 |
|
This web site is sponsored by the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith, a project whose purpose is to develop resources to help contemporary people live the Christian faith with vitality and integrity in changing times. The Project is ecumenical in orientation and appreciative of the legacies of a range of Christian traditions. We sponsor grant programs, seminars, books, conferences and web sites for adults and youth.
The Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith
Linwood House, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383-4557
email: info@practicingourfaith.com
 |
|
|
|
 |
Dorothy
C. Bass
Director of the Valparaiso
Project
Dorothy directs the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith (www.practicingourfaith.org), a Lilly Endowment project based at Valparaiso University that develops resources to help contemporary people live the Christian faith with vitality and integrity in changing times. The Project has sponsored grant programs, seminars, books, conferences, and web sites for adults and youth. Dorothy is the author of Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time and editor or coeditor of Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People; Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens and On Our Way: Christian Practices for Living a Whole Life. Two additional co-edited books explore implications of attention to practices for ministry and theological education: Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life and For Life Abundant: Practical Theology, Theological Education, and Christian Ministry.
She is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and on the Board of Holden Village (Holden Village), a Lutheran retreat center in the North Cascades Mountains. She is the wife of Mark Schwehn, Provost and Professor of Humanities at Valparaiso University, and the mother of three adults. Together, Mark and Dorothy have edited Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be (Eerdmans, 2006), an anthology of contemporary and classical texts-including fiction, autobiography, and philosophy that offers challenge and insight for those reflecting on what to do with their lives.
During the spring of 2010, Dorothy is Visiting Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
|
 |
 |
M. Shawn Copeland
Associate Professor of Theology
Boston College
A Roman Catholic layperson, Copeland
also serves as Adjunct Professor of Systematic Theology
at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies, Xavier University
of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA. A graduate of Boston College
(Ph.D.), Copeland specializes in systematic theology, with
particular attention to theological anthropology, liberation
and political theologies, and African-American religious
experience and culture.
Copeland is the author of thirty articles in books and professional
journals, including "Disturbing Aesthetics of Race,” Journal
of Catholic Social Thought (2006); “Body, Race, and
Being: Theological Anthropology in the Context of Performing
and Subverting Eucharist,” in Constructive Theology:
A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (2005);
“Doing Black Catholic Theology: Rhythm, Structure, and Aesthetics,”
Chicago Studies (2003); and “The Cross of Christ
and Discipleship,” in Thinking of Christ: Proclamation,
Explanation, Meaning (2003). |
|
 |
Craig R. Dykstra
Vice President for Religion
Lilly Endowment, Inc.
Dykstra previously taught Christian
education at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
(1977-84) and served as Thomas W. Synnott Professor of Christian
Education at Princeton Theological Seminary (1984-89), where
he was also editor of the journal Theology Today.
An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
Dykstra is a graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A.)
and Princeton Seminary (M.Div., Ph.D.). His recent scholarly
work has focused on Christian practices as a key concept
for thinking about what it means to live the Christian life,
to organize the discipline of practical theology, and to
re-think how we conduct the ministry of Christian education
and formation.
Dykstra is author of Growing in the Life of Faith: Education
and Christian Practices (1999, 2005) and Vision and
Character (1981, 2009). He was co-editor of Faith Development
and Fowler, and has published over 100 monographs, chapters
of books, articles, editorials, and other commentaries.
Dykstra and his wife Betsy, a teacher,
have two adult sons, Peter and Andrew, and four grandchildren.
|
|
 |
Thomas Hoyt, Jr.
Bishop of the
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
Since receiving his Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University, Bishop Hoyt has taught at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, at Howard University School of Religion in Washington D.C., and at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut where he initiated the Black Ministries Certificate Program.
Bishop Hoyt is author of three books, co-author of three others, and has published more than forty articles in professional journals. He serves on the Faith and Order Commissions of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches. He has served on the Theological Commission of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), on the National Council of Churches Lectionary Committee on Inclusive Language, and on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research. In 1993, Bishop Hoyt was the Lyman Beecher Lecturer at Yale Divinity School.
|
|
 |
L. Gregory Jones
Dean of the Divinity School
Professor of Theology
Duke University
Prior to his arrival at Duke, Jones was chair of the theology department at Loyola College in Maryland. An ordained United Methodist minister, Jones is a graduate of the University of Denver (B.A., M.P.A.) and the Divinity School of Duke University (M.Div., Ph.D.).
Jones, a Christian ethicist, is the author of several books,
including the acclaimed Embodying Forgiveness, The Scope
of Our Art, co-edited with Stephanie Paulsell, and Resurrecting
Excellence, coedited with Kevin Armstrong. Jones
writes a regular column, "Faith Matters," for
The Christian Century, and he is co-editor of the
scholarly journal Modern Theology. Jones was a contributing
author to Practicing Theology. With his wife
the Reverend Susan Pendleton Jones, Director of Special
Programs at Duke Divinity School, Jones parents three children:
Nathan, Benjamin, and Sarah.
|
|
 |
John Koenig
Professor of New Testament
General Theological Seminary, Manhattan
Koenig is a priest in the Episcopal Church. Before joining General's faculty, he taught at Princeton and Union Seminaries. Koenig is a graduate of Concordia Senior College (A.B.), Concordia Seminary in St. Louis (B.D.); and Union Theological Seminary in New York City (Th.D.)
Koenig has written six books, all in the broad area of biblical theology and Christian practice. They include: New Testament Hospitality, Rediscovering New Testament Prayer and, most recently, The Feast of the World's Redemption, an inquiry into what Christians can learn for their mission today from the table rituals of the first century churches.
|
|
 |
Sharon Daloz Parks
Associate Director and Faculty
Whidbey Institute
Formerly, Parks was an associate professor at the Harvard Divinity School and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. She has also served in faculty and research positions in leadership and ethics at the Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government.
Parks is the author of Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith (Jossey-Bass, 2000) and co-author of Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World (Beacon Press, 1996).
|
|
 |
Stephanie Paulsell
Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies and
Associate Dean for Faculty and Curricular Affairs
Harvard Divinity School
Paulsell is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She received a Ph.D. in religion and literature from the University of Chicago in 1993 and has taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Catholic Theological Union, and Valparaiso University.
Paulsell is the author of Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice and co-editor, with L. Gregory Jones, of The Scope of Our Art: The Vocation of Theological Teachers.
|
|
 |
Amy Plantinga Pauw
Henry P. Mobley, Jr. Professor of Doctrinal Theology
Louisville Presbyterian Seminary
Pauw is a lay member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). She is a graduate of Calvin College (B.A.), Fuller Seminary (M.Div.), and Yale University (Ph.D.). Her teaching and writing interests span a variety of movements in contemporary theology as well as the thought of Jonathan Edwards.
Pauw is the author of The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards and co-author of Making Time for God: Daily Devotions for Children and Families to Share.
|
|
 |
Ana Maria Pineda
Associate Professor of Theology
Director of the Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries
Santa Clara University
Pineda, a member of the Sisters of Mercy, is a graduate of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago (M.A.) and the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain (Ph.D.). A native of El Salvador, Pineda has served as Director of the Hispanic Ministries Program at CTU and on the advisory board of the Hispanic Theological Initiative; she is currently a member of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians in the United States.
Pineda's research interests are focused on questions of popular religiosity, distinctions between oral and literate cultures, and issues of pastoral concern. With Robert Schreiter, Pineda co-edited Dialogue Rejoined: Theology and Ministry in the United States Hispanic Reality. She serves on the board of the Louisville Institute, the Bishops' Committee for Women and Society, and the Bishops' Committee for Hispanic Affairs.
|
|
 |
Frank Rogers, Jr.
Associate Professor of Religious Education
School of Theology
Claremont School
Rogers, a Roman Catholic layperson, has been active in a variety of parish contexts as a teacher, preacher and retreat leader. His academic passions are in the spiritual life, in both its personal and social dimensions, and in how religious education can participate in its growth. A graduate of Anderson College (B.A.) and Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div., Ph.D.), Rogers has written several articles on spirituality and education and is currently finishing a novel.
|
|
 |
Don Sailers
William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Worship and Director of the Master of Sacred Music Program (retired 2007)
Emory University
Saliers was educated at Ohio Wesleyan (B.A.), Yale University (B.D., Ph.D.) and Cambridge University. Prior to his positions at Emory University, Saliers taught at Yale University. Widely known in ecumenical circles, Saliers is author of several books on worship and liturgy, including Soul in Paraphrase: Prayer and Religious Affections (1980, 1991), Worship and Spirituality (1984), Worship As Theology (1994), and Worship Come To Its Senses (l996).
A United Methodist minister, Saliers composes choral church music and serves as organist/choirmaster for Emory's University worship community.
Saliers and his daughter Emily, a member of the Grammy award-winning
Indigo Girls, collaborated in writing A Song to Sing,
A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice
(2005).
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
back to top
|
|
