Alumni News
Prof. Steven Sandage featured in BU Brink article on Social Media and Mental Health
The following is an excerpt from a BU Brink article “Is a News and Social Media Overload Negatively Affecting Your Mental Health?” by Rich Barlow, featuring Albert and Jessie Danielsen Professor of Psychology of Religion and Theology Steven Sandage, published October 17, 2025.
In a year of violence and suffering, here and around the world, harrowing reports and images have flooded news channels and social media feeds, affecting even those who haven’t personally witnessed the horrors. That has two Boston University researchers bracing for a surge in “vicarious trauma”: distress from secondhand exposure to gruesome events through news, our screens, or from counseling traumatized people.
Steven Sandage directs research at BU’s Albert & Jessie Danielsen Institute and is the Danielsen Professor of Psychology of Religion and Theology at the School of Theology. Laura Captari is a researcher and staff psychologist at the Danielsen Institute. They have studied vicarious trauma in religious leaders and therapists and developed CHRYSALIS, a free online program for caregivers to fortify their own resilience as they counsel traumatized congregants and patients. More than 400 people have gone through the program. The Danielsen Institute treats people with mental health problems and trains clinical psychologists and social workers.
The Brink asked Captari and Sandage about their research and what we can do to protect against these potentially traumatizing times.
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Pastoral Residency Opportunity, Full Time, Second Baptist Church: Liberty, MO
Second Baptist Church seeks to hire a full-time Pastoral Resident to serve and learn with our congregation for 2-3 years, beginning in late August 2026.
The Pastoral Resident will benefit from a nurturing community at Second Baptist, spending focused time during their residency learning to be a Senior Pastor in ministry as they gain experience in preaching, teaching, pastoral care, administration, and congregational organization. The Resident will also be given opportunities to lead in baptisms, weddings, funerals, family dedications, communion, and other pastoral duties such as coordinating care ministries for the congregation.
The Pastoral Resident should have earned a Master of Divinity degree and sense a strong call to serve as a Senior Pastor, with a demonstrated giftedness to excel in this calling. Some ministry experience beyond seminary is preferred.
Second Baptist Church is a 175-year-old multigenerational church located in Liberty, MO, a fast-growing suburb of Kansas City, MO, within walking distance of William Jewell College and the downtown Liberty square. Second Baptist is committed to fostering meaningful Christ-centered community, whole-life faith, and a transforming missional presence in our world. Second Baptist is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Applications for this position are due by January 16, 2026, and should be submitted by email to avaughn@2bcliberty.org or by mail to: Rev. Alena Vaughn, Second Baptist Church, 300 E. Kansas Street, Liberty, MO 64068.
Applicants should submit their resumes, with references, and a one-page reflection on their vocational calling/purpose.
Ms. Molly M. North (’71)
The following obituary was originally Published by SF&C in Salem Funerals and Cremations on September 13, 2025, and can be found here.
Molly Margaret North's courageous 13-year battle with dementia ended peacefully in the early morning of September 13, 2025, at the Kate B. Reynolds Hospice Home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Molly was born on April 5, 1945, in Clearwater, Florida, to Donald C. North Jr. and Elaine Pattee North. Molly was born while her father was serving in the US Navy in the South Pacific and her mother was living with her father's mother. When World War II ended, Molly's father took a job with Pratt and Whitney in Hartford, Connecticut, and the family moved to the small town of East Granby, Connecticut.
Molly's younger brother, Donald C. North III, arrived in 1947 and her younger sister Jane Pattee North in 1949. The family lived in East Granby until 1956, when her father accepted an offer from Babcock and Wilcox, and the family moved to Lynchburg, Virginia. Molly graduated from E.C. Glass High School in 1963 and began her undergraduate studies at St. Andrew's College in Laurinburg, North Carolina. After her sophomore year she transferred to Randolph Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she earned her undergraduate degree in 1967.
Molly's passion for music, especially the piano and organ, led her to graduate school at Boston University, where she earned a Master's Degree in Sacred Music and Theology. In her early career she taught music in schools and served as organist for several churches. Eventually Molly returned to college and earned a second undergraduate degree, in accounting, from the University of North Texas. In 1993, she earned her accreditation as a Certified Public Accountant, after which she began a long career serving several different firms, specializing in property management. She concluded her career working for the General Services Administration of the United States Government in Washington, DC. Molly retired from her career in accounting in 2011.
To be closer to family, she moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Molly joined St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, where she soon began serving as organist. She was a gifted organist and pianist, who quickly earned the respect and the love of the congregation and staff of St. Anne's. Molly was predeceased by her parents. She is survived by her younger sister Jane Pattee North and her husband Tom Beason and her younger brother Donald C. North III and his wife Mary Murrill North; her nephew Will North Shuford; her nieces Megan North Shuford, Catherine North Hounfodji, Rebecca North, and Angela North Marshall; eight cousins; and six great nieces and nephews.
Molly was beloved by her extended family and by many others. Her skill in and love for music, her rich imagination, her joy, her appreciation for nature, and her love of laughter led to many wonderful memories at family gatherings, trips, celebrations, church gatherings, and musical events. As well, from an early age, Molly had a heart for service to others. Throughout her life, as a volunteer and as a friend, she dedicated herself to the care and well-being of others, thus leaving her indelible mark on the lives of many.
The family would like to express its thanks to Dr. Rebecca Omlor and the staff of Trellis Supportive Care and Kate B. Reynolds Hospice Home; her faith community of St. Anne's Episcopal Church; and, most especially, her dear friend and Home Instead caregiver, Tania Villalba. A service in celebration of Molly's life will be held on Saturday, November 1, 2025, at 1 p.m. at St. Anne's Episcopal Church, 2690 Fairlawn Drive, Winston-Salem, NC 27106. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions in memory of Molly may be made to St. Anne's Episcopal Church.
The God of New Things
This article was written by Clinical Assistant Professor of Religion and Conflict Transformation and director of the Tom Porter Religion and Conflict Transformation Program James McCarty and originally published in the 2025 issue of focus magazine, the annual publication of the BU School of Theology. This article can be found on page 24.
Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel… who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters… Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:14-19 (NRSV)
God is a God who does new things. God makes a way where there appears to be no way, as womanist wisdom regularly teaches us and this passage declares. God makes a way through mighty seas and desolate deserts. Whenever we see desolation, despair, or dissolution we should be reminded of these verses and look for the new thing that God is doing.
God did a new thing when Jesus declared freedom for prisoners, liberation for the oppressed, and salvation for sinners. From birth to baptism to transfiguration to resurrection, new things sprung up like dandelions throughout Jesus’s life. God did a new thing when God sent the Spirit moving about the earth like a wind and setting the world alight like fire. And God continues to do new things even into the 21st century.
The world, it seems, is ever in crisis. Our politics, as 24-hour news and social media doomscrolling reminds us, is perpetually in crisis. Our relationships are in crisis, as what has been called an “epidemic of loneliness” continues to spread across the US even as we are more “connected,” at least virtually, than we’ve ever been. Our climate and planet are in crisis, and we now know for sure that our actions have made the world our grandchildren will inherit more dangerous than the one we inherited. Fires, hurricanes, heat waves, and droughts will only increase, and with them violence and poverty. Even theological education, a backbone of the work of the church, is in crisis. Seminaries are closing, enrollments are declining, and Christianity, at least in this country, feels more and more co-opted by the powers of greed, hatred, and -isms. The old things are crumbling all around us.
It is in this context that our students and alumni are looking around and asking, “God, what is the new thing that you are doing?” And they are finding answers in all kinds of places. They are finding God answering and leading them to work as chaplains, teachers, organizers, healers, writers, artists, schol - ars, and, yes, innovative and imaginative pastors. One such alumna, Rev. Katie Cole (’12, SSW’12), is the interim director of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO). Recently having completed a successful housing justice campaign, GBIO is in a period of discernment as they seek to deepen their work and build bonds of solidarity across religious and racial differences.
Another alumna, Erin Freeborn (’07), leads the organization Communities for Restorative Justice as it continues to expand its reach across Massachusetts and helps to bring healing, accountability, and transformation to individual lives and communities affected by the criminal justice system.
A third alumnus, David Tran (’24), is leading a new, innovative church, The Table, in San Diego that is attending to the unique spiritual wounds of queer people and people of color who have spent time in predominantly white American Evangelical spaces. The church gathers to participate in embodied practices of lament, justice, and healing as those hurt by forms of Christianity intertwined with white supremacy seek new life-giving ways of experiencing the divine.
And, finally, several of our current students have been at the forefront of local interfaith organizing to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza and a lasting and just peace in Palestine and Israel. They have organized interfaith dinners, protests, and community-building events at which Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Christians have been active.
In each of these instances, we have examples of leaders who find inherited ways of doing organizing, social justice, pastoral ministry, and more in the midst of renewal and revival. But such revival demands renovation. They are looking around for the new things God is doing and seeking to partner with that renewing Spirit in their work within and beyond church walls. And they are finding partners in this work among their neighbors wherever they are.
Chaplains and pastors now undergo deeper training in trauma theory to attend to the wounds that corrupted systems, including religious ones, have caused.
The ministry and activism paradigms we’ve inherited—which include models of justice that sublimated racial and gender interests to “common denominator” issues in broad-based community organizing, punitive models of justice, ministry focused on souls over embodied experience, and the like—were too often caught up in the legacies of coloniality and the forms of domination associated with it. So even with all the good that has been done over the years within these frameworks, they have caused harm as well. The new things God is doing often involve healing inherited and collective traumas at the same time as pursuing justice and love in public. And so spaces are made for breathing and meditation in the midst of community organizing and justice, as practices of healing and accountability restore relationships in ways retributive approaches to justice has proven unable, and Christian churches reclaim non-Western cultural practices and the integration of nature in the Sunday service. These are new things!
To be responsive to this, STH recently launched a new curriculum that attends to these new things God is doing while building on the things we have always done so well. Chaplains and pastors now undergo deeper training in trauma theory to attend to the wounds that corrupted systems, including religious ones, have caused. Students pursuing the certificate in religion and conflict transformation, which I direct, are gaining skills in community organizing alongside skills in restorative justice and peacebuilding to bring together the best insights of both escalating and de-escalating conflict to achieve social transformation. And students are flocking to a relatively new certificate in faith and ecological justice to prepare to do ministry in, literally, a climate unlike any we’ve seen in our living memory.
God continues to do new things. In the midst of this movement of the Spirit, we may be tempted like those who opposed Jesus to double down on old ways. However, faithfulness requires attending to the newness God continues to bring into the world. Our students are already doing this, and our curriculum is now as well. The new things God is doing will last for a season or two and then another new thing will come. Being able to teach seminarians during this kind of radical renewal is a true joy and a humbling vocation. Thanks be to God.
Boston University awarded grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to launch “The New Wineskins Network”
Boston University is proud to announce that it has been awarded a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support the creation of the New Wineskins Network, a five-year initiative designed to strengthen partnerships among local congregations, clergy, and seminary leaders for the sake of ministry formation. Led by the Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) Office of Contextual Education, the program will address contemporary challenges facing pastors and seminarians while developing new models of collaborative ministry formation.
The New Wineskins Network is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, which is intended to help theological schools across the United States and Canada strengthen their educational and financial capacities to prepare and support pastoral leaders for Christian congregations both now and into the future.
Through the New Wineskins Network, BUSTH will build a sustainable infrastructure that supports both existing and upcoming clergy in developing relationships and practical skills for effective ministry in a changing religious landscape. The program will connect seminary students early in their programs with seasoned clergy mentors, host regular “Learning Labs” for congregational partners, offer seed grants for ecumenical ministry partnerships around emerging local needs, and create paid ministry residencies for upper-level seminarians seeking deeper pastoral experience prior to graduation.
Rev. Dr. Anastasia Kidd ('04,'18), Director of Contextual Education and Lecturer, and Dr. Chad D. Moore ('16, GRS'23), Director of Enrollment, will serve as the project’s principal investigators. “As we prepared for this grant proposal, we were guided by Jesus’ parable in Mark 2:22 warning about new wine bursting old wineskins, which we felt was a fitting metaphor for this moment of institutional strain on both the church and theological education,” said Kidd. “Many historic programs of seminary ministerial formation assume things about the church, students, and world that are no longer true. Today’s students are coming to us seeking formation that prepares them to address the realities of ministry today. The New Wineskins Network will allow us to deepen our relationships with area churches and come alongside them to innovate new models of ministry. It will allow us to support these churches in their work and find fertile training grounds for the next generation of imaginative, relational, forward-thinking religious leaders. I couldn’t be more grateful to the Lilly Endowment Inc. for seeding this vision.”
Boston University School of Theology is one of 163 theological schools that have been supported with grants since 2021 through the Pathways initiative. Together, the schools serve a broad spectrum of Christian traditions in the US and Canada. They are affiliated with evangelical, mainline Protestant, nondenominational, Pentecostal, Orthodox, Catholic, Black church, Latino, Asian American, Indigenous and historic peace church traditions.
“Theological schools have long played a central role for most denominations and church networks in preparing and supporting pastoral leaders who guide congregations,” said Christopher L. Coble, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion. “These schools are paying close attention to the challenges churches are facing today and will face in the foreseeable future. The grants will help these schools engage in wide-ranging, innovative efforts to adapt their educational programs and build their financial capacities so they can better prepare pastors and lay ministers to effectively lead the congregations they will serve in the future.”
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About Lilly Endowment Inc.
Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of religion and lift up in fair, accurate and balanced ways the roles that people of all faiths and various religious communities play in the United State and around the globe.
Pastoral Residency Fellowship, Part Time, Madison Avenue Baptist Church: Madison Avenue, NYC
Madison Avenue Baptist Church (NYC) invites applications for its two-year Pastoral Residency Fellowship. This unique program provides emerging ministers with hands-on leadership in worship, Bible study, youth/young adult ministry, and social justice initiatives, while receiving mentorship from Rev. Susan Sparks—nationally recognized preacher, author, and comedian. Fellows will develop skills in preaching, storytelling, digital ministry, and innovative worship within a diverse, inclusive, justice-driven congregation.
Ideal candidates hold or are completing an MDiv, MTS, or equivalent, and are ordained or on track for ordination (ABC-USA preferred). Applicants should embrace progressive theology, value diversity and LGBTQ+ inclusion, and bring strong communication, creativity, and cultural competency to ministry.
Applications accepted October–December 2025. For more information and full application instructions, contact jclifford@mabcnyc.org with the subject line Pastoral Fellowship.
BUSTH announces Faculty Publications and Presentations for October 2025
The School of Theology is pleased to announce the following faculty publications and scholarly presentations for October 2025:
- Rebecca Copeland
- Presentation: Tending Gardens: Food, Faith, and Fig Trees," First United Methodist Church, Morristown, TN. September 18, 2025.
- Filipe Maia
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"Theological Niceties and Complicities in Economic Theology,” in The Brink (Political Theology), August 8, 2025. https://politicaltheology.com/theological-niceties-and-complicities-ineconomic-theology/
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- James McCarty
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Presentation: Speaker, Annual Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, “Engaging Difference in an Age of Division: The Power of Dialogue and Human Revolution in Restoring Our Shared Humanity,” Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue, Cambridge, MA, September 26, 2025.
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Presentation: Speaker, “Asian Americans, Solidarity, and the Work of Racial Justice,” Methodist Theological School in Ohio, September 30, 2025.
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- Luis Menéndez-Antuña
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Presentation: Black Lives Matter and the Gospels. Mercer University, GA (October 3, 2025).
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Presentation: Reading the Bible Latinamente. Dominican University. River Forest, IL (October 1, 2025).
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Presentation: Creating a Strong Essay and Research Proposal. Doctoral Accompaniment Seminar. Hispanic Summer Program and Hispanic Theological Initiative (September 27, 2025).
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Presentation: Spiritual Stresses and Opportunities for the Future. Charles River Health Community Center (September 17, 2025).
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- Rady Roldán-Figueroa
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The Requerimiento and the Theological ‘Knot’ of European Expansionism: Jews, Muslims, and the Arawakan-speaking Peoples of the Caribbean in Juan López de Palacios Rubios’s Juridical Doctrine of Dominion,” Critical Research on Religion vol. 13 (2025).
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- Steven Sandage, et al
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Choe, E.J.Y., Sandage, S.J., Moussa, R., & Dumitrascu, N. (2025). Humility, differentiation of self, and Rorschach assessment of clergy candidates in the United States: An exploratory study. Journal of Religion and Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-025-02453-w
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- Andrew Shenton
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Presentation: “Creativity and the ‘Derivative’ Classical Covers of Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina,” read at the Royal Musical Association annual conference, Southampton, England, September 2025.
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- Shively T. J. Smith
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in Five Views on the Gospel, ed. Michael F. Bird and Jason Maston, with Michael Horton, Scot McKnight, David A. deSilva, and Julie C. Ma (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2025).
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“The Second Letter of Peter,” in The Westminster Study Bible with the Deuterocanonical/Apocrypha Books, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2024), 2094-2098.
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Prof. Filipe Maia receives Saddlebag Award from United Methodist Church
Assistant Professor of Theology Filipe Maia together with co-editor David W. Scott ('07, GRS'13) has received the 2025 Saddlebag Award from the Historical Society of the United Methodist Church for their work on the publication Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church.
According to the Historical Society of the United Methodist Church, the annual award is given to "the outstanding book on United Methodist history or a related subject published during a given year."
Past recipients of this distinguished award include Paul Chilcote, Carol M. Norén, Ted Campbell, and Daniel F. Flores.
Abington Press summarizes the book as "...a tale of complex negotiations happening between United Methodists across different national, cultural, and ecclesial contexts and sets up the historical backdrop for the imminent schism of The United Methodist Church."
Planetary Constitution Celebrates First Anniversary
The following is an excerpt of an article by the Institute for Exoconsciousness published in the PRLOG on September 23, 2025. Click here to read the full article.
Institute for Exoconsciousness Marks a Milestone in Human-Consciousness Rights and Interstellar Engagement
The Institute for Exoconsciousness (IEXO) proudly marks the first anniversaryof the Planetary Constitution, a groundbreaking document affirming humanity's fundamental right to consciousness and recognizing our evolving interstellar identity. The Constitution serves as a foundation for peaceful, cooperative, and conscious interspecies relations. 
President of the IEXO, Dr. Rebecca Hardcastle Wright ('76), explained that "the initiative to establish a Planetary Constitution raises profound questions at the intersection of ethics, theology, and global responsibility".
She is inviting the BU STH Community and the wider BU Community to areas of deep engagement on the "intersection of ethic, theology, and global responsibility."
Dr. Rebecca Hardcastle Wright (’76) Publishes Her Book “Exoconscious Humans: Will Free Will Survive in an Increasingly Non-Human World?”
BU STH Alumni Dr. Rebecca Hardcastle Wright ('76) has publishd a book titled "Exoconscious Humans: Will Free Will Survive in an Increasingly Non-Human World?"
Exoconscious Humans: Will Free Will Survive in an Increasingly Non-Human World? pushes beyond the limits of the known into an extraordinary life birthed through psychic intelligence. Exoconsciousness is a natural state seeded in our ancient and innate cosmic consciousness.
This is an abstract from the book:
"Rebecca Hardcastle Wright emphasizes the significant role of Exoconscious Humans in our personal and planetary future. She offers nothing less than a solution for stepping outside our limited view of humans and into an expansive and available intelligence and creativity. Throughout the book, she shares her background in psychic experiences and her voyage into the curious artificial world of transhumanism."
Grab Copy of the Book Amazon: Exconscious Humans: Will Free Will Survive in an Increasingly Non-Human World?