Category: Faculty

Faculty Profile: Jaime Clark-Soles

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date May 1, 2019

Walk by Jaime Clark-Soles’ office, and you might overhear her on the phone, saying something like, “Sure, I’ll do Evil.”

That’s because she’s often asked to tackle the topic of evil at panel discussions and other gatherings. To many students on campus, she’s best known as the professor who teaches the course “Evil, Suffering, Death and the Afterlife.”

But as professor of New Testament and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Perkins, Jaime Clark-Soles’ sphere of influence expands well beyond the campus.

*Dr. Clark-Soles teaching at the 2019 Perkins Theological School for the Laity. Photo by G. Rogers, SMU Photography.*

She averages about three speaking gigs a month, locally, nationally or internationally, ranging from lectures at other universities (a recent one was at Belmont University in Nashville), to leading clergy workshops, to laity education in churches of various denominations. She recently finished recording a series of videos about the Book of Glory, the second half of the gospel of John, as part of a Lenten study at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.

“I’m out speaking, teaching and preaching to anybody and everybody interested,” she said. “Have Bible, will travel.”

That fast travel pace may slow just a bit in the coming months as Clark-Soles finishes up two new books: a six-lesson study of 1 Corinthians for Abingdon Ministry Resources, and a “massive” volume on women in the Bible as part of the Interpretation Commentary series, to be published in 2020 by Westminster John Knox Press.

“I know, there are already many books about women in the Bible, so I’ve identified eight ways this particular book will serve the readers,” she said. “One goal is to lift up those women in the Bible who’ve been ignored in the past but are crucial to our tradition.”

Another is to recover women whose person or legacy has been erased from Christian tradition. For example, there’s Junia, a female apostle who appears in Romans 16. Translators added an “s” to change her name to the masculine, Junias.

“She literally got erased from history by an ‘s,’” she said. “I address those translation moves that demote or erase women. They were political moves.”

A third goal entails correcting misinterpretations of women in the Bible, such as the Samaritan woman, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Jesus.

With help from David E. Schmersal, reference and digital services librarian at the Bridwell Library, Clark-Soles’ book will note where each woman’s story appears in the Lectionary – or not. The goal is to help pastors and teachers connect the material to the Lectionary – but also to understand that many of these stories were omitted from the Lectionary.

She’s also preparing to co-teach a hybrid course this fall at Houston Methodist Hospital as part of Perkins’ Houston-Galveston program. The subject is “Disability, the Bible and Theology.” Portions of the course will be open to chaplains, nurses and other health care professionals.

On top of all this work, she also serves as the founding director of the Baptist House of Studies at Perkins. The “BHS,” as it’s called, provides the opportunity for Baptist students to receive a stellar ecumenical education while being distinctively formed and professionalized in the Baptist tradition. This includes coursework, ordination preparation, internships and connections within the various trajectories of the Baptist family. Clark-Soles, an ordained Baptist minister, is spearheading events such as a campus visit on October 3 by Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, and hosting the Baptist-affiliated Shurden Lectures at Perkins in the spring of 2020.

Clark-Soles is also an avid traveler but is most proud of the four Global Theological Immersion Trips she has led in recent years with Perkins students and laypeople to Palestine and Israel, which includes a curriculum she calls “Dead Stones and Living Stones.”

“Certainly, we visit meaningful places from the Bible, but we also spend time on current life in the Holy Land, including residing in the West Bank and visiting refugee camps,” she said. “We’re there to learn and hear firsthand about the conflict from both Jewish and Palestinian presenters.”

Teaching Specialties

Johannine literature (Gospel of John; 1-3 John; Revelation); evil, suffering, death and afterlife; New Testament ethics; disability and the Bible; Koine Greek; Israel/Palestine Cultural Immersion trips

Research Interests

Johannine literature; evil, suffering, death and afterlife; Disability Theory and the New Testament; the use and authority of Scripture; women in the Bible; gender and the Bible

Favorite Bible Verse

John 10:10 – I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. “That’s how I decide if something is Christian or not. Does it promote life for all of God’s creation? Or does it not?”

Book on Her Nightstand

The Anatomy of Peace – Resolving the Heart of Conflict by The Arbinger Institute

Fantasy Dinner Party

“I’d invite some of the people I’ve been studying and writing about all my life: Mary Magdalene, Mary, Mother of Jesus, the Samaritan Woman, Paul and Jesus. I would really love to sit around a table and just ask them to tell me what life was really like for them. I’d ask, ‘What made you laugh?’ You have to imagine they had some kind of joy.”

Pets

A rescue dog named Connor. “We adopted him thinking he’d swim with my son and run with me,” she said. “He doesn’t do either. He has taught us a lot about the fact that everyone comes with a backstory that shapes them and they are not here to be what we want them to be. Luckily, he has accepted us as we are as well, with enthusiasm. He’s been a learning experience in the meaning of love.”

Hobbies

Running, racquetball, paddleboard, biking, lifting weights. “I like to be physically active,” she said.

Favorite Travel Destination

“Italy. I am a military brat and went to high school there. It feels like a home base. And the food can’t be beat!”

April 2019 Faculty News Perspective Online

Faculty Profile: Abraham Smith

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date April 1, 2019

If you doubt whether the Bible is relevant today, talk to Abraham Smith. His wide-ranging work centers on connecting Biblical texts to modern issues – as well as contributing to a major, worldwide effort to update a translation of the Bible itself.

Currently, Smith is on sabbatical. He recently completed a book manuscript that examines mass incarceration in tandem with Luke’s critique of injustice in the Roman empire.

“There are imprisonment scenes all over the Book of Acts,” he said. “The book compares the prisons of today with prisons mentioned in the Book of Acts.”

He’s also working on research focused on church-based moral movements in four different time periods: The 1^st century moral movement of which Jesus was a part; the anti-lynching crusade of Ida B. Wells in the late 19^thand early 20^th centuries; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of the 1960s led by Martin Luther King, Jr.; and the Third Reconstruction new fusion politics movement, begun in 2013 and led by the Rev. William Barber II of North Carolina, fighting for justice and against poverty.

“I’m looking at all four moral movements for their prophetic rhetoric, how they crafted their words and ideas to change public sentiment,” Smith said.

Smith, a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, also serves as a National Council of Churches’ representative to the editorial board that is overseeing an updated edition of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The Society of Biblical Literature, which developed the mandate for the updated edition in collaboration with the National Council of Churches, also recruited the editorial team and now manages the editorial process.

“The National Council of Churches owns the publishing rights to the NRSV, and there’s a 30-year review underway,” he said. “It’s not going to be a complete revision, but it will be an update, made in light of advances in scholarship, the publication of new manuscripts, and new information about the meaning of the words themselves. There’s also an effort to create more consistency in the text critical notation patterns.”

The most recent version was published in 1989; the next — after some debate, dubbed the “NRSV Update” — is scheduled for publication in 2020. The NRSV Update will continue to aim for the NRSV’s goal of being “as literal as possible and as graceful as possible.”

Smith has also been commissioned to do two other works: a book on the Black Studies movement in higher education, which began in the late 1960s and early 1970s and continues under the banner of African-American Studies or Africana Studies; and an essay looking at Howard Thurman and his seminal influential treatise, Jesus and the Disinherited, originally published in 1949. Thurman (1900-1981), an African-American author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader, served as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1965 and co-founded the first major interracial, interdenominational church in the United States.

“I’m writing an essay on that classic text for the 70^th anniversary,” Smith said. “It’s an examination of the historical Jesus in the light of his attempts to address the needs of the disinherited and marginalized – persons with their ‘backs against the wall’.”

*Abraham Smith with Andrea Chambers, a Perkins alum and board member of Equity for Women in the Church.*

Smith is also involved in advocacy and educational efforts that take him beyond the walls of the academy. He’s on the board of a group called Equity for Women in the Church, an ecumenical movement helping congregations become more “female friendly,” and locally, he’s part of the Urban Engagement Book Club.

The book club is hosted by CitySquare Opportunity Center, an urban ministry program based in South Dallas, and has studied books on social justice topics ranging from Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy to Joyce King’s Hate Crime.

“I get a chance to hear about interesting books that I need to read,” he said. “And since we’re always talking about how these books deal with an issue in society, that keeps me grounded.”

Teaching Specialties

Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Mark, 1 Thessalonians

Research Interests

African American biblical hermeneutics, cultural studies

Favorite Bible Verse

Proverbs 4:18, But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. “I discovered this verse when I saw the words in Spanish in an email from a friend in Chile,” Smith said. “I wondered where they came from and was shocked to learn they were from the Bible! I’ve been fascinated with this verse ever since.”

Book on the Nightstand

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book looks at the presidential leadership styles of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. “The author looks at each of these four presidents’ ability to adapt,” he said. “Given the turbulent times we live in, I see the book as instructive about how leaders can adapt today in the face of personal and public difficulties.”

Fantasy dinner party

“I’d make it a small dinner party. I’d invite two persons I’m writing about: Ida B. Wells and Howard Thurman. The topic of discussion: How does one change the narrative or various myths that deny each person the right to have dignity and respect? That’s a concern for me. There are so many instances where persons are counted as nobodies because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or class. How do we change the narrative to give value and dignity to each person?”

Family

“I’m originally from Mobile, Ala. My mother, Pauline Robinson Smith, died at a young age; so my father, Calvin Lewis Smith, a blind man, raised five children by himself. He was a minister who learned to read Braille and do trades. Friends and relatives wanted to break up my family, but my father insisted on raising us together, and all of us finished college and have done well in life. Three have master’s degrees, and I have a Ph.D. Both of my parents are gone now, but they still live and breathe in everything I do.”

Something about you that most people don’t know?

“Despite being gregarious, I don’t crave public attention. I’m very quiet and I love a lot of alone time.”

You get to ask one question at the Pearly Gates. What do you ask?

“I don’t think much about the afterlife, but I would like to know, ‘Are those gates there to let people in, or to keep people out?’ We hear so much about walls and gates. Whatever heaven is going to be, I hope it doesn’t translate into more structures that separate us.”

Do you follow a regular, personal practice (prayer, meditation, walking, etc.) that nourishes your spirit?

“I can’t live without music. Music nourishes my spirit. Every day I wake up to Kirk Whalum’s ‘Hymns: in the Garden.’ It’s a gospel CD of purely instrumental jazz. That music centers me for whatever my day brings.”

April 2019 Faculty News Perspective Online

Faculty Update

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date April 1, 2019

Alyce McKenzie translates advice for good preaching into tips for politicians

As Director of the Center for Preaching Excellence, Alyce McKenzie teaches preachers how to have something important to say and to say it well from the pulpit. (Rule one: Don’t bore the hell out of people.) She translates advice for preachers into tips for politicians, in this column in Inside Sources, an online aggregator of opinion pieces. Read it here.

Anthony J. Elia: Libraries aren’t dead – far from it

Futurists have predicted the decline of the library for decades; in the early 2000s, many believed that all books would be digitized or online and the need for libraries would soon disappear. Instead, there has been a concerted return to and re-emergence of the physical book, a now booming used-book market, a steady decline in e-book sales — and a return to a physical reality of the printed word that many people did not expect, according to Anthony J. Elia, the J.S. Bridwell Foundation Endowed Librarian and Director of Bridwell Library at SMU Dallas. His column appeared in Inside Sources and the West Virginia Gazette Mail.

Faculty March 2019 News Perspective Online

Faculty Profile: Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date March 4, 2019

Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, Professor of Pastoral Care and Pastoral Theology. Photo by SMU Photography.

When the United States marks the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in 2020, Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner will be poised to help people at SMU and beyond to celebrate, look back and learn.

She is co-editing a book, Women with 2020 Vision: Theologians on the Vote (1920), Voice, and Vision of Women with Bishop Teresa Jefferson-Snorton, 59th Bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) denomination and the first woman elected to the position. The book will be published in time to mark the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment on August 18, 1920. Fifteen contributors will each write a chapter.

“I think we need to just pause for a moment, in the cacophony and noise, to celebrate the fact that these women, in spite of their differences, pulled off something so incredible,” she said. “We’re not finished yet. We have a long way to go. We need to keep on in the progress toward equal rights, equal pay and equal acknowledgement. But let’s pause to celebrate.

Stevenson-Moessner is also working to assemble a display of artifacts related to the struggle and eventual passage of suffrage, a display to benefit undergraduate students and others at SMU. In recent years, she has collected items such as original newspaper clippings from the 1860s and 1850s covering the conferences of women who worked to help pass the vote. They include newspaper stories about Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech and campaign ephemera advocating for and against women’s suffrage.

How did she come to amass this collection of items? “My daughter is very tech savvy,” she said. “She introduced me to eBay.”

Stevenson-Moessner began collecting the items because she was fascinated by the way women of such diverse backgrounds worked together, successfully, toward the common goal of suffrage. She hopes the display will serve as a reminder of the importance of voting.

“Whether the weather is bad or it’s inconvenient to get out, students need to know how hard fought this was,” she said.

In teaching courses in pastoral theology, Stevenson-Moessner has worked to establish connections that help keep the coursework grounded in the broader community beyond the walls of Perkins. She has trained in a rape crisis center, an addictive disease unit, three domestic violence programs, a community mental health clinic and a child abuse council. She was a three-year resident at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta and on the staff of a counseling center. For classes on crisis ministry and sexual and domestic violence, she takes students to train in places such as Genesis Women’s Shelter and the Rape Crisis Center at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

“At the Rape Crisis Center, we go into the unoccupied exam rooms and the students undergo training right there with people who specialize in this area,” she said. Staff from local agencies also come occasionally to the classroom to teach.

Stevenson-Moessner is an ordained Presbyterian minister who stays connected with the Grace Presbytery and attends all the ordination and installation services for Perkins students and recent graduates who are Presbyterian. She is also an active member of The Compassionate Friends, a group for people who have lost a child or a sibling. While it relates to her professional work in pastoral theology, in this case the connection is personal. Her son, David Stevenson Moessner, died in a car accident in January 2015.

“When we went through this shattering experience, the Perkins community rallied around us in a way I could never have imagined,” she said. “Without asking, people showed up to clean our house, put away our Christmas decorations and stocked our fridge. The memorial service filled Perkins Chapel. The entire Seminary Singers choir performed. Former students came back. Colleagues stepped forward and taught my classes. I didn’t even ask. I’ve seen Perkins at its finest.”

Faculty Profile

Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner

Issues in practical theology, pastoral care of women, crisis ministry, pastoral self-care, family systems theory, adoption

Research Interests

Multicultural issues in pastoral care of women, cross-cultural children and their identity formation, the impact of violence on our culture

Favorite Bible Verse

“Luke 10:27, which reads, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ It wasn’t until later in life that I actually heard those last two words. We’re not called to love just two but all three – God, neighbor, self. That realization changed my life. I always try to make sure that those three loves are honored. The hardest is love of self.”

Book on the Nightstand

“I’m almost finished with Less by Andrew Sean Greer. It’s a work of fiction; I picked it up in the airport because it won the Pulitzer. I try to read Pulitzer Prize-winning books to help improve my own writing.”

Fantasy Dinner Party

“First, I’d make sure that someone else does the cooking. I want this to be a meal where I can sit and enjoy it. I would like to invite close members of my family who I’ve lost, who have passed over the thin veil of earth to beyond – which I take as heaven. I would just start the conversation by asking, “How have you been?” Then I’d ask, “What is it really like in heaven? Did you ever worry about me or others you left behind? Do you experience any pain? I have an assumption that there’s no regret; there’s healing.”

Family

Husband Rev. Dr. David Paul Moessner holds the A.A. Bradford Chair in Religion at TCU. Daughter Jean McCarley Stevenson Moessner is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s BFA program and now a jeweler in Dubuque. Son, David Stevenson Moessner, who passed away in 2015.

Pet

A Pomeranian named Little Bit.

Hobby

“I’m a seasoned antique sale-er. I go treasure hunting at garage sales and estate sales around Highland Park every Saturday morning.”

Something About You that Most People Don’t Know

“I’m related to Jack Daniels. My grandmother was his niece.”

Signature Dish

Shrimp Creole

Personal Spiritual Practices

Each morning, she reads a passage from Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief by Martha Whitmore Hickmann. She also attends a deep conditioning exercise class. “It’s very rigorous; the woman who leads it is like a loving drill sergeant,” she said. “The class helps me to keep my body centered. When I was president of the University Senate (2016-17), I had to carry the University Mace at convocations. It was heavy – 26 pounds – and you carry it down a very long hallway. The women in the class were so supportive and helped me train for that.”

Faculty March 2019 News Perspective Online

Faculty Update

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date March 4, 2019

The Rev. Dr. O. Wesley Allen, Jr., Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics at Perkins, traveled to Casper, Wyoming, recently as part of a workshop sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming. The 51 lay and ordained attendees exceeded the capacity of the Diocesan office, so the event was moved to another venue, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. Attendees included seasoned seminary-trained priests, bi-vocational clergy, licensed lay preachers, students in the Wyoming Iona School and many others interested in improving their preaching. Allen was one of several instructors there from the Episcopal Preaching Foundation. Read the story here.

Faculty February 2019 News Perspective Online

Faculty Profile: Harold J. Recinos

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date February 4, 2019

Given all that he has accomplished, you might assume that Harold J. “Hal” Recinos came from a privileged background. He is a professor, a poet, an ordained United Methodist minister, an author, a long-distance runner, a champion martial artist, an activist and a humanitarian. But most of all, he is a man with a heart for the poor – because he was once homeless himself.

*Recinos at a worship service in El Salvador with the Rev. Medardo Gomez, bishop of the Lutheran Church of El Salvador.*

The child of destitute immigrant parents, Recinos spent four years on the streets of New York in his early teens, shooting dope and scrounging food from dumpsters. What eventually saved him was education and faith.

“The two most secure places for me were school and church,” he said. “I loved them both. Even while I was on the streets, I spent time in the library. It was warm and I could read.” Books taught him that life could get better.

At age 16, a Presbyterian minister took Recinos into his family’s home in the New York area, helping him overcome his addiction and encouraging him in his education. Eventually, Recinos went on to earn graduate degrees in theology as well as a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from American University.

While interning at a church working with the homeless in New York, Recinos discovered the Nuyorican Poets Café, a center for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy and theatre on New York’s Lower East Side. (Nuyorican is a portmanteau of “New York” and “Puerto Rican.”) There, he met the late poet Miguel Piñero, who encouraged him to share some of his earliest poetry.

“I think of poetry as my way of doing graffiti on public culture and representing the edges of society – giving voice to the barrios, the communities rendered voiceless and invisible by the more established sectors,” he said.

This spring, he’ll publish his 14th book, and eighth volume of poetry, Stony the Road. It’s a collection of poetry focusing on themes such as racism, police brutality, anti-immigrant sentiment and the treatment of unaccompanied youth who cross into the U.S. at the southern border. Recinos’ previous books have been well-received; as reviewer Frederick Luis Aldama wrote, “With surgical precision, Recinos singles out just the right word and image that drop us deep into the pains, sorrows and joys of what it means to be Latinx in the United States today.” (See an example of his poetry in the sidebar.)

Recinos keeps his academic work grounded in the world through his work in Dallas-area urban communities and in El Salvador. He recently returned from an immersion trip in El Salvador, where he introduced Perkins students to Salvadoran human rights leaders.

Along with his wife, MariaJose Recinos, Recinos founded the Oscar Romero Center for Community Health & Education, a Dallas-based nonprofit with the mission “to positively impact the health, education and well-being of children and their families in the North Texas area, and in El Salvador.”

Doing this work in struggling and marginalized communities, Recinos said, “reminds me of the importance of living life by staying close to crucified people. Their lives matter to God, and they need to matter to the church.”

Book on the nightstand

The Letters That Never Came, by Mauricio Rosencof, an autobiographical novel, based on the life of Rosencof, a Uruguayan playwright, poet and journalist who was imprisoned and tortured by the government for 12 years.

Fantasy dinner party

“I’d invite Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian novelist; Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest regarded as one of the founders of liberation theology; Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet; and Miguel Piñero, the Nuyorican poet. I would ask the question that Gutierrez poses to us: ‘So you say you love the poor. What are their names?’ I’d serve pupusas – it’s a Salvadoran staple, a thick corn tortilla stuffed with a savory filling like beans.”

Family

Wife MariaJose, a therapist and SMU graduate; three grown children: Jesse, a computer analyst, Claire, a nursing student, and Samuel, a recent graduate of Emory School of Medicine in orthopedic residency; two children at home, Elijah Joshua, a sophomore at SMU, and Hannah Sophia, a fifth grader; and a dog named Zeb.

Hobbies

*Recinos with his coach at an International Kung Fu Championship, where he picked up 15 medals (14 Gold, 1 Silver.)*

Recinos is a three-time international tournament Grand Champion martial artist (2012, 2013, 2015). He teaches at the Hebei Chinese Martial Arts Institute for his coach, and the institute’s founder, Master Wuzhong Jia, and has won numerous medals at international competitions for Kung Fu and Chinese Martial Arts. Said Recinos: “I like the discipline of martial arts. It’s a way of learning how to discipline your own soul.”

Question he’d ask at the Pearly Gates

“We lost my brother, Rudy, to drug addiction on Easter Sunday in 1985. I had struggled with him, to get him off drugs and into a drug detox program, but he went back. So my first question will be, ‘Is Rudy here?’”

Personal spiritual practice

A lifelong distance runner, Recinos runs 8-10 miles every morning. “No matter where I go, my running shoes are with me,” he said.

Cooking specialty?

“None. I’m a terrible cook. It’s really problematic for my kids when Maria is traveling. The kids forbid me to cook.”

River Calling ©

Click to read “River Calling ©”, a poem by Hal Recinos from his forthcoming ninth collection of poetry, Cornered by Darkness; expected publication in late 2020.

Faculty February 2019 News Perspective Online

Faculty Updates

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date February 4, 2019

New Appointment: Hugo Magallanes

Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University has announced the appointment of Hugo Magallanes as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, effective June 2019.

Currently, Magallanes serves as director of Perkins’ Houston-Galveston Extension Program and is Associate Professor of Christianity and Cultures. In his new role, he will manage the curriculum of academic programs, support faculty development and provide for academic advising to students.

In the first years of his term, this work will also likely include helping to prepare for accreditation visits and supporting an expansion of the Perkins student population with the Houston-Galveston program, as well as a new Baptist House of Studies and Perkins’ unique Spanish-language Th.M. program.

“Hugo brings extensive administrative experience to the position of Associate Dean for Academic Affairs,” said Perkins Dean Craig Hill. “He will continue oversight of our growing Houston-Galveston program, working closely with Associate Director Dallas Gingles, and help us further integrate our curriculum between locations and modalities.”

Associate Dean Evelyn Parker added, “His deep familiarity and network among United Methodist and Latinx communities will help us to accelerate the growth and effectiveness of our academic programs during this time of rapid change in theological education.”

Magallanes, who joined the Perkins faculty 11-1/2 years ago, says he is gratified by the progress he has witnessed over the years, as Perkins continued to attract high-quality students, inspired excellent research and offered theological education that is relevant to more students.

“In this new role, it is my hope and prayer to serve the Perkins community with God’s grace and guidance,” Magallanes said. “I am looking forward to continuing the remarkable work established by Associate Dean Parker and supporting Dean Hill’s vision for Perkins.”

Parker, who is current Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, will continue as the Susanna Wesley Centennial Chair in Practical Theology and is preparing for a well-deserved research leave in the next academic year.

“Perkins School of Theology owes a significant debt of appreciation to Evelyn Parker,” Dean Hill said. “When appointed as dean, I asked her to extend her term by one additional year so that I could fully benefit from her wisdom and expertise. Indeed, Evelyn Parker has shaped me as a dean and been an absolute joy to work with as part of a close-knit leadership team.”

January in Moscow: Ted Campbell

Ted Campbell celebrated Christmas twice this year: first on December 25 with his family, and then in Moscow on January 7, when Russian Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas Day.

But Campbell was among United Methodists, teaching a one-week intensive to students at the Moscow Theological Seminary of the United Methodist Church.

His visit is part of an ongoing connection that brings U.S.-based theology professors to the campus for the January term. Opened in 1995, the seminary trains pastors for the 115 United Methodist churches in Russia.

Campbell was there at the invitation of the school’s president, the Rev. Sergei Nikolaev, a PhD graduate of the Graduate Program in Religious Studies at SMU.

“Because Protestant Christian churches were outlawed for much of Russia’s history, there is a dearth of seminary-trained Methodist professors there,” said Campbell. “Sergei has developed courses in January and at other times of the year so they can be staffed by United Methodist faculty from the U.S.”

For the one-week intensive, Campbell taught a class on “John Wesley: A Single Life in Community,” to a group of about 30 Russian, Ukrainian and Kyrgyzstani students. Each day’s schedule included four hour-and-a-half sessions as well as meals.

Teaching with the help of a translator, Campbell detailed how Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, was an extraordinary leader but a bit of a failure as a husband. After he married, he spent most of his time apart from his wife. By all accounts the marriage was an unhappy one.

“Wesley lived most of his life in communities that he’d helped set up, and he lived a very regimented, disciplined life,” Campbell said. “Many of the Moscow students found this idea challenging, because it sounded like monasticism, which they associate with the Orthodox church.”

Campbell says the intensive program is important because, due to the patchwork history of Methodism in Russia, many students are still learning what it means to be United Methodist. Most grew up with parents who were atheists and grandparents who were Orthodox, if only nominally.

Some United Methodist churches in Russia were originally founded by non-denominational evangelists who came to Russia in the 1990s. In later years, the government has required Protestant Christian churches to affiliate with a denomination; some non-denominational churches chose to connect with the United Methodist Church, without much understanding of Methodist ethos or theology.

“As first-generation Christians, most United Methodists in Russia and Eurasia did not learn what it means to be United Methodist from parents and grandparents,” he said. “Teaching in the Moscow Theological Seminary is one of the ways in which Perkins faculty extend the work of the School of Theology and also bring insights back to our students in Dallas and Houston.”

Faculty January 2019 News Perspective Online

Faculty Profile: Alyce M. McKenzie

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date January 9, 2019

Alyce McKenzie remembers vividly an image that struck her deeply, in the early days of her career: the look of expectation in the faces of worshippers at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in York, Pa., as she stepped up to the pulpit to begin her sermon.

“It was like, ‘Please, sir, can I have some more?’” she said, invoking the iconic scene where Oliver Twist pleads for more food. “There’s this hope that springs eternal. I thought, ‘Surely there’s additional training I can seek that can help me answer that hunger more effectively.’”

That moment put McKenzie on a path that’s still guiding much of her academic work and career. She’s not only preparing Perkins students to become better preachers, but also coaching current pastors in improving their preaching, constantly researching new ways to help pastors preach more effectively, and often preaching at local churches. All of which, in turn, inspires and informs her academic work.

As Director of the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU, “I’m in touch with church leaders and pastors from a variety of denominations, helping to form and lead groups of pastors dedicated to taking their preaching to the next level,” she said. “It gives me a connection with the challenges and needs for enrichment of pastors in local congregation.”

McKenzie also gives lectures and leads workshops at seminaries and colleges. This spring she’ll lecture at Memphis Theological Seminary, and she is guest lecturer for the John and Marjem Gill Preaching Workshop at Hendrix College. She recently published a textbook for preachers and preaching students, Making A Scene in the Pulpit: Vivid Preaching for Visual Listeners, which grew out of the Lyman Beecher Lectures she presented at Yale Divinity School in 2015.

McKenzie is enthusiastic about a new project co-sponsored by the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU and Westminster John Knox Press called “Preaching and…” which came out of a brainstorming session with colleague O. Wesley Allen, Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics. It pairs experts in homiletics with scholars from other disciplines in interdisciplinary workshops that offer fresh insights for preaching from other fields. The first workshop, scheduled for April 8, 2019 at Perkins, will bring together Allen and Carrie La Ferle, a professor at SMU Meadows’ Temerlin Advertising Institute, on the topic, “Preaching and the Thirty Second Commercial.” The second workshop will be Preaching and Politics in which McKenzie will collaborate with a political scientist. Ultimately, the workshops will result in a series of books for preachers, edited by Allen and published by Westminster John Knox Press.

“Now that there is so much competition for people’s attention, it’s more important than ever that we learn strategies from other disciplines for reaching people’s minds, hearts and wills,” McKenzie said. “Marketing experts are masters of analyzing the market, branding the product and then putting on a campaign to convince people that the product is absolutely necessary to their everyday lives.” Future “Preaching and” topics include neuroscience, humor studies and screenwriting.

McKenzie attends First United Methodist in Allen, which will focus its 2019 Lenten sermons and study groups on a book she has written for a popular audience published in 2018, Wise Up! Four Biblical Virtues for Navigating Life. She also serves as “Preacher in Residence” at Christ United Methodist Church in Plano, where she coaches the church’s preaching staff, leads group workshops on preaching, and also preaches several times a year.

This month, McKenzie will be honored by the Academy of Preachers, a group dedicated to nurturing the skills of young preachers, with an Award in Homiletical Writing at the Academy’s National Festival in Atlanta.

“I enjoy teaching at Perkins, but the other things I do are not add-ons,” she said. “They are integral to Perkins’ mission to ‘prepare women and men for faithful leadership in Christian Ministry.’”

Teaching Specialties

Preaching biblical wisdom literature; imagination and preaching; spiritual formation and preaching; preaching as teaching; creative sermon design; preaching the sayings and parables of Jesus; preaching on controversial public issues.

Research Interests

Preaching the biblical wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job); preaching on the short sayings and parables of Jesus; imagination, storytelling and preaching; creative sermon design; preaching on controversial public issues; preaching in scenes to capture and hold the attention of visual listeners.

Family

Husband Murry McKenzie, who directed youth musicals at the first church she was appointed to after seminary. “The ladies of the church played matchmakers – they put us on the same committees,” she said. The McKenzies have three grown children: Melissa McKenzie, a chef in Fredericksburg, Texas, Matthew McKenzie, a financial analyst for VMG Health Services, and Rebecca Gingles, a Perkins graduate and Director of Communications for The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, who’s married to Dallas Gingles, Associate Director of Perkins’ Houston-Galveston Program. The McKenzies have two grandsons, Graham (5) and Silas (1).

Book on the nightstand

“Right now, it’s a novel, The Witch Elm by Tana French. I rotate between biographies, novels, non-fiction and history. I just finished Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America and The Future of Nostalgia by Svetlana Boym.”

Question she’d ask God at the Pearly Gates

“What false assumption that human beings spout about you do you find most offensive?”

Fantasy dinner party

“I’d invite people who, in their own ways, acted boldly in keeping with an inner conviction. George Whitfield, who was a phenomenal 18^th century preacher known for his riveting storytelling and resonant voice; Queen Vashti, who stood up to King Ahasuerus in the book of Esther; Sophie Scholl, who at age 22 stood up to the Nazis in Germany, and suffered the consequences; St. Francis of Assisi; Jarena Lee (1783-1864), a traveling female AME evangelist who boldly stood up for her right to preach; Aimee Semple McPherson, the Pentecostal evangelist who founded the Foursquare Church in the 1920s and 1930s; Audre Lord, poet, feminist and civil rights advocate; and Winston Churchill. The question I’d ask each: What’s the source of your fire in the belly?”

Signature dish

“McKenzie’s Fabulous Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, with bran, flaxseed, ground nuts and oatmeal. I made a game out of trying to see how many heathy ingredients I could add and still have them taste good.”

December 2018 Faculty News Perspective Online

Faculty Profile: Ruben L. F. Habito

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date December 3, 2018

Ruben Habito speaks four languages, travels widely and dialogues comfortably with people of many different faiths. But one simple, short Bible passage serves as his “home base.” It’s Mark 1:11, “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

In Mark 1:11, Habito said, he finds a message that runs much deeper than a “warm fuzzy feeling” of being loved.

“It’s a way to look at the suffering and agony of all the people in the world throughout history and even now, including our own, and to understand, that in the midst of our travails, there is something or Someone that whispers into our ear, in and through all of this, that we are not forsaken, that ‘I AM with you,’ that ‘You are my beloved,’” he said.

Grounded in that verse, Habito has become a low-key but influential voice on the Perkins campus and beyond, as a faculty member, author, spiritual director and Zen Roshi (teacher).

At Perkins, Habito heads the spiritual formation program, as well as a certification program for spiritual directors, with the goal of giving students a spiritual grounding for their ministry. He also teaches courses in world religions, with an eye toward “unpacking what we can learn from the world’s religions and enhancing and enriching our ways of doing Christian theology, ministry, and spirituality.”

Beyond campus, Habito is founding teacher of Maria Kannon Zen Center, housed at White Rock United Methodist Church in east Dallas. He began Zen practice under Yamada Koun in Kamakura, Japan in 1971 when he was a Jesuit seminarian in Japan.

“The Zen Center is a central aspect of my life,” he said. “It is nourishing for me to be able to sit in silence with people from all backgrounds and traditions, or none at all, who are seeking something genuine and authentic in life.”

Mark 1:11 also informs Habito’s personal practice of daily meditation, which he describes as “basically just sitting in silence, and basking in Love.”

Habito recently returned from gatherings of the Parliament of World Religions and the American Academy of Religion; he is often called on to speak at international interfaith gatherings and to participate in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. He’s also the author of several books – his most recent is Be Still and Know: Zen and the Bible – that explore connections between Buddhism and Christian faith. Habito hopes his books and his work help make Zen accessible to people of all faiths as well as those with no religious beliefs.

“Zen practice leads to an experience of our connectedness with one another,” he said. “That’s an underlying and recurring theme in my own work and in my own life. Going deep into the core of our being enables us to open our hearts to that transcendent mystery, and at the same time, see our intimate connectedness with all beings, with all the earth.”

Habito’s current research is aimed at crystalizing an understanding of the Trinity from an experiential perspective. With the developments in systematic theology over the last few centuries, he said, a disconnect has arisen between spirituality and theology, with spirituality becoming a subdivision of practical matters that does not inform systematic theology, which attempts to explain ultimate reality in the light of Christian faith. Habito believes reconnecting the two areas can be mutually enriching.

“More and more theologians are seeing that those two areas need to be reunited in order to do theology in a viable way that would address the crucial issues of our contemporary world,” he said.

Teaching Specialties

The world’s religions, East Asian Buddhism, theology of religions and comparative theology, interreligious perspectives in spirituality and mysticism, prayer and spirituality, spirituality and Christian ministry.

Research Interests

Japanese medieval Buddhism, themes in comparative theology, spirituality and socio-ecological engagement, Trinity and the world’s religions.

What book is on your nightstand now?

“It’s a whole pile,” he said. “I’ll give you two: Entertaining Triune Mystery by Jeffrey Pugh and Savouring the Zen Oxherding Pictures by Patrick Gallagher.”

Family

Habito’s wife, Maria, is also a Zen teacher and serves as international program director for the Museum of World Religions in Taiwan. The couple has two grown sons, Benjamin and Florian.

Who would you invite to your fantasy dinner party, and what would you talk about?

“First, let me give you the menu. I would cook grilled salmon, using my favorite Cajun seasoning, called ‘Slap Ya Mama,’ and ratatouille. I would invite the following guests: Augustine’s mother Monica and her famous son (I will tell him how his Confessions continue to move me deeply, but will suggest to him to keep his mother in mind when he writes about women); Nicholas of Cusa (will ask him about the spiritual experience that led him to the insight of ‘coincidence of opposites’ that characterize genuine religious phenomena); Julian of Norwich (will ask her about the struggles she had until she came to the realization that ‘All shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well’); Louis and Zelle Martin, the parents of Therèse of Lisieux (I would listen to their stories of raising their nine children and ask especially about the youngest, Therèse, and her antics as a little girl); and Simone Weil, whose book, Attente de Dieu (‘Attentive to God’ has been a major inspiration in my life, especially her solidarity with the suffering of the earth. I would tell her to eat more of the salmon and ratatouille, and not starve herself to death. Then we will have dessert, a nutcake baked by Maria along with purple yam ice cream from the Asian grocery in Richardson.”

You get to ask one question at the Pearly Gates. What do you ask?

“I’d just have a request: Can everyone else come in, too?”

Habito Labyrinth at Perkins School of Theology

In honor of Habito’s contributions to Perkins, Dodee Frost Crockett and William B. Crockett, Jr., donated a labyrinth to the Perkins campus, which was dedicated in 2009. The Habito Labyrinth—a seven-circuit design, based on the eleven-circuit medieval labyrinth in France’s Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres—is located in the Frost Marcus Labyrinth Courtyard Gardens, in the open and accessible space between Prothro and Selecman Halls at Perkins School of Theology. The path of the labyrinth is about one-third of a mile long and takes about 20 minutes to walk at a moderate pace. The labyrinth is open to anyone who seeks to walk the path toward peace.

December 2018 Faculty News Perspective Online

Faculty Update

Post author By Bridget Anderson
Post date December 3, 2018

AAR-SBL presentations in Denver

Perkins and SMU were well-represented when the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature took place Nov. 17-20 in Denver. Many Perkins School of Theology and SMU professors—as well as SMU Ph.D. students— presented research and participated on panels and in committees. A complete list of Perkins- and SMU-affiliated speakers, including their presentation topics, is available here. In addition, Perkins friends and alumni/ae at the meeting, as well as those in the greater Denver area, gathered November 18 for the annual Perkins-SMU reception at the Sheraton Denver Downtown.

Perkins Faculty Receive Sam Taylor Fellowships

Five Perkins faculty members have been named recipients of Sam Taylor Fellowships from the Sam Taylor Fellowship Fund of the Division of Higher Education, United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. They are: Jaime Clark-Soles, Natalia Marandiuc, Hal Recinos, Marcell Steuernagel and Ted Campbell. The Fellowships, funded by income from a portion of Taylor’s estate, award up to $2,000 for full-time faculty members at United Methodist-related colleges and universities in Texas and support research, “advancing the intellectual, social or religious life of Texas and the nation.” Campbell, for example, will use the funds to help with a proposal for a second edition of his video “Five Waves Over Dallas” on waves of migration into Dallas.

Marandiuc Book Wins Prize

Indiana Wesleyan University’s John Wesley Honors College announced that Natalia Marandiuc’s The Goodness of Home: Human and Divine Love and the Making of the Self (Oxford University Press, 2018) is the winner of the 2018 Aldersgate Prize. The selection committee unanimously chose “The Goodness of Home” among 70 nominations. For more information, read here. Marandiuc, assistant professor of Christian theology at Perkins, will accept the prize at IWU in April. Read more here.

McKenzie To Be Recognized at Preachapalooza

The board of directors of Academy of Preachers, Inc., has nominated Alyce McKenzie, LeVan Professor of Preaching and Worship at Perkins, to be honored with its 2019 Preachapalooza Honors in recognition of her “exemplary contributions to Christian ministry in the area of Homiletical Writing.” The honor will be awarded at a Gala in Atlanta on January 4, 2019. The Academy of Preachers is a national ecumenical initiative dedicated to supporting and inspiring young people in their call to gospel preaching.