Beth Stroud is ‘overwhelmed’ and happy to be here
In one momentous year, she has her credentials reinstated and joins MTSO’s faculty.
Whoever said life comes at you fast would get no argument from Beth Stroud. She still shakes her head when she thinks about the stretch from March through May of 2024 that left her “completely overwhelmed.”
In early March, Stroud traveled from her East Coast home to MTSO to interview for a faculty position, a process that included meetings and delivering a campus lecture.
On May 1, delegates to the United Methodist Church General Conference voted to repeal the denomination’s ban on LGBTQ clergy. A week later, MTSO President Jay Rundell announced Stroud’s election to the MTSO faculty as assistant professor of history.
Two weeks after that, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the UMC voted to reinstate Stroud’s credentials as an ordained elder – a vote that came two decades after Stroud was defrocked in the wake of her acknowledgement of a committed relationship with another woman.
“Nobody has that kind of bandwidth,” Stroud said. But she got through it and caught her breath in time to make the move to an MTSO campus apartment and launch into the Fall Semester as an elected faculty member, a position she had dreamed of “since I first went back to graduate school.”
Stroud holds a Ph.D. and an MA in Religion from Princeton University, a Master of Sacred Theology from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary and a bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College.
As she researched MTSO in preparation for her interview, she was reminded of the rewarding time she spent at Union, both as a grad student and later as an adjunct professor. “I looked at MTSO’s website and I thought, ‘This place sounds like Union but in the Midwest. And it’s United Methodist, and it has a farm. This looks like a really spectacular place.’”
When she experienced the campus community in person, she said, “I just can’t even describe how good it felt.” She particularly remembers the hospitality and a midweek chapel service that featured “rolling, robust laughter.”
Now that she’s on the job, Stroud believes the joys and difficulties she has encountered in ministry make her a better resource in meetings with students she advises.
“I think something I can offer students is a very, very deep understanding of how complicated and unpredictable a call to ministry can be,” she said. “My advisees this fall have talked to me about where they are in the ordination process or their feelings about interviews that are coming up. Or maybe they’re already pastoring and juggling work and seminary. Their experiences just resonate really deeply with me.”
“Dr. Stroud has navigated the polity of the United Methodist Church in its most challenging forms,” said MTSO President Jay Rundell. “She has been faithful and gracious to a church that didn’t always return that grace. Her journey makes her a particularly valuable resource to our students.”
Stroud continues to research liberal Protestantism and eugenics in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the subject of her doctoral dissertation. She has a book in progress on the subject.
As she has done with her own research, Stroud is comfortable taking a warts-and-all approach to teaching history. But she works to ensure that studying a checkered past doesn’t let modern-day Christians off the hook: “What I’m trying to do is extend the critique to the present. Look at what they were doing, and they didn’t even realize it. And so what are we doing now that we don’t see but that people 50 and 100 years from now will critique?”
Just as her initial visit indicated, Stroud finds similarities between Union Theological Seminary and MTSO, including in the vocal, animated way students interact in the classroom.
“Students have very strong and sophisticated ideas about not just what’s right and wrong, but what are appropriate and inappropriate kinds of speech in the classroom?” she said. “And it’s good. I am being challenged to think about how I’m enacting justice in the classroom.”
Outside the classroom, Stroud enjoys the benefits of life as a campus resident: “I like the neighbors. I enjoy especially getting to know the international students and their children.”
“And you can’t beat the commute.”
Methodist Theological School in Ohio provides theological education and leadership in pursuit of a just, sustainable and generative world. In addition to the Master of Divinity degree, the school offers master’s degrees in public theology, social justice and theological studies, along with a Doctor of Ministry degree.
CONTACT:
Danny Russell, communications director
drussell@mtso.edu, 740-362-3322