RESEARCH STAFF
Charles Marsh, Project Director
Charles Marsh is Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia and director of the Project on Lived Theology. His books include Evangleical Anxiety: A Memoir(Harper/One 2022), The Beloved Community (Basic Books, 2004), God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (Princeton, 1997), which won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion, and Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Knopf, 2014)), which was shortlisted for the 2015 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography and won the Christianity Today Book Award in Biography/History. His monograph on theology and biography, Resisting the Bonhoeffer Brand: A Life Revisited, was published in winter 2023 by Wipf & Stock. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife, Karen Wright Marsh.
Jessica Seibert, Project Manager
Jessica graduated from Colorado College with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. Before joining the project team, she worked extensively in grant management at the University of Colorado. She and her husband, a basketball coach, have two daughters and many animals. While cooking occupies much of her free time, she also enjoys gardening, reading and sports.
Lauren F. Winner, Editorial and Literary Advisor
Lauren, who has served as vicar at Saint Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Durham, N.C., since July 2021, provides editorial guidance for the Project on Lived Theology. When she’s not at “St Joe’s,” you can find her in the classroom at Duke Divinity School, where she is associate professor of Christian spirituality, or at her desk, where she might be reading or writing about overlooked biblical images of God or the history of Christian prayer. Lauren’s books include Girl Meets God (Algonquin Books, 2002), Mudhouse Sabbath (Paraclete Press, 2007), A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith (Yale, 2010), Still (HarperOne, 2013), Wearing God (HarperOne, 2016), and The Dangers of Christian Practice (Yale, 2018). She has written for the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, Books and Culture, and Christianity Today, and her essays have been included in several volumes of The Best Christian Writing.
RESEARCH FELLOWS
EMILY MILLER
Emily Miller is a third year undergraduate at the University of Virginia, majoring in religious studies and minoring in data science. In Summer 2022, Emily was the Project on Lived Theology’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, in which she worked with Guy Aiken to research and write about the histories of First Baptist Church on Main Street and First Baptist Church on Park Street in Charlottesville. Publishing bi-weekly articles on the PLT website, Emily’s research included conducting interviews throughout Charlottesville, visiting historical sites, and going through local archives. She also is a researcher for the Global Inquirer, a UVA student research podcast, and the UVA Sports Analytics and Statistics Lab. Her research interests include liberation theology, queer theology, and public history.
ISABELLA COSTANZA
Isabella Costanzo is in her third year at the University of Virginia studying psychology and cognitive science, with a concentration in neuroscience. In addition to her work as Undergraduate Research Fellow, Bella also works as a Teaching Kitchen Assistant for UVA’s Student Health and Wellness Center. In her spare time, Bella loves to enjoy a nice cup of coffee at Grit Coffee in Charlottesville, where she works as a lead barista.
ELIZABETH RAMBO
Elizabeth Rambo is a student at the University of Virginia majoring in Global Public Health and minoring in Religious Studies and Public Policy, and hopes to do something with public health outreach in the future. Rambo is an Undergraduate Research Fellow with The Project on Lived Theology.
ETHAN SHEARER
Ethan Shearer is a PhD student in UVA’s Department of Religious Studies, where his research interests include public and political theology, Wesleyan thought, and the work of Dorothee Soelle and P. T. Forsyth. He is interested in working on a dissertation about theologies of sanctification and human need. Prior to coming to UVA, Ethan earned MDiv and MTS degrees from Wesley Theological Seminary, and a BA in Sociology/Anthropology and Religious Studies from Elizabethtown College. He now serves as a United Methodist minister in Orange County, Va., after having pastored a church in rural Pennsylvania.
Peter Slade
Peter Slade teaches courses in the history of Christianity and Christian thought at Ashland University in Ohio. His research interests include religion and the long Civil Rights Movement, and ecclesial practices of reconciliation and resistance. Pete’s scholarship and teaching are grounded in his work and life in the church. His interest in the lived ecclesiologies of Christian communities led to his first book, Open Friendship in a Closed Society: Mission Mississippi and a Theology of Friendship (Oxford University Press, 2009), an interdisciplinary study of an ecumenical racial reconciliation initiative in Mississippi. Pete is co-editor of and contributor to two volumes connected with the Project on Lived Theology: Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins (University Press of Mississippi, 2013) and Lived Theology in Method, Style, and Pedagogy (Oxford University Press, 2016). He contributed a chapter to the Project’s Can I Get a Witness? (Eerdmans, 2019), and is a co-editor and contributor to the companion volume People Get Ready (Eerdmans, forthcoming). Pete’s current research focuses on the teaching of race, memory, justice, and reconciliation in church-related colleges and universities in the United States.
HEATHER WARREN
Heather Warren is an associate professor in the religious studies department at UVA, where she specializes in the history of American religious life and thought from the late-nineteenth century to the present. Her research has also carried her into the field of American religious autobiography. Heather contributed a paper to the Lived Theology and Community Building Workgroup (meeting #3). She also gave a guest lecture, “Civil Rights and the Habit of Autobiographical Theological Reflection,” as part of the “Thursday Nights: Conversations in Lived Theology” series. Heather has served as a Summer Internship in Lived Theology mentor. As a PLT research fellow, she is studying U.S. southern ministers and the Protestant Hour radio show.
STAFF ALUMNI
