Center for Practical Theology Co-Directors
Timothy L. Adkins-Jones
Dr. Timothy Adkins-Jones is the Assistant Professor of Homiletics and his research focus includes Black preaching, preaching and protest, communal homiletics, and church leadership.
His, Let the Church Say Amen! Practicing a Black Communal Homiletic (Fortress Press) focuses on the conversation that the congregation has with the preacher before, during, and after the sermon, and how that conversation shapes both the content and delivery of the sermon.
He is currently working on a second monograph that examines the complex relationship between preaching and protest, using the sermons preached in or around “Bloody Sunday (1965)” in Selma, AL and the “Hoodie Sunday” sermons preached in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin’s murder in 2012. Tentatively titled, Preaching and Protest: From Bloody Sunday to Hoodie Sunday,” this work will categorize the different ways that preaching and protest interact, offer a definition for “protest preaching,” and offer some exemplary examples of this genre of preaching.
Eunil David Cho
Dr. Eunil David Cho is Assistant Professor of Spiritual Care and Counseling at the Boston University School of Theology. He is a practical theologian whose research in pastoral theology and spiritual care engages the fields of narrative theory and therapy, psychology of religion, and sociology of religion. Approaching spiritual care from the perspective of an ethnic and racial minority, he integrates critical race theory, global migration studies, qualitative research methods, and Asian American theology and ministry into his scholarship.
He is the author of Undocumented Migration as a Theologizing Experience (Brill, 2024). He is currently co-editing the second edition of the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology with Bonnie Miller-McLemore and Mindy McGarrah Sharp. In addition, he serves as co-principal investigator of the Trauma-Responsive Congregations Project, supported by the Lilly Endowment, alongside Shelly Rambo at STH and Eric Brown at BU School of Medicine.
Dr. Cho is currently co-chair of the American Academy of Religion Psychology, Culture, and Religion Unit and a former steering committee member of the Society for Pastoral Theology. He is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and previously served as Moderator of the Synod of Mid-Atlantic (2024–2025).
Courtney T. Goto
Dr. Courtney Goto is Associate Professor of Religious Education and a co-Director for the Center for Practical Theology. Her research interests include intersections of racism, culture, and faith; as well as aesthetic teaching and learning, creativity, and embodied knowing. She is author of Taking on Practical Theology: The Idolization of Context and the Hope of Community (Brill, 2018). In this book, she explores the regnant paradigm to which the field of practical theology is captive, reflecting on issues of power and privilege in knowledge production from her perspective as a Japanese American. Goto is also author of The Grace of Playing: Pedagogies for Leaning into God’s New Creation (Pickwick, 2016). She designs courses that explore both theory and practices, often through experiential learning and community-based research.
Claire E. Wolfteich
Dr. Claire Wolfteich is Professor of Practical Theology and Spirituality Studies at Boston University School of Theology. Her teaching and research interests include Christian spirituality; religion and public life; theology and practice; theologies of vocation, work, and family; lay spirituality; spiritual autobiographies; and American Catholicism. She co-directs the Center for Practical Theology and is Project Director of the Creative Callings research grant project and innovation hub (www.creativecallingsproject.org), funded by the Lilly Endowment. Dr. Wolfteich is a past President of the International Academy of Practical Theology and of the Association of Practical Theology. She also is a past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.
Dr. Wolfteich published the monograph Motherwork, Public Leadership, and Women’s Life Writing: Explorations in Spirituality Studies and Practical Theology (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Publishers, 2017), a book that explores mothering as spiritual practice through the life writing of women from the medieval mystic Margery Kempe to twentieth-century lay leaders Dorothy Day and Dolores Huerta. She also has designed and edited two volumes on Catholic scholarship and practical theology: Catholic Approaches in Practical Theology: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters Publishers, 2016), co-edited with Annemie Dillen, and Invitation to Practical Theology: Catholic Voices and Visions (Paulist Press, 2014). With colleague Bryan Stone, she wrote Sabbath in the City: Sustaining Urban Pastoral Excellence (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), the fruit of a five-year grant project funded by the Lilly Endowment. In addition, she has authored several other books on spirituality: Lord, Have Mercy: Praying for Justice with Conviction and Humility (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2006); Navigating New Terrain: Work and Women’s Spiritual Lives (Paulist Press, 2002), and American Catholics Through the Twentieth Century: Spirituality, Lay Experience, and Public Life (Crossroad Publishing Co., 2001).
Dr. Wolfteich serves on editorial boards for several scholarly journals, including International Journal of Practical Theology; Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality; and The Way: A Review of Christian Spirituality, published by the British Jesuits. In addition, she is on the Editorial Board of the Theology in Practice Series (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers). She enjoys integrating teaching and scholarship and connecting the academy with the lives of faith communities.