Scott Haldeman

Associate Professor of Worship

B.A., Oberlin College, 1986; M.Div., Ph.D., Union Theological Seminary (NYC), 1990, 1998.

Author: “American Racism and the Promise of Pentecost” (Liturgy 14:4, Summer 1998); Towards Liturgies that Reconcile: Race and Ritual in the History of U.S. Protestant Worship among African Americans and European Americans (Ashgate Publishing, 2007).

Professor Haldeman focuses on the study of Protestant worship traditions in the United States.  He is particularly interested in the interpretation of contemporary practices in local congregations on Sunday morning in relation to issues of Christian ethics.

“Worship provides Christians with an opportunity to leave behind—for momentary and fragile periods—the structures of inequality and violence that pervade our lives and to imagine-even more, to experience-an alternative mode of being, a place and time where justice and peace are known—a foretaste of the reign of God. The fact that public prayer on most Sundays in most local Christian communities hardly resembles such an ideal may discourage many of us, but it does not negate the claim. The critical appraisal of the captivity of worship to modernist rationality and disempowering clericalism as well as its disengagement from the reality of daily life is required for effective ministry.  In addition, it is crucial for religious leaders to be competent in preparing and leading authentic, just and transformative worship.  Political organization, action, and protest will always be necessary if we desire to reform society, but we must pursue ritual action as well—where in an environment of beauty and abundance, in gathering with neighbors and strangers, in the encounter of the Holy, we know a joy that makes us dissatisfied with anything less in our every day lives.”

Sample Courses:

The Ministry of Sunday Morning
Ritual Studies
Seminar: Feminist Liturgical Traditions