Clockwise from top left: Corrie, LeMon, Womack, Reynolds
Four Candler faculty members have recently received grants supporting their innovative research and writing across theology, worship, migration, and climate justice. These awards recognize both the scholarly depth and public impact of their work, which ranges from youth-led climate initiatives to musical interpretations of Scripture.
Learn more about their grants and projects:
- Professor in the Practice of Youth Education and Peacebuilding Elizabeth Corrie has received a Louisville Institute Grant for Researchers for her project, “Youth-Centered Deliberative Dialogue: Motivating Intergenerational, Faith-Based Action to Address Climate Change.” Corrie will partner with four Atlanta-area congregations to explore how youth-led deliberative forums can engage churches in collective theological reflection and action on the climate crisis. Her research will inform a forthcoming book, tentatively titled Deliberating Theology with Youth.
- The Rev. Dr. Donald Allen Harp, Jr. Distinguished Associate Professor of Biblical Studies Joel LeMon has received a Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Teacher-Scholar Grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. The grant supports his forthcoming book, The Song of God: The Bible and Musical Exegesis (Westminster John Knox Press), which explores how composers, from J.S. Bach to U2, reinterpret Scripture through music. By drawing on biblical theology, reception history, and musicology, LeMon’s work invites readers to consider how musical settings shape our understanding of Scripture across time and tradition.
- Associate Professor of Catholic Studies Susan Reynolds has been named a 2025–2026 Faculty Fellow at Emory’s Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. During the fellowship, she will complete her second book, Ways of the Cross, a theological ethnography that examines how communities reimagine the Passion of Christ in the context of war, violence, epidemic, and displacement. The project, which is also supported by a University Research Committee grant, engages the Fox Center’s theme of “Life/Story” and considers how these public rituals help redefine what it means to stand in persona Christi today.
- Associate Professor of History of Religions and Interfaith Studies Deanna Ferree Womack has received a Louisville Institute Grant for Researchers for her project, “Middle Eastern Christianity in the Americas: Transnational Transformations of the World’s Oldest Churches.” This work will culminate in the first monograph to document how migration has reshaped Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant communities from the Middle East now flourishing in North and South America—challenging narratives of decline and expanding perceptions of the global church.