Garrett Seminary is pleased to announce the appointment of three outstanding scholars and practitioners to its faculty, each bringing expertise, vocational commitment, and a shared passion for teaching and formation. The Reverend Dr. Angela N. Parker will join the biblical studies department as Associate Professor of New Testament and Womanist Thought. In addition, the rapidly-growing Master of Arts in Pastoral Care and Counseling program will be bolstered by the appointments of Dr. Arelis Benítez as Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology, Psychology, and Latiné Studies, and of The Reverend Dr. Michael Washington (G-ETS ‘05, ’24) who will serve as Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Chaplaincy Studies.

 

“These appointments reflect both the strength of Garrett’s programs and the vitality of our community,” said President Javier A. Viera. “In an increasingly competitive landscape, we’ve been able to attract three remarkable scholar-practitioners who are innovators in their respective fields. Their decision to join Garrett also speaks to the distinctive character of this place, its intellectual vigor, spiritual dynamism, and commitment to the formation of faithful leaders for a complex world. I’m delighted to welcome them to Garrett.”

 

Dr. Parker comes to Garrett from Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology, where she has built a national reputation as a leading voice in womanist biblical scholarship and public theology. She has received multiple honors for her work and is the author of numerous book chapters and scholarly essays. She is the author of If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I? Black Lives Matter & Biblical Authority (Eerdmans, 2021), and is currently completing two additional volumes exploring Christian faith, New Testament theology, and the challenge of Christian nationalism: Faith Un-Lynched: “Jesus-Faith as Paul’s Both/And Out of Christian Nationalism” (Eerdmans) and Bodies, Violence, and Emotions: A Womanist Reading of the Gospel of Mark (Wipf & Stock). Parker is also a co-editor of Bitter the Chastening Rod (Lexington Books/Fortress Press).

 

“Dr. Parker exemplifies the vocation of public scholar,” said Dr. Jennifer Harvey, Garrett’s Vice President of Academic Affairs. “Her work is both academically rigorous and widely accessible. She is able to speak not only to scholars but to communities of faith wrestling with urgent questions. Just as importantly, she brings a deep love of teaching and formation of students.”

 

Returning to Chicago is a homecoming for Dr. Parker, who completed her doctoral work at Chicago Theological Seminary. “When I visited for my on-campus interview, the diversity of the students and the excitement of the student body made it an easy decision to come to Garrett,” she says with a smile. “I can’t wait to join a faculty that hails from so many different countries across the globe, one which fosters such a range of theological conversations.” Amid this widespread diversity, her scholarship will continue to engage pressing questions at the intersection of biblical interpretation, race, and power. “For the past ten years, I’ve been wrestling with white privilege and supremacy—what it means to take seriously the lived experiences of Black women in this moment when Christian authoritarianism is on the rise,” she says. “As I enter Garrett, I’m thinking about what it means to add to that womanist canon, particularly in Pauline literature—because Paul is still so often that bastion of white male dominion in biblical scholarship.”

 

In pastoral care and counseling, Drs. Benítez and Washington bring complementary strengths that will expand the seminary’s capacity to form leaders across a broad spectrum of vocational contexts. “Our program draws a wide range of students—from those called to chaplaincy or pastoral care in parish settings to people who seek to become clinical practitioners or work in non-profits,” MAPCC degree director Dr. AHyun Lee explains. “Drs. Washington and Benítez expand our ability to serve all of them well—one a longtime pastor and chaplain passionate about how churches and ministers can better help people, the other a practitioner and scholar whose work will help students better understand the broader context in which care happens.”

 

Dr. Benítez joins Garrett from Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where she serves as Assistant Professor of the Practice of Religion, Psychology, and Culture and Director of Field Education. Her work explores how sociocultural realities shape experiences of suffering, healing, and care, with particular attention to migration, identity, and community.

 

“I’m always considering how context and community make a difference to people’s sense of wholeness, how they affect our ability to care for them in a time of suffering,” she explains. “As care providers, we’re also called to let our patients’ be our teachers, accepting the invitation to walk beside them in their suffering but always letting them retain their own agency and sense of control.”

 

Dr. Benítez brings a perspective deeply attentive to the ways identity and lived experience shape the possibilities for healing. Her forthcoming book, Reexistence and Return: Migration, Queer Identity, and Healing in Latiné Communities, explores these themes in depth. “I invite students to openly investigate the intersections of class, race, and sexuality,” she says. “I want to help them understand who they are and what they can bring to a care relationship.”

 

Dr. Washington returns to Garrett as both an alumnus and longtime educator. A graduate of both the MDiv and PhD programs, he taught courses at Garrett for the past four years while also working as board-certified chaplain and ACPE supervisor at Northwestern University Memorial Hospital. With more than a decade of experience in healthcare and parish ministry, he brings a deeply grounded approach to pastoral theology.

 

“Chaplaincy and congregational leadership have been my life’s work, but I’m excited to create pedagogical experiences that provide a way to offer care in many spheres and spaces,” he shares. “I’m energized by the ways that Garrett approaches caring as a collective practice. And I’m thrilled to join the faculty, to participate in what Garrett has always been doing and will keep doing by the grace of God.”

 

All three faculty members will begin their appointments in Fall 2026. Their arrival marks an important moment in Garrett’s continued growth and its commitment to forming leaders equipped for the challenges of ministry and public leadership today.

 

“As we look ahead to another academic year, I’m deeply encouraged by the gifts these new colleagues bring to our community,” President Viera said. “They will not only enrich our classrooms but also help shape the future of theological education at Garrett, as well as the lives of the students we serve.”

 

 

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. 

 

 

“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.

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.

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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.

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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!

“You’re my yesterday and I’m your tomorrow.” In just seven words, Korean MAPM student Hayoung Esther Suh captures the glorious interconnection that sits at the heart of Garrett Seminary’s radical expansion in hybrid learning. Garrett now offers students the opportunity to complete several degree programs fully-online, including the MDiv, and the result has been a dramatic rise in the number of international students who enter the campus’ virtual doors. What has surpassed even remote education advocates’ wildest dreams, however, is how this shift increases access and broadens moral imagination. “Sometimes we get stuck where we are, and this offers flexibility and gives us a space of letting go,” Suh says. “God takes us beyond time and place, reminding us that we are not the center of the world. The classroom gives us a chance to move toward a truly communal center.”

 

There are many reasons that students choose to study online. For some, like second-year Myanmar MDiv student Mai Lin Lin Khaing, the visa process can present an obstacle to study in Evanston. “I thank God for the Garrett community. I’m so grateful to President Javier and the Garrett team for making such a strong visa recommendation and also for offering me a full tuition scholarship—without that, I would not have been able to enroll. Unfortunately my visa was still rejected,” Khaing shares. “But, now I’m grateful to have joined Garrett online because it has taught me to manage my time and energy effectively and has also greatly reduced my expenses, since I don’t have to worry about housing and other costs. Additionally, I’ve been able to apply what I learned in class to my ministry, like the way Dr. Teasdale’s evangelism class has enriched, inspired, revived, and equipped me to share the gospel of Jesus Christ boldly and authentically.”

 

Other students prefer to study online so their communities of accountability can shape their education. Chilean MDiv student Daniel Contreras, for example, serves as a missionary in Honduras, where he supervises more than 20 local pastors and offers training to ministers and laity. He’s seeking this degree so he can become an ordained UMC elder but did not want to uproot his life and ministry to pursue that dream. “This program is awesome because it allows me to serve full-time as a missionary but also devote time to studying,” he says. “I also needed to balance career and family—I’m a parent to 11- and 14-year-old kids. Now I can follow my call but also be there for my children.”

 

Similarly, MDiv student Makonga Mutombo reflects that the church he serves would face great difficulties if he were to leave and study in the United States, but he is working on training young adults to take over whenever he is not around. Mutombo fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a refugee but found purpose serving a church in South Africa, even preaching for a year when the pastor was on compassionate leave. “I’m directing the choir, teaching a confirmation class, and am ready every week to step into the pulpit in case we don’t have a preacher that Sunday,” he says. “My presence here, it helps a lot. If I’m not there, the church would struggle.” The reduced cost for an online degree also enables students to pursue graduate education who would otherwise be shut out. “I’m so grateful for this program and for my scholarship,” Contreras says with a wide smile. “It’s the only way I could afford this education.”

 

Regardless of the road that leads students to study online, what they find when they open their laptops is a global community full of passionate learners from five continents eager to share contextual knowledge that deepens any syllabus. “Sometimes it can be challenging to understand things from another point of view, but I’ve found that those different perspectives actually give us deeper insights,” Khaing notes. “The teaching style at Garrett welcomes everyone and respects their opinions, so we truly see and taste the beauty of that diversity.” As Mutombu remarks, it offers professors a wealth of experiences that transcend their own. “When they talk about Africa, they want to hear from us: What are we experiencing in our churches? We do research here and then share with others,” he says. “The same thing happens with students Korea, India, or Latin America. We all study together, and talk on an international WhatsApp group, mixing our perspectives. Now I have friends from all corners of the world!”

 

Suh brings a unique perspective to the online classroom because she studied in-person at Garrett during her MDiv program. Her program was interrupted by the 2020 COVID outbreak, so she has experienced both residential education and early forays into online instruction before starting this degree. “Online students who come to Garrett are so focused and passionate about their learning, it enriches all our classroom conversations,” she says. Just a couple weeks ago, she completed a group presentation with students from Indonesia, Minnesota, and Evanston. “We used Teams and shared Google documents, but the discussion about our presentation topic was so rich that I didn’t feel at all like I was missing out on the Garrett experience,” she reports. “I felt just as connected and lively in that moment as I did in conversations in the dorms.”

 

It’s also been a joyful surprise to witness the technological and pedagogical advancements Garrett has made over just a few years. “Those early online classes were held on Zoom, which is a very temporary space. Links disappear, it’s hard to keep notes,” Suh says. “Now the professors are so tech-wise: They upload to Moodle or Canva, they’re very active in reading the chat where online students are offering comments, they employ Padlet, Mentimeter, and other interactive tools. But their mindset has really changed as well—I don’t have to remind them about time zones, and they’re flexible with deadlines so mine isn’t at 2:00 a.m.” Online students also receive broad access to the Styberg Library, thousands of theological resources just a click away. “The library is huge,” Mutombo laughs. “It really stretches our knowledge.” The nature of online education also means that students build their own database of digital files and resources, collected along their journey. “Microsoft OneDrive has all the folders, all the files that we can access anytime,” says Contreras. “It makes it very easy, but it also keeps you accountable.”

 

Each student carries their own intentions for the ministries they will pursue upon graduation, leadership and knowledge rippling from Evanston to communities thousands of miles away. Khaing wants to enter children’s ministry, creating safe spaces where students are encouraged to think critically and freely about their faith. Mutombo wants to return to the D.R.C., helping to nurture congregations in the Eastern part of the country that has been ravaged in the civil war. “They will need more pastors to go and start from the roots, rebuilding churches,” he says. “I want to work in those fields. I like the bush, the rural areas—I’m a farmer by profession and studied agronomy at the university. I want to go home and serve the church.”

 

While those dreams are still on the horizon, what’s immediately visible is the love and beauty that grows in their midst. “I’m mesmerized, speechless by how the Holy Spirit moves across so many places, through so many people,” Contreras offers with reverence. “My class is wondrously diverse—it’s beautiful. Different nationalities, all colors; this is God’s work. It’s a garden, blessed with the fruit of love, and I am grateful to be there.”

Since its beginning, the Styberg Preaching Institute has sought to support preachers amidst the frustrations and challenges of both church life and contemporary culture. The 20th Anniversary event on October 7-9 was no different.

 

The workshop gathered nine preachers and presenters for a three-day conversation with Dr. Gennifer Brooks and Dr. Andrew Wymer on the topic of “Faithful Preaching for our Times.” Rev. Dr. Marvin McMickle, Rev. Dr. Luke Powery, Rev. Dr. Gerald Liu and Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III offered plenary addresses that explored the meaning and challenge of faithful preaching. Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman, Rev. Dr. Sarah Travis, and Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf expanded on the theme with explorations of disinformation, authoritarianism, and Christian nationalism, respectively. A “Pastor’s Panel,” which included Dr. Woolf along with Rev. Grace Imathiu and Bishop Dwight Riddick, Sr., delved into the implications of these crises for the church.

Throughout the event, speakers emphasized the importance of naming these challenges. During a panel discussion of his plenary address, Dr. Liu did so by reflecting on something he’d heard Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics, say once: that cynicism is the opposite of hope. “I personally would counter that by saying it’s impossible to hope right now unless we’re cynical,” he said, “because without cynicism, I don’t think we can name what is actually evil about what’s happening. The reality is, we need to be cynical about what’s happening. We can’t stop there, and we also can’t become frustrated if we don’t see society or the kindom of God advancing the way we want it too.”

 

Over the last 20 years, the Styberg Institute has helped countless preachers to speak truth and inspire hope. Endowed by lifelong United Methodists Ernest and Bernice Styberg, the institute has carried out its mission under the leadership of Dr. Brooks. Garrett students as well as preachers within and beyond the United Methodist Church have benefitted from the creation of the Styberg Teaching Fellows position, facilitation of peer preaching groups, support for organizations like the Academy of Homiletics and Black Clergy Women of the United Methodist Church. The Institute has also hosted numerous workshops, in person and online, both domestically and overseas.

 

The Garrett community was invited to celebrate this history with a special chapel service and dinner, which included the launch of the second edition of Dr. Brooks’s book and the Good News Preaching video course, now available on the 91PORN. During the chapel service, Dr. Brooks presented special awards to two people who had been of particular service to the work of the institute. She told stories of Rev. Jacqueline Ford’s readiness and willingness to help in the early days of the institute and today and of Dr. Wymer’s good work as a student and then as a colleague.

 

“God sends people into your life at a time of need,” Dr. Brooks said as she presented the awards.

The preacher for the evening was Bishop Riddick, who named the stormy situation of the present day even has he found an anchor in Jesus: “To be sure we’re living in a season where the confidence of so many people has been shattered,” he said. “We look around and we see cultural chaos, mass shootings, political division, moral confusion, racial tension and economic uncertainty, our young dying in the streets. Like the disciples, it feels like the wind and the waves are beating against the boat and we ask, ‘Lord, where are you in all of this?’ We are witnessing the unchecked decisions that are flowing from our nation’s capital like a mighty rushing flood and no one in authority seems to be saying a word.”

Wind and waves were only some of the powerful images offered to describe both the present moment — with its authoritarianism, nationalism, and historical revisionism — and the call to preach faithfully. Rev. Dr. Marvin McMickle advised attendees not to “preach us into content with the status quo” or to “imagine a time when it is ever acceptable for a Blackhawk helicopter to hover over an apartment building…in Chicago,” in reference to the recent immigration raid. Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman drew on the maxim that “falsehood flies around the world” to invite listeners to slow down enough to find truth in the midst of so much disinformation. Rev. Dr. Sarah Travis referenced the popular children’s book to say that “the emperor may be naked, but the emperor still has the nuclear codes” as she named both the risks and the resources for speaking the truth when the empire “wants us to believe that our subversive speech is like spitting into the wind.” Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III envisioned the preacher as a DJ and asked listeners to consider whether there is enough musical variety in their crate, and a variety of perspectives in their preaching.

 

Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery also evoked the musical tradition in his plenary address as he shared a story about teaching a divinity school course on the spirituals in a federal prison. After a class discussion on lament and hope in the spirituals, specifically “There is a Balm in Gilead,” one of his incarcerated students showed him a drawing of the word “lament.” He had drawn a box around the middle four letters, demonstrating to Dr. Lowery that there is an “amen” in every lament.

 

“I’d been researching lament in preaching and theology for like 20 years, and I had never seen that. A so-called threat, a prisoner, became my homiletics professor on that day,” Dr. Lowery said. “Faithful Christian preaching voices the ‘amens’ amid our laments. It allows us to hear the bombs exploding in life yet also helps us hear the balm in life. One might even say that faithful Christian preaching is a balm amidst the bombs, an articulation of an incarnate hope.”

Garrett is delighted to announce that the Reverend Dr. Esther Acolatse has been appointed to the Harry R. Kendall endowed chair, and begins this academic year as the Harry R. Kendall Professor of Practical Theology and World Christianity. A much sought-after expert in the fields of World Christianity, global theologies, and pastoral care, she has been teaching at Garrett since 2022, and the seminary celebrates this further step to expand her research and honor her contributions. “Dr. Acolatse is a highly regarded scholar of the global church, its movements and practices, and especially the role of pastoral leadership and care. She is a cornerstone of our pastoral care and counseling department, and our chaplaincy program in particular” says President Javier Viera. “We are blessed to have her wisdom, her scholarly voice, and her administrative leadership among us, and I’m thrilled for this new chapter in our journey together.”

 

Previously the Professor of Pastoral Theology and World Christianity, Dr. Acolatse has taught at numerous institutions, including the University of Toronto, Duke University Divinity School, and Loyola University Maryland. Trained at the University of Ghana, Harvard University, and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of numerous publications, including Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit: Biblical Realism in Africa and the West (Eerdmans, 2018), and For Freedom or Bondage: A Critique of African Pastoral Practices (Eerdmans, 2014). Her research and writing have been recognized with numerous awards including the Carnegie Africa Diaspora Fellowship and Duke University’s Julian Abele Mentor of the Year. She is likewise an active member of many academic guilds and serves on the board of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa College of Mentors and, previously, the Board of Commissioners for the Association of Theological Schools.

 

Dr. Acolatse’s professional journey across both continents and research areas offers clear expression to what it means to embody an interdisciplinary approach. “I feel like every time I hear about a new article she’s written, it’s on a completely different topic for which her expertise is known in other parts of the world,” says Academic Dean Jennifer Harvey. “She’s an incredible intellectual, deeply committed to people and the church, and you feel that in the way that she leads—not only with students but with her colleagues. She’s a scholar with liberationist theological commitments who also embodies those ways of being in how she shows up as a human.” This opinion is echoed by Ph.D. student Charles Adonteng, fortunate to study with Dr. Acolatse as his advisor. “I have not only observed her unique and expansive teaching approach, which includes perspectives from marginalized communities, especially from African cultures, but I have also experienced the pastoral care environment she co-creates with her students in the classroom,” says Adonteng. “This environment makes the learning space vulnerable, encouraging students to think and engage confidently in the seemingly impossible.”

 

Aware took the opportunity to interview Dr. Acolatse about her approach to the field of pastoral care, and where her research is headed.

 

Why is theology important when understanding care?

 

We all have faith enough. People may say they don’t believe in spirits, principalities and powers, outside things that control us, but we give ourselves every day to invisible forces, let them intrude in our lives. We have driverless cars! People are primed to believe that something higher than them is responsible for their care. There’s always that tacit dimension, an assumption in a symbiotic relationship with beings we cannot see.

 

Erikkson puts it well when he starts his psychosocial development with navigating trust versus mistrust, making hope the linchpin rather than despair. If you navigate trust versus mistrust well enough, what you get is hope. That is what unlocks all the other developmental trajectories—they depend on hope in this transcendent other. This notion was always among humans until the Enlightenment. We all had an idea of a spiritual presence that we assumed real in our physical life. Coming from that perspective means that you enter pastoral caring with the assumption that God is already present in how different cultures name and narrate their caring needs. That is what you must use to try and help them, instead coming from outside their cultural understanding of what is happening.

 

How do you train students to care within this paradigm?

 

It begins with inculcating attentive listening skills, making sure that they are aware of their own cultural biases so that they can listen to people across cultures. We must move them beyond sympathy with the person and their cultural perspective, even past empathy, to what we call interpathy. You are still situated within your culture but can move into the other person’s culture and return to your own having learned something that facilitates true dialogue. You create a caring environment that where the other sees you, seeing them—a multidirectional seeing and being seen.

 

There is also a delicate dance between Christian or received theology and psychodynamic processes. It is the internal work of the caregiver to navigate your own understanding of the presenting problem and how you read their culture, both theologically and psychologically. We must understand that what is most important is the care of the person, their flourishing. How can you offer care without diminishing their cultural and religious perspective, helping them flourish even within a psychospiritual perspective that may be intertwined with the problem’s source?

 

Their ability to function psychologically trumps what you assume to be theologically right. Even if they misunderstand the work of the Spirit and the work of Jesus in their midst, it is more important that you first give them psychological resources. Then, as you continue to work with them, you can begin to flesh out what is theologically inadequate in their account of what is going on. But I tell students, please don’t bring your Jesus and replace their Jesus with your Jesus. That is not how we do it, because they need that Jesus.

 

What is unique about Garrett as a learning environment for pastoral care and counseling?

 

Garrett’s approach is both person-centered and reflects systems theory. However, we are not only trying to care for the individual, we are also asking what destructive features in the individual’s environment impinge on their flourishing. So, in my course on psychologies of liberation, we discuss how race, colonialism, and patriarchy work together, how to give people resources for dismantling that harm.

 

We are also one of the most diverse faculty and student populations that I have experienced. We have a way to think globally with people that enhances our own local contexts. I invite students to think scripturally, from their local languages. What does your mother tongue say when you read the scripture? That is the one literature that we all have in common, and when we each bring that to our conversation, we receive a richer perspective for how we think about God, and how we then deal with the messiness of life that is presented in the individual caring encounter.

 

Where is your research leading you now?

 

I’ve always tried to get the Church to think globally as well as contextually. My work straddles Africa, which I know best, and the West. Currently, I’m working on how we can remission the church in an age of migrant angst. What is the global church up to? Why do we seem to have lost our voice amid everything that is going on? I’m not hearing the church speaking to this moment.

 

In addition to how how we can care for migrants among us, I want to see if I can teach the church to learn what repentance and forgiveness looks like for past mistakes, even for future ones, while still doing the work. My people say that is only the one who goes to fetch water from the river with a clay pot who breaks the pot. If you’re not doing anything, you’re not going to make any mistakes. Mistakes are for people who are doing things. And fear of mistakes should not prevent us from doing what needs to be done.

 

Why is the Church struggling to respond in this moment?

 

It feels to me like the Church is no longer a scripture people. We are more likely to pull a sociological or psychological resource to deal with our issues than a theological one. Then, we work in an arena where people can best us because they are the gurus of those resources we are pulling. How can I return us to our main resource? People already come primed, reflecting theologically. They may not name this theological reflection God, or even a personal being. But there is already in that tacit dimension a primal cry, always reaching to transcendence. God has made this person fully free while fully loved, these are the bounds. How can I help them navigate their life within these two truths? If the only way I can read human brokenness is psychological, sociological, without a theological understanding, then I am in the wrong place. But if I can say it is running away from the self that God intended us to be, which is causing all our issues, if that is how I refract even the word we call sin, then I have work to do, confronting the refusal of the self to be the self it was made to be.