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Duke Divinity School Adds Scholars in Wesleyan Studies and Tradition among New Faculty

Randy Maddox, L. Edward Phillips and Paul Chilcote complement current faculty members

June 20, 2005

Already a leader in Wesleyan studies and service to the United Methodist Church, Duke Divinity School is joined by three faculty members this summer who will greatly contribute to scholarship and practice in these fields, says Dean L. Gregory Jones.

“Randy Maddox, L. Edward Phillips and Paul Chilcote complement current faculty members who have helped Duke Divinity become a world leader in study and teaching of the Wesleyan tradition,” Jones said. “These professors raise an exceptional strength of the school to a new level of excellence.”

Maddox
Maddox, professor of theology and Wesleyan studies, joins Duke from Seattle Pacific University, where he earned a reputation as an authority on both John Wesley’s theology and the theological developments in later Methodism. He is author of Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology, a contributor to Wesley and the Quadrilateral, and editor of Aldersgate Reconsidered and Rethinking Wesley’s Theology for Contemporary Methodism.

Maddox brings this grounding in Wesleyan tradition into conversation with issues of present Christian life and witness, including such special interests as science and religion, the nature of evangelicalism, and the self-understanding of theology as a discipline.

An ordained elder in the Dakotas Conference of the United Methodist Church, Maddox is the North American secretary of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies, general editor of the Kingswood Books Imprint of Abingdon Press, and associate general editor of the Wesley Works Editorial Project. He has served as president of the Wesleyan Theological Society and co-chair of the Wesley Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Northwest Nazarene College, his M. Div. from Nazarene Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Emory University.

Phillips
L. Edward Phillips, associate professor of the practice of Christian worship, most recently was a professor at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

His academic focus has centered on the history of the practical and pastoral aspects of the church – how the church conducted worship, initiated Christians, and organized ministries – as a way to understand the development of Christian theology. This approach demonstrates the relevance of historical theology for men and women engaged in pastoral ministry, since these are tasks they will be confronting in their work.

He chaired the United Methodist General Conference Holy Communion Study from 2001-2004. That study produced the first comprehensive treatment of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for the United Methodist Church or its predecessor denominations. As part of that work, he traveled to meet with Methodists throughout the United States and in England, Germany, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Phillips’ recent published work includes co-authorship of In Spirit and Truth: United Methodist Worship for the Emerging Church and The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary in the Hermeneia Commentary Series as well as a co-editorship of Studia Liturgica Diversa, Essays in Honor of Paul Bradshaw.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee at Martin; his M.Div. from Candler School of Theology; and both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame.

Chilcote
Paul Chilcote, visiting professor of the practice of evangelism, joins Duke Divinity School from Asbury Theological Seminary’s Florida faculty. His academic areas of interest include Evangelism, Wesleyan spirituality, women of early Methodism, Wesleyan worship and hymnody, and missiology.

In addition to his work at Asbury, his previous posts include faculty positions at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Africa University in Zimbabwe, and St. Paul’s United Theological College in Kenya.

Chilcote, who has pastoral experience in North Carolina and Indiana, is president of The Charles Wesley Society and co-chair of the World Methodist Council/Salvation Army Dialogue. He also has worked with the World Methodist Council-sponsored Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies and the global Theological Education Committee.

He is the author of Recapturing the Wesleys' Vision (IVP), Praying in the Wesleyan Spirit (Upper Room), The Wesleyan Tradition (Abingdon), and Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women (Kingswood).

Chilcote earned his bachelor’s degree from Valparaiso University and his M.Div. and Ph.D. at Duke.

At Duke Divinity School these new faculty members join such celebrated scholars and teachers in Wesleyan studies, history and tradition as Richard Heitzenrater, Geoffrey Wainwright, Teresa Berger, L. Gregory Jones, Laceye Warner, Warren Smith and Bishop Kenneth Carder. Heitzenrater, best known for discovering the “key” to Wesley’s Oxford diaries, is widely considered the premier Wesley scholar of his generation.

Also joining the divinity school faculty this year are Timothy Tyson, visiting professor of American Christianity and southern culture; William Ritter, visiting professor of preaching and ministry; Sam Wells, who becomes dean of Duke Chapel as well as research professor of Christian ethics; Jo Wells, who becomes director of Anglican studies and associate professor of the practice of Christian ministry and Bible; Tammy Williams, who is assistant professor of theology and black church studies, and Lauren Winner, who will be a visiting faculty member in spirituality.