Professor Woo is Waiting
Associate Professor of Church History Dr. Kenneth Woo has become quite familiar with waiting. He's waiting for several essays to be published in upcoming books. And while he waits, Dr. Woo is writing his forthcoming publication on John Calvin’s experience as a religious refugee. He remains optimistic of the project and its importance to reading the reformer’s theology in context.
“If you miss the exilic dimensions of Calvin’s lived experience, it distorts the context of reading his theology,” Dr. Woo says. “I hope to introduce Calvin’s ideas set to a new context, so that those who never imagined they had anything to learn from him can see his importance today. Violence, migration, and exile are still present realities in our world.”
Book projects aren't the only things making Dr. Woo wait. He’s also had a speaking engagement postponed by the pandemic, as his keynote address at the International Congress on Calvin Research, originally scheduled for August 2022 in Brazil, will not convene until July 2023 in Grand Rapids, Mich. Fittingly for Dr. Woo, the theme of the conference will be “Calvin and Exile.”
While waiting, he continues to teach Foundations of the Christian Story and Directions in the Christian Story at PTS, and frequently preaches and teaches at Presbyterian churches in the Pittsburgh area. The Beatrice Institute at the University of Pittsburgh has invited Dr. Woo as a speaker for its interdisciplinary graduate seminar, where he will present the topic “Biblical Interpretation and the ‘Reformation of the Refugees.’” He looks forward to taking his turn teaching Field Education at PTS in the 2022-2023 academic year, and preparing to teach a class in contextual theology for the summer 2023 DMin cohort in Reformed Theology.
When he’s not teaching or writing, Dr. Woo fills his time in a variety of ways. Right now, he’s enjoying reading Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, a collection of nine short stories with Indian American characters, exploring the convergence of inherited Indian traditions with experiences in America. He helps his dog, Pax, learn patience with carefully paced walks in Highland Park. And recently, Dr. Woo has begun applying these lessons in patience to a new hobby: smoking pork and brisket on his Weber water smoker for leisurely enjoyment with his family and friends.
