News Archive
A Message of Thanks from the Associate Dean for Development and External Relations
The Harvard Divinity School community that all of you support and help to build—with your involvement, your leadership, and your financial investment—is a remarkable one. Together with the faculty, staff, and students of HDS, you are creating the space...
There Is No 'Other' Here
Kevin Cranston and the truth of pandemics Kevin Cranston, MDiv ’86, learned early on that viruses tell the truth. As a gay man coming of age during the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s, he saw the ways that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) crossed...
Hope for Renewal
I write at perhaps the most challenging moment of our lifetimes, as our society reels from global pandemic, economic collapse, and social unrest. We have all been affected. Many in the HDS community are on the front lines as activists, caregivers, and...
The Canopy
Under the auspices of RPL, programs come together to promote a just world at peace Yaseen Hashmi, MTS ’21, didn’t expect an epiphany when he joined students from HDS and six of Harvard’s other graduate schools for a January-term course in Israel and...
Ministry of Healing
White-Hammond provides care to the sick—and addresses the injustice that makes them ill Gloria White-Hammond, MDiv ’97, is committed to healing and ministry—often in the most difficult situations. In the 2000s, she entered war zones in the African nation...
Apocalypse Now
Bazzana uncovers the truth about the book of Revelation in early Christianity—and today Coronavirus. Unemployment. Social unrest. People often describe the times we’re living in as “apocalyptic,” but Giovanni Bazzana wouldn’t necessarily agree. “Today...
On the Path of Love and Justice
Melissa Bartholomew fosters diversity, inclusion, and belonging at HDS Melissa Wood Bartholomew, MDiv ’15, has been here before—the horrifying event, the protests, the renewed pledges, soon forgotten, to combat racism. While she has concerns about whether...
An Electorate That Wanted to Be Heard
"At this moment, the country stands divided by class fissures and racial fault lines in the middle of a pandemic, and nevertheless nearly 100 million people cast ballots in the midst of 9 million coronavirus cases and 230,000 coronavirus fatalities. This...
Video: The Religion of White Rage
This panel discussion of "The Religion of White Rage" was held November 2 with the book’s three editors, as part of the Center for the Study of World Religion's series on “Race, Religion, and Nationalism.” This book sheds light on the phenomenon of white...
White Evangelical Support for Trump Goes beyond His Policies, Supporters and Historians Say
"I think 'Make America Great Again' is broader than just an evangelical attitude. But it is, in many ways, tailor-made for them—they hear that and they absolutely hear, 'We need to make America Christian, the way it used to be when it was run by White...
Video: Religion and the 2020 Election: A Conversation with James Kloppenberg and E.J. Dionne
View a conversation on religion and the 2020 election with James Kloppenberg, Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard, and E.J. Dionne, Visiting Professor in Religion and Political Culture at HDS. This event was moderated by Catherine...
Why This Columbus Church's Name Invokes the End of the World
"The book (of Revelation) is full of references to plagues and natural catastrophes, earthquakes, floods. It's very easy to connect things one finds in the Bible with things that are happening today," said Professor Giovanni Bazzana.
Video: Fred Moten: Note on a Blue Note in The Gospel of Barbecue
Fred Moten, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow, discussed a poem called "On Listening to the Two-Headed Lady Blow Her Horn," which is from Honorée Fanonne Jeffers's extraordinary collection, The Gospel of Barbecue. He talked—in the wake and under the influence of...
Recalling the ‘Brave Spaces’ for LGBTQ+ History Month
Believing that a month should be dedicated to the celebration and teaching of gay and lesbian history, Rodney Wilson, a Missouri high school teacher, gathered other educators and community leaders to discuss the issue in 1994. The group selected October...
A 'Public Enlightenment': Harvard Divinity School Begins New Program in Religion and Public Life
Professor Jacob Olupona said he thought the new Religion and Public Life program, which includes a public speaker series that will feature journalists, historians, economists, and other scholars, might lead to “public enlightenment” about the centrality...
Harvard Portrait: Mayra Rivera
“Growing up, I always loved literature and the philosophical questions it asked about the world. Religion was the other discourse that I knew was interested in those questions,” said Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies...
Harvard Professors Discuss Role of Religion in the 2020 Election at Divinity School Lecture
"Trump's greatest effect on religion has been to privilege the voices of white evangelicals, who have supported him in huge numbers because of their hope that he will restore something that they feel has been lost—namely, the white, Protestant identity of...
Pope May Support Same-Sex Unions, but That Doesn’t Mean the Vatican Does
"People who are against any compromise in this direction will see this as another sign that Francis has gone astray, that he is not adhering to church teaching. And they will add this to their list of complaints about him," says HDS Parkman Professor of...
Spring 2021 Semester Plans
The below message was sent to members of the HDS community from Dean David N. Hempton on October 20, 2020. I first want to take this opportunity to thank everyone in our HDS community—students, staff, and faculty—for their forbearance, resilience, and...
Humans of HDS: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life
“I no longer feel zealous for a religion, but rather for the beautiful treasure that this life is, and the incredible fact that any of us are here. I am just trying to use this life in the most meaningful way I can, not just to create meaning for myself...
Whose Image is This?
"As I’ve listened to our leaders and those who would become our leaders answers difficult questions of their own these last several weeks, I’ve been led to wonder: Do we fare any better than these Herodians and Pharisees? They are easy to accuse, but can...
Love on the Road to Justice
"So let us hold fast to love on the road to justice, though the road is windy. I believe we will get there to the promised land. We will get there indeed if we hold fast to love," says Aric Flemming, MDiv '19.
Professor Davíd Carrasco Receives Professional Achievement Award
Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at HDS, is the recipient of the alumni professional achievement award from McDaniel College. Carrasco graduated from McDaniel (formerly Western Maryland) College with a bachelor’s...
Where Religion and Public Life Meet
HDS's Religion and Public Life initiative will bring the first new master’s program in 50 years.
Building up the Wheat
Dudley Rose, associate dean for ministry studies and Lecturer on Ministry delivered the following sermon during HDS's virtual Noon Service hosted by the Office of Ministry Studies on October 14, 2020. ♦♦♦ Matthew 13:24–30 Let us pray: Gracious God...
Understanding Religion and Public Life
Harvard Divinity School launched this week Religion and Public Life (RPL), a new initiative and degree program with the core mission to advance the public understanding of religion in service of a just world at peace. The master of religion and public...
Constance Buchanan Dies at 73; Gave Women Voice in Religion
Former WSRP director Constance Buchanan "was hired to be a bridge between the righteous anger of the young radical feminists in the divinity school classrooms, and the millennia of theological education that had been exclusively in the hands of men," said...
HDS Launches Religion and Public Life, New Degree Program
A message from David N. Hempton, Dean of Harvard Divinity School Today we announce a big step forward for Harvard Divinity School—the launch of Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. At its core, Religion and Public Life (RPL) is about...
Pushing to End Myth of Columbus, Honor History of Indigenous Peoples
Celebrated by Italian immigrants in the United States since 1792, Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937 to commemorate the "arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas." The explorer’s reputation has darkened in recent years as scholars have...
Video: The Campaign for (White) Christian America: Lauren R. Kerby in Conversation with Jeff Sharlet
This conversation was presented on August 27, 2020, by the HDS Women’s Studies in Religion Program, which brings five scholars in gender from around the country each year to enrich the experience of HDS students. The research associates shared their...
