Edgardo Colón-Emeric

Dean of Duke Divinity School; Irene and William McCutcheon Professor of Reconciliation and Theology

Edgardo Colón-Emeric is dean of Duke Divinity School, Irene and William McCutchen Professor of Reconciliation and Theology, and director of the Center for Reconciliation. Colón-Emeric’s work explores the intersection of Methodist and Catholic theologies, and Wesleyan and Latin American experiences. His teaching covers a broad range of theological areas, including systematics, Wesleyan theology, ecumenism, and Latin American theology. His research brings theologians like Thomas Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar into conversation with voices from the theological periphery like Bartolomé de las Casas and Saint Óscar Romero, guided by the conviction that Christian theology sounds best when symphonic. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Colón-Emeric was the first Latino to be ordained as an elder in the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church and was founding pastor of Cristo Vive UMC in Durham, NC. He became founding director of the Hispanic House of Studies at Duke Divinity School in 2007 and joined the Divinity School faculty in 2008. From 2010-2021, he served as the director of the Central American Methodist Course of Study, which trains Methodist pastors who have not earned a formal master of divinity degree in such places as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. He is also director of the Duke-Peru Theological Initiative, a partnership between the Methodist Church of Peru and Duke Divinity School. He became director of the Center for Reconciliation (CFR) in 2018. Under his leadership, CFR has expanded its capacities and programs, including the launch of the Initiative of the Americas for Transformation and Reconciliation that brings together scholars and ministry practitioners from across the Americas to support reconciliation work. In 2020, he was appointed associate dean for academic formation. Colón-Emeric serves on the United Methodist Committee on Faith and Order and on both national and international Methodist-Catholic dialogues. In October 2022, he met with Pope Francis for the second time as part of a delegation from the Methodist-Catholic Dialogue and presented Pope Francis with the report of the eleventh round of dialogue, God in Christ Reconciling: On the Way to Full Communion in Faith, Sacraments, and Mission. Colón-Emeric is the author of The People Called Metodista: Renewing Doctrine, Worship, and Mission from the Margins (Abingdon Press, 2022); Hacia la nueva creación: Introducción a la Doctrina Metodista (Editorial Guadalupe, 2022); Wesley, Aquinas, and Christian Perfection: An Ecumenical Dialogue (Baylor University Press, 2009), which received the 2008 “Aquinas Dissertation Prize” from the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University; and Óscar Romero’s Theological Vision: Liberation and the Transfiguration of the Poor (Notre Dame University Press, 2018), which received first place in the 2019 Catholic Press Association award for books about newly canonized saints.

Amy-Jill Levine

Mary Jane Werthan University Professor of Jewish Studies and University Professor of New Testament Studies, Emerita

Amy Jill Levine (“AJ”) is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, at Vanderbilt. Holding a B.A. from Smith College, M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Richmond, the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, the University of South Carolina-Upstate, Drury University, Christian Theological Seminary, and Franklin College, Professor Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies. She served as Alexander Robertson Fellow (University of Glasgow), and the Catholic Biblical Association Scholar to the Philippines. She has given over 1000 lectures on the Bible, Christian-Jewish relations, and Religion, Gender, and Sexuality across the globe. Her publications include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi; six children’s books (with Sandy Sasso); The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III, the first biblical commentary by a Jew and an Evangelical); The Jewish Annotated New Testament (co-edited with Marc Brettler), The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (with Marc Brettler), The Pharisees (co-edited with Joseph Sievers), and thirteen edited volumes of the Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature. Along with Introduction to the Old Testament for the Teaching Company, her Beginner’s Guide series for Abingdon Press includes Sermon on the Mount, Light of the World, Entering the Passion of Jesus, The Difficult Words of Jesus, Witness at the Cross, and Signs and Wonders. The first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the first winner of the Seelisberg Prize for Jewish-Christian Relations, AJ describes herself as an unorthodox member of an Orthodox synagogue and a Yankee Jewish feminist who works to counter biblical interpretations that exclude and oppress.

Veronice Miles

Mary Elizabeth McGehee Joyce Professor of Preaching

The Rev. Dr. Veronice Miles is a preacher, teacher, scholar, mentor, and artist committed to a life of ministry in the church and in the academy. She serves as the Mary Elizabeth McGehee Joyce Professor of Preaching at the Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC. She has taught preaching for more than 17years and has preached extensively. She has also contributed to various academic and church related journals, commentaries, and books. Her publication, Embodied Hope: A Homiletical Theology Reflection (CASCADE Books),explores the human capacity to live with Hope and the power and potential of preaching to amplify Hope’s resonance in our lives. Preaching, she believes, neither ignores nor concedes defeat to the despairing realities of life. Rather, preaching emboldens individuals and communities of faith to live with Hope and respond in the affirmative to God’s “yes” for creation and for our lives. With these thoughts as foci, her research highlights the formative and transformative potential of preaching, including the role of preaching in redressing persistently threatening challenges that pervade U.S. culture. She is in the beginning stages of a second publication, "Speak, Sisters, Speak!"(working title), that amplifies Black women’s wisdom and the necessity of their voices for the Christian church and society at large. Answering the call to ordained ministry in 1994, Dr. Miles was licensed to preach by the First Missionary Baptist Church, making her the first woman to be licensed without contestation in a Missionary Baptist Church, in Gainesville, Florida. She was ordained in 1999 at the Greater Bethany Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Miles is a lifelong learner who has earned several degrees, including the Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Education and Homiletics from Emory University’s Graduate Division of Religion in Atlanta, GA, and a Master of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University with certificates in Religious Education and Black Church Studies. She also earned the Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Master of Education in Counseling, and Education Specialist in Student Personnel Services, all from the University of Florida. Grounded in the belief that God still anoints women and men “to bring good news to the poor... to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19), Dr. Miles endeavors to embody these practices in her life and ministry.

Angela D. Sims

President; Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School

The Reverend Angela D. Sims, Ph.D. is the first woman president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRCDS). She is also the first Black woman president to lead any Rochester-area college. Prior to joining CRCDS on July 1, 2019, Dr. Sims served as Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor in Church and Society at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood, Kansas. She holds a Ph.D. in Christian Social Ethics from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. Prior to matriculation at Union, Dr. Sims completed a baccalaureate degree summa cum laude at Trinity College (Trinity Washington University) and a Master of Divinity with honors at Howard University School of Divinity. Dr. Sims has cast a vision for Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School to become a seminary of and for the community committed to practices of peace, service, and justice. With an emphasis on strengthening the school’s infrastructure, Dr. Sims has led the school through a process of strategic planning. Informed by a missional approach, this strategic plan is designed to enhance academic excellence, achieve financial sustainability, improve efficiency and effectiveness, and engage the community. Dr. Sims’s research examines connections between faith, race, and violence with specific attention to historical and contemporary ethical implications of lynching and a culture of lynching in the United States. Principal investigator for an oral history project, “Remembering Lynching: Strategies of Resistance and Visions of Justice,” her research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Womanist Scholars Program at the Interdenominational Theological Center, the Louisville Institute, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, and the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University. Dr. Sims is the author of Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror; Ethical Complications of Lynching: Ida B. Wells’s Interrogation of American Terror; co-editor with Katie Geneva Cannon and Emilie M. Townes of Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader; and, lead author of Religio-Political Narratives in the United States: From Martin Luther King, Jr. through Jeremiah Wright. A native of Louisiana, Dr. Sims grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. An ordained Baptist clergywoman who takes seriously the prophetic imperative “to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God,” Dr. Sims is an active member and contributor to several academic guilds and faith-based community organizations.

Kimberly Wagner

Assistant Professor of Preaching; Princeton Seminary

The Rev. Dr. Kimberly Wagner serves as Assistant Professor of Preaching at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her current writing and work focus on preaching and ministry in the midst and wake of trauma. Dr. Wagner’s book, Fractured Ground: Preaching in the Wake of Mass Trauma (Westminster John Knox Press, 2023), offers guidance for preaching in the aftermath of communal trauma, including mass violence, natural disasters, and public health crises.

Cynthia Hale

Founding & Senior Pastor; Ray of Hope Christian Church, Decatur, GA

Cynthia Hale is the founding and senior pastor of Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur, Georgia. She earned a Master of Divinity from Duke University and earned a Doctor of Ministry from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. Hale established a mentoring program, Elah Pastoral Ministries, Inc, and convenes a Women in Ministry Conference each year. Hale was inducted into the African American Biographies Hall of Fame and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers of Morehouse College. Hale has published “I’m A Piece of Work: Sisters Shaped by God” and has been a contributing writer to many publications including, Feasting on the Gospels. Hale has received the “Women of Power” award from the National Urban League and earned recognition from Ebony magazine as an influential leader.

Bill McKibben

Author and Environmentalist

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He's also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, and his latest book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.

Tripp Fuller

Podcaster and theology nerd

Tripp just moved back to North Carolina after three years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Theology & Science at the University of Edinburgh. He recently released "Divine Self-Investment: a Constructive Open and Relational Christology," the first book in the Studies in Open and Relational Theology series. For over 15 years Tripp has been doing the Homebrewed Christianity podcast (think on-demand internet radio) where he interviews different scholars about their work so you can get nerdy in traffic, on the treadmill, or doing the dishes. Last year it had over 4 million downloads. It also inspired a book series with Fortress Press called the Homebrewed Christianity Guides to... topics like God, Jesus, Spirit, Church History, etc. Tripp is a very committed and (some of his friends think overly) engaged Lakers fan and takes Star Wars and Lord of the Rings very seriously.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana

Writer, free-range pastor, speaker, and Associate Certified Coach (ICF)

The Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a writer, pastor, speaker, and ministry coach living in the Virginia suburbs of DC. She is author of three books, most recently "Hope: A User’s Manual" (Eerdmans 2022). Her weekly newsletter, The Blue Room, reaches thousands of readers each week and covers topics ranging from mental health to ChatGPT to Ted Lasso. Her writing has also appeared in TIME, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, Journal for Preachers, and the Christian Century, and in a monthly column for Presbyterians Today for three years. She was featured on PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly for her work on Sabbath, and was recognized by the Presbyterian Writers Guild with the 2015-2016 David Steele Distinguished Writer Award. She is a sought-after speaker, preacher, conference leader and writer around issues of leadership, faith formation, and congregational transformation. She served as co-chair for two years of NEXT Church, a movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA) that seeks to call forth vital ministry for our changing cultural context. She currently serves as associate pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Herndon, VA. MaryAnn is a graduate of Rice University in Houston, Texas and received her M.Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. She is a mother of three, an imperfect knitter, and an occasional ultramarathoner.