Rev. Dr. William Loyd Allen is the Sylvan Hills Baptist Church Chair of Baptist Heritage and professor of church history and spiritual formation at McAfee. He received his B.S (1974) with a double-major in psychology and sociology from the University of Montevallo in Alabama. His training for Christian ministry took place at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, which awarded him M.Div. (1978) and Ph.D. (1984) degrees. During his years as a student, he worked as an aide on a psychiatric ward, did one unit of clinical pastoral education as a chaplain in the emergency room of an urban hospital, and another unit in the admitting ward of a state mental hospital. He also served as the ecumenical campus minister at a Roman Catholic college and held a seven-year pastorate at a rural church.
After graduation, Dr. Allen took a job as religion professor and campus minister at Brewton-Parker College in south Georgia for five years before moving back to Louisville for three years on the church history faculty of Southern Seminary. In 1992, Mississippi College called him to become the head of its Christianity department. He left Mississippi after three years to become professor of church history and spiritual formation on the founding faculty of the McAfee School of Theology. He feels fortunate to teach at a school of theology that balances determination to achieve academic excellence with desire to support the ministries of the local church. Dr. Allen teaches in the areas of church history, Baptist heritage, and spirituality.
In 2000, Dr. Allen spent 10 months reading about Celtic Christianity while on sabbatical at South Wales Baptist College. Upon his return, he was named the Sylvan Hills Baptist Church Chair of Baptist Heritage. Baptist heritage, Christian spirituality, and interfaith work are his main areas of interest. He has published a history of Maryland/Delaware Baptists and another book, Crossroads in Christian Growth, about faith development in crises. Dr. Allen has published numerous journal articles on Baptist heritage, including “How Baptists Assessed Hitler” in Christian Century and “’Exquisite Powers’: Ann Baker Graves and Corinthia Read Williams, Obedient Revolutionaries,” in Baptist History and Heritage. Dr. Allen’s spirituality interests appear in articles such as “Intentional Protestant Monastic Communities” in One in Christ, “Thomas Merton and E. Glenn Hinson: The Aggiornamento of Spiritual Formation among Progressive Baptists,” in The Merton Seasonal, and “The Spirituality of Adoniram and Ann Judson” in Perspectives in Religious Studies. In interfaith work, upon being inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College, Dr. Allen delivered a lecture titled, “The Meeting of Saint and Sultan: The Symbolic Power for Peace in the Personal Encounter between Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan Al-Kamil of Egypt.” He is currently working on a brief history of Christian spirituality and a comparison of spiritual formation in various religious traditions.
Rev. Dr. William Loyd Allen is the Sylvan Hills Baptist Church Chair of Baptist Heritage and professor of church history and spiritual formation at McAfee. He received his B.S (1974) with a double-major in psychology and sociology from the University of Montevallo in Alabama. His training for Christian ministry took place at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, which awarded him M.Div. (1978) and Ph.D. (1984) degrees. During his years as a student, he worked as an aide on a psychiatric ward, did one unit of clinical pastoral education as a chaplain in the emergency room of an urban hospital, and another unit in the admitting ward of a state mental hospital. He also served as the ecumenical campus minister at a Roman Catholic college and held a seven-year pastorate at a rural church.
After graduation, Dr. Allen took a job as religion professor and campus minister at Brewton-Parker College in south Georgia for five years before moving back to Louisville for three years on the church history faculty of Southern Seminary. In 1992, Mississippi College called him to become the head of its Christianity department. He left Mississippi after three years to become professor of church history and spiritual formation on the founding faculty of the McAfee School of Theology. He feels fortunate to teach at a school of theology that balances determination to achieve academic excellence with desire to support the ministries of the local church. Dr. Allen teaches in the areas of church history, Baptist heritage, and spirituality.
In 2000, Dr. Allen spent 10 months reading about Celtic Christianity while on sabbatical at South Wales Baptist College. Upon his return, he was named the Sylvan Hills Baptist Church Chair of Baptist Heritage. Baptist heritage, Christian spirituality, and interfaith work are his main areas of interest. He has published a history of Maryland/Delaware Baptists and another book, Crossroads in Christian Growth, about faith development in crises. Dr. Allen has published numerous journal articles on Baptist heritage, including “How Baptists Assessed Hitler” in Christian Century and “’Exquisite Powers’: Ann Baker Graves and Corinthia Read Williams, Obedient Revolutionaries,” in Baptist History and Heritage. Dr. Allen’s spirituality interests appear in articles such as “Intentional Protestant Monastic Communities” in One in Christ, “Thomas Merton and E. Glenn Hinson: The Aggiornamento of Spiritual Formation among Progressive Baptists,” in The Merton Seasonal, and “The Spirituality of Adoniram and Ann Judson” in Perspectives in Religious Studies. In interfaith work, upon being inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College, Dr. Allen delivered a lecture titled, “The Meeting of Saint and Sultan: The Symbolic Power for Peace in the Personal Encounter between Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan Al-Kamil of Egypt.” He is currently working on a brief history of Christian spirituality and a comparison of spiritual formation in various religious traditions.
Rev. Grace Imathiu is Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church Evanston, IL. She has also served churches in Kenya as a church planter; a superintendent minister overseeing 68 rural churches in Nkubu; and an urban minister to an ecumenical congregation in Nairobi with strong outreach to the neighboring slums of Kawangware. Pastor Grace is intimately familiar with the Church in its many theological expressions and social locations.
Grace loves people and has a passion and gift for inspiring and nurturing communities of faith to live out loud the prophetic story of Jesus. For Grace, the quintessential expression of the resurrected Lord’s presence is a community whose very DNA is a radical hospitality which births a loving and a healthy tension that is ideological, theological, racial, ethnic and cultural.
For Rev. Imathiu “the world is her parish”. As an African who is married to a European and is raising an American son, Grace is committed to advocating for the inclusion of all people. She has preached in Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Togo, Liberia, Denmark, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, and all throughout the United States.
Rev. Grace Imathiu is Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church Evanston, IL. She has also served churches in Kenya as a church planter; a superintendent minister overseeing 68 rural churches in Nkubu; and an urban minister to an ecumenical congregation in Nairobi with strong outreach to the neighboring slums of Kawangware. Pastor Grace is intimately familiar with the Church in its many theological expressions and social locations.
Grace loves people and has a passion and gift for inspiring and nurturing communities of faith to live out loud the prophetic story of Jesus. For Grace, the quintessential expression of the resurrected Lord’s presence is a community whose very DNA is a radical hospitality which births a loving and a healthy tension that is ideological, theological, racial, ethnic and cultural.
For Rev. Imathiu “the world is her parish”. As an African who is married to a European and is raising an American son, Grace is committed to advocating for the inclusion of all people. She has preached in Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Togo, Liberia, Denmark, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, and all throughout the United States.