Dr. Darrell Jodock, the Drell and Adeline Bernhardson Distinguished Professor of Religion at Gustavus Adolphus College, will help administer a $150,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation’s Science for Ministry Initiative awarded to the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research.
Jodock, along with colleagues Charles F. Rodell and Thomas Sibley from St. John’s University and Donald Ottenhoff from the Collegeville Institute, will implement the grant over a three-year period to develop written materials that will help clergy integrate the findings of science with faith’s reasoning about “the way the world is.”
The grant recipients intend to select a team of scientists and theologians that will develop the written materials for clergy to use in congregational settings, sermons, adult education programs, as well as articles and essays written for external audiences.
The Templeton Foundation started the Science for Ministry program with the belief that pastors, in the course of their preaching, teaching, writing, and care, are key catalysts in developing a more fruitful integration of science and faith among their parishioners. The initiative invites organizations to develop programs that will help ministers and the congregations they serve to move away from simplistic solutions to the tensions between science and faith.
Jodock came to Gustavus in 1999 after teaching at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., from 1978 to 1999. Prior to 1978, Jodock taught for seven years at Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul. He also served for two years as a parish pastor on the staff of Grace Lutheran Church in Washington D.C.
Jodock is the author of several books including Covenantal Conversations, Catholicism Contending with Modernity: Roman Catholic Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context, Ritschl in Retrospect: History, Community, and Science, and The Church’s Bible: Its Contemporary Authority.
In 2007, Jodock was the recipient of Gustavus’s Covenant Award, which annually celebrates the efforts of individuals who have made distinctive contributions towards strengthening the partnership between the College and member congregations of the Gustavus Adolphus College Association of Congregations.
Leave a Reply