THREE FACULTY MEMBERS RECEIVE PROMOTIONS
Following a thorough review process, the Board of Directors has granted promotions to three faculty members at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary: Dr. Tucker Ferda, Dr. Scott Hagley, and the Rev. Dr. L. Roger Owens.
“Each of these faculty members is a gifted and respected scholar in his field. Granting them these new titles or tenure status is not only an acknowledgement of these leaders’ excellent scholarship and dedicated service, but it also marks the commitment of Pittsburgh Seminary to their fields of study, their theological diversity, and their ministry to the world,” said the Rev. Dr. Leanna Fuller, interim vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty.
A Presbyterian, a Baptist, and a Methodist, Drs. Ferda, Hagley, and Owens are a New Testament scholar, a missiologist, and spiritual theologian, respectively. Their published works on topics such as the Gospels, biblical intertextuality, incarnational mission, urban contexts, and spiritual practices demonstrate the Seminary’s desire to connect ancient Christian texts with present-day individual and communal faithfulness.
Ferda is now associate professor of New Testament. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, where he also served as teaching fellow. Ferda has expertise in a wide range of areas in biblical studies, including the Gospels, the life of Jesus, the Old Testament in the New, the history of biblical interpretation, Hellenistic Jewish literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the theological interpretation of Scripture. Many of these interests intersect in his first book, Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean Crisis (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019), published in the Library of New Testament Studies series. Ferda ​is a frequent presenter at regional and national SBL meetings, and he has published more than a dozen articles in top-tier biblical studies journals, including Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal of Theological Studies, New Testament Studies, and Journal for the Study of Judaism. He is currently working on a monograph on the second advent hope in the New Testament and its reception history. Ferda is a member and deacon at East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, and he frequently leads studies and provides pulpit supply in area churches.
Hagley serves as associate professor of missiology, and he is now a tenured member of the faculty. Hagley received a B.A. in youth ministry and communication from Bethel University, an M.Div. from Regent College, and a Ph.D. (with distinction) in congregational mission and leadership from Luther Seminary. His doctoral dissertation attended to the lived theology of an urban congregation in its public, evangelical, and missional dimensions. He formerly served as director of education at Forge Canada in Surrey, British Columbia, where he worked to develop curricula for the formation of missional leaders in hubs across Canada. He also served as teaching pastor at Southside Community Church, a multi-site church in the Vancouver metro area organized around neighborhood-based missional communities. He has published numerous articles and book reviews on church- and mission-related topics. His most recent book is Eat What is Set Before You: A Missiology of the Congregation in Context (Urban Loft, 2019). Hagley is on the session at The Open Door Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.
Owens is now professor of Christian spirituality and ministry. He received his Ph.D. in theology from Duke University where he was awarded a Lilly Fellowship for the Formation of a Learned Clergy. Before that Owens completed his M.Div. at Duke Divinity School. As an undergraduate he studied philosophy and Bible/religion at Anderson University in Indiana. Owens is an ordained elder in the North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. In North Carolina he served both urban and rural churches for eight years as co-pastor with his wife, the Rev. Ginger Thomas, before coming to PTS. He has written or edited seven books, including, most recently, Threshold of Discovery: A Field Guide to Spirituality in Midlife (Church Publishing, 2019). Owens has preached and lectured across the country, and his work has appeared in The Christian Century, Currents in Theology and Mission, The Journal of Religious Ethics, New Blackfriars, and elsewhere. Owens also serves on the faculty for the Upper Room’s Academy for Spiritual Formation.
