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Great Salt Lake-Inspired Words, Music Shared by Visiting Group from Harvard

March 18, 2024

The Fielding Garr Ranch at Antelope Island State Park in Utah served as the venue for a “gratitude concert,” during which lake-inspired poetry, song and music was performed. The event was organized by Terry Tempest Williams, a conservationist, educator and writer-in-residence at the Harvard Divinity School, or HDS. Having studied the Great Salt Lake for one year, Williams and a group of 15 HDS students have made a pilgrimage to its shores as a culminating moment.

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It May Be Neither Higher nor Intelligence

March 14, 2024
“Whatever AI can tell us about how to reckon with the material reality that we’re subject to illness and death, us, humans, are still going to reckon with that. That is when religion becomes significant," said Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church.
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Divinity School Harambee Group Hosts Screening of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s New Docuseries

March 7, 2024

Faculty and staff from across Harvard gathered for a screening of “Gospel,” a new docuseries produced and hosted by University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. The event, hosted by HDS Harambee Students of African Descent, consisted of a reception, a screening, and a panel discussion with Gates, and HDS Dean Marla F. Frederick and HDS Professor Ahmad Greene-Hayes, who both appear in the docuseries.

Nathanael Homewood

Yang Scholar Nathanael Homewood Explores ‘Worlds Thought Impossible’ in World Christianity

March 7, 2024

Nathanael J. Homewood is a Yang Visiting Scholar in World Christianity at Harvard Divinity School for the 2023-24 academic year. His research focuses on Christianity in Africa, especially Ghanaian Pentecostalism, and the large-scale connections between Western and non-Western Christianity in America.... Read more about Yang Scholar Nathanael Homewood Explores ‘Worlds Thought Impossible’ in World Christianity

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Calling It as He Sees It

March 5, 2024
HDS Professor Davíd Carrasco was one of several professors who guided broadcast legend Gus Johnson' studies at Harvard's year-long Advanced Leadership Initiative. Carrasco recently organized a dinner and event for students to mingle and hear from Johnson.
Rachel Mallett is a first-year master of divinity student

Student Explores People, Traditions, and 'Ultimate Concern' at Harvard Divinity

March 1, 2024

“I resonate with Paul Tillich’s conception of religion as dealing with the ‘ultimate concern.’ Religion, for me, is a way of harnessing that which we are all ultimately concerned with, in both a tangible sense and a metaphysical one. In other words, we all have an inclination toward fulfillment, and it is necessary for us to feel meaningfully connected with our own life and community, whether or not we believe one thing over another.”... Read more about Student Explores People, Traditions, and 'Ultimate Concern' at Harvard Divinity

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Jewish Identity with and without Zionism

February 15, 2024
Two new books—HDS Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies Shaul Magid’s The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, completed just before October 7, and Noah Feldman’s To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People, written late enough to be updated—provide judicious, sober genealogies of the political and spiritual conflicts that have afflicted Jewish communities in light of their relationships to Israel. Taken together, they invite a more capacious understanding of Jewish lives and Jewish futures in the diaspora.
Swami Chidekananda, who joined the Hindu Monastic Fellowship Program sponsored by Harvard Divinity School, stands in front of Swartz Hall. Photo by Swami Sachidananda Saraswati

Hindu Monastic at Harvard Divinity School Lives to Learn

February 14, 2024

In many ways, Swami Chidekananda grew up as an “all-American kid.” Raised in Los Angeles, California, his father was a UCLA microbiology professor for more than 40 years, and Chidekananda made the all-star team as a shortstop in baseball. On the inside, though, he felt tension as a first-generation Indian American still very much immersed in the rich Hindu spirituality with which his mother bestowed him.... Read more about Hindu Monastic at Harvard Divinity School Lives to Learn

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Why Are We Unhappy?

February 12, 2024
An excerpt from When Things Don’t Go Your Way: Zen Wisdom for Difficult Times by Haemin Sunim, MTS '99, published by Penguin Life, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. 
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Gospel Explores Black Spirituality in Sermon and Song

February 12, 2024
Professor Ahmad Greene-Hayes and Dean Marla F. Frederick were featured in the new PBS special Gospel. The series, hosted by Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., explores the origins of Black spirituality through sermons and songs.
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Finding a Civil Civic Community

February 8, 2024
Professor Terrence Johnson will join faith leaders participating in “Dialogue in Good Faith,” a panel discussion to be held at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in New Jersey later this month.
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Takács Quartet Debuts Flow

February 7, 2024
Nokuthula Ngwenyama, MTS '02, a composer and violinist, discusses her musical composition Flow, and how she embraces the cosmos…or lets it embrace her.
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King at “the Pearl”

February 6, 2024
The Rev. Lillian Buckley, MDiv '97, of New Hope Baptist Church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, collaborated to write and illustrate a children’s book about a special visit to Portsmouth in 1952 by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Chaplains Discuss Being a ‘Good Neighbor’ at Harvard Dialogues Panel

January 24, 2024
Khalil Abdur-Rashid, Lecturer on Muslim Studies at HDS and University Muslim Chaplain, and Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, joined other Harvard chaplains on a recent panel discussing the importance of dialogue and listening to opposing viewpoints.
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Calvin and the Resignification of the World

January 24, 2024
"This book is worth reading for many reasons, but here is another: by sharing her honest curiosity, HDS Professor Michlle Sanchez invites us to attend more closely to the world and our work in it."
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The Great Salt Lake is drying up. Can it be saved?

January 23, 2024
"When you look at the state of saline lakes around the world the percentage of what lakes have survived is zero, zero. So, we have a monumental task before us," said Terry Tempest Williams, HDS writer-in-residence.
William Graham, David Holland, Marla Frederick, Preston Williams, and David Hempton

Harvard Divinity School Community Welcomes, Celebrates New Dean Marla Frederick

January 23, 2024

Hundreds gather on campus to mark a new chapter in the School's history as Marla F. Frederick begins her tenure as HDS’s eighteenth Dean.

The Harvard Divinity School community was in a celebratory mood on January 22. The day marked the official start of classes for the 2024 spring semester, and it was punctuated with a festive celebration to welcome the School’s new Dean Marla F. Frederick.... Read more about Harvard Divinity School Community Welcomes, Celebrates New Dean Marla Frederick

Suan Sonna

Former Friar Reflects on Zomi Culture and His Path to Harvard Divinity School

January 22, 2024

“I never thought that I would get into Harvard Divinity School. I still remember the morning I received my online acceptance letter. I had just woken up, unlocked my phone in spite of my blurry vision, and saw that I had an update on my application status. Thinking I had surely been rejected, I quickly checked my application only to see virtual confetti sprinkle across my screen and over my acceptance letter. I immediately told my parents the good news, and we were all thrilled.”

Suan Sonna is a first-year master of theological studies student in New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School.... Read more about Former Friar Reflects on Zomi Culture and His Path to Harvard Divinity School

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HDS Alum Named Yale University Chaplain

January 18, 2024
Maytal Saltiel, MDiv '12, was named as the next Yale University Chaplain. In this critical role, Saltiel provides strategic direction, vision, and leadership for Yale’s religious and spiritual life on campus, working with students, faculty, and staff from a range of faith traditions as well as those without any religious affiliation.
Taylon Lancaster, MDiv '25

Student and Pastor Taylon Lancaster Creates Pathways for 'Holistic Ministry'

January 2, 2024

“I think that what the Black Church should model and what it is that I'm trying to implement at Third Baptist Church is what Dr. King coined ‘the beloved community’.”

Taylon Lancaster is senior pastor at Third Baptist Church, in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a second-year master of divinity degree candidate at Harvard Divinity School. Lancaster is in the unique position of pairing his studies at HDS with lived community. He has been an interlocutor between theory and practice throughout his time at Clark Atlanta University. Currently, he seeks to expand his congregation’s vision of the gospel to include a holistic sense of ministry and inclusivity. ... Read more about Student and Pastor Taylon Lancaster Creates Pathways for 'Holistic Ministry'

Terry Tempest Williams Speaking

Video: "Wild Life" Film Screening and Discussion

January 1, 2024

This discussion followed the screening of Oscar-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's extraordinary film "Wild Life". The film is a story of love, wildness, and restoration in Chile and Argentina, recording the life of Kris Tompkins through an epic decades-spanning love story as wild as the landscapes she dedicated her life to protecting. Special guests in this conversation include Kris Tompkins and Chai Vasarhelyi, with guest curator Geralyn Dreyfous and HDS writer-in-residence Terry Tempest Williams.

... Read more about Video: "Wild Life" Film Screening and Discussion

Sanford Speaking

Video: Refuge in the Storm Webinar Series Part II: Sickness, Aging, and Death: Caring for Life-Cycle Crises

January 1, 2024

This webinar is the second in a series offered by the Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School. It featured a panel discussion of contributors to part II of Refuge in the Storm: Buddhist Voices in Crisis Care, edited by Nathan Jishin Michon. The panel included Kin Cheung (George) Lee and Lourdes Argüelles (Lopon Dorje Khandro), and was co-moderated by Rev. Dr. Nathan Jishin Michon and Rev. Dr. Monica Sanford.... Read more about Video: Refuge in the Storm Webinar Series Part II: Sickness, Aging, and Death: Caring for Life-Cycle Crises

Guzman Presenting

Video: Chimera Geographies: Black Spiritual Borderland Performances of the Caribbean

January 1, 2024

In this project, Elena Guzman explored the way Black women and non-binary people through the Caribbean and its diaspora use spiritual and ritual performance within African Diasporic Religions, including Santeria, Haitian Vodou, Puerto Rican Espiritismo, 21 Divisions, and Obeah, as a means to forge interstitial geographies of the African diaspora. Elena Guzman is an Afro-Boricua filmmaker, educator, and scholar raised in the Bronx with deep roots in the LES. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University and is an Assistant Professor in the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department and Anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington. Her manuscript, "Chimera Geographies: Black Feminist Borderland Performances," focuses on the way Black women and non-binary people throughout the African diaspora use ritual performance in African diaspora religion as a means to forge Black feminist borderlands through spiritual crossings. Her work has been published in Feminist Anthropology, NACLA, and Cultural Anthropology’s Screening Room.

... Read more about Video: Chimera Geographies: Black Spiritual Borderland Performances of the Caribbean

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