VDS Voices

An important focus for Vanderbilt Divinity School is supporting midcareer professionals who seek answers to complex questions about religion, humanism, ethics, life’s meaning and more. “We aim to make VDS accessible—removing any obstacles—for those interested in theological education,” said Harper Barton Haynes, Harper HaynesSenior Director of Strategic Enrollment… Read More

Vanderbilt Divinity School is pleased to announce its practitioner-in-residence program. Each semester, the Divinity School will invite a member of the clergy, a nonprofit leader or a social justice activist to be “in residence” with its community. The PIR host sessions about their work, mentor students and invite them to… Read More

Individuals in a population that is often overlooked or misunderstood shared their lived experiences during a speaker series on the Vanderbilt campus Oct. 24 to commemorate Intersex Awareness Day. Intersex people are born with differences in sex traits or reproductive anatomy. The phenomenon is as common as having red… Read More

Distinguished Alumni Celebration at Vanderbilt Divinity School Friday Nov. 8, 2024, in Nashville, TN. (L to R) Rev. Dr. J. Bennett Guess, Rev. Dr. George Williamson, Jr. (Photo: Larry McCormack) Two Vanderbilt alumni who devoted their lives to ministry, social justice and activism have been recognized as the 2024 Vanderbilt… Read More

Vanderbilt Divinity School alumni who helped bring historic shifts to the United Methodist Church’s stances on sexuality credit a variety of learning experiences—in the classroom and in field education—for their preparedness as agents of social justice. Carter Ellis, MDiv, ’13, was selected as a delegate to the UMC General… Read More

Recognizing the significant suicidality, post-traumatic stress, depression and moral injury endured by active military and veteran populations, Vanderbilt Divinity School has partnered with Integrative Mental Health, a national program of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, to prepare chaplains for contemporary care challenges. “With our appropriate focus… Read More

…Our default ways of seeing are all too often complicit with cultural biases like racism, sexism, ableism, and trans- and homophobia. This isn’t necessarily intentional but reflects our own formation by the systems that gave rise to these biases. Ellen T. Armour, Seeing and Believing: Religion, Digital Visual Culture, and… Read More

Here is the beginning of  Professor Douglas Knight’s most recent article: Raised in a Baptist family that valued diversity and social justice, educated during the 1960s period of anti-war student unrest, Vanderbilt Divinity School professor emeritus reflects on higher education, critical thinking, and belief. When faced with expansive debates and… Read More

Check out this new article from GDR Ph.D. student Ludwig Noya: Abstract: Recent interpretations of the Sabbath rest concept in the Hebrew Bible tend to highlight its humanitarian aspect. However, in this paper, I aim to nuance this claim by attending to a rarely discussed Sabbath text in Nehemiah 13. Read More

Check out this new article co-authored by Priscila Silva and Joerg Rieger Abstract: The first generation of Latin American liberation theologies was marked by the methodological status of the preferential option for the poor. In the following generations, this commitment was further developed in the struggle for a new… Read More