Lorna A. Shoemaker, Director of the CTS Library and Professor of the History of Global Christianity, joined the CTS staff in May 2000 and was appointed to the faculty in 2003. She holds the B.A. degree from the University of California, the M.Div. from San Francisco Theological Seminary and is completing a Ph.D. at the Graduate Theological Union. Upon concluding her studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary, Shoemaker was awarded a Faculty Fellowship for an additional year of independent study at Eberhart-Karls University in Tubingen, Germany. During residence at GTU, she received graduate fellowships from the Presbyterian Church (USA), Newhall Teaching Fellowships, a Newhall Research Fellowship and taught in three GTU member schools.

Although working regularly in Early and Reformation ecclesiastical history, Shoemaker specializes in the Middle Ages; her dissertation studies the papal court of Innocent III and papal reforms through the lens of Innocent's early writings. Her research interests include contentions for authority between spiritual and civil leaders, impulses to religious reform before the 16th century, popular religion and subversive spiritualities, and literature as history.

Among her published work are contributions to The Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters (Intervarsity Press, 1998) and the New Westminster Dictionary of Church History (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004).

Shoemaker is a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA); she has served in parish ministry and as an Associate for Women's Program in the national Women's Ministry Unit of the PC (USA). 

Curriculum Vitae    

Syllabi  
H-505 History of Global Christianity: Beginnings to 1500 - Spring 2013 (PDF)