“Have I been trained to read as a White male scholar?” It’s a question that vibrantly burns through the Reverend Dr. Angela N. Parker’s scholarship, but also one she wants students to critically ask themselves as she prepares to join the Garrett Seminary biblical studies department as Associate Professor of New Testament and Womanist Thought. “Paying attention to how Christian commentaries equate Christianity with Whiteness to uphold dominance has to be part of our conversation in an age when Christian nationalism is on the rise, when Islamophobia and Antisemitism are running rampant,” she explains. “It’s critically important, not just for African American and womanist interpretations, but for Asian, Latine or African interpretations—and so White students can see the biblical text more fully, instead of through a veneer of Whiteness.”

 

As she enters a new theological institution, Dr. Parker brings a host of awards and accolades which testify to her ability to re-engage the Bible and its ancient audiences free from stifling interpretations that can blinker our understanding. Her 2021 book, God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I? Black Lives Matter & Biblical Authority garnered widespread praise for the clarity with which she portrays the ways she was trained to forsake her own embodied identity and assume a White gaze when reading the biblical texts. Now, she is ready to build on that foundation and expand the field of biblical scholarship. “The Reverend Dr. Cheryl Anderson was a good friend and treasured mentor to me for years—the fact that she was able to have such a successful career and then retire from Garrett made it seem like a perfect place for me to enter into my own senior status as a mid-level, mid-career womanist New Testament Scholar,” she says, joy writ large across her smile. “When I came on campus, the diversity and excitement of the student body made my choice an easy decision. I thrive in scholarship, and I thrive on teaching in the classroom, and I am so excited to take all of that and add to the womanist canon, particularly in Pauline literature.”

 

It’s an intentional choice, as Paul has long been treated as a bastion for the kind of scholarship which props up White Christian nationalism—a favored well from which to proof-text. “My favorite text to use to help students see Paul in a different way is Galatians, to think about Paul addressing the Galatian people and the Galatian people’s own history,” she explains. “The Galatian people are a subjugated people, who understood themselves as ‘better off dead’ according to the Roman Empire—part of the reason that they are trying to take on circumcision, eat kosher, and follow Jewish holidays is to overcome what I would call an inferiority complex because the Roman Empire has been telling them that they are inferior.”

 

What does it look like, then, to let that historical reality inform the way we understand the exchange between Paul’s letter and Galatian self-understanding? “To reframe Galatians, we must take seriously how the Galatian people are hearing this text,” Dr. Parker says. “What does it mean for Paul to use the language of motherhood and birthing even though he’s never had that bodily experience of bearing down? You have to remember that Paul is writing to mixed communities and, if that’s the case, you can ask the question: ‘How would Galatian women have heard this?’ That allows you to begin to think differently.”

 

When Dr. Parker enters the classroom, she loves to use diverse methods of engaging the biblical text to help students shake off hegemonic interpretations. “Sometimes, we even have to act out the biblical text, to get up and move and understand it spatially,” she says. “Heavens will be split open, or someone will need to be Bartimaeus on the ground, on the side because he is para ten hodon, along the way. But then, after he is healed, he becomes en te hodo, on the way.” Inviting classes to participate in constructing the biblical text together offers a chance for every student to bring their unique perspective. “When you have students from Myanmar, Camaroon, South Korea, and South Carolina, every viewpoint is going to be slightly different,” she notes. “When you hear a different viewpoint, how do you hold it in your body without reacting immediately? How do we become active listeners, not listening in order to respond but listening in order to hear?”

 

Through this and other approaches, Dr. Parker wants to help students inhibit the rush to interpretation, giving space for God to speak afresh. “These methodologies, the ways you look at language and history and context, they’re an art of slowing down as you approach the biblical text,” she notes. “Spirit has a way of moving in that slowness.”

 

For a professor often praised for her commitment to engaging the broader culture, training future leaders to think critically becomes its own theological proclamation. “It’s imperative for all of us to be public voices, particularly in Bible,” Dr. Parker adds with urgency. “When someone like Mike Johnson, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, can post on his Facebook a message about why borders are important, proof-texting and cherry-picking across the entire Bible, that’s a problem.” In this crucible, biblical interpretation isn’t only an act of scholarship, it’s an act of faith. “If we love this text, as many people in the world say we do, then it’s incumbent upon us to take it seriously,” she concludes. “We have to devote our lives and work tirelessly to study the Bible. That’swhy I tell students: I am not here to rubber stamp what you already know. My job is to make you put your own viewpoints in a prism and engage them from so many different lenses as you learn.”

The caring relationship cannot be separated from the wider social, cultural, and political forces that shape the people for whom we care. For Dr. Arelis Benítez, schools of psychology that try to isolate individual symptoms, to treat them “objectively,” are an attempt to neatly cleave suffering from the broader human condition, a method that reduces people to pathology. As she enters Garrett Seminary as the Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology, Psychology, and Latiné Studies, Dr. Benítez wants students to see systemic forces as a foundation on which counseling can be built, not a distraction from the task at hand. “I want them to be mindful not only of who they are and their contextuality, but also of the communities they represent and hope to serve,” she explains. “I’m also thinking about a holistic approach to care: How do mind, body, and spirit contribute to overall wellness?”

 

When asked which scholars most contributed to her understanding, Dr. Benítez is quick to name the influence of pioneering Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa. “Her definition of health is not the absence of disease,” Dr. Benítez observes. “It’s the continual labor of holistic care—for ourselves and our communities. How do we attend to wounds and consider the fissures and fractures, not in a way that says ‘I’m not good enough,’ but in a way that asks, ‘What is this teaching me about what’s wrong with the world?’”

 

As the child of migrant parents, Dr. Benítez is keenly attuned to the interplay between mental health and communal wellbeing. Rather than shy away from the knowledge those experiences bring, she models for students what it looks like to integrate them into her professional work, while maintaining appropriate ethicalboundaries. “I invite students to see vulnerability as a source of strength. In my own journey, learning to live into my multiple identities has taken courage and has brought joy, but also moments of depression—it all unfolds within and against a colonial system,” she shares. “It’s really important to model that storytelling, to be grounded in our own histories and identities. Even when I name my faith, I say that I’m in loving tension with the Seventh-Day Adventist tradition, creating space for students who may be navigating similar journeys.”

 

Part of what inhibits human flourishing is the way that structural power causes people to criticize essential parts of who we are, a lesson that Dr. Benítez knows intimately from reconciling her queerness with a world that does not always create space for LGBTQIA+ people. Reexistence and Return: Migration, Queer Identity and Healing in Latiné Communities, her forthcoming book, parses the strength and beauty she draws from her own Chicana ancestry with the ways that communities must continue to grow to support all people’s thriving. “We have to tap into our moral imaginations and create new ways of being because the old ways aren’t working,” she explains. “Trauma is not just psychological and emotional, it’s also spiritual. This is where theology becomes such fertile ground—a resource we can draw on to transform ideological structures.”

 

In addition to her professorial responsibilities in care and counseling, Dr. Benítez is excited to collaborate with Centro Raíces Latinas. “I love working with Latinéstudents, knowing that many of us are the first generation to enter higher education. I want to walk with them through that experience, because I’ve lived through it myself,” she says. “We’re navigating political fears of separation, alongside emotional separation that we’re seeking to heal. I’m committed to both one-on-one encounters and bringing in the wider Latiné community to learn from their passions and struggles.”

 

Across all aspects of her professorial approach, Dr. Benítez seeks to strengthen students’ own agency as future leaders and care providers. “My experiences in chaplaincy disrupted any assumption that, because I have this degree and training, I alone can offer something another person needs,” she explains. “Whether in care or in teaching, it’s not about leading a person, but walking with them and learning alongside them. I tell students, ‘Let the care seeker also be your teacher, help the person claim agency and a sense of control around their suffering narrative.’ In that process, I continue to ask, ‘How do we teach students to listen to themselves while also attending to the care seeker?’ It’s a dual process.” At a time when many are wrestling with questions of suffering, this humility cultivates a disposition toward servant leadership that has long characterized the ministry of Garrett graduates. “I’m here to empower students as they prepare for a lifetime of service—whether in parish ministry, chaplaincy, education, or spiritual activism,” she says with evident joy. “I hope that through academic space and my own research, we can create a web for transformative engagement.”

Never forget that providing care is a form of ministry. That’s a core conviction for the Reverend Dr. Michael K. Washington, who will serve as Garrett Seminary’s Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Chaplaincy Studies. “Chaplaincy and congregational leadership have been my primary calling,” he names with pride. “I want to bring those lanes and lines of awareness to support students in their ministry, while also providing pedagogical experiences that honor everyone’s lives and offer ways to do care in many spaces and spheres.” But while students may enter a variety of vocations, in the past four years he has taught the Foundations and Practice of Chaplaincy course at Garrett they frequently express gratitude for the way Dr. Washington situates care and counseling as a form of pastoral formation.

 

Part of this approach reflects Dr. Washington’s own journey into chaplaincy. He has served as a chaplain and ACPE supervisor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital since 2017, but before that role he was the Associate Pastor at Chicago’s New Community Covenant Church for more than a decade. “In pastoral theology, everyone has a bent and a practice. My practice comes out of the congregation, through the hospital,” he explains. “I am formed by the communities who shaped me, the spaces where I did the work.”

 

Those formative spaces also include Garrett, where Dr. Washington received both his MDiv in 2005 and his PhD in 2024, and he sees entering a new role at the seminary as an opportunity to pay forward wisdom that others invested in him. “When I enter the classroom, I’m bringing the teachers who trained and informed me,” he says. “I want to bring and represent them well, as I encourage students to reflect on who they bring into that space. We are never coming alone.” This communal disposition also fundamentally shapes his approach to care. “In a culture that can be hyper-focused on individuality, we must remember that care is a collective and communal practice,” he notes. “God is granting Garrett the gift of students who have been shaped by communities all across the world, offering us a chance to engage in mutual learning. That’s the kind of opportunity that gets you up in the morning.”

 

When asked what grounds this orientation, Dr. Washington is quick to point to experiences within the Black Church. “I do draw upon Black life and thought, which tend to be community oriented,” he explains. “I grew up in congregations where we learned and sung Scripture, memorizing the words of God, as a way of rehearsing care. But those traditions came from a ground and soil that weren’t exclusively Christian, so there’s also a historical consciousness for the me that’s in the mix—an ancestral legacy for Black folks that found articulation in that scriptural language.”

 

One lesson Dr. Washington hopes to share is how the practices which characterize effective ministry are also crucial to providing compassionate care. “I’m always asking students to be mindful of three things in spiritual care: Always be listening, always be praying, and always be assessing,” he says. “When students listen well, that will always be a good marker for care. When they pray and inquire how the other person understands God and the sacred in that moment, it helps the person feel seen. And then you combine that with asking, ‘What’s happening in this? What’s your next intervention because of what’shappening.’” These skills offer students concrete practices to hone as they enter their vocational fields, helping to build confidence and develop their caring muscles until those habits become instinctive.

 

Though his own path led from the parish through the hospital, Dr. Washington believes these practices will help students wherever they serve. “I don’t know where students will ultimately choose to practice care,” he notes. “They may be on staff in government. They may work for a nonprofit. They may be doing ministry in jail. So, I want to offer skills that are applicable to a wide assortment of spaces and places.” Once students become adept at working with these tools, they can become better conduits for the healing work that God enacts through relationship. “In my MDiv work, Dr. Bedford would talk about how you know good theology because it can be preached,” he muses. “But it’s also true that good theology can be sung, and there’s a musicality to care when the Spirit is moving—the ways that Jesus calls forth new life.” At whatever point in their journeys that students enter Garrett, helping them listen for that holy music is work that brings Dr. Washington joy. “I love watching people grow in their capacity for care,” he says simply. “However good you are at your beginnings, you’ll get better the longer you go.”

“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.”

 

“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.

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!