School Notes: Yale Divinity School
January/February 2015

“Blue note preaching” at YDS

With hip-hop in one ear and the gospel in the other, Otis Moss III ’95MDiv enthralled packed houses at Marquand Chapel three days running during Convocation and Reunions week in October. Moss, senior pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ (President Obama’s onetime church), spoke on “blue note preaching” in his enthusiastically received Lyman Beecher Lectures. Spiking his soaring oratory with poetry, live music, and trenchant cultural critique, Moss urged students, alumni, and faculty to “take your spirit and soul into the storm” in engaging “a postmodern world addicted to ease, empire, and markets.” 

Dean speaks at world’s largest church

At roughly 1 million members, Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, is known as the world’s largest congregation. Such was the setting for Dean Gregory E. Sterling when he spoke at Yoido in October, exhorting church members—those in the large auditorium and the hundreds of thousands more to whom his message was beamed—to distinguish themselves and church “by the quality of your lives.” Sterling also gave talks at the Korean Association of Christian Studies and Seoul Theological University, addressing Christianity’s future. “YDS has name recognition and influence worldwide and a unique role to play in global Christianity,” Sterling said of the trip. “We need to serve churches not only here in the US, but also in Asia, Africa, and around the world.”

YDS hosts second Nourish New Haven conference

Activists, community members, and YDS students congregated for a weekend devoted to food and justice at the Nourish New Haven conference, held in September at Sterling Divinity Quadrangle. Fred Bahnson, an author and teacher, and Pashon Murray, an entrepreneur and activist, delivered keynotes exploring global themes like community and sustainability, as well as the very down-to-earth subject of compost. “Nourish New Haven embodies the possibilities of what the university and the community can accomplish together,” said conference organizer James Jenkins ’15MDiv.