The Wesleyan Political Theology Project Conference: Meet Our Presenters

William J. Abraham

William J. Abraham (D.Phil., Oxford University) is the Albert Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University and an elder in the Southwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. He is a widely-published author and scholar with interests in Wesleyan and Methodist theology, Cardinal Newman, renewal movements within Christianity, ecclesiology, divine revelation, and theological education. Select publications include Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism and Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation.

 

Edgardo Colón-Emeric

Edargdo Colón-Emeric (Ph.D., Duke University) is the Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at the Divinity School, Duke University. Originally from Puerto Rico, his research engages the thought of figures like Thomas Aquinas, John Wesley, and Bartolomé de las Casas with the intent of achieving mestizajes of classical theology, Methodist experience, and Latino history. Colón-Emeric is an ordained elder in the North Carolina Conference; he was founding pastor of Cristo Vive UMC and continues to serve in Hispanic Ministries in Methodist churches in North Carolina.

 

Ryan Nicholas Danker

Ryan Danker (Th.D., Boston University) is the Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity and Methodist Studies at Wesley Theological Seminary. Originally from Oregon, Danker served in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. His research interests include the rise of trans-Atlantic evangelicalism in the eighteenth-century, the Wesley brothers, and evangelicals in the Church of England. He is the author of Wesley and the Anglicans: Political Division in Early Evangelicalism, published in 2016.

 

Kristina LaCelle-Peterson

Kristina LaCelle-Peterson (Ph.D., Drew University) is Associate Professor of Religion at Houghton College. She is a historian of Christianity with particular interest in social and political history, especially the intersection of revivalism, evangelism, and reform in the antebellum period and the American Civil War. LaCelle-Peterson recently published Liberating Tradition: Women’s Identity and Vocation in Christian Perspective.

 

Michael McCurry

Michael McCurry is the Distinguished Professor of Public Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary. After 35 years in national politics and presidential campaigns including time as White House Press Secretary to President Bill Clinton, McCurry joined the Wesley Seminary community as a member of its Board of Governors, a student (MA 2013) and now a faculty member teaching in the area of faith and politics.  He co-directs the Wesley-sponsored National Capital Semester for Seminarians.

 

Luther J. Oconor

Luther J. Oconor (Ph.D., Drew University) is the Assistant Professor of United Methodist Studies and Direcotr of the Center for Evangelical United Brethren Heritage at United Theological Seminary and an elder in the Pampanga Philippines Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Oconor’s research areas include the Holiness Movement, Pentecostalism, and mission history. He is particularly interested in the history of Methodism in the Philippines and Asia.

 

F. Douglas Powe, Jr.

F. Douglas Powe, Jr.  (Ph.D., Emory University) is the Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, as well as the James C. Logan Professor of Evangelism (an E. Stanley Jones Professorship) and Urban Ministry at Wesley Theological Seminary.  An ordained elder in the Baltimore/Washington Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, Powe is committed to helping urban congregations and congregations in transitional areas to flourish through community partnering. His research interest are church revitalization, urban theology and Methodist theology. Powe recently published Not Safe for Church: The Ten Commandments for Reaching New Generations, co-authored with Jasmine Rose Smothers.

 

James R. Thobaben

James R. Thobaben (Ph.D., Emory University) is the Dean of the School of Theology and Formation and Professor of Bioethics and Social Ethics at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is an elder in the Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church. Thobaben’s research interests include bioethics, social ethics, sociology of religion, and rural life. He is the author of Heathcare Ethics: A Comprehensive Christian Resource.

 

Laceye Warner

Laceye Warner (Ph.D., University of Bristol) is an ordained elder in the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and Associate Professor of the Practice of Evangelism and Methodist Studies at the Divinity School, Duke University. She has research interests in the historical theology of evangelism, women’s ministry practices, and Methodist/Wesleyan Studies. Warner is the author/co-author of numerous books including her most recent, The Method of Our Mission: United Methodist Polity and Organization.