Chaplains
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The chaplains invited for the 2010 Season will once again represent intended theological, denominational, gender, racial and ethnic diversity, as well as ministerial context. As always, the Department of Religion’s commitment to diversity in gender, race and theological perspective is clear. The philosophy of the Department of Religion, from the beginning, has embraced and manifested the belief that an expression of these diversities is key to Chautauqua’s future.
June 27-July 2 (Week One)
dean emeritus, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
The Very Reverend Alan Jones, Dean Emeritus of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, retired on January 31, 2009 after serving for over 24 years as dean. Since beginning his tenure as dean in 1985, he has been a prominent lecturer in Episcopal, academic, and spiritual circles both nationally and internationally.
Prior to serving at Grace Cathedral Dr. Jones had served as the Stephen F. Bayne Professor of Ascetical Theology at the General Theological Seminary in New York City from 1972 – 1982, where he was also the director and founder of the Center for Christian Spirituality. He was made an honorary Canon of Chartres Cathedral in 2001, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco in 2008. Now a U.S. citizen, Dr. Jones was born in England and took a Ph.D. in 1971 at the University of Nottingham, England, and was awarded an Order of the British Empire in June 2002.
In 2003 he published Seasons of Grace (with John O’Neil) and in October 2004 John Wiley & Sons also published his Re-imagining Christianity: Reconnect Your Spirit without Disconnecting Your Mind. His latest book, Common Prayer on Common Ground: The Vision of Anglican Orthodoxy was published by Morehouse Publishing in 2006. His earlier books include Soul Making: The Desert Way of Spirituality, The Soul’s Journey: Exploring the Three Passages of Spiritual Life with Dante as a Guide, Exploring Spiritual Direction, Sacrifice & Delight, Passion for Pilgrimage, and Living the Truth.
July 4-9 (Week Two)
senior minister emeritus, The Riverside Church
The Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes, Jr. is President of the Healing of the Nations Foundation and host of “The Time Is Now” on Air America Radio. An ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches and the Original United Holy Church of America, he was the first African-American to serve as Senior Minister of the multicultural Riverside congregation. Before being called to Riverside’s pulpit in 1989, Dr. Forbes served from 1976-1985 as the Brown and Sockman Associate Professor of Preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from 1985-1989 as Union’s first Joe R. Engle Professor of Preaching, and as the first Harry Emerson Fosdick Adjunct Professor of Preaching. Dr. Forbes also serves on the Core Teaching Staff at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York.
In national and international religious circles, Dr. Forbes is known as the preacher’s preacher because of his extensive preaching career and his charismatic style. In 1996 Newsweek magazine recognized Forbes as one of the 12 “most effective preachers” in the English-speaking world, and this pastor, educator, administrator, community activist, and interfaith leader was designated as one of America’s greatest Black preachers by Ebony magazine in 1984 and 1993. He won the Alumni Charter Day Award of Howard University for Distinguished Post Graduate Achievement in Ministry, and in 1995 he emerged in the Baylor University Survey as one of twelve remarkable and most effective preachers in the English-speaking world.
Dr. Forbes earned a Doctor of Ministry Degree from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, a Master of Divinity Degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Howard University. He has also been awarded 13 honorary degrees. From 1992 to the present, Dr. Forbes has been co-chair of A Partnership of Faith, an interfaith organization of clergy among New York’s Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim communities. He is on the board of Manhattanville College, the Interfaith Alliance, Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, and the United Way. He is a consultant to the Congress of National Black Churches and past President of The Martin Luther King Fellows. In 2000 he received the prestigious Earle B. Pleasant Clergy of the Year Award from Religion in American Life, and also accepted board appointments to The Values Institute of America, The Bertram M. Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty at Fordham University, and The Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. The Interfaith Alliance awarded him the Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award in 2004.
July 11-16 (Week Three)
pastor, The Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, PA
The Reverend Dr. M. Craig Barnes is the Pastor and Head of Staff of The Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was ordained into the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1981 and has served parishes in Colorado, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. In the fall of 2002 he became the Robert Meneilly Professor of Pastoral Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. While continuing in that teaching ministry he began his service as the installed pastor of The Shadyside Presbyterian Church in 2003.
After graduating from The King’s College and Princeton Seminary, he received a Ph.D. in The History of Christianity from The University of Chicago under the supervision of Martin E. Marty. He is the author of several books and articles that center on the struggle of contemporary people making sense of God's grace. His published books include Yearning, When God Interrupts, Hustling God, Sacred Thirst, Extravagant Mercy, Searching For Home, and most recently, The Pastor as Minor Poet.
July 18-23 (Week Four)
president, Methodist Church of South Africa; pastor to Nelson Mandela
Rev. Dr. Professor Peter Storey is a seventh-generation South African Methodist minister who spent most of his ministry serving the inner-city in churches such as that in District Six, Cape Town, and the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the 1960s he founded the first Life Line telephone counseling centers in Southern Africa. During the 1970s and 80s, as President at different times of the South African Council of Churches and of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, he was deeply involved in the anti-apartheid struggle. In the 1990s he was a regional chairperson in the National Peace Accord structures intervening in political violence, and was the founder of Gun Free South Africa. In 1994 President Mandela appointed him to help select the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
After retiring as Methodist Bishop in Johannesburg, he taught for nine years in the United States, is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Duke University Divinity School, and was consultant to the first Truth Commission in the USA, in Greensboro, NC. He preaches widely across the world and has authored a number of books. He now lives in Simon’s Town, South Africa, and directs the project to build the new Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary in KwaZulu-Natal.
July 25-30 (Week Five)
Butman Professor of Religion, Piedmont College
The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, is the Butman Professor of Religion at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia and the Adjunct Professor of Christian Spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Before becoming a teacher in 1997, she spent fifteen years in full time parish ministry. An editor-at-large for The Christian Century and sometime commentator on Georgia Public Radio, she is the author of eleven books, Leaving Church (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), The Seeds of Heaven (Westminster John Knox, 2004), Speaking of Sin (Cowley, 2000), The Luminous Web (Cowley, 2000), Home By Another Way (Cowley, 1999), When God is Silent (Cowley, 1998), Mixed Blessings (Cowley, 1998), God in Pain (Abingdon, 1998), Bread of Angels (Cowley, 1997), Gospel Medicine (Cowley, 1995), The Preaching Life (Cowley, 1993).
Reverend Taylor received her Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School and her Bachelor of Arts from Emory University, and holds seven honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees. She serves on the Yale Divinity School Board of Advisors, the McAfee School of Theology Board of Visitors, and holds memberships in the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Author’s Guild. She was listed among Who's Who Among America's Teachers in 2002, 2004, and 2005, and she received the Emory Medal from Emory University in 1998, the Yale Divinity School Alumni Award in 1993, and the Associated Church Press Award of Excellence in 1996, 2001, 2002, and 2003.
August 1-6 (Week Six)
president, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Serving as Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s fifth president, the Rev. Dr. William J. Carl III is also a professor of homiletics. Before coming to the Seminary, he served for 22 years as pastor of the 1,700-member First Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas.
Dr. Carl graduated from the University of Tulsa with a bachelor’s in religion and philosophy. He earned his master’s of divinity from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary where he was a Patterson Fellow in New Testament Greek. In 1977, he received his doctorate of philosophy in rhetoric and communication from the University of Pittsburgh where he also worked as an instructor. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1973.
Dr. Carl’s previous teaching experience includes associate professor of homiletics and worship and instructor of New Testament Greek at Union Theological Seminary (VA). Thirty years ago, he was an instructor at Pittsburgh Seminary and more recently served as an adjunct professor at Austin Theological Seminary. He has lectured at Oxford, Princeton, Boston University, the Moscow Theological Academy, the Kerala United Theological Seminary in India, the Beijing Theological Seminary in China, and dozens of other divinity schools and conferences both here and abroad. Dr. Carl has published eight books, including his most recent ones The Lord’s Prayer for Today (WJK, 2006), Dancing in Holy Places (CSS Publishing, 2008), Preaching Christian Doctrine (Augsburg/Fortress reprinted 2008), and Best Advice: Wisdom on Ministry from Thirty Leading Pastors and Preachers (WJK, 2009). He lectures on the brain at medical schools and medical conferences, and serves as an ethics consultant to major corporations.
Bill says delightedly that, in coming to Chautauqua, he is actually following in his son David’s footsteps. David Carl, an actor in New York City, performed twice at Chautauqua as a member of the Chautauqua Theater Conservatory in 2001 and 2004!
August 8-13 (Week Seven)
pastor, Abyssinian Baptist Church, NYC
Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, is pastor of the nationally renowned Abyssinian Baptist Church in the City of New York, and President of SUNY College at Old Westbury. He was one of the founders, and is the current Chairman of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a comprehensive, community-based not for profit organization, responsible for over $600 million in housing and commercial development in Harlem. He was also instrumental in establishing the Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change – a public, state-of-the-art, intermediate and high school in Harlem, and he is the visionary behind the Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School, which opened in September 2005.
Dr. Butts is Chairman of the Board of North General Hospital in Harlem; Chairman of National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBLCA), and a founding member of the organization’s Board of Commissioners; and a member of the Board of the New York Blood Center, the American Red Cross of Greater New York, New Visions for Public Schools, and American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee. He previously served as President of Africare, an independent organization dedicated to the improvement of the quality of life in rural Africa, as well as President of the Council of Churches of the City of New York. He is the former Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of United Way of New York City, and Chairman of the Board of the Harlem Branch YMCA.
Dr. Butts earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and a Master of Divinity Degree in Church History from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, as well as a Doctorate of Ministry Degree in Church and Public Policy from Drew University. He has received honorary degrees from The City College of New York; Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama; Claflin College of Orangeburg, South Carolina; Dillard University, New Orleans, Louisiana; Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania; and Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
Reverend Butts was an Urban Affairs instructor and served as Adjunct Professor in the African Studies Department at City College, New York. He also taught Black Church History at Fordham University, and continues to give lectures and speeches to colleges, universities, and various organizations throughout the United States and abroad. Having spearheaded numerous boycotts against institutions that practice racist policies and employment discrimination, he was also at the vanguard of exposing rap music that includes violent and negative lyrics targeted at women. His boycott efforts have helped to sensitize this nation to the evils of exploitive advertising, and he continues on a mission to uplift the ethical standards of the human community.
Dr. Butts is consistently invited to preach in distinguished pulpits throughout New York, as well as nationally and internationally. He has traveled to Africa, China, Cuba, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and throughout the Caribbean Islands. He currently delivers a bi-weekly sermon on 98.7 KISS-FM Radio at 7:00 am on Sundays. Through this medium, he is able to spread his ministry throughout New York City.
August 15 (Week Eight)
president, Union Theological Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones is the sixteenth president of Union Theological Seminary – the first woman president in the Seminary's 172-year history – where she is also the Roosevelt Professor of Systematic Theology. Previously the Titus Street Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, Dr. Jones went to Union after seventeen years on the Yale University faculty, where she also served as chair and faculty member of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has held faculty appointments at Yale Law School and in the Yale Departments of African American Studies and Religious Studies.
Dr. Jones is a prolific and popular scholar in the fields of theology, religion, and gender studies. In addition to publishing 37 articles and book chapters since 1991, she has delivered a long list of professional papers and public lectures across the United States and around the world. She is the author of Feminist Theory and Theology: Cartographies of Grace (2000) and Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety (1995). She co-edited Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics (2006), Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Engagement with Classical Themes (2005), Liberating Eschatology: Essays in Honor of Letty Russell (1999), and Setting the Table: Women in Theological Conversation (1995).
Dr. Jones earned her Ph.D. and M.Div. in theology from Yale Divinity School. She holds a B.A. from the University of Oklahoma, and is an ordained minister in both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ.
Dr. Jones is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. She has received grants from the Pew Scholars and the Louisville Institute and was co-principal investigator on the "Women, Religion, and Globalization Grant" for the Henry T. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs. From 1996-2006, she served on the advisory board of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology at Wabash College in Indiana, and from 1999 to 2005 she co-convened the Constructive Theology Workgroup, a national organization of progressive theologians.
August 16-20 (Week Eight)
director, Interfaith Alliance; pastor, Northminster (Baptist) Church, Monroe, LA
Author of over 20 books, including First Freedom First: A Citizen’s Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy leads the national non-partisan grassroots and educational organization, Interfaith Alliance, and serves as the Pastor for Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, Louisiana. In addition to being a prolific writer, Dr. Gaddy hosts the weekly State of Belief radio program on Air America, where he explores the role of religion in the life of the nation by illustrating the vast diversity of beliefs in America, while exposing and critiquing both the political manipulation of religion for partisan purposes and the religious manipulation of government for sectarian purposes.
Dr. Gaddy provides regular commentary to the national media on issues relating to religion and politics. Some of his appearances include MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show, NBC’s Evening News and Dateline, PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly and The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, ABC’s World News Tonight, and CNN’s The World Today with Wolf Blitzer. Former host of Morally Speaking on NBC affiliate KTVE in Monroe, Louisiana, Dr. Gaddy is a regular contributor to mainstream and religious news outlets.
While ministering to churches with a message of inclusion, Dr. Gaddy emerged as a leader among progressive and moderate Baptists. Among his many leadership roles, he is a past president of the Alliance of Baptists and has been a twenty-year member of the Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance. His past leadership roles include serving as a member of the General Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, President of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Chair of the Pastoral Leadership Commission of the Baptist World Alliance and member of the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100. Rev. Gaddy currently serves on the White House task-force on the reform of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Dr. Gaddy received his undergraduate degree from Union University in Tennessee and his doctoral degree and divinity training from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is a long-time friend of Chautauqua.
August 22-27 (Week Nine)
founding and Senior Pastor, Ray of Hope Christian Church, Decatur, GA
Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale is the founding and Senior Pastor of the Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur, Georgia, which has been honored as one of 300 excellent Protestant congregations in the United States.
As a woman of vision, Dr. Hale is revered locally, nationally, and internationally for her leadership, integrity, and compassion. In addition to her commitment to Ray of Hope Christian Church, Dr. Hale serves on an array of boards. In 2005 she convened her first Women in Ministry Conference, hosting women from various stages in ministry. She serves as Co-Chair of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and Chair of the 21st Century Vision Team of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Dr. Hale was inducted into the African American Biographies Hall of Fame and the Martin Luther King Board of Preachers of Morehouse College. Selected by Senator Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, Dr. Hale gave the opening invocation at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She also served as Co-Chair for “Women in Ministry for Obama.”
Dr. Hale has received numerous honors and recognitions, and is a contributor to the book, Power in the Pulpit II: How America’s Most Effective Black Preachers Prepare Their Sermons. She has been in ministry for 30 years. Her ministerial gift has drawn thousands, young and old, to witness a woman “totally sold out for the Kingdom of God.” She has traveled abroad preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, sharing the “Good News” in Africa, Australia, Europe, the Caribbean, and South America. Dr. Hale is “a woman on a mission to impact and transform this present world into the Kingdom of God.”
A native of Roanoke, Virginia, Dr. Hale received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Hollins College in Virginia. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University and a Doctorate of Ministry from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Hale holds five Honorary Doctorates of Divinity. This will be her first visit to Chautauqua.
August 29 (Final Sunday)
director, Ogilvie Institute of Preaching, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA
The Rev. Dr. Mark Labberton is newly appointed as the Lloyd John Ogilvie Chair of Preaching and Director of the Ogilvie Institute of Preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Having served in pastoral ministry for over twenty-five years, Rev. Labberton was the Senior Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California for the past seventeen years before joining the faculty at Fuller. Dr. Labberton cares deeply about God's call for God's people in community to be loving and just manifestations of the Kingdom of God in everyday life, and especially among those facing chronic and acute injustice in our world. These convictions are expressed in his book, The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice (IVP, 2007) and in his forthcoming book on The Injustice of the Heart (2010).
Dr. Labberton holds degrees from Whitman College (B.A.), Fuller Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and Cambridge University (Ph.D.). A frequent speaker at churches, conferences, and seminaries in the United States and around the world, he currently also serves as a Senior Fellow of the International Justice Mission, a Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal, and on the Board of John Stott Ministries.
