Author: Bridget Anderson

Evelyn L. Parker, Susanna Wesley Centennial Professor of Practical Theology at Perkins School of Theology, has been selected for a 2019-20 Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant. Parker will spend six months based at the University of Western Cape and the South African Faith and Family Institute in Cape Town, South Africa, working on a project titled Role of Religions Leaders in Preventing and Intervening in Teen Dating Violence in South Africa.

“The #MeToo Movement has raised global awareness of sexual harassment of women and girls,” Parker said.  “I’m looking to explore the role that religious leaders of multiple faiths in Cape Town, South Africa play in addressing teen dating violence through ecumenical and interfaith institutions.”

Why South Africa? Parker says that a good deal of research and scholarship has originated from South Africa on teen dating violence, which includes controlling, abusive, and/or violent behavior in adolescent romantic relationships.

“They are more progressive about having a conversation about this issue in South Africa,” she said. “I believe that community leaders in the U.S. who are concerned about teen dating violence can benefit from the experiences and knowledge of religious leaders there.”

In addition, she has developed a number of relationships with faith leaders in South Africa through her interfaith work with the World Council of Churches and by way of immersion trips she has led in South Africa with SMU students and others since 2008.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), teen dating violence affects millions of teens in the U.S. each year. Data from CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey indicate that nearly 1 in 11 female and approximately 1 in 15 male high school students report having experienced physical dating violence in the last year.

Parker will use qualitative methods of observation and interviews, to explore the nature of religious leadership in preventing the problem.

The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, a presidentially appointed 12-member Board, is responsible for supervising the Fulbright Program worldwide and approving the selection of all Fulbright recipients. Grants are made possible through funds appropriated annually by the U.S. Congress and, in many cases, by contributions from partner countries and the private sector. The Fulbright Program aims to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries and is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs, and university presidents, as well as leading journalists, artists, scientists, and teachers. They include 59 Nobel Laureates, 84 Pulitzer Prize winners, 72 MacArthur Fellows, 16 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, and thousands of leaders across the private, public and non-profit sectors. Since its inception in 1946, more than 380,000 “Fulbrighters” have participated in the Program.

Mohandas Gandhi’s famous words, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” inspire Emily Clark. Those words have guided her in her studies, her work and even in her choice of the place where she lives.

Clark is an M.A.M. student who expects to graduate in 2020, with a concentration in social justice and theology, including community organizing and process theology.

Clark’s spiritual journey – still in progress – led her to Perkins.

“I always had a lot of theological questions growing up but was never really satisfied with the answers I was getting,” she said. “I was always pulled to know more. I applied to Perkins, and now I’m here.”

A Dallas native, Clark earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas in Austin, with a major in sociology and a minor in philosophy. Her career plans are open-ended, but she’d like to work in community building, community organizing or faith-based intentional communities.

This past year, Clark worked part-time on campus for Robert Hunt, director of Global Theological Education (GTE), assisting with editing of videos for the Global Theological Education Virtual Visiting Professor project. The project aims to create a fully accessible and continually growing library of short classes coming from scholars worldwide and available across the globe.

“I’ve been teaching myself video production as we go,” she said. “The newest videos are so much prettier than the first videos we created. It’s been a learning process for both of us, but it’s been fun.”

Next year, Clark will intern at Grace United Methodist Church – located right next door to her home. Clark, along with her cat, Binx, lives in Bonhoeffer House, an intentional community adjacent to Grace. It’s a project of the Missional Wisdom Foundation. All residents are seminary students or recent graduates who practice a monastic discipline, living and worshiping together while pouring themselves into serving the poor in their neighborhood.

The three young women at Bonhoeffer host a community meal every Wednesday night, taking turns leading the program. “We open our home to people in the neighborhood and have a meal and prayer,” Clark said. “Before, when I lived alone, I felt a little isolated.” Living at Bonhoeffer, however, “feels more and more right.”

For personal spiritual practice, Clark enjoys writing and journaling. That dovetails nicely with her participation in the inaugural cohort of the Minister-Author-Scholar-Teacher (MAST) Program, launched as a pilot venture in the fall of 2018. MAST’s goal is preparing Perkins students to speak through alternative “pulpits” – books, blogs, film, music and other media.

The two-year program offers resources and training to students interested in writing or creating other media for the church and academy. The group gathers for four events per semester. Next year, students will participate in a capstone course, with the goal of creating and submitting a publishable work, such as a book, to a publisher or media outlet.

“I love to write; the MAST program is helping me to follow that interest and really develop it,” she said. “It’s wonderful to have a group of like-minded people – I call it a community of creative creators. They are a source of motivation and momentum.”

Six African-American pastors from the South Central Jurisdiction recently completed a preaching excellence program co-sponsored by the Black Church Initiative of the North Texas Conference and the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU. The leadership team that put the program together included Rev. Dr. Alyce M. McKenzie, Le Van Professor of Preaching and Worship at Perkins and director of the Center for Preaching Excellence. The team developed a vision for a program to take good preaching to next-level greatness shaped by the “Four P’s of Preaching: Passion, Purpose, Preparation and Plot.” Another cohort is planned for 2019-20.

Read about the program here.

As a young mother, singing alto in the Highland Park Methodist Church choir, Jane Marshall decided to compose music for a text she loved — the Rev. Edward Caswall’s English translation of an anonymous Latin poem from the 17th century.

Eventually titled “My Eternal King,” the stirring anthem had its debut at Highland Park Methodist Church in 1952, with Marshall conducting. Two years later it was published, and gradually became a staple of church choirs, giving the composer a measure of fame and a succession of welcome royalty checks. Read the UMNS obituary here.

Charles Stokes Scholarship

“When you ask God for a sign, you really need to be prepared for what you’re going to get,” says Jennifer Kilpatrick (M.Div. ’21), because it could potentially be pretty extreme.” For Kilpatrick, the sign was a freak snowfall in New Orleans that came just moments after she received word that she’d been accepted to Perkins School of Theology.

She applied for a Charles Stokes Scholarship to Perkins and received it. “I’m extravagantly blessed,” she said. Listen to  her testimony here, posted to promote a May 6 golf tournament fundraiser: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=374861356455732

Through a new partnership between St. Andrew UMC in Plano and Perkins School of Theology at SMU, the Charles Stokes Seminary Education Scholarship Fund provides scholarship funds each year to two qualified applicants who show gifts for a promising future in church leadership,in the amount of $15,000 each. In addition, St. Andrew mentors the students over three years to help develop them into future leaders of the United Methodist Church.

GCAH Awards

Two students have been honored for their work by the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church.

An essay by Joyce Vanderlip (M.Div. ’20) won first place in the 2019 John Harrison Ness Memorial Award for student essays. The Commission offers the award to M.Div. students in United Methodist seminaries who submit papers on an aspect of Methodist history. Her paper, “Albert C. Outler: A Builder of Interfaith Relations,” was submitted by Professor Ted Campbell.

Kristina Roth (M.Div. ’20) received the 2019 Women in United Methodist History Writing Award for her paper, “An Analysis of the Work of Georgia Harkness.” Both received cash prizes as part of their awards.