State of the School Address from LTS Alumni Day May, 2, 2025
June 6, 2025
State of the School Address
LTS Alumni Day May, 2, 2025
The Very Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale
Interim VP and Dean of the Seminaries
Moravian University
Lancaster and Moravian Theological Seminaries
Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
Our Alumni Day theme, Honoring Our Past, Embracing Our Future fits well both with the liturgical season and with this season in the life of this seminary as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lancaster Theological Seminary while standing on the cusp of a new chapter – standing on the shoulders of giants who have gone before us as we do our part in shaping a future for whose who come after us, who will stand on our shoulders, and who, if we do our work well, will one day gather to honor the past that we have built.
I’m not going to rehearse the long history of LTS – you probably know it better than I; though I will note that the 100th anniversary of Santee Chapel is alo upon us. On June 1st we will celebrate that with music, companionship, and celebration of that beautiful, sacred space and all that has happened within it over the last 100 years. Speaking of which – we hope to honor some of the couples who have been married there. If that’s you, or someone you know, please reach out to us ASAP.
Let’s acknowledge that we are going through a bit of a tough time in the history of LTS – but not for the first time. The LTS you have known and loved has always been subject to time and tides in the life of the Church and the world; has always been shaped by the challenges – the tough times – it has faced and by the ways those who loved it have risen to those occasions and shaped the new thing needed to meet new challenges, new needs, and new opportunities – over and over and over again.
This should not surprise us. This is our faith story.
Rebirth Redemption, Resurrection Renewal,
Resurrection –
Let me pause here to note that at this time of year perhaps you, like I, feel obliged to remind folks of two things:
- That intelligent, faithful people believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead and
- Intelligent, faithful people believe that that is a powerful metaphor that shouldn’t be taken literally
And to get into an argument about the facts of the matter is to miss the point – the truth.
Because the truth is that new life comes out of desolate circumstances – not by going around those circumstances but by going through them and coming out on the other side.
Resurrection happens. We know that to be true because Scripture tells us so; history and tradition and literature and art tell us so; and our own experience tells us the truth of Resurrection. And Resurrection is the foundation of our faith.
Which, to be clear, is not to say that God causes us wills us to go through those hard times in order to have something to Resurrect and Redeem. I, personally, do not believe that “everything happens for a reason”. I do believe that everything can be Redeemed – can be the opportunity for new life, for Resurrection.
Against the image of a puppet-master God who has a plan and drives us through it, I’d embrace the process theologian Marjorie Suchocki’s image of a God who is simultaneously composer and conductor of a symphony in which we each play a part. Sometimes we get it perfectly right – more often we stumble, falter – missing notes or just off on some inventive riff of our own.
God doesn’t smite us, or replace us, or start the whole thing over, erasing what we have done. She just re-writes as we go – weaving in dissonance, creating new harmonies, new motifs, re-conceptualizing, recomposing, as we go.
So, what new harmonies, new life, are emerging now at LTS that we and God will bring to fruition in a future that we cannot even begin to imagine?
Consolidation, the birth of a new thing, is complete for all intents and purposes. We still need a final Department of Education sign-off (the timing of which was uncertain even when there were more than two people still working there) and until then we are required to register students in either LTS or MTS for purposes of awarding and tracking financial aid. This is inconvenient and frustrating, to be sure, but it does not really affect our operations and certainly does not affect the quality of education we offer.
The seminary boards have been consolidated with some legacy LTS board members added to the continuing MTS board. (Board members present please stand). The members of this combined board are working together with mutual respect and wil respect and care for the traditions and health of both schools.
Christian Rice, from whom you’ll hear shortly, has been selected as the new VP and Dean of the School of Theology and will start June 1.
We now have one faculty. Two extraordinary faculties have come together as one. They are extraordinary in scholarship; extraordinary in their teaching and their dedication to their students; extraordinary in their service to the schools, the Church, and the world. They have come together as one harmonious team and are in the midst of a search for 2-3 new colleagues to join them. (Faculty, please stand.)
I’ve been around a bit (perhaps you can tell by looking at me), so I speak with the voice of experience, and you can believe me when I say that these folks are amazing.
On top of their professional skills, they show an extraordinary lack of self-pity and whining, political jockeying and one-upmanship, game-playing and sulking. They are amazingly self-aware, resilient, flexible, grown-up, collegial, and fun. They have been a delight to work with – without exception. Christian and their new colleagues will be very lucky to join this group.
We have consolidated curricula. All students have access to the particular gems that each school brings to the party:
- MTS alums, staff, and board members have joined the DMin program that has been an LTS gem.
- LTS students have access to MTS’s Spiritual Direction Certificates and Chaplaincy degree that have long been strong draws at MTS.
- Vanessa has designed and received accreditor’s approval for, a new degree that will serve both schools from the outset. The Master of Religion in Public Life for journalists or social workers or non-profit professionals who wish to understand Churches and the religious landscape more fully or for Church professionals who want to take their prophetic voice and mission-driven ministry into the public sphere.
We’re also in the midst of grant-funded work to explore bringing together the strengths of LTS’s Pennsylvamia Academy of Ministry and MTS’s Crossroads program to build complementary programs that offer licensing and certification opportunities that churches and ministers, lay and ordained, need and also offer enrichment programming for people who don’t need, or don’t yet need, official recognition but simply want to learn new things and deepen their faith. We are building, from these two signature programs, a comprehensive menu of lifelong learning opportunities. And we’re planning to use these as opportunities to enrich our enrollment funnel.
We’re also doing grant-funded exploration of ways to work with the University to offer vocational discernment as part of the undergraduate curriculum and to build pathways for undergraduates to explore, prepare for, and pursue graduate theological education. Hand in hand with this work, we’re building relationships with the business school, health sciences, and social work ro find synergies that serve us all.
And it’s taking –
Last was LTS’s best recruitment year in a long while, with admissions last year surpassing the prior 2 years combined. Thank you, Diane and Pam. MTS’s enrollment continues to lag but we have revised two MTS staff positions to include Moravian Church Relations with an emphasis on recruitment and student support.
I see so many signs of hope for a future worthy of embracing and celebrating.
I do want to pause here to distinguish between hope and optimism.
Optimism puts blinders on – “Oh, it’ll be fine, it’s not so bad; it was never so bad, everything happens for a reason.”
Hope acknowledges the hard times, knows that things can and do and have gone terribly wrong but has faith that everything can be Redeemed and Resurrected.
Optimism rewrites the beginning of the story.
Hope rewrites the ending,
We have reason to hope for we are Easter people and we have seen, here and now, the blossoming of new life, the promise of Resurrection and Redemption.
Friends – we are the players in this glorious symphony. So pick up your horns or violins or flutes or drums and join in – with vigor,
Do not be discouraged by changes, challenges, uncertainties, or even death itself for we are Easter people. We rejoice even in tribulation for tribulation builds endurance and endurance builds character, and character builds hope and our hope will never disappoint us.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen.