Mennonite Weekly Review

James Pitts grew up Episcopalian, attended charismatic nondenominational churches and then encountered another stream of Christian thought at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

He found Anabaptist theology had a prominent place at one of the nation’s largest seminaries.

“I was introduced to it from Day 1,” said Pitts, a 2006 graduate who is now a doctoral divinity student. “In terms of theological orientation, there is a strong tendency toward an Anabaptist perspective, whether all the faculty would identify as Anabaptist or not.”

The Anabaptist presence among Fuller faculty joins Anglican sensibilities and Reformed roots, producing ecumenical conversations on ethics, discipleship, pacifism and liturgy, Pitts said. Through such discussions, and reading Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, Pitts embraced Anabaptism.

Pitts was not the only one. Several Mennonite Church USA pastors became Anabaptist at Fuller and held internships at Pasadena Mennonite Church, including Shane Hipps of Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz.

“Fuller anabaptized me,” Hipps said, through faculty members who espouse Anabaptist theology.

In addition to those faculty who identify with Anabaptist beliefs, a growing number of professors and students at Fuller come from Anabaptist denominations. Anabaptist connections there also involve events such as the annual meeting of the Association of Anabaptist Missiologists, hosted at Fuller Oct. 17-18.

Wilbert Shenk, professor emeritus of mission history and contemporary culture, said that since 2000 there have been five Mennonite faculty members at Fuller — a multidenominational school with roots in the Reformed tradition and a large number of Presbyterians among its more than 4,000 students. There are also four other faculty from other Anabaptist groups, or who identify themselves as Anabaptists.

Out of that group has come the idea of establishing a Yoder-McClendon Chair in Anabaptist Studies. The name would pay tribute to Yoder and James William McClendon Jr., theologians who perhaps did more than any others to make Anabaptism appeal to their colleagues.

Shenk had envisioned naming a chair after Yoder. Nancey Murphy, Fuller professor of Christian philosophy, proposed a chair named after McClendon, her late husband. Richard Mouw, Fuller president, like the idea of combining the two, Shenk said.