How does the Th.D. differ from the other degree programs in theology and religion at Duke?
HALL: Our goal is an academically rigorous doctoral program for service to the theological academy as central to communities of faith. Our students will seek answers to questions emerging in the lives and practices of actual communities of faith. For example, current student Andrew Thompson has recently written for a major ecclesial newspaper on the importance of engaging young adults with the riches of the Christian tradition, rather than meeting them in some supposedly appealing world of video-games and flavored coffee drinks. Another student, Arnold Oh, is taking courses in post-colonial and historical studies in order to forge a field of missions and evangelism that truly attends to the mistakes of a Western past. These are only two examples. I believe the resources for such answers, as well as better questions, may come from texts written in the 5th century as well as from texts written in the 21st. We will see students in this program asking key questions about race and identity,
