DAVID ARCUS performed recitals in October at White Rock Baptist Church in Durham, N.C., and Church of the Epiphany in Danville, Va. He collaborated with Olukola Owolabi in a presentation on the pipe organ and its literature to music students of Onondaga Community College at Crouse Hall (Syracuse University) in December. In January he presented his annual program in Duke Chapel, which featured a performance of the rarely heard chorale fantasia on An Wasserflüssen Babylon by Johann Adam Reincken. In March he participated in the Bach Birthday 328 Festival at First Lutheran Church, Boston, Mass.
JEREMY BEGBIE's essay “Natural Theology and Music” was published in The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology, and his review of Tim Dowley’s Christian Music: A Global History appeared in the March issue of the new online journal Marginalia. He was keynote speaker at the San Diego National Worship Leaders’ Conference and the Telemachus Conference in Florida, and he addressed the topic of sharing faith in a postmodern world at a conference organized by the Mission and Discipleship Council of the Church of Scotland. In November he spoke on “The Mixed Potential of Music” at an international conference on “Mediating Peace: Reconciliation through Art, Music & Film” in Jerusalem and delivered a lecture-performance on the theme of lament as part of the World Christian Lecture Series at Hope College (Mich.). He joined with Duke University’s Ciompi Quartet to perform At the Still Point, a new commissioned work for piano and string quartet by American composer Christopher Theofanidis. The concert was part of Engaging Eliot, a multimedia exploration and art exhibition in Duke Chapel of T. S. Eliot’s literary masterwork, Four Quartets. Begbie’s essay “Keeping in Time: Music and Four Quartets” was incorporated into the QU4RTETS project catalog, which accompanied the exhibition.
KATE BOWLER received a Lilly Theological Research Grant for 2012–13 to study immigrant megachurches in Canada and the United States. She is participating in the Wabash Teaching and Learning Workshop for pre-tenure theological school faculty.
LUKE BRETHERTON published “The Political Populism of Saul Alinsky and Broad-Based Organizing” in The Good Society Journal (21.2, 2012) and “Coming to Judgment: Methodological Reflections on the Relationship Between Ecclesiology, Ethnography and Political Theory” in Modern Theology (28.2, 2012). His book Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Wiley-Blackwell) is one of four books shortlisted for the Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing. At the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in Chicago in November, he was part of two panels, one responding to Jeffrey Stout’s book Blessed Are the Organized, and the other discussing “Ecclesiology and Ethnography.” He delivered the keynote address “Pentecostalism and Political Witness” at the European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism, held February 1–2 at Heidelberg University in Germany.
CHARLES CAMPBELL attended the annual meeting of the advisory council for the journal Interpretation in Richmond, Va. (Oct. 12–13); the first annual lecture series sponsored by the Justo Gonzalez Center for Latino/a Ministries in Orlando, Fla. (Oct. 19–20); and the annual meeting of the Academy of Homiletics in Chicago, Ill. (Nov. 15–18). He preached at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, on Oct. 11 and at Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, N.C., on Jan. 27. He hosted scholars from Germany and Denmark for a consultation on homiletics at Duke Divinity School held March 14–25.
DOUGLAS CAMPBELL published “Is Tom Right?: An Extended Review of N. T. Wright’s Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision” in Scottish Journal of Theology (65.3, 2012), and “Christ and the Church in Paul: A ‘Post-New Perspective’ Account” in Four Views on the Apostle Paul, edited by Michael F. Bird (Zondervan). In November he participated in “Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul,” an interdisciplinary conference on his book The Deliverance of God (Eerdmans) held at Duke Divinity School. He also co-chaired the Restorative Justice Studio, which partnered participants at Duke with Durham-based community leaders and practitioners of restorative justice.
STEPHEN CHAPMAN published “Modernity’s Canonical Crisis: Historiography and Theology in Collision” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Vol. III.1: The Nineteenth Century, edited by Magne Saebo (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). During Convocation & Pastors’ School in October, he offered the course “Really Bad Leaders in the Bible.” He taught and preached at Duke’s Chapel UMC in Durham, N.C.; Genesis UMC in Cary, N.C.; First Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C.; Duke Chapel; and the Duke Wesley Fellowship.
MARK CHAVES published “Serendipity in the Study of Religion and Society” in Studying Religion and Society, edited by Titus Hjelm and Phil Zuckerman (Routledge). He delivered several lectures: “Why Megachurches?” and “Continuity and Change in American Religion,” at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, Springfield, Mo., Nov. 15; “The Sociology of Clergy Compensation,” for the Triangle-Alamance United Church of Christ Clergy Group, Hillsborough, N.C., in December; and “Continuity and Change in American Religion,” the plenary lecture for the annual meeting of the Association of Theological Schools’ Chief Academic Officers Society, San Antonio, Texas, March 21.
JEFFREY CONKLIN-MILLER presented “Formation for Holiness Between Church and World” at the Theology Symposium, a joint session of the Wesleyan Theological Society and the Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting held at Seattle Pacific University in March. He also led a seminar at Convocation & Pastor’s School in October, “Shaping Youth for Mission: Formation for Holiness,” and co-led a small-group study of N. T. Wright’s book Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, at Duke Memorial United Methodist Church in Durham, N.C.
JAMES CRENSHAW published “The Journey from Voluntary to Obligatory Silence (Reflections on Psalm 39 and Qoheleth)” in Focusing Biblical Studies: The Crucial Nature of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods; Essays in Honor of Douglas A. Knight, edited by Jon L. Berquist and Alice Hunt (T&T Clark); “Divine Discipline in Job 5:17–18, Proverbs 3:11–12, Deuteronomy 32:39, and Beyond” in Reading Job Intertextually, edited by Katharine Dell and Will Kynes (T&T Clark); and a review of Psalms 3 by F. L. Hossfeld and Eric Zenger in Catholic Biblical Quarterly (74.4, 2012). He presented the paper “Divine Vulnerability: Reflections on Genesis 22” at a Nov. 15–16 conference at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He also taught six-week classes on Qoheleth and on the Psalms at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt University this past fall.
MARY McCLINTOCK FULKERSON published “Receiving from the Other: Theology and Grass-Roots Organizing” in International Journal of Public Theology (6.4, 2012) and in Yours the Power: Faith-Based Organizing in the U.S.A., edited by Katie Day, Esther McIntosh, and William Storrar (Brill). At the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in Chicago in November, she presented “Interpreting a Situation: When is ‘Empirical’ also ‘Theological’?” at the Ecclesiological Investigations Group panel on “Ecclesiology and Ethnography” and also responded to Anna Bialak’s “Vulnerability Empty and Realized: Susceptibility and Submission in Sarah Coakley’s Kenotic Christology” at the Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group panel on “Feminist Theory on Disability, Trauma and Vulnerability.” She delivered “The Gendered/Racialized Social Imagination as Structural Violence” at the conference New Approaches to Peacemaking and Nonviolence for the 21st Century, held Jan. 18–20 in Montreat, N.C. Last fall she was nominated and elected to the national Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
AMY LAURA HALL presented a keynote lecture, written with Kara Slade, at the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics, in Cambridge, England, which was later published as “The Single Individual in Ordinary Time: Theological Engagements with Sociobiology” in Studies in Christian Ethics (26.1, 2013). She is the co-editor (with Daniel Arnold) of the Spring 2013 issue of Muslim World and the author of an essay for that volume, “TV and Torture.” In February she attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
RICHARD HAYS published “The Paulinism of Acts, Intertextually Reconsidered” in Paul and the Heritage of Israel: Paul’s Claim upon Israel’s Legacy in Luke and Acts in the Light of the Pauline Letters, edited by David P. Moessner, Daniel Marguerat, Mikeal C. Parsons, and Michael Wolter (T&T Clark). He was a respondent at the 2012 Society of Biblical Literature book-review session for Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation, which he co-edited with Stefan Alkier (Baylor University Press), and a panelist at “A Morning with the Apostle Paul and Friends,” a conference held Nov. 9 in celebration of the inauguration of Dr. Michael Gorman as the Raymond E. Brown Professor at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, Md. On April 10 he gave the Roland E. Murphy Lecture at the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.
WARREN KINGHORN published “Combat Trauma and Moral Fragmentation: A Theological Account of Moral Injury” in Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics (32.2, 2012), and his op-ed “PTSD: The Moral Dimensions” appeared in the Nov. 12 edition of USA Today. He presented “Positive Psychology and the End of Virtue” at the Society of Christian Psychology Academic Conference in Virginia Beach on Oct. 18 and “ ‘I Am Still With You’: A Theological Account of Dementia” at Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Durham, N.C., on Feb. 3.
RICHARD LISCHER co-edited (with James M. Childs Jr.) The Eloquence of Grace: Joseph Sittler and the Preaching Life (Cascade). He published Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son (Knopf). He gave a talk on religious autobiography for the Association of Theological Schools, in Pittsburgh, Pa., and with Luke Powery and Will Willimon presented the Morgan Lectures at Lutheran Southern Theological Seminary in Columbia, S.C. He delivered the lecture “1968: Showdown for Nonviolence” at Croasdaile Village in Durham, N.C., an in January offered “ ‘The Lord Brought Us Out’: Martin Luther King’s Exodus Faith” during a Shabbat service at Beth El Synagogue in Durham, N.C. In February he gave the inaugural Bracke Lecture, “Beginning to Lead,” at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Mo.
RANDY L. MADDOX published Doctrinal and Controversial Treatises I, volume 12 of the bicentennial edition of The Works of John Wesley (Abingdon), as well as three essays: “John Wesley – ‘A Man of One Book’ ” in Wesley, Wesleyans, and Reading Bible as Scripture, edited by Joel B. Green and David F. Watson (Baylor University Press); “‘Digging Deep into the Mine’: Charles Wesley and the Bible,” Proceedings of the Charles Wesley Society 15 (2011); and “Correspondence between James Erskine and John and Charles Wesley,” Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 58 (Oct. 2012).
G. SUJIN PAK presented “Interpretations and Practices of Prophecy in Argula von Grumbach, Katharina Schuetz Zell, and Marie Dentiere” at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, held Oct. 25–28 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She also served as a commentator for a panel on the history of the exegesis of the book of Job at the winter meeting of the American Society of Church History in January. Last fall she preached in Duke Chapel and gave a talk about the history of denominationalism in the context of the Protestant Reformation at a Graduate InterVarsity Fellowship meeting.
CHRIS RICE participated in a consultation in October for a book project on approaches to conflict transformation involving scholars and practitioners from across the United States. On behalf of the Center for Reconciliation, he convened a three-day December consultation, “Northeast Asia, Christian Leadership, and God’s Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation.” In January he co-facilitated the seventh annual event for the East Africa Great Lakes Initiative, a six-day leadership institute focused on “Christian Leadership for Reconciliation in Contexts of Chronic Conflict.”
RUSSELL E. RICHEY published American Methodism: A Compact History, with Kenneth E. Rowe and Jean Miller Schmidt (Abingdon), and “Religious Organization in the New Nation” in The Cambridge History of Religions in America, edited by Stephen J. Stein. He was presented with a Festschrift, The Renewal of United Methodism: Mission, Ministry and Connectionalism; Essays in Honor of Russell E. Richey, edited by Rex D. Matthews (General Board of Higher Education and Ministry). He serves as one of two general editors of the peer-reviewed online journal Methodist Review, co-chair for the 2013 Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies, co-director for 2013 of Asbury Theological Seminary’s Wesleyan Studies Summer Seminar, and member of the Scholarly Advisory Board of the American Methodism Project. He has been nominated to the presidency of the Historical Society of the United Methodist Church for a 2013–17 term.
LESTER RUTH served as president for the annual meeting of the Charles Wesley Society in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 18–20, and in November delivered the paper “Trinitarian Similarities and Differences in Evangelical Song: Old and New” as part of the Biblical Worship section at the Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, Wis. He traveled to El Salvador in early December to teach a weeklong course on worship, and on Jan. 24 participated in a panel discussion on “The Shape of Discipleship in the Contemporary Worship Movement” at the Winter Symposium of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. In April he lectured on the Trinity and the economy of salvation in evangelical hymnody at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas.
BETH M. SHEPPARD published “Resource Use Patterns in a Distance Doctor of Ministry Population” in Journal of Religious and Theological Information (11.3/4, 2012). She gave the paper “Optimus Princeps: Character and Virtues in Pliny’s Panegyricus and the Fourth Gospel” on Nov. 17 at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Chicago, Ill.
GEOFFREY WAINWRIGHT delivered Baylor University’s Parchman Lectures in October under the title “Faith, Hope, and Love: The Ecumenical Trio of Virtues.”
LACEYE WARNER’s book Grace to Lead: Practicing Leadership in the Wesleyan Tradition, co-authored with Bishop Kenneth Carder (United Methodist General Board of Higher Education & Ministry), was translated into Swahili. She published “Scripture and Evangelism” in Wesley, Wesleyans, and Reading Bible as Scripture, edited by Joel Green and David Watson (Baylor University Press), and “Sarah and Angelina Grimke” in Handbook of Women Interpreters of the Bible, edited by Marion Ann Taylor and Agnes Choi (Baker Academic). She was elected to the University Senate and appointed to the Council of Bishops’ Ministry Commission, both of the United Methodist Church, for the coming quadrennium. She delivered the keynote address, “Saving Women: Retrieving Christian Leadership for the 21st Century,” at the Durham Women’s Club annual prayer breakfast in October.
WILL WILLIMON published his first novel, Incorporation (Cascade), and Thank God It’s Thursday: At the Table with Jesus (Abingdon). He delivered lectures at Hope College, Western Seminary, and pastors’ schools in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Canada. He also conducted seminars on his recent book Bishop: The Art of Questioning Authority by an Authority in Question (Abingdon), meeting with national leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal, Salvation Army, Wesleyan, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches.
BRITTANY WILSON published essays on the history of interpretation of Mary the mother of Jesus and of Mary Magdalene in the Women’s Bible Commentary, 3rd ed. (Westminster John Knox), and was invited to speak on a panel honoring the commentary’s 20th anniversary at a Society of Biblical Literature regional meeting in Greenville, S.C., in March. In the fall she delivered a response to Douglas Campbell’s “Rereading Romans 1–3” at the conference “Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul” held at Duke Divinity School in November and also lectured on Mary at Coker United Methodist Church in San Antonio, Texas.
NORMAN WIRZBA published “Agrarian Ecotheology” in Theology (116.1, 2013) and “The Art of Creaturely Life: A Question of Human Propriety” in Pro Ecclesia (22.1, 2013). He led retreats on food and faith in Asheville, N.C. (Oct. 13); at Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. (Nov. 10); and at Laity Lodge in Kerrville, Texas (Nov. 15–18). He was the Praxis Speaker at Houghton College on Jan. 25 and presented “Dramas of Love and Dirt: Soil and the Salvation of the World” at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19. He delivered keynote addresses at the annual Rural Ministry Conference at Wartburg Theological Seminary on March 4 and on both days of the Food Ethics Conference hosted by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (March 15–16). Following talks at the Duke Endowment (March 21) and Furman University (March 22), he presented at the “From Unsettling to Resettling” conference hosted by the Berry Center in Kentucky. On April 13 he spoke at the Veritas Forum at N.C. State University, and April 17–18 he presented “Idolizing Nature” and “Seeing Creation”—under the title “The Human Place in the World”— as the annual Jellema Lectures at Calvin College.