Faculty & Staff

James F. McGrath is Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature. His PhD from the University of Durham became the basis for his first book, John’s Apologetic Christology, published by Cambridge University Press in the SNTS Monograph Series. He has also written a “prequel” about the broader context of monotheism and Christology in ancient Judaism and Christianity, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context, published by University of Illinois Press. More recently he has published What Jesus Learned from Women  which explores the topic of the historical figure of Jesus and the influence the women mentioned in the Gospels had on him. His book The A to Z of the New Testament is a fun and readable exploration of the things that New Testament scholars and those who’ve taken courses on the New Testament know, yet others typically do not, even if they have a profound interest in or even reverence for those texts. Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist is a biography of this fascinating yet underappreciated figure. He also has a large monograph about him coming out in October titled John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptizer.

In addition to his work on the New Testament and early Christianity, Dr. McGrath also researches the Mandaeans (the last surviving Gnostic group from the ancient world) and their literature. The critical edition, translation, and commentary on the Mandaean Book of John published by DeGruyter, which he produced together with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University, represents the first such academic edition of the complete work in English based on all known manuscripts. Another area of specialty is the intersection of religion and science fiction. On that subject, he is the author of Theology and Science Fiction and The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos (Black Archive #52), editor of Religion and Science Fiction and co-editor of Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith: Religion and Doctor Who. He blogs at ReligionProf. 

Biography
Professor Bauman grew up in eastern Pennsylvania before going to Goshen College, in Northern Indiana, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree. After college, Professor Bauman went to Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) and earned both an M.Div. and Ph.D. degree, while teaching courses on Buddhism and Islam at PTS, Princeton University, and The College of New Jersey.

Contributions
Professor Bauman’s earliest research focused on the interaction of low-caste Christians and Hindus in colonial Chhattisgarh. His book on the topic, Christian Identity and Dalit Religion in Hindu India, 1868-1947 (Eerdmans Publishers, 2008) won the prize for Best Book in Hindu-Christian Studies, 2006-2008, from the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. During this time period, Professor Bauman also conducted research on Sathya Sai Baba, a popular, miracle-working Indian guru with an international following that extends even to the city of Indianapolis. 

From 2008 to 2019, Professor Bauman conducted research on Hindu-Christian conflict. His most recent book, published by Cornell University Press, is Anti-Christian Violence in India, and earlier he published a book on the same topic with specific reference to Pentecostals and the public controversies surrounding conversion (called Pentecostals, Proselytization, and anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India). Both this book and a volume he co-edited with Richard Fox Young (Constructing Indian Christianities) were named as prize finalists for the Best Book in Hindu-Christian Studies (History/Ethnography), 2013-17, by the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. 

In 2020, he co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations with Michelle Voss Roberts, and in 2024, he co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Megachurches with Afe Adogame, Damaris Parsitau, and Jeaney Yip.

His future projects will likely focus on religion and the law in Asia, and on the experiences and treatment of Hindu minorities in predominantly Christian countries.

Butler Teaching Assignment 

Professor Bauman teaches introductory surveys of the world’s religions as well as upper-level courses on Hinduism and Buddhism. He has recently taught topical courses such as “Religion, ‘Cults,’ and (In)Tolerance in America,” “Religion, Politics and Conflict in South Asia,” “Religion, Gender, and the Goddess in Asia,” “Race and Religion in America,” and “Theory and Method in the Study of Religion.” 

 Stuart Glennan is the Harry Ice Professor of Philosophy and the director of Butler University’s Science, Technology and Environmental Studies  program. He has a B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from Yale University, and a MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago.  He has worked as a teacher, scholar and administrator at Butler University since 1992. 

Professor Glennan’s area of specialization is the philosophy of science, with particular attention to biology, psychology and neuroscience.  He has written about causation, explanation, and model building. He is chiefly known for his work on the nature of mechanisms and the role of mechanistic models and explanations across the sciences.  He is author of The New Mechanical Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Causation: The Basics (Routledge,  2024) and he is the editor, with Phyllis
Illari, of the Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy (2018). He has also written on the topic of religion and science, and science education,and the philosophy of history.  Links to publications can be found on Butler’s archive and at Google scholar. 

For much of his time at Butler, Glennan has served in administrative positions, including seven years as chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and twelve years as associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He has been instrumental in founding a number of Butler’s interdisciplinary programs, including Science, Technology and Society, Environmental Studies, Data Science, Neuroscience and Public Health. He currently serves on the steering committee for the new Neuroscience major. 

Professor Glennan has taught numerous courses in philosophy, and in support of Butler’s interdisciplinary programs, and he has contributed to many areas of Butler’s core curriculum – including the first-year seminar, text and ideas, analytical reasoning, and the social world. In recent years, Glennan’s teaching assignment have included philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, intro to science and technology studies, logic, as well as introductory philosophy courses and a seminar on causation.  

Biography

Born and raised in southcentral Pennsylvania in one of only two counties in the Commonwealth without a traffic light, Brent Hege earned his BA in Religion and History with a minor in Classics from Gettysburg College (PA) in 1998. He completed the Zentrale Mittelstufenprüfung Diplom (German Language Certificate) at the Goethe Institut in Dresden, Germany, in 2000 while completing his MA in Historical Theology with a minor in New Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (PA). He earned his PhD in Theology with Distinction from Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA, in 2007. His dissertation was awarded the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise by the Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinäre Theologie at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He was honored by his alma mater with the 2013 Gettysburg College Young Alumni Achievement Award and in 2015 he was elected an honorary member of Butler’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2017 he received the Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching from Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and in 2024 he received the Butler University First-Year Impact Award for his work teaching and mentoring first-year students at Butler. In 2017 he was appointed The Compass Center Scholar in Residence and in 2020 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Religion. He has taught at Butler since 2008. 

Teaching Duties

As a faculty member of Butler’s Religious Studies program, Hege teaches the yearlong First Year Seminar, “Faith, Doubt, and Reason,” the Texts & Ideas (TI) course, “Religions of the World,” online every summer, and the following 300-level Religious Studies courses: God, Theologies of Liberation, Evil, Religious Pluralism, and Ecotheology. Hege has directed several offerings of the Butler Series on Religion and Society, including “Religion, Race, and Culture” (2015-2016), “Sacred Spaces: Intersections of Religion and Ecology” (2018-2019), and “Faith and Activism” (2022-2023). Hege is also the Compass Center Scholar in Residence, where he works with a cohort of student Scholars on issues of interfaith engagement and vocational discernment. Hege holds affiliate faculty status in the programs of Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies, and the Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability. In 2022, Hege successfully chartered Butler’s chapter of Theta Alpha Kappa, the national honors society for Religious Studies and Theology, for which he serves as faculty advisor. Hege is also the faculty advisor of Grace Unlimited, Butler’s Lutheran-Episcopal campus ministry. 

Scholarship

Hege’s research focuses on the history of Christian thought and contemporary Christian theology, with special focus on 19th- and 20th-century liberal Protestant theology, continental philosophy and philosophical theology, contemporary constructive theology, Lutheranism, and theology and culture. In addition to his award-winning first book, Faith at the Intersection of History and Experience: The Theology of Georg Wobbermin (Wipf and Stock, 2009), he has published articles and invited review essays in a number of European and American journals, including Zeitschrift für Neuere Theologiegeschichte/Journal for the History of Modern Theology, Theologische Zeitschrift, Theology and Science, Radical Philosophy Review, Politics and Religion, and Teaching Theology and Religion. He is also a frequent reviewer of books on historical and contemporary theology for Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology. He has presented papers at national and regional academic conferences, including The American Academy of Religion and The Southwest Popular Culture Association and The American Culture Association, as well as being a frequent guest lecturer and panel member for school, church, and community programs. His second book, Myth, History, and the Resurrection in German Protestant Theology, was published by Pickwick Press in 2017. His most recent book, based on the first semester of his popular Butler First Year Seminar, is Faith, Doubt, and Reason (Wipf and Stock 2020). In 2020 he was elected to the editorial council of Dialog: A Journal of Theology, the world’s premier journal of Lutheran theology. 

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Friday 8:00am – 4:30pm

Joseph W. Long holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Purdue University (2005). He is the author of The Grad Students Guide to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (2016) and Two Existential Theories of Knowledge: Epistemic Pragmatism and Contextualism (2018). He also contributed the concluding chapter to Star Wars and Philosophy (2005) and has published articles on ethics and race, pragmatist epistemology, and faith.

joseph-long.weebly.com

Lavender McKittrick-Sweitzer is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Before arriving at Butler in Autumn 2021, they completed their PhD (philosophy, 2021) at Ohio State University, MA (philosophy, 2015) at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and BA (philosophy, 2013) at the University of Missouri – Columbia. 

Their area of specialization is political philosophy, with a focus on feminist perspectives, public reason, and global justice. 

For more information about Lavender’s research, teaching, and CV, visit: www.lmsweitzer.com.

Corey Reed is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and affiliate faculty member in the Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (RGSS) program at Butler University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College, double majoring in English and Philosophy, his Master of Arts degree from the University of Louisville in Comparative Humanities, and his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Memphis. His dissertation was entitled “Black-Male Imagos and Counternarrative Resistance: An Africana Existentialist Framework for Black-Male Analysis.” He specializes in Africana Philosophy and the Critical Philosophy of Race and Racism, with sub-interests in Existentialism, Phenomenology, Feminism/Male Theory, 20th Century French Continental Philosophy, and Aesthetics. 

His article publications include:  

“Black Nausea: Existential Awareness of Antiblack Racism and a Phenomenology of Caution” (Critical Philosophy of Race: Fall 2024)

“Existential Patriarchy: Marginalized Men, Bad Faith, and Lived Experience” (Simone de Beauvoir Studies: Spring 2024) 

“Signifying the Sound: Criteria for Black Art Movements” (Journal of Aesthetic Education: Winter 2023) 

“#ProtectBlackWomen and Other Hashtags: Using Amílcar Cabral’s Resistance and Decolonization Framework as an Ethic for Obligations Between Black Agents” (C.L.R. James Journal: Winter 2022).  

His book chapter publications include: 

“Freedom Anchoring: Teaching Philosophy as a Dialogic Endeavor” from The Art of Teaching Philosophy (Fall 2024) 

“Corresponding Contracts: The Intersectional Charles Mills” from The Philosophy of Charles Mills: Race and the Relations of Power (forthcoming) 

“Baldwin’s Existential Phenomenology: What Lies Do to the Negro” from The Routledge Companion to James Baldwin (forthcoming)

He also co-authored a Higher Education Ethics Case Study featured in the book Ethics in Higher Education: Promoting Equity and Inclusion Through Case-Based Inquiry (2021) with a corresponding podcast episode featured here: https://ethicsandeducation.wceruw.org/podcast/hbcus-present-and-future-ethics-in-higher-ed-2/ . Some of the courses he has taught include Feminist Theory, Biomedical Ethics, Contemporary Moral Problems, Philosophy of Race and Racism, Existentialism, African-American Philosophy, and Africana Philosophy. 

I grew up in a pastor’s home, where I learned the Christian life and faith through my parents.  I made a profession of faith at age nine at a Christian Youth Camp in Westport, Indiana. In my college years, I felt a sense of calling into ministry.  And since that time, I have sought to fulfill that calling as best as I can discern it, both as a pastor and professor.  I pursed a Master of Divinity (completed 1986) and then a PhD (1994), both from a Theological Seminary in Kentucky. During my tenure in seminary, I served as pastor of two Baptist churches—one in Shelbyville, Indiana (from 1983 to 1987) and another in Hanover, Indiana (from 1988 to 1995).  I was ordained into Christian ministry in September 1988.  In 1995, I joined the faculty of Cumberland College (now University of the Cumberlands) in Williamsburg, Kentucky, as an assistant and later associate professor of religious studies (teaching especially philosophy and theology). In 2009, I took a position at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, in Belton, Texas, as an associate and later senior professor of Christian Studies (again teaching philosophy and theology).  In May of 2023, I retired from Mary Hardin-Baylor, returning to our extended family in Indiana.  I have more than 28 years of fulltime teaching experience.  I find the the study and teaching of both philosophy and religion to be exhilarating.  And I see these activities as part of my life-mission/calling.   In 1980, I married the love of my life, Carol.  And together we have had the pleasure of rearing two wonderful children–Eric and Ariel.  We now are enjoying being grandparents of two wonderful grandchildren who live in Kentucky.  Most recently, I returned to the pastorate at a local congregation near Butler University.  

Deborah Niederer Saxon did her bachelor of arts at Baylor University, a dual masters degree at Indiana University, and her PhD at the Iliff School of Theology/University of Denver. Her research involves early Christian texts from the first three centuries of the Common Era that came to light once again in the 19th and 20th centuries. Most recently, she has explored these texts using a framework provided by Michel Foucault in The Care of the Self in Early Christian Texts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). She also focuses on women’s roles in religious communities and ecumenical and interfaith collaborations. 

For more, see her profile on Linked In:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-niederer-saxon-phd-4b9b865/

Paul Valliere was McGregor Professor in the Humanities from 1993 to 2018 and is now Emeritus Professor of Religion at Butler and a fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. His publications include Modern Russian Theology (T&T Clark, 2000), Conciliarism: A History of Decision-Making in the Church (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Law and the Christian Tradition in Modern Russia (co-edited with Randall A. Poole; Routledge, 2022), and many articles and book chapters on Russian Orthodoxy and Russian religious thought. He has presented his work at meetings of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and at conferences of the Moscow Patriarchate. He lectured regularly at the Kiev Summer Theological Institute from 2003 to 2016. He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Columbia University and a B.A. in English from Williams College.

 Harry van der Linden was Professor of Philosophy at Butler University from 1990 to 2018 and is currently retired in San Diego County. He studied chemistry and philosophy in the Netherlands prior to receiving his PhD in philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis in 1985. He taught at Colgate University and the University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill) before coming to Butler University.

Van der Linden served for six years as department chair and initiated the Ethics minor. He was the editor of the Radical Philosophy Review (2010-2021) and longtime treasurer of the Radical Philosophy Ass0ciation (until 2023).

He is the author of Kantian Ethics and Socialism, and co-edited (among other works) Rethinking the Just War Tradition. His most recent work is focused on climate change. Most of his publications can be found at http://works.bepress.com/harry_vanderlinden/.