Rev. Dr. James Brenneman, or Jim as he prefers being called, is president and professor of biblical studies at Berkeley School of Theology since the Fall of 2017. Just prior to his call to BST, he completed nearly twelve years as president of Goshen College in Indiana.
Dr. Brenneman has chosen to align his vocation with the work of serving the church. He is an ordained Anabaptist/Mennonite minister and the founding lead pastor of Pasadena Mennonite Church where he served for twenty years. Jim has served on the faculty at Episcopal Theological School at Claremont in Old Testament scholarship and as an adjunct faculty member at Claremont School of Theology and, as an adjunct professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary.
A Goshen College graduate, Jim pursued an interdisciplinary degree, combining Bible, Biology and Natural Science. He went on to attend Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and completed a Master of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary. At Claremont Graduate University, he earned a Master of Arts degree in Religious Studies and a PhD, with a focus in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies. Dr. Brenneman is the author of On Jordan’s Stormy Banks: Lessons from the Book of Deuteronomy published by Herald Press and Canons in Conflict: Negotiating Texts in True and False Prophesy published by Oxford University Press and has written numerous book chapters and articles on biblical, theological and church-related themes. An experienced public speaker, he has delivered dozens of lectures and presentations on a variety of topics related to his scholarly interests and pastorate and other church leadership experience. With a seed planted for transformational cross-cultural study while at Goshen, Jim has spent time in international scholarship related to his theological studies. He was awarded a grant from the Eli Lilly Foundation for sabbatical study in Jerusalem and London, returning to the Holy Land and Middle East some nine times for study and leading learning trips there.
Ordained in 1986, Jim is a credentialed minister of Mennonite Church USA. He joined the Pastoral Leadership Commission of the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference in 1990 and served on the Council on Faith, Life and Strategy of the Mennonite Church. From 1991 to 2002, he was president of the Center for Anabaptist Leadership and School of Urban Ministry in Los Angeles, and was a founding leader of the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program in Los Angeles. Jim is currently a member of the ABCUSA Ministers Council of Northern California, the Interfaith Council of Alameda County, Rotary International, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Council of Presidents & Board of Trustees at the Graduate Theological Union.
Jim is married to Dr. Terri J. Brenneman, a clinical psychologist and they are parents of one son, Quinn.
I wish for students to discover the appropriate blurring of distinctions between “worldly” wisdom and the wisdom of God that invites them into relationship with God on a far grander scale than afforded otherwise by limiting knowledge to a strictly Christian worldview. As an interdisciplinary learner – as a biology, natural science, and Bible undergraduate major – I ask myself and, now my students, several questions: If Christians believe that God was self-revealing in nature (Rom.1:20), why then is this not also special revelation? Or, if we believe that God was self-revealing in Ancient Israel (or in Christ), why then is this not also natural revelation? Must holy or “revelatory” readings of history (heilsgeschicte) and wisdom (liberal arts) be so systematically dichotomized when our own Scriptures refuse such systematic categorization? The Bible as Canon (a set of many books with many points of view) serves as a most profound creative model of education for someone seeking a seminary degree. Between its covers, the Bible contains numerous examples of liberal-arts-like education (or “natural” “worldly” revelation) and plenty more examples of what we more often narrowly call “special” revelation. Both forms of education contained in Scripture, under the canopy of the one God, might better be called “spiritual formation.” What better place than a seminary, with a generous orthodoxy, for students to experience multiple streams of “revelation” in creation, in Scripture, in art, in science, and in ordinary life? Is this not special natural revelation? Is this not natural special revelation? Is this not biblical revelation embodied?
Challenges facing the Christian educator engaged in spiritual formation today include:
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