On May 17, Shuly Rubin Schwartz was officially inaugurated as the first female chancellor of Jewish Theological Seminary, the flagship school of Conservative Judaism. Schwartz, a scholar of American Jewish history, technically began the role in July 2020. However, the inauguration ceremony was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
John Swinton, one of Scotland’s most influential theologians, will become one of the Queen of England’s royal chaplains. Swinton, who was a nurse for 16 years, is currently the chair of divinity and religious studies at the University of Aberdeen, where he has worked to develop a theology of disability.
In a statement, Swinton joked that because, historically, some of the royal chaplains were singers who traveled with the monarch, he—a singer and songwriter—could perhaps revive that aspect of the position.
Scholar and theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether died on May 21 following a long illness. She was 85. Ruether, a Catholic, is widely considered to be one of the founding mothers of Christian feminist theology.
In a statement announcing Ruether’s death, Mary Hunt, codirector of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual, said Ruether’s legacy was “rich beyond imagining,” noting her work in helping to develop ecofeminist and liberation theologies, her antiracism work, and her concern for peace in the Middle East.
Bishop Vashti McKenzie has been named interim president and general secretary of the National Council of Churches, the ecumenical organization announced on May 10.
McKenzie succeeds Jim Winkler, who left the post on January 31 after serving in the role since 2013. She is expected to serve a two-year term.
On April 21, Izani Bruch, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile, was appointed chaplain of the Palacio de La Moneda of Chile, the national headquarters of governmental affairs and ministries.
“As a church we are very happy and we receive it with humility, with fear and trembling, but also with great hope and commitment to make this new Chile, which we are all dreaming of, possible,” Bruch said.
On April 11, Cathy Chang, a Presbyterian missionary living in the Philippines, discovered she had been “red-tagged” by the Philippine government after meeting with a progressive political candidate.
According to Human Rights Watch, red-tagging is a decades-long practice in which the Philippine government publicly accuses individuals or organizations of supporting the communist New People’s Army. The Philippine military often harasses, tortures, or kills suspected communists.
The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has selected scholar and activist Linda Gaither as the recipient of the 2022 John Nevin Sayre Award. The award, established in 1979, is given every three years to an Episcopalian who has shown “courageous witness in the cause of peace and justice.”
An archbishop in the Anglican Church of Canada has resigned due to “acknowledged sexual misconduct,” according to a letter from Linda Nicholls, the denomination’s top official.
“With regret and sorrow, the Church announces receipt of allegations of sexual misconduct concerning Archbishop Mark MacDonald,” the April 20 announcement said, noting his resignation was effective immediately.
“This is devastating news,” the letter said. “The sense of betrayal is deep and profound when leaders fail to live up to the standards we expect and the boundaries we set.”
Mennonite Church USA announced that Sue Park-Hur will fill the denomination’s newly created director of racial-ethnic engagement position. Park-Hur had been MC USA’s denominational minister of transformative peacemaking.
According to a press release, the new position was created to help leaders in the country’s largest Mennonite denomination define its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals as well as its standards and desired outcomes.
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary professor Reginald Blount has been tapped to lead the school’s Center for the Church and the Black Experience. He succeeds Taurean J. Webb, who has served as CBE director since 2019.
The CBE, which was founded in 1970, provides leadership training for Black seminarians and pastors. Blount is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and currently pastors Arnett Chapel AME in Chicago.