Theology Faculty & Staff

THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY FACULTY

The Very Reverend James Turrell, Ph.D.

Vice Provost and Dean, Norma and Olan Mills Professor of Divinity, Professor of Liturgy

I am passionate about the study of religious practices in the past and about preparing clergy to lead effective worship in the present and future. The historical perspective helps us to understand what we are doing and to resist the merely trendy, instead pointing us towards the things that endure, translated for an evolving culture. I am both a historian and a priest, and both of these vocations inform my work as a scholar and teacher. My interest in dead Britons of the Tudor and Stuart era coexists with my enthusiasm for good liturgy done well in the present, in the service of God and God’s people.

Mark Ardrey-Graves, D.M.A.

Assistant Professor of Church Music

We are a Church that sings! Music is an integral part of our inheritance as Episcopalians, Anglicans, and Christians. My academic and teaching interests involve examination of the ways that music, in Luther’s memorable phrase, has been the “handmaiden of theology” for Christians in times past and present. I pursue research into theological aesthetics, and the worship contexts of medieval and Tudor-era sacred music, not as an escape from our present realities, but as a way of engaging with what our liturgical ancestors can teach us about what it means to most fully and faithfully worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

The Reverend Sara Ardrey-Graves

Interim Associate Dean for Community Life

The ministry of the Associate Dean for Community Life is to support seminarians during their time at Sewanee with a particular focus on their spiritual growth and professional development. As interim associate dean, I am excited to build relationships with the community and offer my gifts for pastoral care, discernment, and vocational formation. I am a trained spiritual director and Episcopal priest, having served over fourteen years in parish ministry in North Carolina and Virginia. Much of my ministry has been spent with people in discernment to serve God more deeply, whether through ordination, lay leadership, or spiritual devotion. My educational interests, both within the parish and seminary, include developing a Rule of Life, prayer, pilgrimage, and the writings of Evelyn Underhill, Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Ávila.

The Reverend Hilary Bogert-Winkler, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Liturgy

I am a historian and priest by training and vocation, and seek to bring both of those perspectives into my classrooms as we explore the history and practice of Anglican liturgy. My academic interests are in the intersections of religion and politics in early modern Britain and Ireland, and through that work I have to come to appreciate deeply the ways our Prayer Book has always been in conversation with the world around us. That interplay—between the prayers gifted to us by the Church, and our present realities—is central to my teaching about the liturgy and its history. I want my students to leave seminary with an understanding of the history and theology of the Prayer Book, and from that understanding to be equipped to make liturgical decisions that have both liturgical and theological integrity.

The Reverend Reed Carlson, Th.D.

Assistant Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible

I endeavor to teach scripture as the story of God and God’s people. I encourage students to see themselves as characters in that story and to answer this question with their lives: “What happens next?” I believe that no one ever reads the Bible alone. Thus, in addition to studying the Old Testament using conventional historical-critical methods, we practice reading scripture reflexively, examining how our own intersectional identities shape our interpretations of scripture and, in turn, how the identities of others might affect theirs. In this way, we also consider the roles the Bible plays as a symbol in contemporary discourse, including the varieties of media in which it is engaged, and its continued theological, political, and sociological significance.

The Reverend Richard Cogill

Director of Contextual Education

I am passionate about the formation of new clergy, so I am excited to be teaching classes in congregational studies as well as parish and community leadership. Being the director of contextual education affords me the opportunity to create a space of intentional theological reflection on the environment in which each seminarian will serve. All theology is contextual, so those who seek to serve, must discern God’s voice (and the voices of others) if we are to be agents of God’s grace and transforming and lifegiving love. All that we are, or aspire to be, flows from that deep sense of vocation. Being entrusted with the care of God’s people is a sacred responsibility. At the School of Theology, we accompany seminarians as they seek to live into their vocation and ministry.

The Reverend Julia Gatta, Ph.D.

Bishop Frank A. Juhan Professor of Pastoral Theology

Through my teaching of pastoral theology and courses in Christian spirituality, I hope to prepare future priests to exercise their distinct vocation in the church as prayerful, discerning, and able pastors. I believe that the classical tradition of the “cure of souls” offers deep roots to support a pastoral ministry exercised with theological integrity and practical wisdom. After 25 years in parish ministry, I am convinced that the grace of Christ surrounds all sorts of pastoral situations and serves as an ever-fresh source of strength, insight, and joy. I have explored these themes in my book, "The Nearness of God: Parish Ministry as Spiritual Practice," and I have recently published "Life in Christ: Practicing Christian Spirituality" for use in programs of adult education.

Paul Holloway, Ph.D.

University Professor of Classics and Ancient Christianity

I am a cultural historian trained in the study of ancient religion with special interests in Jewish and Christian origins. I am also a philologist interested in the close reading of ancient texts. I teach in both the undergraduate college and the seminary. In the seminary, I teach electives on such topics as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in the time of Jesus, early Jewish apocalpyticism and mysticism, the apostle Paul and his interpreters, the rise of Christian beliefs, and Christians in the Roman Empire. Students able to read Greek often register for my courses in the Classics Department or gather in my seminary office to read and discuss some ancient Jewish or Christian document.

The Reverend Robert MacSwain, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Theology

A philosophical theologian by training, I teach the introductory sequence in Christian doctrine and electives in both theology and ethics. My courses all wrestle with the question of how an infinite God became a finite human, and the implications of this incarnation for contemporary Christian belief and practice. I am particularly interested in how literature, art, and music can help us grasp these issues imaginatively as well as rationally.

Hannah Matis, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Church History

I have always believed that the study of history is not primarily about names and dates but about stories: the stories we tell ourselves about how we got here and which help us to find our place in the world. As a church historian and student of historical biblical exegesis, I have always been fascinated by how past Christians have read the bible and the stories they have told themselves about the church to which we all belong. I love introducing students to the historical study of the church, and I believe that a careful, nuanced understanding of our past is central to navigating many of the most important issues of our day, from ecumenical dialogue to racial reconciliation to climate change.

The Reverend David Stark, Th.D.

Assistant Professor of Homiletics

Through teaching preaching in core and elective courses, I focus on preaching and scriptural interpretation, preaching as testimony, articulating the gospel as a word of hope and justice, and preaching that shapes a scriptural/theological imagination. My interests include preaching the Old Testament, confronting homiletical whiteness, African American preaching, preaching with(in) the liturgy, and preaching as a resistance and counter movement.

Romulus Stefanut, Ph.D.

Director, School of Theology Library and Assistant Professor of Theological Bibliography

By training I am a literary historian of Early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism, with some forays in patristics and philosophical theology. I came to the field of theological librarianship while serving in various library positions prior to and during my Ph.D. studies at the University of Chicago. I have noticed that as libraries become more and more interconnected in providing electronic access to their collections, their particular strength will only be matched by the quality of their reference and instruction services. This idea is what motivated me to embark into a professional librarian journey. Helping students, faculty, and the surrounding library community to enhance their reading, research, and writing is not only personally rewarding, but worth pursuing professionally.

The Right Reverend James Tengatenga, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Global Anglicanism and Director of Alternative Clergy Training at Sewanee (ACTS)

I am an African Anglican and a post-colonialist theologian. There was never a time in my life when I was not multilingual, multicultural, and ecumenical. This is the reality of the Worldwide Anglican Communion and indeed the Church catholic. Educated in Africa, the U.S.A., and the U.K., it has been a privilege to experience the councils of the church at work and to participate in them. It is this experience as priest and bishop in the church of God, ecumenist, chair of the Anglican Consultative Council, academic and civil society activist that I bring to bear in the teaching of Anglicanism and Missiology. With the help of relevant bibliography, I facilitate for the students an appreciation of and a critical engagement with a church that is “formed by Scripture, shaped through worship, ordered for communion and directed by God’s mission.” I come at this task with a passion to share this knowledge, as a fellow pilgrim, with those who feel called to participate in God’s mission.

Andrew Thompson, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Theological Ethics and Director of the Center for Religion and Environment

I never really set out to do environmental ethics. But in today’s world, where environmental harms magnify social imbalances, anyone concerned with the moral life must focus on reconciling human relationships with the natural world as well as with one another. My work in environmental ethics examines the ways cultural and social imaginations interact with environmental crises and seeks resources for shaping more constructive imaginations, drawing in particular on the work of ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr. I am especially eager to explore the implications of these ideas for the Church’s ministry, and can imagine no better place to do so than in the midst of Sewanee’s abundant natural gifts.

Rebecca Abts Wright, Ph.D.

C.K. Benedict Professor of Old Testament, Emerita

I love to teach. My teaching style not only helps students understand the Old Testament in its historical context, but also how it is relevant to the church today.