Princeton Theological Seminary Professor Sang Hyun Lee Honored in Inaugural Lecture

Princeton, NJ, February 23, 2009–The inaugural Sang Hyun Lee Lecture on Asian American Theology and Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary will be held on Thursday, March 5, 2009, at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Lounge of the Mackay Campus Center on the Seminary campus. The lecture will be given by the Reverend Dr. Roy I. Sano, professor emeritus of theology and Pacific and Asian American ministries at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. It is titled “Building the Momentum: Dr. Sang Hyun Lee’s Contributions and Their Prospects.”           

The Sang Hyun Lee Lecture on Asian American Theology and Ministry is a biennial lectureship created to honor Dr. Sang Hyun Lee, Kyung-Chik Han Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Asian American Program at Princeton Seminary. The purpose of the lecture is to create and preserve space for the Asian American voices of the present, to empower the Asian American ministers and theological scholars of the future, and to remember and to pass on the legacy of Dr. Sang Hyun Lee, the first Asian American faculty member at Princeton Theological Seminary and leading pioneer in Asian American theology.

A native of Korea, Lee earned his B.A. in history and philosophy from the College of Wooster, his S.T.B. from Harvard Divinity School, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where his advisor was Richard H. Niebuhr. An ordained Presbyterian minister, Lee served in pastoral positions at churches in Massachusetts and Illinois in the 1960s and 1970s. He was an associate professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, for ten years before joining the Princeton Seminary faculty in 1980 as assistant professor of theology. Lee became the Seminary’s Kyung-Chik Han Professor of Systematic Theology in 1987.

In 1984 Lee became the first director of the Seminary’s Program for Asian American Theology and Ministry, a program that helps Asian American students attain a greater understanding of the contexts of their future ministries, provides the clergy and laity of English-speaking Asian American churches with leadership training, and promotes mutual understanding and solidarity among people of all ethnic backgrounds.

Lee’s scholarship focuses on the theology of Jonathan Edwards, Asian American theology, systematic theology, and God and the problem of evil. He has served as president of the Association of Korean Christian Scholars in North America, and has chaired the Asian American Theology Group of the American Academy of Religion. Lee is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton University Press, 1988); The Works of Jonathan Edwards, volume 23, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith (Yale University Press, 2003); and The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards (Princeton University Press, 2005).

Sano holds a B.A. in American history from the University of California at Los Angeles, an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York, an M.Th. in systematic theology from Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, a Ph.D. in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University, and a D.D. from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1984 Sano was the first Japanese American to be elected bishop in the United Methodist Church. He was president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops from 1991 to 1992 and executive secretary from 2004 to 2008. Sano was a professor of theology and Pacific and Asian American ministries at Pacific School of Religion.

Sano is the author of a number of articles and essays on Asian American theology, including “From Context to Context: Cognitive Dissonance,” in Realizing the America of Our Hearts: Theological Voices of Asian Americans, edited by Fumitaka Matsuoka and Eleazar S. Fernandez (Chalice Press, 2003), and “Shifts in Reading the Bible: Hermeneutical Moves among Asian Americans,” in the journal Semeia (2002).           

Please call the Communications/Publications Office at 609.497.7760 for more information or visit www.ptsem.edu.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812, the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the largest Presbyterian Seminary in the country, with more than 600 students in six graduate degree programs.