Three faculty members will be installed to named university professorships during Candler School of Theology’s fall convocation on Thursday, August 29 at 11:05 a.m. in Cannon Chapel. Candler Dean Jan Love and Emory University President Claire Sterk will install Ian A. McFarland as the Robert. W. Woodruff Professor of Theology; Emmanuel Y. Lartey as the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pastoral Theology and Spiritual Care; and Walter T. Wilson as the Charles Howard Candler Professor of New Testament. McFarland will give the convocation address, “The Claims of Hope.”
The Robert W. Woodruff professorships, made by university presidential appointment, honor teacher-scholars of distinction who serve a broad constituency beyond individual departments and programs and provide a unifying force to graduate education. These professorships, named for legendary philanthropist and former president of The Coca-Cola Company Robert W. Woodruff, are endowed by the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Fund. Luke Timothy Johnson, who retired in 2016, is Candler’s most recent Woodruff professor.
McFarland returns to Candler as a Woodruff professor after four years serving as Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, among the most prestigious chairs in theological education. Prior to that, he was on the faculty at Candler from 2005-2015, where he was the inaugural holder of the Bishop Mack B. and Rose Stokes Chair of Theology and served as associate dean of faculty and academic affairs. His newest book, The Word Made Flesh: A Theology of the Incarnation (Westminster John Knox Press), will be published in September.
The Charles Howard Candler professorships honor senior scholars who have shown outstanding teaching ability and productive scholarship in one or more fields of learning, and who have distinguished themselves through long and substantial service to Emory University and in furthering the cause of higher education. Recent Candler faculty to hold the Charles Howard Candler chairs are Carol A. Newsom and Carl T. Holladay, both of whom retired at the end of the 2018-2019 academic year.
Lartey, who joined the Candler faculty in 2004, is recognized as a pioneer in the development of an intercultural approach to pastoral care and counseling. His 1997 book, In Living Color: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling (Jessica Kingsley, 2nd ed., 2003), now in its second edition, is internationally used as a textbook in pastoral care. He was named L. Bevel Jones III Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling in 2014.
A member of the Candler faculty since 1997, Wilson teaches New Testament and coordinates the Scripture and Interpretation concentration as part of the Master of Divinity degree program. His most recent book, Healing in the Gospel of Matthew: Reflections on Method and Ministry (Fortress Press, 2014),combines traditional literary and historical approaches with insights culled from medical anthropology, feminist theory and disability studies to reconstruct Matthew’s distinctive understanding of healing as a theme and practice within the early church.