CDSP Announces New Faculty Appointments, Promotions

Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Posted May 26, 2020

Peace Pyunghwa Lee and the Rev. Alison Lutz.

Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSPhas made two new faculty appointments and approved the promotion of two other professors 

Peace Pyunghwa Lee and the Rev. Alison Lutz have been hired as instructors in homiletics and pastoral theology (Lee) and ministerial leadership (Lutz). Dr. Julián Andrés González Holguín and Dr. Scott MacDougall assistant professors of Old Testament and theologyrespectively, have been promoted to the rank of associate professor. 

Currently a ThD candidate in homiletics with a minor in Black theology at Duke Divinity School, Lee studies the politics and embodiment of preaching. Her dissertation, Unsettling Preaching: Toward an Unthought Homiletic, which recently won the Louisville Institute Dissertation Fellowship, explores not just the form and content of sermons but also who is allowed to preach and how preaching is performed.”  

“I hope to recover a vision of preaching that has been rendered illegible,” Lee writes. Her work is especially inspired by the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus’ feet and whose loving act Jesus proclaims will be told in memory of her wherever the gospel is preached.’” 

Lee holds an MDiv and MA in spiritual and missional formation from Princeton TheologicaSeminary and a BA in English from Macalester College. She is a trained spiritual director and winner of multiple fellowships and preaching and ministry awards, including from The Forum for Theological ExplorationKorean American Scholarship Foundation, and Princeton Seminary. 

Lee will join the CDSP faculty in January 2021. 

Lutz is an Episcopal priest and a PhD candidate in religion, ethics, and society at Vanderbilt University. She studies how the cultural assumptions that organizations bring to humanitarian aid initiatives shape resulting power imbalances 

“Unfortunately, it often boils down to the belief that the people with the most money have the best ideas, as if the money were a sign that their ideas will be successful everywhere,” she saidAll kinds of expertise are necessary if we’re going to build a world where everyone can flourish and have what they need. 

Her work is rooted both in academic research as well as her lay and ordained leadership experience in congregations and with Partners in Health (PIH). At PIH Lutz managed work between US staff and donors and 5,500+ Haitian staff to implement health care, education, clean water, and nutrition projects for economically disadvantaged communities and open 300-bed national teaching hospital. 

Lutz holds an MST from Yale Divinity School and an MDiv and BFA from Emory University and is currently an instructor at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She will join the CDSP faculty in August 2020. 

González Holguín and MacDougall both began teaching at CDSP in 2015.  

“During their five years at CDSP, both have made strong contributions to CDSP and to the church and the academy,” said the Rev. Ruth Meyers, PhD, dean of academic affairs. 

The promotions and new hires mark a significant moment in a busy season of discernment at CDSP. 

“This is a really exciting time for our talented and growing faculty,” said the Very Rev. W. Mark Richardson, PhD, president and dean. “We congratulate our promoted professors on their excellent teaching and scholarship, and we look forward to welcoming our new colleagues in the coming school year.” 

Church Divinity School of the Pacific is a graduate theological seminary of the Episcopal Church and a founding member of the ecumenical Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Responding to the challenges of contemporary society with the good news of Jesus Christ, CDSP is rooted in Anglican identity and tradition and provides quality theological education that integrates scholarship, reflection, worship, spirituality, and the practice of ministry. Learn more at cdsp.edu.


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