Each year, the HDS Alumni/Alumnae Council (AAC) recognizes exceptional graduates and one Friend of the School with the Peter J. Gomes, STB ’68 Distinguished Alumni Honors. The award, given in memory of the late Reverend Gomes, celebrates community members whose excellence in life, work, and service pays homage to the mission and values of HDS.... Read more about Journeys of the Soul: HDS Recognizes Awe-Inspiring Alumni with 2024 Gomes Distinguished Honors

Harvard Divinty School recently hosted Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and legendary gospel artist Twinkie Clark, who talked about her musical journey and performed from her catalog of over 350 songs.... Read more about Video: An Evening with Twinkie Clark

This alumni webinar explored the role of chaplaincy in fostering resilience and navigating complex challenges.... Read more about Video: Chaplaincy Across Fields: Nurturing Resilience and Compassion

“To remember who we were is to remember our most authentic self. Who we are is liberation itself. We are free. And none of us can be free if others are not free.”—Lama Rod Owens... Read more about Becoming 'New Saints' with Lama Rod Owens

Thomas Santa Maria is a Yang Visting Scholar in World Christianity at Harvard Divinity School for the 2023-24 academic year. He has published in journals including the Catholic Historical Review, and the Journal of Early Modern Christianity. He comes to HDS from Yale University, where he was the Residential College Dean of Silliman College, and before that, a graduate student in renaissance studies and history. His work focuses primarily on the relationship between the body, emotions, and religion in the Early Modern period.... Read more about Yang Scholar Thomas Santa Maria on Mysticism and Miracles in World Christianity

Robert Warrior, Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kansas, will join Harvard Divinity School for the fall 2024 semester as Visiting Professor of Native American Culture and Traditions.... Read more about Robert Warrior Named Visiting Professor of Native American Culture and Traditions at Harvard Divinity

Abstract art has long served as a vessel for artists — think Hilma af Klint or Wassily Kandinsky — to explore religion and spirituality. Isabel Haro ’24, a concentrator in art, film, and visual studies with a secondary in music, was inspired to pursue a thesis that explored this topic after taking the course “Spiritual Paths to Abstract Art” with Professor Ann Braude at HDS. Haro, who practices Buddhism, wanted to create a collection of work inspired by her own experiences.

This interview is one in an ongoing series exploring the intersection of art and religion in HDS courses.

How can we imagine a better world from within our current context? When Charles Hallisey, MDiv ’78, and Molly Silverstein, MDiv ’22, began discussing their Harvard Divinity School course “The Museum as a Buddhist Institution,” this question directed their investigations and collaboration.... Read more about Harvard Divinity Scholar, Student Explore Museums as Sites for Buddhist Ministry

“There’s a lot of Mormonism in my Zen and a lot of Zen in my Mormonism,” Thomas McConkie, MDiv ’25, says. This elegant synthesis, however, took years of meditation and spiritual exploration to articulate.... Read more about Harvard Divinity Student Thomas McConkie Aims to Help Others Realize a ‘Greater Fullness’

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.

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 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

“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