Impact Report - Flipbook - Page 9
HONORARY DEGREES AND AWARDS
2024 REINHOLD NIEBUHR AWARD
REV. BRIAN KIRK AND FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, DOC, ST. JOSEPH, MO
The Reinhold Niebuhr Award of Eden Theological Seminary is given to recognize
and honor persons who exemplify in their own life and ministry the calling that
Reinhold Niebuhr spoke to so powerfully. For walking and talking the faith in
their context so courageously, Eden Seminary is honored to confer the Reinhold
Niebuhr Award to both Rev. Brian Kirk and First Christian Church (DOC), St.
Joseph, MO in celebration of their ministries and public witness as an LGBTQIA
open and affirming community and as a safe sanctuary for all who are marginal
and oppressed in the community.
2024 S.D. PRESS AWARD RECIPIENT
REV. DR. KRISTEN LESLIE AND MICHAEL BODDY
This celebrates Dr. Kristen Leslie9s innovative teaching of pastoral theology and
care in collaboration with justice builders and caregivers across the region and
country from military chaplains to unhoused people, and with congregations and
farmers in the Garden and Gleaning program. It celebrates Michael9s continued
support of the Eden Seminary archives, making its resources available to the
church and public, and stewarding the holdings for their preservation and
ongoing interpretation.
HONORARY DOCTOR OF DIVINITY DEGREE
REV. CLAUDINE MURPHY
For over 25 years, Rev. Claudine Murphy has been an exemplar of this kind of
teaching and advising at Eden Theological Seminary and among the communities,
particularly communities of the Black Church, of Eden students as they serve,
learn, and grow in contexts of the church and the practice of ministry. To
return to our initial quote from Proverbs 3 the Eden faculty in our sanctified
imagination and hermeneutical consideration propose this contextual paraphrase
to chapter 15, verse 22: Without counsel, students fail, but with Mama Murphy
they succeed.=
HONORARY DOCTOR OF DIVINITY DEGREE
REV. DR. LAVON BAYLER
While in ministry, Rev. Bayler became aware of the need for worship resources
that used more just and inclusive language, expressed more expansive and
compassionate theology, and gave worshiping people fresh images and ways of
speaking. So, she began sharing the prayers and litanies that she was writing
for It is with great thanksgiving for her pastoral legacy, her outstanding
influence upon the language of prayer and song, and her longstanding support
for Eden Seminary, that we celebrate her.
