Christian Theological seminary is excited to announce its 2020 commencement speaker and the launch of a new scholarship!
Barbara Brown Taylor will receive an honorary doctorate degree from CTS at this year’s graduation ceremony, where she will deliver the commencement address. Taylor is an internationally acclaimed writer, teacher, and Episcopal priest. The author of fourteen books, Taylor has taught courses at Piedmont College, Columbia Theological Seminary, Candler School of Theology at Emory University, the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, and the Arrendale State Prison for Women in Alto, GA. TIME magazine included her in its 2014 list of “Most Influential People,” writing, “few souls are as synched to the world’s mysteries as Barbara Brown Taylor’s.” In 2015, she was named Georgia Woman of the Year.
Taylor has written for decades on the many dimensions of spirituality and religious faith, gaining a significant national audience with her books Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith (2006) and An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (2010). Most recently, she published Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others (2019), which grew out of her time teaching courses on Religions of the World. About this book, she writes, “Part of my ongoing priesthood is to find the bridge between my faith and the faiths of other people, so that those of us who draw water from wells on different sides of the river can still get together from time to time, making the whole area safer for our children.”
“Barbara Brown Taylor is a perfect fit for CTS because of her inspiring work as an author and educator, her transforming work as a preacher and speaker, and the ways that she has become a spiritual voice for our generation,” said President David M. Mellott.
CTS is launching a new scholarship for students who are members of either the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) or the United Church of Christ. CTS traces its origins to 1855 and the founding of North Western Christian University, an abolitionist institution committed to the training of ministers for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which was later renamed Butler University. As the Butler University School of Religion grew in size and increasingly distinct in its mission and operation, it incorporated as a freestanding institution under the name Christian Theological Seminary in 1958. Today, CTS is a fully accredited ecumenical graduate school related to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) committed to forming disciples of Jesus Christ for church and community leadership to serve God’s transforming of the world.
This new DOC/UCC scholarship generously covers full tuition for limited number of students from these denominations to pursue a call to ministry. Find more information about the scholarship here. Apply now!
