Mary Lou Shea

Mary Lou SheaBA, Ohio Wesleyan University
MTS, Boston University
ThD, Boston University

Dr. Shea has devoted the last decade to teaching undergraduate students the fundamentals of Christianity, and introducing them to the history of Christianity and mission.  Her efforts led to her receipt of the 2007 Teaching Excellence Award bestowed by Eastern Nazarene College.  Dr. Shea’s current project is a biography of Hiram F. Reynolds, one of the founders of the Church of the Nazarene, whose vision shaped the denomination as an international church with a significant mission emphasis.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Eastern Nazarene College, Quincy, MA

Associate Professor, 2008 – present
Church history, missions, philosophy

Assistant Professor, 2003 – 2008
Church history, missions, philosophy, theology, biblical studies

PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Director, DeFreitas Mission Grant Program, 2002 – present.  Includes library acquisitions, course development and implementation, scheduling and hosting of guest speakers, grant writing and distribution of approved funding.

Panelist, Boston University School of Theology Graduate Program Teaching Initiative (Wabash Institute-funded),  April 2011

Advisor: Campus Crusade for Christ (2002-2003); Women of G.R.A.C.E. (Spring 2006 – Spring 2007); Women in God’s Service (begun in autumn 2010)

Participant, second global theology conference of the Church of the Nazarene, Spring 2007, with responsibility for nightly reflections on day’s discussion

Participant, U.S. – Canada theology conference of the Church of the Nazarene, 2004

Participant, first global theology conference of the Church of the Nazarene, 2002

New England District Resolution Committee, Church of the Nazarene, 2003-2005 and 2008-2009

Retreat speaker, prayer meeting leader, guest preacher at various Nazarene churches and other local churches.

PRESENTATIONS

Seminar leader, PALCON Eastern Nazarene College on Nazarene history and the future of the denomination, “Looking Back, Looking Ahead,”  June 2010

Seminar leader on Wesleyan Theology at the biannual meeting of the Wesleyan-Holiness Women Clergy Conference, April, 2008

E.N.C. Public Lecture Series guest speaker, “Sin, Suffering and Salvation: Christ’s Revelation to Medieval Women Mystics” April 2007

“Suffering as Imago Christi” Joint paper with Eric Severson, Wesleyan Theological Society, 2007

“Bringing Light to Dark Africa: Harmon and Lula Schmelzenbach in Swaziland,” Wesleyan Theological Society, 2002

“That They May Be One: The Call to Missions and the Struggle over Power,” Wesleyan Theological Society, 2001

PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming:  (Winter 2011)  “Womanist Theology,” Millennial Development Goals,” and “New Apostolic Movements,” in the Global Wesleyan Dictionary of Theology, Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City.

Forthcoming:  (2011)  chapter entitled “On ‘Being Church:’ A Wesleyan Understanding of Unity in Diversity as Contrasted with Fundamentalist Conformity,” in (tentative title) Come, Let Us Reason Together: Wesleyan or Fundamentalist?, Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City.

Medieval Women on Sin and Salvation: Hadewijch of Antwerp, Beatrice of Nazareth, Margaret Ebner and Julian of Norwich. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2010.

Book review on Polkinghorne’s The God of Hope and the End of the World, in Research News, Vol. 3, No. 10, June, 2003