Many GTU alumni return to GTU classrooms as professors. Both Lizette Larson-Miller (Ph.D. ’92) and Joe Driskill (Ph.D. ’96) are shaping the institution’s dynamic intellectual community with courses that touch on current world issues.

Lizette Larson-Miller Ph.D. ’92
Lizette Larson-Miller, professor of liturgical leadership at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, teaches about a topic that everyone must reckon with regardless of religious tradition: sickness and death. “Rites of Sick, Death, and Dying” explores the liturgical rites surrounding care of the sick and the dying, as well as funeral rites from historical, theological, and ritual perspectives. The class, taught this past fall, has always been enriched by the experiences of its students. Past participants have included an Icelandic Lutheran, a Jamaican Baptist, a physician, and a student who conducts cancer research.

The course content is nothing new for Dr. Larson-Miller. She has always been fascinated with funeral rites, rites for the sick and dying, and the anointing of the sick. “Funeral rites,” she says, “are where the buck stops theologically, they really cut to core issues. You either believe it or you don’t.” An Anglican with a Roman Catholic background, she links the historical development of the rites in Roman Catholicism and the Church of England with today’s ecumenical interpretations. In a culture that seeks to escape the realities of human frailty, Larson-Miller sees her course as a vital conversation starter. “We need a better catechesis on the parish level,” she maintains, “so that people confront these issues of death and dying and find out about rites before they come to a situation where they need them.”

The same collaboration of methods that drew Larson-Miller to study at the GTU now informs her teaching. “Many of our current doctoral students in liturgics are from free church traditions. They don’t come from a liturgical background, they don’t have liturgical books. I love the exchange of ideas, because I learn something too.”

Joseph Driskill Ph.D. ’96
Understanding difference lies at the heart of Joseph Driskill’s work. A 1996 Ph.D. graduate and current associate professor of spirituality at Pacific School of Religion, Driskill is teaching “Asian Women’s Christian Spirituality” with Newhall Scholar Jung Eun Sophia Park this spring. The class focuses on the lived faith experiences of Asian Christian women and the possibilities for liberative transformation. “It arises out of the recognition that we are a global community,” Dr. Driskill explains, “not just for trade and economics—but with theological and humanitarian commitments.”

Dr. Driskill’s own passions drive his teaching and pastoral pursuits. As a doctoral student at the GTU, his studies were interdisciplinary, with a focus on the borders between Christian spirituality and pastoral care. His current course on Protestant spirituality always includes a focus on spirituality in a specific Asian context, usually Korea or Japan, and he’s written and lectured about racism and class in the U.S.

Driskill’s efforts mirror a larger movement across the GTU curriculum to focus on Asia. The new Partnerships project, designed to transform theological education in Asia, the Pacific, and North America, works with the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia and is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.

“The GTU’s social location at the edge of North America, where there is a large community of Asian-American and Asian scholars, makes Berkeley an ideal setting for pursuing such theological investigations,” Driskill says.

In order for people of different cultures and faith to peacefully co-exist, Driskill adds, dialogue about notions of God and how we relate to each other is a must. Only then, he says, will we “grow from shared understandings and a profound respect for difference.”

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