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DURING
A FORMAL INSTALLATION CEREMONY
conducted by President William M. Chace, Provost Rebecca S.
Chopp outlined Russell
E. Richey’s “job description.”
“Walk
on water,” she said. “Multiply the loaves and fishes.
Cast out the demons. And, in your spare time, remember [the
Apostle] Paul and John Wesley [founder of the Methodist movement
in the Church of England], who traveled everywhere without ceasing
to cultivate church relations.”
Richey
served as associate dean for academic programs at Duke Divinity
School from 1986 to 1997. Previously he taught for seventeen
years in the theological and graduate schools at Drew University,
where he served for three years as assistant to the president.
An
ordained elder in the North Carolina Conference, Richey has
been active in the church on the regional and national levels,
most recently as a member of the General Commission on Archives
and History, as seminary liaison to the General Commission on
Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, and on the editorial
advisory board of Quarterly Review.
Richey’s
books and editorial leadership of major projects on American
Methodist history “have given him prominence not only among
religion historians, but also among leaders in the United Methodist
Church,” said Chopp, who also is a member of the Candler
faculty.
Richey
has been co-director of a major study on United Methodism and
American culture, funded by the Lilly Endowment. A native of
Asheville, North Carolina, he holds a bachelor of arts degree
from Wesleyan University, a bachelor of divinity from Union
Theological Seminary, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees from
Princeton University. He succeeds R. Kevin LaGree, who left
Candler in 1999 to become president of United Methodist—affiliated
Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.
 The
Heart and Soul
of Emory
Robert
A. Paul,
director of the Institute
of Liberal Arts and Candler Professor of Anthropology and
Interdisciplinary Studies, assumed the deanship of the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences on June 1. He succeeds Donald
G. Stein, dean since 1995, who will use an upcoming sabbatical
to conduct research in neurology as a Fulbright scholar.
“This
search was intense and prolonged,” says Provost Rebecca
Chopp, who chaired the search committee that selected Paul.
“Bobby Paul knows the heart and soul of Emory and understands
what a world-class research university is. We’re very excited
one of our own will be the new dean.”
Paul
says despite his experience with the Institute of Liberal Arts
and as chair of the anthropology department, the deanship will
be a significant transition.
“I’m
very pleased and excited to be taking on this task, and I look
forward to continued close cooperation with my faculty colleagues,
graduate students, and now this administration,” he says.
President
William M. Chace says Paul’s “intelligence, his depth
of wisdom, his long experience with Emory, and his intellectual
breadth” set him apart. “I believe he will want to
secure our graduate program, in both teaching and research,
as a top priority of the University.”
Prior
to coming to Emory in 1977, Paul served on the faculties of
the City College of New York, City University of New York, and
Stanford University. He received his bachelor’s degree
in history and literature from Harvard University in 1963 and
earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology
at the University of Chicago in 1966 and 1970 respectively.
His book Moses and Civilization: The Meaning Behind Freud’s
Myth received the Heinz Hartman Award, the National Jewish
Book Award, and the L. Bryce Boyer Prize.
HANG
ON TO YOUR FAITH
WHETHER
IT'S SINGED BY HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE
or undulating with faith, hope, and love, a good sermon can
set a congregation trembling in the pews and keep its members
coming back for more. For the newly ordained, mounting the pulpit
to face the expectant flock may be an intimidating task.
 Students
entering the ministry at Emory’s Candler
School of Theology are learning the tricks of the trade
from one of the nation’s most well-respected preachers,
Thomas G. Long (left), who joined the Candler faculty
this fall as Bandy Professor of Preaching and who has been described
by Baylor University as one of the twelve most effective preachers
in the English-speaking world. (The 1996 list, published in
Newsweek magazine, also included Candler Professor Emeritus
Fred Craddock and Barbara Brown Taylor ’73C.)
Long
believes that coaxing an inspiring sermon from a biblical passage
requires practice and discipline in addition to talent.
“Excellent
preaching involves not an autopsy of the biblical text,”
he says, “but allowing the power of the biblical text–which
was written many, many years ago–to reverberate with listeners
once again.”
In
the classroom, Long teaches students to unleash the power of
a passage by using a step-by-step process that takes them from
analyzing, illustrating, and absorbing the text to standing
up and delivering the sermon before their peers.
An
ordained Presbyterian minister, Long has taught preaching and
worship for more than twenty years. During his own years in
seminary, he worked as a radio disc jockey to pay for his education.
He recalls early-morning Sunday shifts listening to Edmund Steimle,
a Lutheran preacher, on the Protestant Hour.
“He
was absolutely scintillating,” Long says. “He had
a gritty, realistic, hang-on-to-your-faith-by-your-fingernails
style of preaching. That was when I first formed my consciousness
as a preacher.”
Long
holds a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is author
or editor of more than a dozen books, including The Witness
of Preaching, which has become a standard preaching text at
seminaries in this country and abroad.–Sharla A. Stewart
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