Duke Divinity School’s Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition is hosting a conference, Spiritual Theology: Retrievals and Prospects, in honor of the late Geoffrey Wainwright. The conference will feature presentations from four scholars of spiritual theology and liturgical theology. The two-day event is open to all members of the Duke Divinity School community and to the general public. A live feed will be offered for those unable to attend in person. The event will be from 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. on March 24 and 9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. on March 25. Registration is required to receive the live feed link and is encouraged for in-person attendance. Refreshments will be served.

 

Karen B. Westerfield Tucker is professor of worship at Boston University since 2004, prior to which she was on the faculty of Duke University. A United Methodist elder (presbyter), she is a former chairperson of the World Methodist Council’s Committee on Worship and Liturgy, and for fifteen years was a member of the international dialogue between the WMC and the Catholic Church. She is the author of American Methodist Worship and is co-editor with Geoffrey Wainwright of The Oxford History of Christian Worship. She is preparing a critical edition of the Wesleys’ liturgical materials and prayers to appear as volume 8 of The Works of John Wesley (Abingdon Press). A past president of the ecumenical and international Societas Liturgica, and for nine years the editor-in-chief of the society’s journal Studia Liturgica, she is the 2023 recipient of the Berakah Award from the North American Academy of Liturgy for distinguished service to the field of liturgical studies.

Sangwoo Kim is the associate dean for vocational formation and senior director of the Methodist House at Duke Divinity School. Kim has taught theology, worship, evangelism, and Methodism at Duke, where he did his doctoral study on the embodiment of worship and prayer in Christian theology and life. He is an elder of the North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church with the rich experience of serving local churches in multi-cultural and cross-cultural settings.

 

Andrew Prevot is associate professor of theology at Boston College. He teaches and researches in the areas of spiritual, philosophical, and political theology. He is the author of Thinking Prayer: Theology and Spirituality Amid the Crises of Modernity (Notre Dame, 2015); Theology and Race: Black and Womanist Traditions in the United States (Brill, 2018); and The Mysticism of Ordinary Life: Theology, Philosophy, and Feminism (Oxford, 2023).

 

Teva Regule received her M.Div. from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and her Ph.D. from Boston College. Her doctoral work focused on liturgical theology and history. She has been an invited Orthodox participant to various consultations sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC). Regule has taught at her alma mater as well as the Pappas Patristics Institute. At present, Regule serves as President of the Orthodox Theological Society in America (OTSA). She is on the board of the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess, an initiative that aims to educate the faithful about the historical female diaconate and advocate for its revival to meet the ministerial needs of the church and society for today. She also holds advanced degrees in music and computer science.

 

 

Geoffrey Wainwright (1939-2020) was the Robert Earl Cushman Professor of Christian Theology at Duke Divinity School until his retirement in 2012. His profound doxological vision, linguistic skills, and passion for Christian unity helped him become one of the leading ecumenists in the Methodist Church and the church universal. He was a principal editor of the text “Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry” drawn up by the Commission at Lima, Peru in 1982. Wainwright served on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (1976–1991) and as co-chair of the international Methodist-Roman Catholic theological dialogue (1986–2011). In the best of Methodist tradition, Wainwright loved scripture and singing. He exhorted his students to “guard the good treasure” entrusted to us in Scripture and the sound doctrine of the church “with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us” (2 Tim. 1:13-14). Wainwright believed that good hymnody helped form sound doctrine. Among his books the most influential remain his systematic theology: Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life (OUP 1980) and The Oxford History of Christian Worship, co-edited by Karen Westerfield Tucker.

The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition staffs, supervises, and enriches the Divinity School’s curricular and extracurricular offerings in Methodist and Wesleyan Studies and supports significant educational outreach programs designed for our Methodist constituencies. In addition, the center develops and provides access to outstanding research resources for students and scholars of the broad Wesleyan tradition around the globe.