Eden Seminary is in the midst of saying farewell and best wishes to Professor Ben Sanders, Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics. Dr. Sanders will be moving from Eden at the end of June to begin a new position with the City of Denver as their Race and Social Justice Learning and Development Specialist. The Eden community is saddened by this news, yet celebrates this opportunity for Dr. Sanders and the family.
Professor Sanders has made myriad contributions to the Eden faculty and the Seminary in his six years on the faculty. He has taught the introductory and first level Social Ethics course in the curriculum (where students have been affirmed and challenged to grapple with their embedded theology). He has enlivened the theological imaginations of faculty colleagues and students alike to the work of James Cone and Howard Thurman — deepening our understanding of Black Theology, the diversity and power of the Black Church, and its historical and theological traditions. Additionally, Professor Sanders has been an architect in the faculty of our emerging commitment to movement-based theologies of activism, solidarity, and social change.
While at Eden, Professor Sanders has shared his brilliant scholarship and teaching generously with Eden students in the classroom, and in the church and public square in many different forums. An excellent preacher, a compelling lecturer, a compassionate listener, Professor Sanders has mentored many and encouraged many more. The witness of his work and this new position is a harbinger of the kind of vocational resilience that Eden faculty seek to engender in our students — pursuing God’s redemptive purposes of social transformation in all kinds of forms — from congregations to city halls.
With appreciation for the great gifts and service Dr. Ben Sanders contributed to the Eden Community, we salute his achievements and his continued ministry in the public square.
