Leadership Education at Duke Divinity has launched its online magazine, Faith & Leadership, a unique new resource designed to help Christian leaders reflect, connect, and learn. Faith & Leadership will explore the ways in which faith changes the nature of leadership with features including theological reflections, insights and practical information on leading, and video interviews and stories. The blog Call & Response invites Christian leaders to connect with one another. It will feature posts from pastoral and organizational leaders, highlight research on American congregations, and report each day on the top news and ideas for Christian leaders.

Visit Faith & Leadership to explore program offerings and sign up for the newsletter and RSS feed, or for more information.

Recordings are now available of workshops and lectures by Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche communities, and Duke Divinity School theologian Stanley Hauerwas, who co-taught during the Center for Reconciliation’s Teaching Communities Week. The event, “Living Gently in a Violent World,” was held Nov. 8–10 at Duke Divinity School.

Listen to audio from “Living Gently in a Violent World.”

Twenty years ago, when controversy among Baptists closed some traditional options for theological education, Duke Divinity School offered an opportunity for a new generation of Baptist ministers.

“In the moment when it was most difficult for us to see our way into the future, you provided a vision we desperately needed, one far greater than we could have imagined,” stated a declaration of appreciation presented to Duke Divinity School and the United Methodist Church by Baptist House chair Kathy Driver and Paul Baxley, vice chair, at the group’s 20^th-anniversary banquet in November.

“I discovered in this place and among these people that the name for me was and is ‘Baptist,’” said keynote speaker Prince Rivers, senior pastor of United Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., and a ’99 alumnus.

“The Baptist House of Studies has embodied the best of that name in both scholarship and ministry and it sends students, like me, into the world unashamed to live into that name.”

Awards of appreciation were presented to L. Gregory Jones, dean of the Divinity School, and to Charles Michael Smith, D ’65. Smith is a Duke University trustee, pastor-in-residence at the Divinity School, and an ordained elder in the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The Rev. Mel Williams, pastor of Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham and first chair of the board of directors, received an award for his leadership as a founding director and long-standing advocate.

Research Professor of Theology and Baptist Studies Curtis Freeman, who directs the Baptist House, said each time he hears “a story about one of our students in ministry it reminds me again of why I was drawn here and why I remain hopeful about the future of the church.”

The 2008 Convocation & Pastors’ School lectures and worship recordings feature lectures and conversations with Ron Heifetz, Adam Hamilton, and L. Gregory Jones, as well as the worship services with Bishops Larry Goodpaster, Janice Riggle Huie, and Greg Palmer.

Purchase the recordings, or download them for free.

And mark your calendars for 2009 Convocation & Pastors’ School, which is scheduled for Oct. 5–7 at Duke.

For more information, contact the Office of Continuing Education at 919.660.3448 or (888.845.4216 toll-free).

Duke University President Richard Brodhead has appointed eight new members to the Divinity School’s 36-member Board of Visitors. James Harnish, a United Methodist pastor from Tampa, Fla., chairs the advisory group, which meets twice a year at Duke. more »

During introductions at a “Responding to Domestic Violence” conference hosted in November by the Divinity School Women’s Center, one participant asked to stand.

“This is the first time I’ve said this publicly: I am a survivor of domestic violence,” said Denise [not her real name] in a shaky voice that grew stronger with each word. more »