independent fellowship that holds incarnational theology, community engagement, social justice, and prophetic witness as its core values.
Education
Denomination: Post-Denominational
Areas of Expertise: Mental health, self-care, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, racism & racial justice/reconciliation, faith-based activism, womanist theology, African American women
The Peachtree Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth
Ralph Basui Watkins is known as “the scholar with a camera!” He does work at the intersections of spirituality, photography, documentary film and social justice. He is the author of six books, and over thirty chapters and articles. He is a sought-after speaker, workshop leader and panelist. His television show Talk it Out with Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins was one of the top-rated shows on the Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting network for over four years (2012-2016). He is also the producer / director of four full length made for television feature documentaries: She Is The Pastor (2012), Our Journey to Palestine: A Story of the 43rd Delegation of Interfaith Peace Builders (2013), Africana Theology and the Roots of Our Faith: A Journey Through Egypt (2018) and Seeing the Future of the African American Church in the Rainbow (2023). In recent years, Watkins has been the artist in residence at the Velvet Note, a nationally recognized jazz club. He has been awarded a Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant, Collegeville Institute Sabbatical Residency Grant, Governor’s Teaching Fellowship, Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Fulbright Hayes Fellowship for study in Ghana, a Wabash Teaching Fellowship, and various awards and grants to study in Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Ghana. You can see his work at https://futureofblackchurch.org/
Education:
Denomination: African Methodist Episcopal
