School Notes: Yale Divinity School
July/August 2024

Conference urges religious leaders to preach on moral issues

Ministers, theologians, scholars, and activists gathered in New Haven April 7–9 for the inaugural conference of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. Organized by the center’s director, Bishop William Barber II, and its staff, the conference focused on the moral and spiritual issues of the forthcoming 2024 presidential election. At the end of a jam-packed two days, the conference closed with the rollout of the New Haven Declaration of Moral and Spiritual Issues in the 2024 Presidential Election. The declaration challenges religious leaders to “launch a season of preaching the moral issues” and warns against religious nationalism. The Center for Public Theology and Public Policy was established at YDS in 2023.

Ethics scholar to join faculty

Ryan Darr ’19PhD has been appointed to the new YDS faculty position in environmental ethics. Darr, who holds a PhD in religious studies from Yale, will join the Divinity School faculty next year as assistant professor of religion, ethics, and environment. Among other subjects, he concentrates his research on environmental ethics, multi-species justice, structural injustice, ethical theory, and the history of religious and philosophical ethics. Dean Greg Sterling said Darr’s appointment “will strengthen our teaching and scholarship in religion and the environment—an essential aspect of our work to prepare students to become apostles of the environment.”