Date: January 31, 2022
On the first day of spring semester 2022, it is a delight to welcome two scholars to the VTS community.
The first is the Rt. Rev. Kirk Stevan Smith, V Bishop of Arizona (retired) who will teach a class on mysticism and serve as a Bishop-in-Residence this spring. After earning his Ph.D. in medieval church history from Cornell University in 1976, writing on the English Scholastic Thomas Netter, Bp. Smith studied for holy orders at Yale. He has taught church history courses at The Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, The General Theological Seminary, and most recently Yale Divinity School. He is the author of Bishops on the Border: Responses to the Immigration Crisis and Augustine’s Relic: Lessons from the Oldest Book in England. While at VTS this semester, Bp. Smith will be working with the Associate Dean of Students’ office to offer pastoral care to students, and especially support and guidance regarding students’ ordination processes. Please feel free to contact him for conversation and counsel.
The second is John Allan Knight, Ph.D. joining us as the Sprigg Visiting Professor of Philosophical Theology and Ethics and Director of Faculty Research. Dr. Knight holds degrees from Southern Nazarene University, George Washington University Law School, and the University of Chicago. Knight previously taught at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY, where he was Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Coordinator of the Academic Lecture Series, and chair of the Marcellin Board for Catholic Studies. He is the co-editor of The Craft of Innovative Theology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022) and the author of Liberalism vs. Postliberalism: The Great Divide in Twentieth-Century Theology (Oxford, 2012). He is currently working on a book on religious freedom and the nature of religious claims. Deeply committed to the life of the mind, Dr. Knight will co-teach Contemporary Witness of the Church with Robert Heaney, and work with the faculty to raise the profile of research at Virginia Theological Seminary.
Please join me in warmly welcoming John and Kirk to VTS.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President