Three new faculty appointments
announced by LTSP

PHILADELPHIA, PA (March 17, 2005) - Three new faculty appointments have been announced by The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. The appointments are effective July 1.

The Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray, Jr., has been appointed Associate Professor of African American Studies and the Program Director of the seminary's 25-year-old Urban Theological Institute. Pending the successful outcome of current fund-raising efforts, the seminary hopes that Dr. Ray will be the first occupant of the Jeremiah A. Wright, Sr. Chair of African American Studies.

Appointed Assistant Professors of Practical Theology-Christian Assembly, are the Rev. Dr. Melinda Ann Quivik of St. Paul, MN, and Dirk G. Lange of Atlanta, GA. Both of these appointees will share the responsibilities of teaching in the areas of homiletics (preaching) and worship (liturgy).

Dr. Ray has served as associate professor of Theology and Philosophy at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary since 1999. He has a wide variety of teaching competencies in the areas of theology and African-American studies. He holds his Ph.D. in Religious Studies-African American Studies from Yale University. He received his M.Div. summa cum laude from Yale Divinity School in 1993.

In 1993 he received the Hooker Fellowship for Excellence in Theological Studies from Yale Divinity School. Dr. Ray is the author of four books. and a wide variety of chapters and articles. He authored Do No Harm: Social Sin and Christian Responsibility. (Fortress Press, 2002). He is working on being a contributor to Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes, Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland, eds., a future publication of Fortress Press. [more information]

Dr. Quivik has most recently served as an adjunct professor of worship during the winter quarter of 2004 at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, OH. From 2001 to 2003 she served as a teaching assistant with Mons Teig and Arland Hultgren in the area of Worship at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Dr. Quivik has teaching assistant appointments also at the Pacific School of Religion and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. In 1999 she taught "Preaching for Laity" at the Wesley Foundation Institute for Theological Studies in Berkeley, CA. Dr. Quivik received her M.A. in the Philosophy of Education from Columbia University Teachers College in 1977. She earned her M.Div. in 1994 from The Lutheran theological Seminary at Philadelphia. In 2003, she was awarded her Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, in cooperation with the University of California at Berkeley. Her field was Worship, Proclamation and the Arts. In 1993 Dr. Quivik received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Systematic Theology & Church History from LTSP. She is the author of many publications and papers and presentations.

The Rev. Dirk G. Lange has served as an instructor for Emory University's Candler School of Theology (2004), teaching "Introduction to Public Worship." He has also instructed in other course areas for both Emory and Candler while working on his Ph.D. which he anticipates receiving this summer from Emory University. Dirk Lange earned his M.Div. from the Lutheran Theological Seminary (Saskatoon) and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. He was awarded his STM cum laude in 2001 from LTSP. Dirk Lange's professional experience has covered a wide spectrum of activities though all under one umbrella: liturgy in the lives of people. For 18 years he was a brother of the Community of Taizé. During the 1980's, as a brother, he visted underground prayer groups in Eastern Europe and then, for almost 10 years, he was involved in planning and preparing the prayer at Taizé. He is currently associate pastor at Living Grace Lutheran Church in Atlanta and chapel assistant at Emory University.

Watch the web and P.S. magazine for more detailed stories about these new faculty members in the future.