Many Princeton Seminary alumni/ae remember conversations with faculty, staff, and other students as the heart of their PTS education. These conversations in the classroom, over lunch in the Mackay Campus Center, in Speer Library, or on the steps of Miller Chapel are the essence of the learning process: the free, respectful, and rigorous exchange of ideas and experiences. This past summer the Seminary said goodbye to four retiring members of the community who were key players in many such conversations: director of field education Harry Freebairn, and professors Luis Rivera-Pagán, Scott Hendrix, and Max Stackhouse. The four were honored at a retirement dinner in May in the Mackay Campus Center, where each was “toasted,” and sometimes lightly “roasted,” by colleagues.

Professor Mark Taylor said of Rivera-Pagán, the Seminary’s Henry Winters Luce Professor of Ecumenics, that he “put Latin America and the Caribbean on the Seminary’s agenda.” Rivera-Pagán, a native of Puerto Rico, where he was professor at the University of Puerto Rico and at the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, first came to Princeton Seminary for a one-year appointment as the Mackay Professor of World Christianity in 1999, then returned in 2002 as the Luce Professor. In the classroom, Rivera-Pagán was known for his “mischievous smile and quirky sense of humor” in courses on Latin American theology, Third-World liberation theologies, theological readings of world literature, and problems and issues in the sixteenth-century Christianization of the Americas.

Rivera-Pagán’s contributions to the conversation at Princeton Seminary extended beyond the classroom and into the dining hall, dorms, and onto the grounds of the campus. Taylor recounted the story, told in the summer/fall 2003 issue of inSpire, in which Rivera-Pagán described his interview for the Luce chair. Rivera-Pagán said that during his interview a member of the search committee told him that PTS didn’t have many Latino or Hispanic members. Rivera-Pagán replied, “Oh yes, you have lots of Latinos and Hispanics here…. They are the people who cut the grass, who wash the dishes, mop the floors. They are our new douloi. They are not here tonight, but they are part of this community, and I am telling you, they want to converse with you. They want you to hear about their dreams, why they are here, what their hopes are. Have you talked to many of them?” And so from the beginning, Rivera-Pagán drew the attention of the community to the educational value and the theological necessity of a diversity of conversation partners.

Rivera-Pagán’s commitments are embodied in his books, and students for generations to come will continue the conversation with him through texts such as Shadow of Armageddon, A Violent Evangelism: The Political and Religious Conquest of the Americas, and Essays from the Diaspora. He has moved back to Puerto Rico, but travels frequently to Princeton to mentor his doctoral students.

Scott Hendrix, the Seminary’s James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation History and Doctrine since 1998, fostered another kind of dialogue on campus. His colleague James Moorhead noted Hendrix’s key role in the History Department over the years “as a leading and healing presence in our midst,” and honored Hendrix for his “constantly affirming and perceptive presence.” Moorhead recounted a time when a colleague reported to Hendrix the details of a particularly contentious academic conference. After listening calmly to the recitation of arguments from both sides, Hendrix reportedly replied, “And how was the food?”

Moorhead added, “When one considers Scott’s achievements, his restraint is even more remarkable.” Hendrix, who earned his Dr.theol. degree at Tübingen University, is internationally respected as a Reformation scholar and expert on Luther, and author of Luther and the Papacy: Stages in a Reformation Conflict, Fortress Introduction to the Lutheran Confessions, with Günther Gassmann, and Recultivating the Vineyard: The Reformation Agendas of Christianization. His students valued not only his scholarship but the ways he encouraged them to read, and to think, for themselves, in courses on marriage and family in the Reformation, the Radical Reformation, and the theology of Luther. “He doesn’t want disciples, but colleagues,” said Moorhead.

Hendrix began his remarks by joking, “After such an introduction, I have no choice but to be restrained,” and then sincerely thanked the Seminary community for their “hospitality; I came here as a stranger, and you welcomed me,” he said. Hendrix and his wife are now living in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Professor Wentzel van Huyssteen honored the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Max Stackhouse for similar qualities. “As a colleague, Max was kind and warm-hearted, and interested in the work of others,” said van Huyssteen, describing how Stackhouse often inquired what a fellow professor was writing, and then wrote many detailed pages in response. “I often thought, how will I write back?” quipped van Huyssteen, “but I always appreciated it.”

Stackhouse was dedicated to such scholarly dialogue, and also to the engagement of academic dialogue with public life. He came to PTS as the Stephen Colwell Professor of Christian Ethics in 1993 after twenty-seven years as a professor at Andover Newton Theological School, and took the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Chair in Reformed Theology and Public Life at PTS in 2004. He taught courses on the place of faith in educational life, the theological implications of the arts, religion and journalism, and theology in relation to the environment.

Stackhouse was instrumental in founding the Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology in 2003, and served on its board of directors. According to Curator of Special Collections Clifford Anderson, “Stackhouse recognized the contemporary relevance of Kuyper’s concept of sphere sovereignty, especially in application to the role of civil society vis a vis the family and the state.” Stackhouse is author of Public Theology and Political Economy, which was reprinted in Korean and in Japanese, On Moral Business: Classical and Contemporary Resources on Ethics and Economic Life, and the three-volume God and Globalization. He and his wife have retired to their summer home in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.

It was left to Chester Polk, associate director of field education, to honor his colleague and friend Harry Freebairn (B.D., 1961; D.Min., 1984). The two worked together for ten of Freebairn’s fifteen years at the Seminary. After a retrospective slide show of photographs of Freebairn from birth to the present, Polk described Freebairn’s passion for the church, as evidenced by his twenty-seven years in the pastorate, and his devotion to nurturing PTS students through their field education experience.

In his remarks, Freebairn noted that part of his legacy was that PTS students see pastoral ministry as viable. The generations of students he mentored, and who are now serving in pastoral ministry, can attest to the efficacy of that legacy. Freebairn added. “I’ve always been one to press the boundaries and see what’s on the other side. As Christians we are not called to be comfortable.” In his remarks, he challenged those gathered to make the Seminary a true community, and to create more opportunities for collaboration between faculty and staff in educating students for the practice of ministry. He and his wife have moved to Easton, Pennsylvania, where Freebairn formerly pastored a church.

Although she preferred to work in the background even at the retirement dinner, pinning corsages to lapels and welcoming guests, the evening could not conclude without recognizing Vice President for Administration and Secretary of the Seminary Donna Kline, who retired after twenty-six years of service. President Torrance noted that “No person on the administration or faculty has not benefited from her wisdom, knowledge, and kindness.” Those gathered seconded his sentiment with a standing ovation.

It’s hard to find the right words to say goodbye to beloved colleagues, but William Heard (M.Div., 2004; Th.M., 2005) had no trouble finding the right notes in his a cappella offering of three spirituals. He conveyed the emotions of the evening in song, and invited the community to sing together in his rendition of “Certainly, Lord.”

Torrance spoke for all when he noted that these events are “a mixture of celebration and a kind of bereavement.” Another academic year is now underway, and the voices of Rivera-Pagán, Stackhouse, Hendrix, and Freebairn are still in conversation with PTS students as those students write papers and reflect on their vocations. The contributions of these four men to the dialogue between the church and the academy that is at the heart of Princeton Seminary will bear fruit for generations to come. 

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