{"id":27934,"date":"2016-01-13T10:07:42","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T15:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/?p=27934"},"modified":"2019-09-16T14:23:39","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T18:23:39","slug":"j-philip-wogaman-alumni-qa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/j-philip-wogaman-alumni-qa\/","title":{"rendered":"J. Philip Wogaman: Alumni Q&A"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philip Wogaman served as professor of Christian Ethics and Dean at Wesley Theological Seminary and has also served on the faculty of University of Pacific. He served as senior pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C. for ten years, where he ministered to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Wogaman received his STB from Boston University School of Theology in 1957 and earned his PhD in Sociology of Religion and Ethics (GRS \u201960). In 2011, he was honored as a Boston University School of Theology Distinguished Alumnus. This Q&A is condensed and edited from a September 22, 2011 interview with Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore.<\/em>
\n\"Phil<\/a>Mary Elizabeth Moore: Could you share something about the significant people and events that formed you as a human being when you were younger?<\/strong>
\nPhil Wogaman: <\/strong>Well I would say my family above all. That early nurturing was very, very solid. My father was a pastor, and for his health we moved to Arizona in 1943. There I encountered farm workers, and I think one of my earliest experiences that led ultimately to my interest in ethics was to see what happened to farm workers \u2026and then to see racism at work.
\nI still remember\u2014in my seventh grade we had an extremely racist teacher who kept telling these racist stories, and she had extreme stereotypes. Finally, one day I stood up in class, after she came out with one of those things and I said, \u201cThat\u2019s not so.\u201d \u201cWhat!\u201d That blew her mind. That evening my parents said, \u201cProbably that wasn\u2019t the best way to go about it,\u201d but I think there was a little pride underneath.
\nMEM: Do you have any particular memories that would help flesh out what you were getting in your home, in terms of your relationships, and in terms of teachings, implicit teachings?<\/strong>
\nPW: <\/strong>In those war years, because so many of the young men were off fighting wars, there was a farm labor shortage. There was a period when a number of Jamaicans were brought in and housed out in the federal housing area. Signs appeared in the stores around town: \u201cNo colored trade solicited.\u201d And I could remember Dad\u2019s reaction to that. He invited them all to church. Here was this little church, and I think this group of Jamaicans was probably half the congregation at that point. So, they were accepted, and the signs all went down. That kind of experience was shaping.
\nMEM: So what led you to go to seminary?<\/strong>
\nPW: <\/strong>Obviously the thought of following my father\u2019s footsteps into ministry was always a factor there, but I wanted it to be authentically my call. I toyed with different options, one of which was law and one of which was music. I attended youth camp in southeast Arizona. Somehow, I got the germ there, and made that decision there that I would pursue ministry. And it was a vague kind of thing, very immature\u2014and yet, however immature that decision was, it laid a base that just kept expanding and growing from that point on.
\nMEM: Tell us about some of your experiences here at Boston University.<\/strong>
\nPW:\u00a0 <\/strong>The faculty in that era, I can remember some of those faces: Allan Knight Chalmers. He was a great figure in homiletics. He was a stunning orator. There\u2019s one incident that I well-remember from him. My second year of seminary, we were in Preaching and Homiletics, and had the experience of preaching in the chapel. I stepped to the pulpit here in Marsh Chapel when it was my turn. And literally, that is the one time in my entire life and career that I went dead in the middle of a sermon. It just wasn\u2019t there. I fumbled around and apologized and dear Dr. Chalmers said, \u201cThat\u2019s ok, Phil. No problem. I appreciate so much you\u2019re preaching without notes; you\u2019re going to do just fine.\u201d And he just redeemed the moment.
\nLater on of course, after I got into PhD study, Paul Deets, [professor of sociology and ethics] was very close, and Walter Muelder, [dean of the School of Theology]. He was ultimately a huge influence in my life, and we maintained contact from then until his death. Any time I made a career change later on, I would consult with him about it. He usually gave very solid advice.
\nMEM:\u00a0<\/strong>What do you think you learned from each of them that helped shape your dissertation and your own work as an ethicist thereafter?<\/strong>
\nPW:\u00a0<\/strong>Let me count the ways! Lots of things. One of them was a deep sense of the relevance of the social sciences, much neglected now in ministry, and how terribly important that is. And to read the classics in sociology and anthropology with Deets and Muelder was very important. During those Cold War years, the encounter with Marxism was terribly important. The two of them had this course that studied various sociological movements\u2014not just Marxism, but Marxism figured heavily in that. Later on in my teaching, both at College of the Pacific and Wesley Seminary, I would teach a course on Christianity and Communism and Christianity and Marxism. That foundational work was very, very important.
\nWith Muelder especially, a very formative thing was History of Christian Social Ethics. That formed the basis of a life-long pursuit. During my years when I was pastor of Foundry Methodist Church and I was preaching with some frequency to the President of the United States, not infrequently there was an echo of Walter Muelder coming through.
\nMEM:\u00a0<\/strong>Let me ask you to share something of your vocational journey and some of the points of that journey that have been most significant in your own eyes.<\/strong>
\nOne of my real mentors in writing was [hymn-writer and theologian] Georgia Harkness. There are people who don\u2019t suffer fools gladly, and that was Georgia Harkness, but she was a very kind person. Her style of writing, her audience in writing, and so on, somehow, that was in my blood. She also was a graduate of Boston University of course, and an important figure in the change in the Methodist church to allow women to be ordained.
\nI guess particularly with Walter Muelder, he was intellectually humble. I have known people in the theological world, teachers, who wanted to be surrounded by disciples; he was, but that was not his motivation at all.
\nMEM: You\u2019ve written on many different issues. I\u2019m curious if there\u2019s any pattern to your selection of the issues you write on.<\/strong>
\nPW: <\/strong>As to topics, it\u2019s sort of what I sense needs to be done. I did the Christian Method of Moral Judgment, <\/em>which I thought was a contribution to ethics that needed to be done. Guaranteed Annual Income: The Moral Issues, <\/em>that needed to be done. But my big project on sabbatical in 1975 in England was something else I thought needed to be done. I wrote it under the title, Christians and the Great Economic Debate<\/em>, and it was comparative economic ideologies. By the way, as an illustration of how far-sighted I was, how visionary, I almost did not include laissez faire capitalism as one of those ideologies. I thought it was already dead \u2013just before Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of England.
\nMEM: We\u2019ve been talking about your teaching and research, so I\u2019d like to hear you say a few words about your contributions and challenges in your church leadership, both in the local congregation and in the denomination.<\/strong>
\nPW: <\/strong>I have always been an active member in whatever annual conference I was located in. In 1988, I was elected to General Conference for the first time. I had decided well before then that the attitude of the church toward gay and lesbian people needed to be much reevaluated. Earlier in my career, if you\u2019d asked me my views, I would have said, \u201cWell this is some form of sin or sickness; I don\u2019t know which one, but I don\u2019t want to spend much time with it. I\u2019m more concerned about war and peace, and the state, race relations, economics.\u201d
\nI found students through the \u201870s that were raising such questions, and I thought, As an ethicist, I\u2019d better be able to answer some of this. <\/em>My mind changed a lot through the years. Then when I was elected delegate to that Conference in 1988, I started getting these lobbying letters from Texas and places like that: \u201cHold the line on our attitude on this subject.\u201d I thought, Now\u2019s the time we need to have a study commission to deal with this as a denomination. <\/em>So I came up with that idea, and sold it to the denomination, and we managed to work that through the General Conference in 1988. I was a member of that commission, and ultimately wrote the final report. It was not adopted.
\nThe General Conference had adopted that study commission, and that was for me a very formative experience. We had hearings around the country, meeting gay and lesbian people. In the end, I had hoped we would have a scientific closure on the issue, and that just wasn\u2019t realistic. However, it occurred to me, the church is sitting on top of relevant evidence: its people. And so, I became an advocate on that issue, and continue to be. And to this day, I am strongly supportive of gay and lesbian rights.
\nMEM: Our time is up, and I\u2019d like to leave space for you to say one last word.<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>PW: <\/strong>I guess my last word, which would be evident in much of what I had to say here today, is that subsequent to leaving Boston University in 1960, throughout my subsequent ministry and career, Boston University\u2019s fingerprints have been all over what I have done and developed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philip Wogaman served as professor of Christian Ethics and Dean at Wesley Theological Seminary and has also served on the faculty of University of Pacific. He served as senior pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C. for ten years, where he ministered to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Wogaman received his STB […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12612,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27934"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39127,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27934\/revisions\/39127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}