“The gospel is for all creation.” It’s a theological proclamation that is sometimes offered flippantly, words to check an ideological box marked “creation care,” disappearing only moments after they pass the speaker’s lips. When Dr. Andrew Wymer says them aloud, however, he is cleareyed that this conviction demands dramatic transformation for both how preachers address ecological concerns from the pulpit and the way many congregations view the relationship between God, humanity, and the natural world. Garrett Seminary’s Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship doesn’t claim to be an expert in ecotheologies, but insights from the field and his work in local environmental justice advocacy are prompting him to ask significant questions—ones that reframe how homiletics engages nature and neighbor—and invite students to do the same.

 

In many churches, the relationship between preaching and ecology still only extends to an Earth Day sermon, or perhaps questions of land sovereignty on Indigenous People’s Day. In those moments, the climate crisis looms large; an existential threat that, in the speakers’ telling, indicts our failure to serve as good stewards of the Earth. “To limit our thinking about creation to this present duress, to confine it neatly within ‘environmentalism,’ doesn’t fully reflect the record of ancient scriptures.” Dr. Wymer notes. “It doesn’tengage what it means to consider non-human actors in the biblical narratives and Christian tradition. But the other thing that is often missing from Earth Day or the Season of Creation is a critical awareness of power, the understanding that there are broader, systemic forces at play creating environmental and climate injustice.”

 

Indeed, the past two decades have witnessed much conflict in environmental non-profits about how climate messaging has often reflected and prioritized white, privileged concerns and downplayed environmental racism and other systemic harms. A parallel reckoning in churches is long overdue. “Single-issue environmentalism can be very dangerous and harmful to systemically marginalized communities,” Dr. Wymer says. “The job of the preacher, then, is to expand awareness—find out what is happening in your area and draw the connections between environmental injustice, racial injustice, poverty. This is not something you have to make up. You have to be attentive to where creation is not being cared for appropriately and how that is differently experienced by members of the community.”

 

But connecting environmental harm to other pressing justice concerns isn’t the only challenge that faces ecological preaching. There’s also an underlying anthropocentrism that is difficult to change. “If the gospel is for all creation, we can’t only center humans. What is the good news for the animals, plants, soil, and water in your neighborhood?” Dr. Wymer asks. “What does it mean to think of all creation praising God—that we worship in a broad and interconnected ecology of praise? What would it mean to learn how to preach from the birds—what creative possibilities could that lend to us in thinking about the structure of sermons, or how we engage a liturgical moment?” These questions reflect a strong influence from indigenous theologians and other voices who have advocated non-human personhood, unsettling long-held Western assumptions about a hierarchy within creation. “The systems changes we want to see in our world,” Dr. Wymer points out, “also require a systems change in our preaching.”

 

It’s fertile terrain he plans to explore with Garrett students. “In the coming year, I’m offering a course called ‘Praying with the Earth,’ and we will spend the entire course outside,” he notes. “I want to find ways and patterns and approaches to prayer that draw us into relationship with a wide variety of ecological contexts.” It’s not clear from the outset where that journey will lead, but Dr. Wymer wants that experience of collective discovery to be part of what he and students learn together, creating space for the Spirit to move in unexpected ways.

 

This inquisitive disposition is something he suggests more preachers follow. “It’s crucial to demonstrate to your congregation that you don’t always have to be the expert. You can model learning and expanding your own awareness,” he observes. It’s an approach that will likewise serve congregations as they seek to better understand ecological justice concerns in their communities. “A colleague and I did a research project in Flint, Michigan years ago. The lesson I took away from there at the direct urging of people who experienced the Flint Water Crisis was, ‘Go back to your home, because this is happening there, too. Find out where.” Dr. Wymer reports. “The relationships we build in our community and the justice work that we do together can be more important than any sermon we’ll preach.”

 

This calling is at the heart of Garrett’s Center for Ecological Regeneration, which is currently building a Midwest Bioregional Hub to nurture relationships between churches who are asking these crucial questions, and who will offer a . These offerings and more seek to partner with ministers and congregations to discern how to transform “creation care” from a siloed concern into an integrated part of their justice work—one that demands new theological frames. “Get embedded in your place,” Dr. Wymer counsels. “We can be in deep partnership with one another, and with creation.”

Garrett Seminary joins United Theological Seminary in celebrating the Reverend Dr. Mark R. Teasdale, Garrett’s E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism, who has accepted the call to serve as United’s next President. “Mark has been a trusted and vital member of our faculty and a beloved teacher and advisor to our students. After 18 years of faithful teaching and serving in multiple administrative and leadership roles, we wish Mark all success in this new endeavor, and thank him for all he has given to Garrett,” says President Javier A. Viera. “United Theological Seminary will be well-served by the care and intention he brings to his work, by his scholarly and leadership prowess, and by his passion for growing Christian communities.”

 

For his part, Dr. Teasdale shares that he feels his time at Garrett has been the best possible training ground for learning how to shepherd United through its next chapter. “Garrett has taught me how to appreciate, understand, and engage across such a phenomenally broad spectrum of theological, cultural, and ethnic difference,” Dr. Teasdale says. “That’s a big part of what I’m bringing to my new role: United is home to students from 55 denominations, more than half of whom are African-American. I want to be the kind of leader who empowers the unique gifts everyone brings, not someone who layers over them with my vision for how we do things.”

 

Indeed, reflecting on nearly two decades serving Garrett, Dr. Teasdale expresses admiration for how the seminary uses shared Christian values to cultivate community without suppressing particularity. “There’s clarity about Jesus being at the center of our shared life. Who we see Jesus to be may be very different—we don’t have to agree even on all big-ticket issues in the social or political arena—but we can all agree that Jesus is good, that we all have value,” he explains. “That’s really important, because one of the things that happens in a polarized world is that it becomes easy to diminish or even disregard the value of another human being, just because we disagree with them. But the Garrett seminary classroom has always been a place to bring people together.”

 

Dr. Teasdale’s commitment to building connection, even across significant difference, is manifest in his relationships among Garrett’s faculty, as well. “Mark is deeply collegial in his work. He is deeply committed to building a culture of collaboration where diverse voices are reflected in the decisions we make together as faculty and administrators.” says Dr. Jennifer Harvey, Garrett’s Vice President for Academic Affairs. “At the same time, he brings this same intention and integrity to Garrett’s academic culture supporting students in their projects and in achieving the high expectations he sets. So many students share with me that he is huge reason they’ve felt at home in our midst.”

 

That collegiality doesn’t stop simply because Dr. Teasdale is no longer on the faculty. “I look forward to relating to President Viera as a colleague in the broader work of fostering and sustaining theological education,” he says. “I’m hoping Garrett is not somewhere I’m leaving behind but is instead a place that I now get to relate to in a new way.”

 

In reciprocating that collegiality, President Viera emphasizes their shared commitment to strengthening the church and academy. “Mark is wondrously thoughtful about how Christian communities can spiritually and ethically engage the world around them, inviting people into our spiritual life while also collaborating to mend a fractured culture,” he says. “We need more seminarians who are trained in that spirit. I look forward to continuing to have Mark as a strategic partner and collaborator in that work.”

 

Ultimately, as he prepares to move into a new seminary home, Dr. Teasdale is filled with gratitude. “I’ve had the opportunity to work for multiple presidents, multiple deans. They put trust in me, not just to teach but to also serve administratively—even the opportunity in last couple years to be part of the real estate task force and negotiate with Northwestern University as we prepare to move into new buildings,” he notes. “It’s been an honor to serve this community.” Ever the evangelist, he’s keen to offer reflection on the gospel values that guide faithful institutional stewardship. “As leaders, we’re not here to serve ourselves,” he concludes with a smile. “We bear fruit and the fruit is for the world to eat, not for us. It’s how the seeds go out and get planted elsewhere. Trees don’t bear fruit for themselves—they do it for the next generation and for others.”

 

 

Dr. Kate Ott is the Jerre and Mary Joy Stead professor of Christian social ethics at Garrett Seminary, and director of the . She is also one of the scholars building the , a research study compiling hundreds of abortion stories across multiple religious traditions, recorded through in-depth interviews. At a moment when 41 states have legislated either full or partial abortion bans, these stories offer crucial context that is typically overlooked in our national debates. I took the opportunity to interview Dr. Ott about her research—what she feels it can offer to women who are discerning reproductive healthcare choices, religious leaders, and a cultural dialogue that badly needs more complexity and nuance. A transcription of our conversation is below, edited for length and clarity.

 

Benjamin Perry (BP): Debate about abortion is often portrayed as “secular folks who want abortions” set against “religious folks who oppose abortions.” What does that cultural framing miss?

 

Dr. Kate Ott (KO): First, many, many women or pregnant people who have abortions are religious.1 They come from all major religious traditions, but overwhelmingly in the United States, they’re Christian. It’seasier to have a public debate about abortion if we create neat boxes for how people can approach the issue—labels like “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” What I have experienced overwhelmingly in these interviews is that this framing causes extreme stress for women who are deciding whether to seek an abortion. They think “If I’m Christian, I can’t do this,” or “If I’m a mother, I can’t do this,” because we also have this myth that people who have children don’t have abortions, which is absolutely not true. Many women choose to have an abortion because they’re trying to care for the children they already have. These boxes serve political agendas, and what our study is trying to demonstrate is that if we listen to real women’s lives and the complexity of their decision-making, all of these dichotomies fall apart.

 

BP: You interview Catholic women for the study. What factors do you hear in these interviews that influence their moral decision-making process?

 

KO: Most women I interview are experiencing what scholars would describes as “moral stress.” That’s partly because they’ve grown up with an absolutist narrative that says, “if you have an abortion, you’re going to hell.” So, in their moral reasoning, they do mental gymnastics. They can repeat back what they’ve heard is church teaching, but then they’ll say things like “I hope at some point God will forgive me.” In other cases, women will say things like “God is with me. I don’t know what that means as it relates to church teaching, but no one is going to tell me that God is not with me.”

 

BP: Have researchers who interview women from other religious traditions also noticed this moral stress?

 

KO: Yes, colleagues who are listening to women in Protestant traditions, in Jewish traditions and Islam, repeatedly hear that women have internalized that same teaching, regardless of whether their institution supports abortion as a moral choice. So, for example, many of the Protestant women come from traditions that have explicit doctrines that are so supportive of women’s access to reproductive healthcare, decision-making, and abortion, and yet they are still subjected to this moral imaginary that abortion is always wrong—that God and churches do not support it. Part of what we want to do is help religious traditions who do want to support women understand that—when they stay silent because they think they’ve already done enough teaching about this, or because they’re in a state that has better abortion access—women are still hearing loud, contrary voices. The whole purpose of this study is to break the silence, but that responsibility should not only fall on women who have had abortions. It must be picked up by our religious leaders, across traditions.

 

BP: Why does it seem like there are fewer institutional voices who praise reproductive decision-making as a moral good, when compared to an issue like celebrating queer people in religious spaces?

 

KO: If we look at scholarship on abortion in the theological circles that affirm women as whole humans who can make moral decisions, the library is far smaller than it should be. In the ‘80s we get Beverly Harrison’s and Dan McGuire was doing lots of writing through the 90’s, but for the most part within academic settings—because of how much religious institutions control theological education—many scholars were silenced, creating a significant scholarship gap. Recently we get Rebecca Todd Peters’ , we have Tara Carlton and Jill Snodgrass’ , and now Emily Reimer-Barry’s new book —all three are radical texts. But if we’re thinking about a tradition of theological work on a significant social issue, it probably has the least amount of attention. And I would argue that so much of that is the product of a very organized silencing—the repercussions that came for scholars if they talked about abortion.

 

BP: How do you locate yourself, as a scholar, in the movement to push back against this kind of academic censorship? How can we begin to shift those deeply-entrenched public narratives that create moral stress for women who seek an abortion?

 

KO: It’s interesting, the most feedback I’ve received for something I’ve written on abortion is from a very short piece I contributed to an edited volume of public theology, where I talked about my own experience of having an abortion. I often talk publicly about it, partly because it breaks the silence, but also because it puts everyone off their stereotypes. I was married. This was a child we wanted. We had already been given a diagnosis of fetal demise. My health was at risk. When you put all those together, people generally say, “Well, of course you should be able to get an abortion in that context.” In fact, many don’t even want to label that procedure an abortion. But then they’re forced to admit that we are still legislating against exactly this kind of healthcare choice—one where I knew nothing would happen to me, where I could be with my loved ones and we could say goodbye to this child that we very much wanted. Most women in the United States now can’t make that same choice.

 

BP: A central emphasis of this study is to record stories of women like yourself. Why is storytelling such a crucial part of changing our public imaginary?

 

KO: On many sides of the political divide around abortion, people have chosen to avoid stories because they’re complex. They also deploy certain stories: The story of someone who’s gotten an abortion and has experienced extreme mental stress over it, to suggest that everyone will experience that. Or, on the other side, a radical individualist approach that says women’s lives are not impacted at all by abortion. Neither reduction is helpful to women making these choices, but complexity is not politically expedient. Recording these stories pushes back against those simplistic narratives.

 

BP: How do you care for the women who are sharing this moral stress with you?

 

KO: The practice we’ve developed is that, when the interview is done and the recording is off, we will share other supportive theological resources within their tradition. But also, one of the questions I ask is what they would tell another woman in their tradition who is seeking an abortion. If they have given me an answer that runs counter to theology they espoused about how God will judge their own choice, I repeat their own words back to them. I’ll say something like, “You said, ‘I want them to know that God is always with them, that this is an extremely difficult decision, but they should know that their love for everyone around them will carry them through it.” So I end by saying, “I want you to know that this is not just true for someone else. It’s true for you, too.“

 

BP: As an ethicist, how has the experience of conducting these interviews changed the way that you think about abortion?

 

KO: My past advocacy experience and this research have taught me that there is no perfect abortion story. In ethics debates, like political debates, we want to create clean categories of good and bad moral reasoning and divide good and evil into neat, predetermined outcomes. Most ethical decisions are complex. Reproductive health decisions are even more difficult because of the interlocking systemic, communal, and personal factors involved. It requires we do ethics grounded in justice and care, which necessitates listening and giving voice to this moral complexity. 

 

 

“What is God’s dream for you?”

 

It’s this question that guides Dr. Lisl Paul, director of contextual education at Garrett, as she works with students to find the best contextual education placement for them. Asking, and then hearing theanswers, is also Dr. Paul’s favorite part of her job. When she asks, two things become obvious: the great breadth of God’s dreams for the ministry of the church and the very particular gifts that each student brings.

 

“For many years now, Garrett has encouraged, supported and undergirded students interested in ministry across the spectrum of what we would consider traditional ministry practice: within a parish, chaplaincy, spiritual care or clinical care,” she said. “But we have also supported students who are already practicing within a specific field and are looking to integrate their faith. We’ve had students who have been birth doulas or who have done art and music as their contextual education placement. We’ve had students in the ecology field, racial justice, child advocacy, queer studies—all across the spectrum. Our understanding of ministry practice is whatever allows you to deeply integrate your faith into your work in the world.”

 

This understanding of ministry and the diversity of contextual education experiences at Garrett have evolved over the last couple of decades, Dr. Paul says, along with a growing “desire on the part of the public to integrate their faith into their everyday lives.” During these years, full-time, traditional ministry positions have become less common. In response, schools like Garrett expanded their understanding of what ministry might be and what theological education can do. Dr. Paul herself not only shares this broader perspective but has lived it as she moved from being a pastor and campus minister into motherhood and work on the founding board of an immigration advocacy organization before coming to work full time at Garrett.

 

“Getting a Doctor of Ministry degree here at Garrett helped me to discern what my gifts and graces were and where I wanted to live that in the world,” she said. “And it just so happened that I was asked to be a peer group facilitator for the contextual education program here at the same time. Then there was an opening for the associate director position, and I’ve now become the director. It’skind of a winding path, but every single part of my vocational journey — the pastoring in a church, the campus ministry, the non-profit work, my mothering — all of those pieces have led me to a place of finding my vocational home.”

 

In her current role, Dr. Paul works with well over one hundred students at any given time — 126 at the present moment — across four degree programs at various stages of finding placements and completing contextual education requirements. While Master of Divinity students prepare for ministry in a variety of contexts through the two semester Field Education course, Master of Arts in Theology and Ministry students engage in a semester of contextual education that facilitates their research through methods like ethnography or participatory action research.

 

Contextual education for the Master of Arts in Pastoral Care and Counseling (MAPCC) and the PhD in Pastoral Theology, Personality and Culture (Clinical Track) has also changed over the last years, as MAPCC clinical track degree director Dr. AHyun Lee describes it. In 2022, Garrett began to offer a chaplaincy track of the MAPCC degree that requires two units of Clinical Pastoral Education,completed at a hospital or another appropriate site. At about the same time, shifts in the curriculum meant that clinical counseling students, who had previously completed clinical training through the Center for Religion and Psychotherapy in Chicago, could apply for internship positions at a variety of counseling centers. This change gave students the opportunity to choose sites based on supervisors, populations served, or therapeutic approach. The diversity of training possibilities also reflects changes within the field of pastoral counseling, which has become more responsive to the realities of widespread trauma and a desire for a broader range of therapeutic approaches.

 

For Dr. Lee, the heart of Garrett’s clinical education is not simply professional skill-building—it is formation. “Theology is not just added on top of psychological training,” she says. “We’re forming public theologians who can integrate theology and psychology in real relationships. Clinical education gives students a structured place for deep reflection as they learn that they themselves are part of the instrument of care. They become more self-aware, more grounded, and more ethically accountable. Clinical education isn’t just about learning skills; it’s about formation.”

 

While the details of contextual education may have changed over the years, both Dr. Lee and Dr. Paul attest that this focus on integrating theology and practice is nothing new. In fact, the clinical emphasis, the diversity of the faculty’s theoretical perspectives, and the strong connection to the work of the church were all reasons that Dr. Lee chose Garrett Seminary for her own PhD work. As faculty, she can imagine ways that Garrett’s program might continue to evolve as it more fully supports a diversity of students, perhaps through developing clinical sites of its own or a pastoral theology center that could more fully resource the local church. This could expand access, strengthen mentoring and deepen partnerships with congregations and the wider community.

 

Like Dr. Lee, Dr. Paul also sees the breadth of contextual experiences made possible through Garrett as an expression of the school’s longstanding values. “It speaks to our underlying vision for ‘the thriving of the church and the healing of the world,’” she said. “The thriving of the church cannot occur unless there’s also thriving input from outside of the church walls. Otherwise, we just become an insular institution that ends up navel gazing, right? And the healing of the world cannot take place unless the church is involved in that healing directly. Those two things need each other.”

 

 

“There is a saying: When you are healthy, you belong to yourself; when you are sick, you belong to the community. So, when one person is unwell, the community is not well.” As the Reverend Dr. Kenneth Ngwa speaks about public health, he habitually blends African hermeneutics and cutting edge research—a synthesis that shapes Garrett Seminary’s Religion and Global Health Forum (RGHF), where he serves as director. Now, however, his voice also carries a palpable anger and sorrow for policy decisions that endanger and end people’s lives. “What is happening in the United States is unfortunately an encounter with most people’s experience of healthcare throughout the world,” he says gravely. “I grew up in a country where individuals are left to fend for themselves, where government does not help people but pushes them further to the margins to amass privilege for a few—which is what is currently happening in our health sector.” Amid a broken infrastructure, he believes churches and clergy can play a pivotal role helping people to access care, mending tattered relationships between vulnerable communities and medical professionals, and boldly speaking out for desperately needed change.

 

As Dr. Ngwa notes, in countries like his native Cameroon, people are often forced to make costly decisions between accessing healthcare and other basic subsistence needs—. “When people can’t afford healthcare, they don’t go in for early checkups or routine screenings, and you end up with many deaths from preventable diseases,” he says. “But there’s also an issue of trust: Social relationships must be grounded in an ethic of empathy and care—qualities that have been violated by the medical apartheid that has existed for Black people and poor people in this country and around the world.”

 

Churches and ministers are uniquely positioned to address both crises. “There’s a built-in trust that Christians have with their clergy and other parishioners,” he observes, “If you look at most pews, you will find medical professionals sitting there. Let’s use the medical expertise that God has planted in our midst! Then, it’s not someone coming from outside to talk to you, it’s the medical professionals who sing the same hymns as you, who pray and read the Bible with you.” Hosting medical Q&As can be a way to cut through swirling misinformation, but Dr. Ngwa believes that clergy also have a responsibility to help congregants receive treatment. “Churches can also work with medical facilities to create opportunities for medical professionals to come and offer primary healthcare services,” he says. That way, the church becomes something of a “health hub.” This vision is being developed by the RGHF in partnership with the Global Health Catalyst, a concept that has been .

 

“The Good Samaritan parable also includes conversation about cost and payment. The Samaritan says, ‘Whatever costs you incur, I will pay.’ So at the RGHF, we also help clergy and churches think about what it might mean to include healthcare costs in their budget.”

 

The RGHF uses the acronym C.A.R.E. to help religious professionals think through these issues: First, congregations can connect people with “Care.” Second, they can be an Advocate against the death-dealing circumstances that currently afflict far too many. There are also opportunities to participate in Research. “At the National Institute of Health, there is work being done about the importance of spirituality and whole person health,” Dr. Ngwa notes. “It would be fantastic if churches and clergy decided they wanted to be at the forefront of this work.” Lastly, they can Educate through health campaigns, increasing awareness about prevalent diseases and developing communal responses. On February 24, Garrett’s monthly Let’s Talk Globally conversation will feature Dr. Ngwa speaking with Kudzanai Muzarari (an MDiv student with a passion for health advocacy) and Makengo Olivier Sundika (an MAPCC student and former medical professional in Zimbabwe). Together, they will help students discern how congregations can weave these four responses to expand sustainable healing.

 

In this season, however, Dr. Ngwa believes that clergy and churches also have a moral responsibility to confront those in power who perpetuate harm. “The administrative approach has been ruthless and cruel,” he observes bluntly. “It has taken a razor to one of the basic fabrics of human existence.” This is certainly true within the United States as , but it is even starker abroad where . “U.S. bureaucracy is massive, and when you bring its power down heavy on the world, the consequences are brutal,” Dr. Ngwa explains. “In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, what this means is people no longer had access to medication that kept them alive. Thousands and thousands of people have died in the Congo, in Cameroon, in Zimbabwe. Millions of more people will, if nothing is done.”

 

Continuing to reflect on the Good Samaritan, Dr. Ngwa observes that one group is conspicuously absent from the parable: The people who attacked the traveler in the first place. “Clergy have a responsibility to name and force people to see who or what has committed this crime,” he contends. “Part of the prophetic work must be to consistently raise our voices about the policies that are causing this devastation, to talk about the implications of what it means to cut off humanitarian funding or to hollow out medical expertise at the CDC.” Clearly identifying the harm is also essential for determining how we can mend it. Dr. Ngwa and the RGHF are currently exploring ways that the center can work to connect philanthropic organizations with international communities, to ensure that medical aid goes where it’s needed most. “We have to imagine what comes after this,” he determinedly concludes. “Clergy must lean into this space and lead.”

 

 

“Deportability disciplines people to be silent.” When I heard Dr. AHyun Lee speak these words in a 2025 AAR/SBL panel presentation about clergy sexual abuse, you could feel the collective intake of breath. Much has been written about how federal raids stoke fear in immigrant communities, and still the scholarship from Garrett’s associate professor of pastoral care, theology, and psychotherapy illuminates untold tragic dimensions of this unfolding horror. In her recent book, , Dr. Lee details how clerical abuse in immigrant churches affects victim-survivors’ own psychology and sense of belonging. Speaking shortly after federal killings in Minneapolis, however, she powerfully articulates how the ongoing violence creates circumstance that make abuse more likely. “Deportability is always in the room,” she explains. “An abuser can simply imply, ‘If you speak out, you might lose everything.’” By deportability, Dr. Lee means living under the constant possibility of detention or deportation (regardless of your legal status)—an ever-present vulnerability that shapes choices, relationships, and risk.

 

A crucial facet of Dr. Lee’s work is her careful attention to the myriad reasons why victim-survivors often do not report their abuse, and how external systems can make that choice fraught with peril. Churches are often a center of migrant life, offering physical support as much as spiritual sustenance. “New immigrants sometimes stay in the pastor’s house until they can find their own housing. The church offers language translation, small groceries, sometimes even sponsor people’s visas,” she notes. “To speak up, you might lose all your resources, your connections, your community.” There’s also a potent desire, when policymakers label all immigrants as criminals, for the wider community to be perceived in a positive light—something that reporting abuse can threaten. “Often, the victim-survivor wants to protect their people,” Dr. Lee reports, “to emphasize, ‘we are a good community, we are good citizens.’”

 

The psychological factors that complicate reporting run deeper than concern for communal perception. When , people practice invisibility as a form of safety. “Deportability isn’t just a threat to people who are undocumented, it affects the whole immigrant community,” Dr. Lee says. “Even if you’re born here, there’s a fear you will be criminalized or detained, that you might experience violence just for running a stop sign.” In those circumstances, people become well-practiced at not being seen. “People connect being safe with being invisible,” she continues. “It’s better to hide, it’s better not to speak. That’s much safer than making noise.” That’s why it’s not enough to ask victim-survivors to report their abuse. “If visibility is dangerous, how can you tell someone to speak with a police officer?” she asks. “To engage the legal system becomes a threat.”

 

All this shapes the way Dr. Lee teaches students about trauma-informed counseling. An increasing number of students come to Garrett seeking careers as licensed clinicians, and it’s essential to name these often-unseen dynamics. “The best resources we can offer victim-survivors are not ones that force them to trade safety for help,” she says. “Many times, asking a victim-survivor to come forward isn’t about protection, it feels like asking them to bear the cross by themselves so that we can change things.” A fuller understanding of what shapes immigrant life is essential to provide ethical care. “You must make sure you are attuned to their immigration status, sensitive to how the legal system impacts their job, shapes their decisions and choices,” she notes. “Particularly when you’re working with an undocumented or a mixed family, reporting is never simple.”

 

And there are limits to what care providers can offer when broader systems are deliberately . “Abusers and unjust systems will benefit from silence when you discipline people into invisibility,” Dr. Lee notes. As the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously put matters, “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” Again, those unjust wheels extend far beyond undocumented people and their families. “Immigration policy impacts everyone. In Minneapolis, for example, people aren’t going to church because they’re fearful about what’s going to happen if they leave their homes,” she observes. “They lose that experience of belonging for the cramped safety of invisibility.”

 

All of this is especially tragic because of the immense blessings that immigrant churches bestow. “They can be the one place where people feel refuge and safe against the dominant culture,” Dr. Lee describes. “Some Korean immigrants spend the week in physically demanding, often invisible work—laundry, dry cleaning, cleaning, or other service jobs. Church can be one of the few places they feel fully seen: greeted by name, speaking their language, and showing up in their Sunday best—reclaiming dignity after a week of being overlooked.” Clergy sexual abuse adds ongoing pain as that place of refuge becomes a place of harm. “When church becomes abusive, there’s so much betrayal and fear,” she notes.

 

Obviously, clergy sexual abuse could and likely would still happen even if the U.S. had more equitable immigration laws. It would, however, be easier to confront and create institutional systems that mitigate the potential for abuse and facilitate victim-survivors telling their stories without fear of reprisal or state violence. “Even with more just policies, churches still need to do the hard internal work,” Dr. Lee concludes. “We need ways to report abuse that don’t run through the pastor, and we need trained lay leaders who can put real safeguards in place—especially around counseling, private meetings, and situations like rides or housing. We also need trauma‑informed, whole‑person support and trusted partners—immigrant‑rights groups and culturally competent pastoral caregivers and clinicians—so victim-survivors have options for safety and belonging without being pushed into the legal system or forced to give up their culture or faith.” But this work will take deliberate effort, and it is unlikely to succeed or even take steps forward when U.S. federal policy is designed to stoke fear and criminalize visibility—forcing people to trade silence for survival.

For centuries, Christian institutions in the United States initiated and sustained paternalistic relationships with Latin American communities that perpetuated colonial harm. In church contexts, these relationships might take the form of missionary trips where a group from the United States visits a community in Latin America to do something for them. This often involves a construction or renovation, a large investment that could have paid local workers instead. In the academy, these paternalistic relationships hinge on the notion that ideas coming from a U.S. context are universal and applicable to Latin America, while the ideas emerging from Latin America are only relevant in their context. As Garrett Seminary begins a new partnership with the Methodist Church in Chile, our collaboration is shaped by deep awareness of these dynamics’ history and repercussions, and a commitment to their dismantling.

 

In the Spring of 2025, Garrett inaugurated this partnership with a visit from Rev. Miguel Ulloa, director of the Methodist Seminary of Chile, who taught at Garrett’s Escuela de Ministerio, training pastors and lay leaders across the United Methodist North Central Jurisdiction. A few weeks later, a delegation from Garrett traveled to Chile to learn about the Methodist Church and its seminary’s work throughout the country. Dr. Emma Escobar, Director of Centro Raices Latinas at Garrett, describes this partnership as a project built on reciprocity and a model for the relationships the Centro Raices seeks to cultivate across the region. Both Rev. Miguel’s visit to Garrett and Garrett’s delegation to Chile disrupted the dominant dynamic that would frame Garrett as teacher and the Chilean church as student, denying the possibility of reciprocal learning and mutual enrichment. “As Methodists, we have a common language of theology and tradition that unites us and gives us an opportunity to expand what the dialogue between North and South America can look like,” reflects Rev. Miguel Ulloa. “Despite the differences of our contexts, we have shared concerns, and this dialogue allows us to learn from one another’s responses to those issues.”

 

The Methodist Church in Chile was founded by North American missionaries almost 150 years ago. Following the Wesleyan teachings of personal piety and social holiness, the church developed vibrant education, social care, and healthcare ministries. During their time in Chile, the Garrett delegation witnessed these ministries at work through visits to schools and clinics across the country. Reflecting on what she learned while visiting English immersion schools in the north of Chile, Dr. Escobar highlighted the way these schools contextualize their curriculum including, for example, an effort to begin teaching indigenous languages as part of the Chilean government’s project to reclaim Chilean indigeneity.

 

This conversation about indigeneity and Indigenous rights is one of the concerns that the Methodist Church in Chile and Garrett share. In the last few years, Chile has made important progress in advancing Indigenous rights, yet Rev. Ulloa believes that the church in Chile still has significant work to do in this area. He hopes that partnership with Garrett’s Center for Ecological Regeneration can help Methodist leaders in Chile access resources that will help them raise consciousness in congregations about Indigenous Chileans’ lived realities and Christianity’s historical complicity in their oppression.

 

As this partnership continues to develop and grow, both Garrett and the seminary in Chile will have opportunities to welcome students and faculty from each institution. In the near future, Garrett students will be able to complete their field education in Chile, and Chilean faculty will continue to support the Spanish-language programming at Garrett. “The ministry and programming of the Methodist Church in Chile will be a great resource for U.S. students and ministry leaders. We have much to learn from our Chilean siblings’ impactful and creative work,” comments Dr. Escobar. Likewise, Rev. Miguel says that “Chile has theological and ministerial riches that have not received the attention they deserve from the academy and the global church.” By welcoming students from Chile into our masters and doctoral programs, Garrett will be a resource for Chilean theologians and practitioners to disseminate their scholarship. These educational exchanges will strengthen the work each seminary is already doing and will nurture collaboration between scholars and practitioners from both institutions.

 

Dr. Escobar notes that as a U.S.-based institution, Garrett enters this partnership aware of the colonial impulse that has often guided relationships between institutions in the U.S. and the Global South. She reminds us that, “Chile has developed ministries with very few resources, and unlike what typically happens in the U.S., their conversations don’t start with questions about money or profit, but with a commitment to the mission. As we learn from their work, we must remember our responsibility for how we live in a capitalist world, and how our actions here in the U.S. affect people’s lives globally.” Dr. Escobar adds, “Ultimately, when we learn from the work the Methodist Church in Chile has done, we are not glorifying their struggles, but we are learning what it looks like to live out the mission in a way that uplifts the people and their needs above all else.”

Dr. Dong Hyeon Jeong, who grew up the child of missionaries in the Philippines, remembers the moment when Mount Pinatubo erupted and the world went dark. He remembers shoveling ashes with his parents off their rooftop so that the house would not cave in. The scene was “apocalyptic,” he says. That moment represented either “divine encounter or trauma, or both,” and raised enduring questions. “I’ve been thinking about what it means for us as Christians to believe in God alongside nature,” he said. “Where does the Earth, where does the more-than-human fit in all of this ecotheology, as we would say?”

 

 

Dr. Jeong’s recent book, Embracing the Nonhuman in the Gospel of Mark,— the topic of October’s Let’s Talk Globally event — explores this question about creation as it relates to a different sense of being “non-human”: the dehumanizing rhetoric often used by governments to deny aid, rights, or responsibility for certain groups of people. Dr. Jeong spoke of the “animalizing conditions of [his] fellow Filipinos” exacerbated by corruption in the government that misdirects funds meant to aid recovery from natural disasters. He also pointed to the increasing “dehumanization and animalization of migrants” here in the United States. All of this, he said, depends on an animal-human divide that designates some people as “less-than-human.”

 

 

“If they want me to sustain this hateful rhetoric by hating the animalized, whether as humans or more-than-humans, I will say no.” Dr. Jeong said. “We will not hate, but we will embrace. We will find our divinity, our humanity, our understanding, our faithfulness and our goodness by being closer, by listening and being guided by our older siblings, the first of the creations.”

 

 

In speaking of the more-than-human as the “older siblings” of humankind, Dr. Jeong drew on Jacques Derrida’s critique of anthropocentrism, his reading of the creation story, and his insistence that the rest of creation knew God long before humans — last to come into existence — ever did. Dr. Jeong then offered two examples of passages in the Gospel of Mark that offer fresh meaning when viewed through this lens. First, he noted that the Markan story of Jesus’ days in the wilderness offers no description of his conversation with Satan but describes him as being “with the wild beasts.”

 

 

“That was his so-called ‘preparation’ ministry,” Dr. Jeong said. “I don’t know about you, but I grew up with animal companions. There is something about being exposed, living with animal companions day in and day out. It changes who you are, let alone if you are both in the wilderness.”

 

 

Dr. Jeong also pointed to a passage in which Jesus compares the Kin-(g)dom of God to a mustard seed, a comparison that speaks to the right relationship of humankind with both the creation and the divine. “It’s planted one day and it grows,” he said. “It’s there. Humans don’t meddle. Humans can join later and enjoy the shade, enjoy the fruits. But the growth of that mustard seed, that smallest of seeds, is because of God and because of nature. Humans, don’t worry. You don’t have to meddle every single time. The Kin-(g)dom of God will manifest — is manifesting — with or without.”

 

 

The conversation with Dr. Jeong included reflections and questions from Dr. Rolf Nolasco and PhD student Jene Lee, as well as participants in-person and online. Lee further explored the violence of animalization toward Asian descent communities, highlighting language used to describe children sent to the United States for adoption — some under false pretenses — after the Korean War. Lee also shared a Korean proverb that highlights the role of the more-than-human: “A bent tree protects the ancestor’s mountain.”

 

 

“This proverb perfectly captures the book’s central but paradoxical insight,” he said. “The bent tree symbolizes those deemed worthless or flawed by imperial standards: the animalized, the colonized, the non-human. Yet it is these very beings, not the straight beautiful trees prized by the empire, that ultimately protect the community’s sacred ground. The transformation that Dr. Jeong envisions is not about straightening ourselves to fit an oppressed mind. Instead, it is an everyday revolution of recognizing the protective power inherent in what has been banned.”

You might think Dr. AHyun Lee’s new book Protestant Clergy Sexual Abuse and Intercultural Pastoral Care: Invisible Mask has nothing to do with you or your church. “You might think, ‘My church didn’t have that kind of traumatic experience,” she says. “But here I want to invite a different question: ‘If I’m wrong, how would I know and are we ready to respond?”

 

The conversation about clergy sexual abuse is, after all, an uncomfortable one many of us would prefer to avoid. That discomfort is mirrored in the academy. Dr. Lee found that research spikes after highly publicized cases and then dissipates as attention fades. In the cases she studied, she also saw how quickly churches moved to cover up abuse. She hopes her new book will invite a fuller, sustained conversation, that together we might have “the courage to tell the truth about clergy sexual abuse and the courage to imagine the church as a safe place again.”

 

I was grateful to have an opportunity to talk with Dr. Lee about her new book and what she hopes pastoral caregivers and church leaders will learn. An abridged version of our conversation is below.

—�Ĕ�Ĕ�Ĕ�Ĕ

Allie Lundblad (AL): Dr. AHyun, thank you so much for speaking with me! Could you begin by briefly describing your book?

 

Dr. AHyun Lee: My case study is focused on Korean protestant churches, not only those in Korea but also in the United States and in diaspora congregations across the world. The reason I’m saying case study is that it’s one case that shows us how culture and theology impact any form of harm or violence, and how we can explore healing and care together. All the complexity can be explored, because it is not only in the Korean church. You can also apply these ideas to your own context, because patriarchy, heteronormativity, militarized leadership style, purity cultures, or colonial missionary legacies, impact any faith community.

 

AL: Why was it important to you to examine clergy sex abuse specifically in Korean Protestant churches? And how did the particularities of that context affect your conclusions?

 

Dr. AHyun Lee: In psychological thinking, culture is not just something out there, right? We internalize it, live in it, with it, and for it. It’s related to your belongingness, your sense of self, or your self-worth, so it’s not a simple layer when you talk about culture. Think about whiteness in U.S. churches, patriarchy, or even how productivity becomes a virtue in our current capitalistic system.

 

For example, in my ordination process, I had been told to introduce myself in military style. While other colleagues were preparing for their interview based on the content, I had to stand in the corner, practicing military-style introduction, because I didn’t go to army. In Korean culture, army is mandatory for men, so for a male-dominant culture, that’s a very normative thing. That’s a simple example, but it shows how the church and culture are connected. This book starts with the Korean context, my own experience as pastor or leader, but at the same time shows how culture is involved with analysis of abuse and how church culture can victimize people. That’s why I called it an invisible mask.

 

AL: Let’s follow that concept of invisible masks. You talk about these invisible masks that obscure the realities of the situation. What are those masks and how do we recognize them?

 

Dr. AHyun Lee: This book comes from listening to stories of abuse in our faith community for many, many years. During the pandemic, when we were all talking about masks, I started reflecting on the masks we cannot see. Invisible masks are the ones we wear sometimes without even realizing. The perpetrator hides behind spiritual authority, and institutions hide behind their reputation. Congregations hide behind harmony or the idea of a family. Survivors often hide behind silence for the sake of safety. As with actual masks, these masks cover but do not erase what’s underneath. Eventually, what is hidden comes out whether we are ready for it or not. The question is, will we unmask together as a community or will survivors and victims be left to carry that burden alone?

 

AL: What do you hope that church leaders and pastoral caregivers will take away from reading your book?

Dr. AHyun Lee: When we talk about pastoral care, we talk a lot about centering care-seekers. The implication is that you are going to hear their story, right? The assumption is right there. But what if the person is not even able to say anything? Then what does it mean to center victim-survivors?

 

I hope leaders and caregivers will think about what it means to center victim-survivors and reframe that idea. It’s not the responsibility of individuals who need to speak up about their pain and ask for change. It’s more a need for communal accountability. It’s important for church leaders and caregivers to have some training about a trauma-informed approach. Because you are not just talking about one person’s trauma, but how all those traumas impact the community. That’s one thing. Also, those things easily become institutionalized to protect the church’s reputation, so you need to be aware of policy changes, accountability processes, good rituals, the use of language in the sermon or in the bulletin. It’s all needed.

 

AL: Do you have specific advice about how churches can center the experiences of victim-survivors in ways that are healing and not re-traumatizing?

 

Dr. AHyun Lee: Most of the victim-survivors of clergy sexual abuse take decades to begin to speak about it. You need to understand, it’s a long journey. Because it’s a long journey for the victim-survivor, their identity is not stuck with the one identity. Their identity is victim, but at the same time, survivor, but at the same time, coper, but even thriver, too. Understanding that plurality and thinking about their current moment and need — honoring their need, their pace, their choice — is crucial when you are providing care for victim-survivors.

 

This issue also comes with a lot of different complexity and intersectionality. For example, one of the studies I did was a case where the family was undocumented. Usually, in immigrant contexts, church is the first place they get support and resources when they move to the United States. When that church becomes the place of abuse, then there’s no place they can go because of their status and, worse, they lacked resources and language access. Church is the cultural support place, financial support place, legal support place, language support place, too. So, the other part we need to think about is what kind of resources or support systems we can provide.

 

It’s usually not about helping individual victim-survivors. It is about asking how the whole community of faith can heal. Rather than focusing on those who are victims, understand that this is a big, long journey and focus on how churches as a whole community can seek healing together along with the victim survivors.

 

AL: How do churches do that? Seek healing for the whole community?

 

Dr. AHyun Lee: People often misread clergy sexual abuse as romance. It is not. It’s about power, so analyzing power dynamics in the church context is crucial to providing care. That’s not just power dynamic analysis. It’s also about who the leader is, what kind of voice is heard, how they make decisions, what kind of transparency policy there is. Analyzing those things is crucial as a pastoral caregiver.

 

In the church context, always be intentional about creating rituals of lament and truth-telling processes, making space for people to express their emotions, saying things out loud, even joyful things out loud. Make intentional space when you are sharing joy and concern, rather than just sharing who is sick and praying. Make a place where those things can really be shared and accepted. Intentionally inclusive language is crucial. And of course, creating policies and external partnerships of support and accountability is important too. Those are so important, because as I mentioned, it’s a long journey for victim-survivors and it’s the same way for the church. It’s not a one-time thing, but every day’s intentional changes make a difference for the future, too.

 

AL: You got at this a little bit already, but how did your own understanding of clergy sexual abuse change as you work on this or was anything surprising or unexpected in your conclusions?

 

Dr. AHyun Lee: Institutions can betray, not just individuals. Over and over, I saw how systems, policy, leadership, cultures, and reputation can silence victim-survivors and protect abusive power. That’s why my book centers both victim-survivors’ agency and institutional accountability, both victim-survivors’ healing and communal care. Both need to come along together. That’s why my title emphasized intercultural pastoral care, because healing is communal. It cannot happen only in therapy alone or only through individual resiliency. We need community and institutions that tell the truth and share power and stay for the long haul. In other words, we all have a role.

—�Ĕ�Ĕ�Ĕ�Ĕ

Dr. Lee concluded our conversation by suggesting that pastoral caregivers and church leaders start small, with “one policy, one practice, one ritual moment that centers victim-survivors.” For victim-survivors themselves, she offered these words of encouragement from Soo Jee Chae, quoted in the book’s conclusion: “No matter how much time has passed, it’s never too late for healing…You who are now willing to face your wounds in order to recover are truly courageous. The healing journey that begins now will not be easy, but you don’t need to worry because you are not alone.”

 

Dr. AHyun Lee’s new book Protestant Clergy Sexual Misconduct and Intercultural Pastoral Care: Invisible Mask is out now.

“When you pass around the loving cup, and you’re sharing spice cake and testimony, you get a profound sense that you’re no longer alone.” To those unfamiliar with the Methodist love feast tradition, Dr. Barry Bryant might sound like he’s describing a modern, experimental communion liturgy. Instead, Garrett’s associate professor of United Methodist and Wesleyan studies is inviting the community to participate in a centuries-old ritual, adapted from Moravian Church traditions. In chapel this week, the practice will find new life as Dr. Bryant leads worship, trusting the Holy Spirit will likewise move through our midst. Particularly amid the widespread fear and anxiety, as ICE helicopters swirl above Evanston, it’s a chance to root ourselves in love that connects us and faith that sustains us. “The love feast is about being able to relate to what is, quite often, the suffering of another, to come out of that by providing mutual support,” Dr. Bryant explains.

 

The feast itself harkens back to the meals Jesus shared with his disciples, reclining at table, cultivating intimacy and belonging. It was widely promoted by John Wesley, Dr. Bryant explains, in part because—unlike communion—it did not require an ordained minister to preside. “The ironic thing about the United Methodist Church including it as a liturgy in the book of worship is that there was no written liturgy,” he laughs. “It was a more spontaneous thing, where the tea and spice cake would go around, people would stand and answer the question, ‘How is it with your soul?’” Participants would offer testimony, recite scripture from memory, and sing a capella hymns that they thought would support the other members gathered. As United Methodist Church worship drifted from its charismatic roots, churches began to favor more formal liturgies, and the prevalence of love feasts declined. “Many folks are not as comfortable with sharing their testimony, being able to articulate the simple question, ‘How is it with your soul?’” Dr. Bryant reflects. It’s a part of our Wesleyan heritage he believes we should reclaim. “Coming out of the pandemic, we’ve lived through an extended and intense period of isolation. We must recapture that intimacy,” he notes. “I’ve always said that six people caught on an elevator between floors is not community, it’s proximity. To create community entails a level of trust that the vulnerability of sharing can cultivate.”

 

There’s also a tacit promise and reassurance that comes from passing cake and tea in a moment where so much is fraught and dangerous. “One of the common reflections after the love feast was that it was, in a sense, liberating,” Dr. Bryant observes. “We learn to trust not just the other participants in the room, but also the Holy Spirit.” It’s no coincidence that this ritual emerged from the Moravian Church, who repeatedly endured violent persecution. In the same way that the Jesus feeding the five thousand has always been a foundational part of how Christians understand God’s abundant love, feeding one another proclaims a vibrant future that will not yield to threat and scarcity.

 

In gathering for the love feast, Dr. Bryant hopes that Garrett can rehearse power that repudiates the abusive cultural narratives that surround us. “When the body of Christ comes together, it’s more than just sharing in the community of goods,” Dr. Bryant says. “It’s one thing to have a food pantry at a church, that’s an act of compassion. The more difficult question is why are people hungry and thirsty to begin with? That’s a question of justice.” When participants spend the time to honor each other’s testimony, to affirm our interdependence as we nourish our neighbor, the ritual invites us to affirm God’s intention for the world. “Justice is not when we get what we deserve. Justice is when we get what God wants us to have,” he explains. “When you operate from that understanding, it causes us to think beyond punitive or retributive justice, to view life from God’s perspective. It’s charismatic in the deepest sense—charisma, or gifts, offering the reminder that in God’s economy there’s always multiplied fishes and loaves.”

 

This deeper mutuality can ignite a hope that ripples outward from our campus. “For me, it goes back to that Sunday school hymn, ‘This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine,” he says tenderly. “If nothing else, it helps those who experience the love feast to know that love is the light that shines in the darkness.” When we capture that spark, and bear witness to God’s love, it doesn’t banish the trauma that surrounds us. But it reminds us that this has always been the Church’s story: We gather close when what we cherish most is threatened. We trust God to enter our midst and herald life abundant. “If even just a little light leaves that room and goes out into the world, we will have accomplished the whole purpose,” Dr. Bryant adds softly. “In the love shared between those who gather, we reflect the love of God.”

 

You are invited to join the love feast at Garrett’s chapel on Wednesday, November 12, 4:00 p.m. CT, in-person or online. Click here to learn more!