New Faculty, Senior Administrative Leadership Appointments
March 31, 2008
Duke Divinity School has announced the appointment of five new faculty members for the coming year. The incoming group represents a great variety of disciplines and interests, ranging from environmental issues to the Protestant Reformation to homiletics.
“The incoming faculty members bring a wealth of fresh talent to Duke Divinity School,” says Dean L. Gregory Jones. “With these five appointments we are able to build upon existing strengths and enhance both teaching and scholarship in our community.”
The Divinity School also has named a new associate dean for lifelong learning. The Rev. Dr. Joy Moore joins the Divinity School community on July 1. Moore currently serves as the pastor of First United Methodist Church, Greenville, Mich.
Moore taught preaching at Asbury Theological Seminary prior to her appointment at First UMC. She received her M.Div. from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and her Ph.D. in practical theology from Brunel University/London School of Theology.
Brief profiles of the new faculty members follow.
Ray Barfield comes to the Divinity School and Duke University Health System this summer to serve as professor of pediatrics and Christian philosophy. He currently is a bone marrow transplant physician at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
Some of his work will relate to the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life, based at the Divinity School. One of his tasks at the Health System will be to develop a pediatric palliative care service.
Barfield, who holds a Ph.D. from Emory University in philosophy, has authored dozens of papers on medical issues.
Jeremy Begbie will join the faculty in January 2009 as the inaugural Thomas A. Langford research professor of theology.
Begbie is currently associate principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and honorary professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he directs “Theology through the Arts” at the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts.
He teaches systematic theology at Ridley Hall and also lectures in the Faculties of Divinity and Music in the University of Cambridge.
A professionally trained musician, Begbie is the author of several books, including “Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts” (T & T Clark); “Theology, Music and Time” (CUP); and “Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music” (Baker), which won a 2008 Christianity Today Book Award.
Sujin Pak, who joins the faculty this summer as assistant professor of the history of Christianity, specializes in the history of Christianity in late medieval and early modern Europe. She currently is assistant professor of church history at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Pak’s teaching focuses on the theology of the Protestant reformers, the Protestant Reformation and the Jews, women and the Reformation, and the history of biblical interpretation. Her research and writing engage the history of biblical interpretation during the Reformation era. In her research, as well, she gives particular attention to the role of biblical exegesis in the history of Christian-Jewish relations.
Pak is a United Methodist layperson with active roles as a teacher and lay preacher in the United Methodist Church. Her family heritage includes numerous UMC pastors, missionaries, deacons and district superintendents.
She has taught at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary since 2003. Pak has a book forthcoming with Oxford University Press titled “The Judaizing Calvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates over the Messianic Psalms.”
Charles Campbell joins the Divinity School’s faculty in January 2009 as professor of homiletics.
Campbell, currently Peter Marshall professor of homiletics at Columbia Theological Seminary, is interested in the biblical, theological and ethical dimensions of preaching and worship. His work focuses on the Christological and ecclesiological aspects of preaching, the role of preaching in relation to the “principalities and powers,” and the implications of character ethics and contemporary Radical Reformation ethics for preaching.
His publications include “The Word Before the Powers: An Ethic of Preaching” (2002); “The Word on the Street: Performing the Scriptures in the Urban Context,” co-author (2000); and “Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Hans Frei’s Postliberal Theology” (1997).
He was pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Stuttgart, Ark., from 1982-1988.
Norman Wirzba comes to the Divinity School this summer as research professor of theology, ecology and rural life.
Currently a professor and chair of the philosophy department at Georgetown College in Kentucky, Wirzba pursues research and teaching interests at the intersections of theology, philosophy, ecology, and agrarian and environmental studies. In particular, he focuses on understanding and promoting practices that will equip both rural and urban church communities to be more faithful and responsible members of creation. Current projects focus on eating as a spiritual discipline, theological reflection as informed by place, and agrarianism as a viable and comprehensive cultural force.
Wirzba has published “The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age” and “Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight.” He also has edited “The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land” and “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry.”
Wirzba serves as general editor for the book series “Culture of the Land: A Series in the New Agrarianism,” published by the University Press of Kentucky.
Raised as a North American Baptist in western Canada, Wirzba previously taught at the University of Saskatchewan.