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VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1 FALL 2005 TheSPire Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Graduate Department of Religion, and Oberlin Graduate School of Theology the Gift of Confinement In Celebration of Reunion and Homecoming 2005 Vanderbilt University Divinity School announces the 106th Cole Lectures to be delivered by The The Reverend Jim Wallis SPire public theologian, political activist, and editor of Sojourners Volume 26 • Number 1 • Fall 2005 Features The Spire is published biannually by Vanderbilt University Divinity School in cooperation with the Office of Advancement Communications 10 Alumni/ae and the Office of Development and Relations. Letters from readers are welcomed Alumni/ae Scriptio Divina: Women Writing, and God by the editor. of the Divinity School, From the illuminations of Saint Hildegard of Bingen to the novels of Virginia the Graduate School’s Department of Religion, Woolf and from the poetics of Julia Kasdorf to the essays of Fanny Howe, and the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology Antoinette Brown lecturer Stephanie Paulsell examines the ways in which are encouraged to submit news of their per- medieval and contemporary women have articulated the spiritual dimension of Thursday, October 13, 2005 sonal and professional accomplishments. the practice of writing. Readers may correspond by U.S. mail to: 7:00 p.m. The Spire Benton Chapel Office 115, John Frederick Oberlin Divinity Quadrangle 18 411 21st Avenue, South The lecture will be followed by a reception Nashville, Tennessee 37240-1121 The Gift of Confinement For his act of civil disobedience in protesting the in the Divinity School Refectory. by telephone: 615/343-3964 practices of the Western Hemisphere Institute for [email protected] Security, Professor Donald F. Beisswenger was by e-mail: sentenced to six months in the Federal Correc- _________________________________________ tional Institution in Manchester, Kentucky. James Hudnut-Beumler, While serving his prison term, the self-professed, Dean and the Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished post-Holocaust Christian and ordained Presby- Professor of American Religious History terian minister recorded his reflections on the spiritual gift of confinement. Alice Hunt, PhD’03, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible Assistant Dean for Trudy Stringer, MDiv’88, 28 Student Life Editor & Registrar Against Explanation and For Consolation Victor Judge, BS’77, MS’79, In responding to the religious interpretations of the “To allow political ideology to overshadow human needs and Designer tragic effects of the tsunami, Professor John Thatamanil Jenni Bongard, presents his argument on the proper aim of theology fundamental issues of life and death is to go seriously astray.” Christopher K. Sanders, MDiv’95, while refuting the Miltonian premise of “justifying the Director of Development and Relations ways of God to man.” —Jim Wallis Alumni/ae Dr. Kent Kyger, MD’58, and orn in Detroit, Michigan, in 1948, the Reverend Jim Wallis rigorously eschews political labels, but his advo- Patricia Miller Kyger, BS’59, Chairpersons of “A New Vision for cacy focuses undeniably upon issues of peace and social justice. Reared in a traditional evangelical family, he Schola Prophetarum questioned the racial segregation in his church and community and participated in the civil rights and anti- Executive Director of American Politics” B Kenneth J. Schexnayder, war movements. He was graduated from Michigan State University where he served as president of Students for Advancement Communications & Editor of a Democratic Society. While matriculating at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, Wallis and Vanderbilt Magazine his peer seminarians founded Sojourners magazine, an alternative forum for exploring questions of faith, politics, and Friday, October 14, 2005 _________________________________________ culture. They established in 1971 a Christian community, also named Sojourners, whose mission is to proclaim 10:00 a.m. and practice the biblical call to integrate spiritual renewal and social justice while seeking to be guided by the prin- Vanderbilt University is committed to the principles Benton Chapel ciples of mercy and humility. Wallis also is the convener of Call to Renewal, a national, ecumenical federation of of equal opportunity and affirmative action. churches and faith-based organizations dedicated to overcoming poverty by changing the direction of public policy. “Vanderbilt” and the Vanderbilt logo are registered Named by Time magazine as one of the “fifty faces for America’s future,”Wallis is the author of eight books trademarks and service marks of Vanderbilt University. including the 2005 New York Times bestseller, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong, and the Left Doesn’t Get It. © 2005 Vanderbilt University Philanthropist Edmund W. Cole, president of Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad and treasurer of Vanderbilt University Board of Trust, endowed the annual Cole Lecture Series in 1892 “for the defense and advocacy of the Christian religion.” Cole’s gift provided for the first sustained lectureship in the history of Vanderbilt University. Fall 2005 From the Dean Our Featured Artisan $10 Million and a Commitment to Teaching for Ministry Public Laundry UT Martin and then studying abroad in Cor- tona, Italy, King volunteered for a year at N Street Village, Incorporated, a nonprofit id you ever have a great professor? he dirty words she had written on the The grant will fully support fifty graduate social services community founded in 1973 Someone who communicated love of white sheets and tee shirts could students in their doctoral programs. The pro- by Luther Place Memorial Church in Dhis or her discipline and care about gram itself adds collaborative research with Toffend anyone who walked past her you you response to the destruction from the civil who were and who wanted to clothesline. practicing clergy and professors on contem- rights riots that followed the assassination of become? Did you ever wonder how that Determined that no viewer would be porary ministry issues and required teaching the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. great teacher got to be that kind of person? granted a dispensation from the vocabulary in field education and external seminary set- As a primary case manager at N Street Village, Here at Vanderbilt we have been explor- of intolerance, the scrivener had soiled the tings to the work that all graduate students King helped homeless and low-income ing for some time the question, “What makes unblemished cotton with slurs about one’s do to master a field of inquiry. The Lilly women to gain and to maintain their highest for good teaching for ministry?” The ques- race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, Endowment is placing a great deal of trust possible level of self-sufficiency and satisfac- tion is no mere academic inquiry, either, for and religion. She had not scrawled the phrases here, and we in response plan to produce a tion in their lives. From her pastoral oppor- we have graduated hundreds of professors with a mere randomness of hand. The stac- generation of mentors for the ministry and tunities—including the most memorable into positions where they teach, mentor, and cato strokes from her index finger dipped leaders in theological education. The ulti- experience of serving as liturgist for the service conduct scholarship in seminaries, divinity repeatedly in moist potting soil suggested an mate beneficiaries will be the congregations of an elderly lady who died from the effects schools, and other schools geared toward intentional marring of the fabric. and members of religious communities of liver cancer—King felt a calling to theo- educating ministers. Alongside our own When people stood at the clothesline and whose leaders are shaped by teachers who logical education. work in educating people for ministry, we complained that her laundry was offensive, are shaped by a program that has no parallel “Whether I am drawing with pastels or wanted to know what we could do to con- PEYTON HOGE she concurred and replied, “Yes, intolerance in higher education today. This is a momen- contemplating a question from a lecture, I tribute to a stream of great professors for the tous event in the history of Vanderbilt Divin- Dean James Hudnut-Beumler is offensive. Dirty laundry needs to be DANIEL DUBOIS become self-reflective,” she explains, “and future. A group of fifteen professors and area washed.” If an observer laughed dismis- ity School and also a great challenge to our from the questions that I ask myself during clergy spend all of 2003-04 researching what sively at her public laundry, she inquired, Elizabeth Nicole King, MDiv’2 faculty to follow through on a commitment those reflections, I am humbly reminded there went into making a great teacher for the Ph.D. graduates extend this work to literally “Are you certain you are not wearing a gar- to go beyond education to formation of the will always be ideas much greater than I.” practice of ministry. We were ably led in that hundreds of schools across the globe as they ment from this clothesline?” and the answers we may discover within kind of scholar-teachers theological institu- While pursuing the master of divinity effort by Professors Bonnie Miller- take on the work of teaching toward min- Hanging the sheets and tee shirts on the ourselves do not make us comfortable tions need today more than ever. degree at Vanderbilt and fulfilling the ordi- McLemore, practical theologian, and Patout istry. Why do we invest in graduate educa- clothesline for a public airing, Elizabeth always,” contends the twenty-four-year-old Goals for the Program in Theology and nation requirements for the Christian Burns, historian of the early church. tion? Because its effect is multiplied many Nicole King had intended to unnerve any native of Franklin, Tennessee. By writing the The Spire Practice include attracting fifty new graduate Church, Disciples of Christ, the artist has Since the last issue of went to times over. Providing excel- visitor to her installation in the fine arts slurs, generalizations, and stereotypical served as a ministerial intern with the con- print, the Lilly Endowment, Inc.