11/5/2021

Associate Professor of Religion Eric Vanden Eykel has announced that he and two colleagues from other institutions will collaborate on a new book project called Judeophobia in the New Testament: Texts, Contexts, and Pedagogy. 

“We chose ‘Judeophobia’ because this broader heading incorporates both anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, as well as other various discriminatory practices against Jews at various points in history,” explained Vanden Eykel.

Vanden Eykel will co-edit the book with R.A. Webb Associate Professor of Religious Studies Sarah Rollens of Rhodes College, and Senior Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies Merdith Warren of University of Sheffield. The trio worked together in 2020 when they wrote a journal article on Judeophobia, and earlier this fall when they co-authored a piece that appeared in The Independent.

Vanden Eykel, Rollens, and Warren have enlisted over thirty biblical scholars from around the world to contribute chapters to the book, which will be published sometime in 2023 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The book will include essays to aid educators in teaching about Judeophobia and the New Testament and other early Christian literature. “The project aims to highlight, for non-specialist readers, how these texts have engendered and promoted Judeophobia in the past and in the present,” said Vanden Eykel. “Our goal is for this book to be at home in any undergraduate biblical studies classroom, as well as seminaries and church Bible studies.”

Learn more about Ferrum College’s religious studies program here. 

5/10/2021

Associate Professor of Religion Eric Vanden Eykel has been named a general editor to the Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (JIBS).

According to the JIBS’ website, the journal “is a peer-reviewed, open access journal [meaning that it can be read at no cost] dedicated to publishing cutting edge articles that embody interdisciplinary, social justice-oriented, feminist, queer, and innovative biblical scholarship.” JIBS “welcome[s] submissions that challenge canonical and/or disciplinary norms and boundaries or that query the field of biblical studies’ relationship to the broader investigation of human religion, culture, and literature.”

Vanden Eykel’s editorship means he will receive article submissions for the journal and search out other scholars in the field who will read the articles and make suggestions to the authors about how to improve their argument. Although his primary interest falls with articles on early Christian literature, Vanden Eykel will be reviewing all submission genres. 

“My job as an editor is to help guide and oversee this process, and then to get approved articles ready for publication by helping with copy editing and formatting,” explained Vanden Eykel. In short, he and the other JIBS editors will have a part in just about every step of the publication process.

“I’m really excited to work with this particular journal,” said Vanden Eykel. “The ‘traditional’ questions that many of the journals in our field focus on are certainly valuable, but they often leave a really important question unanswered: ‘Why should any of this matter?’ One of the aims of JIBS, at least from my perspective, is to help readers explore various ways of answering that question.”

JIBS is based in the United Kingdom’s Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield. It publishes two issues every year. Learn more about JIBS here.

Click here to learn more about Ferrum College’s major or minor in religious studies.

Ferrum College will host Rev. Anna Woofenden as part of the Rev. Dr. Wasena F. Wright, Jr. and Mrs. Patricia G. Wright Endowed Lecture Series on October 18 at 7 p.m. in the Panther’s Den on campus.  Rev. Woofenden’s presentation, “Food and Faith: Conversations from the Soil and Around the Table,” is free and open to the public.

According to her website, Rev. Woofenden strives to “re-imagine church as an interconnected organism, worshiping, loving, and serving together while transforming a plot of land into a vibrant urban farm and sanctuary.”  She is a proponent of the “food and faith movement” with an emphasis on liturgy and entrepreneurial ministry.

Currently of Saratoga Springs, NY, Rev. Woofenden is the founder of  The Garden Church and Feed and Be Fed Farm in San Pedro, CA.  She is now consulting, teaching, writing, speaking, and coaching across the country and recently began “The Food and Faith Podcast.”  She serves as the visiting pastor of peace and spirituality at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Mt. Vernon, OH.

The late Rev. Dr. Wasena F. “Buddy” Wright, Jr. was a 1960 graduate of Ferrum College, a recipient of the College’s highest alumni honor, the Benjamin M. Beckham Medallion, and a member of the College’s Board of Trustees.  Rev. Wright served in United Methodist churches throughout the Virginia Conference, including his last pastorate as a senior pastor of Annandale United Methodist Church (UMC).  He was Council Director for the Virginia Conference of the UMC until his death in July of 2003.  Through gifts from Rev. Wright, his family and many friends, an endowment was created to assist Ferrum College students pursuing church-related vocations in study abroad, and to establish a biannual lecture series to bring prominent theologians, authors and scholars to the campus.

Rev. Woofenden’s lecture comes as a lead-up event to the inauguration of the College’s twelfth president, David L. Johns, Ph.D., which takes place on October 19 at 10 a.m. in Vaughn Chapel on campus.  Festivities following the inauguration include food trucks, children’s activities, live music and fireworks.  Click here to learn more.