ATLANTA – Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology has been recognized as a “Seminary that Changes the World” for 2018-19 by the Center for Faith and Service, based out of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois.
For each of the past six years, the Center has identified a select group of seminaries and divinity schools offering innovative courses, programs and opportunities for students seeking to engage in social justice and service work while in seminary.
The School’s recognition as a “Seminary that Changes the World” reflects its mission to form Christian leaders whose practice and scholarship, empowered by their passion for God and neighbor, change lives and transform communities.
The School offers two merit-based scholarships – the McAfee Leadership Scholarship (full tuition) and the McAfee Legacy Scholarship (80 percent tuition) – for students who have shown exemplary academic skill in their undergraduate work and great promise for ministry in a variety of settings, as well as a number of degree programs, such as the M.Div. in Christian Ethics, M.Div. in Global Christianity and M.Div. in Community Development, that uniquely integrate faith and service.
McAfee gives its student opportunities to engage with a diverse array of local and global communities on outreach efforts, including teaching in a Certificate for Theological Studies program at Arrendale Prison for Women, participating in an annual international Mission Immersion Trip and hosting programs promoting interfaith dialogue and peace, such as the recent “Interfaith Harmony Celebration: Turn Toward Your Neighbor” and an interfaith peace rally called “We Refuse to Be Enemies.”
Furthermore, this past year, the School sent students and faculty on a Mercer On Mission trip to Aligarh, India, and started its new Interfaith Certificate as well as its Certificate in Community Transformation.
Faculty continue to lecture and teach in churches across the globe, including South Africa, Germany and throughout the United States.
McAfee also offers a number of issue-integrated academic courses, such as Mission Methodology and Practice, Restorative Justice, and Ethics, Law and Public Policy.
“Since its founding, McAfee has held firm to the vision of forming ministers to engage the church for the work of God,” said Dr. Greg DeLoach, interim dean of McAfee School of Theology. “It is an honor to be recognized yet again as part of the ‘Seminaries that Change the World.’ It fits into the larger vision of Mercer to change the world one student at a time.”
The Center for Faith and Service is an organization that works to help seminaries, service programs, denominations and local congregations connect faith with service and social justice work. For more information about “Seminaries that Change the World,” visit www.stctw.org.
About McAfee School of Theology
McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University forms Christian leaders whose practice and scholarship, empowered by their passion for God and neighbor, change lives and transform communities. The School accomplishes this mission by: 1) integrating spirituality with service through: practicing spiritual disciplines that nurture us for Christian service; embracing ethnic, gender and theological diversity to enhance our spiritual growth and moral formation; creating opportunities to learn in community, experience transformation and risk action; 2) integrating theological inquiry with prophetic vision through interpreting the story of the Christian faith through sacred scriptures and traditions; connecting faith to global contexts in ways that engage personal, communal and political realities; critiquing the structures of our society from an informed prophetic voice; 3) integrating worship with witness through celebrating God’s presence in worship as the source of the Church’s call to community and global transformation; reading cultural contexts to create holistic strategies for ministry; proclaiming the love of God in Jesus Christ through dialogue and in partnership with others.
