Contributing Authors

Denise M Ackermann

Denise Ackermann was Professor of Christianity and Society at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, until her retirement in 2000. Since then she has been an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch in the Department of Practical Theology, teaching courses on "The History of Christian Spirituality", "Gender, Culture and Religion", and "A Theological Perspective on HIV and Aids". Her latest book is After the Locusts: Letters from a Landscape of Faith (Eerdmans, 2003).

James R. Cochrane

James R. Cochrane is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He received BSc and Ph.D. from UCT, and his MDiv from Chicago Theological Seminary. A past editor of the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa and of the ecumenical quarterly New South African Outlook, he is the author of Circles of Dignity: Community Wisdom and Theological Reflection (Fortress, 1999) and Servants of Power: The Role of English-Speaking Churches [in South Africa], 1903-1930, as well as some eight edited books and sixty journal articles or book chapters. He directs the Research Institute on Christianity and Society in Africa (RICSA) and leads the UCT-hub of the African Religious Health Assets Programme.

Cornelia Cyss-Crocker

Cornelia Cyss Crocker has served Presbyterian congregations for six years and currently teaches New Testament at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. Her publications include Reading First Corinthians in the Twenty-first Century (New York, London: T&T Clark International, 2004) and several articles on 1 Corinthians, the Gospels according to John and Mark, Mikhail Bakhtin, and biblical interpretation.

Joseph Kang

Joseph Kang was born in Korea. He received a Th. B. and Th. M. from Hankuk Theological Seminary in Seoul, Korea, and an STD from San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA. He served First Virginia Korean Presbyterian Church in Annandale, VA and Washington Youngnak Presbyterian Church, MD from January1981, and has been a Mission Co-worker of Presbyterian Church (USA) since 1990, where he was a Professor of New Testament at Zomba Theological College, Malawi, Africa, and Professor of Biblical Studies at ELCROS-Theological Seminary, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Douglas R. McGaughey

Douglas R. McGaughey is Professor and Chair of the Departments of Religious Studies and Classical Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He received his Ph.D. in Christian Theology from The Divinity School at The University of Chicago and is an Elder in the United Methodist Church. He is the author of Strangers and Pilgrims: On the Role of Aporiai in Theology (De Gruyter, 1997) and Christianity for the Third Millennium: Faith in an Age of Fundamentalism and Skepticism (Univ. Press of America, 1998).

Luise Schottroff

Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1934, Luise Schottroff studied Protestant Theology at the Universities of Bonn, Mainz and Göttingen. She was awarded the Dr. theol. in 1961and the second doctorate (Habilitation) in 1969. In 1961, she married Willy Schottroff. She taught New Testament Studies at the Universities of Mainz and Kassel; at the latter she inaugurated an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Feminist Exegesis and Feminist Theology. Since 2001, she is Visiting Professor of New Testament at Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, CA.

Theodore Louis Trost

Theodore Louis Trost is Associate Professor in Religious Studies and New College at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. He has also served as Visiting Professor in the College of the Humanities at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of Douglas Horton and the Ecumenical Impulse in American Religious History (2002) and several articles and book chapters including, most recently, "The Passion and the Compassion of the Christ" in The Role of Christology in the United Church of Christ (2005), edited by Scott Paeth. He is the founding member of the musical entourage Thaddaeus Quince and the New Originals, whose third album is "The Wrest" (2004).

Herman C. Waetjen

Herman C. Waetjen received his Doktor der Theologie from the University of Tübingen in 1958. His writings in biblical scholarship include four books: The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple: A Work in Two Editions (T&T Clark International, 2005), Praying the Lord's Prayer: An Ageless Prayer for Today (Trinity Press International, 1999), A Reordering of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark's Gospel (Fortress Press, 1989), and The Origin and Destiny of Humanness, a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Crystal Press, 1976). He also has contributed articles and essays to numerous journals, as well as exegetical resource material to the New Proclamation, Year A, 2004-2005 (Fortress Press, 2004).

After 3 years at the School of Religion at University of Southern California, he became Professor of New Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where he taught for 34 years. From the early 1970s, his interest in the issues facing the developing world drew him into regular periods as a visiting scholar and professor at several African institutions of higher learning: the University of Nairobi, Kenya (1972-73); Federal Theological Seminary in Edendale, South Africa (1979-80); the University of Zimbabwe (1986-87); and the University of Namibia (1993-94). He also taught briefly in South Korea and Russia.

Retiring in 1996 as the Robert S. Dollar Emeritus Professor of New Testament, Herman continues to teach and write. He resides in San Anselmo, California with his wife Mary.

Gerald O. West

Gerald West is Head of the School of Theology at the University of Natal in Pietermartizburg, South Africa. He received his Master's and Ph.D. from Sheffield University in Sheffield, England. He is author of Biblical Hermeneutics of Liberation: Modes of Reading the Bible in the South African Context (New York: Maryknoll 1995, and Cluster Publications, 1995), The Academy of the Poor: Toward a Dialogical Reading of the Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), and was co-editor of The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trends, and Trajectories, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000).