Source List for Journalists
This listing provides some of the areas in which MTSO faculty members are available to offer authoritative context for news stories. For assistance contacting a faculty member or for help locating an expert in a topic you don’t see listed, contact Communications Director Danny Russell at 740-362-3322 or drussell@mtso.edu.
Valerie Bridgeman
Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Associate Professor of Homiletics and Hebrew Bible
Biblical interpretation – comparisons of different Christian sects
Evangelicalism – a former evangelical’s perspective
Politics and faith
Social justice – the intersection of Black Lives Matter and other movements with faith
Paul Kim
Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Williams Chair of Biblical Studies
Asian and Asian-American biblical interpretation
Far East Asian culture and politics – current issues in North and South Korea
Immigration, exile and diaspora –contemporary issues through the lens of ancient biblical exile
Prophetic literature – origins, roles and implications of prophets in the Bible
Paul Numrich
Professor in the Snowden Chair for the Study of Religion and Interreligious Relations
American religious diversity – including immigrant religious groups and new religious movements
Health care and religion – dietary rules and beliefs about death and dying
Interreligious relations – from dialogue to violence
Space-sharing by religious organizations – for instance, immigrant congregations worshiping in established church buildings
Ryan Schellenberg
Associate Professor of New Testament
Early Christian economics – how Jesus, Paul, and other early Christians talked about money
Mass incarceration – how ancient Christians responded to imprisonment, and how contemporary Christians might follow their lead
Christian Gospels – where the New Testament Gospels came from and the nature of their stories about Jesus
Christian/Jewish relations – the early history of their interrelationship and eventual separation