News

Guest Preachers Spring 2025

The Chapel has a long and living tradition of faithful preaching that includes guest preachers from diverse denominations, cultures, and preaching styles. See the schedule of guest preachers for Spring 2025.

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January 5 — The Very Rev. Timothy Kimbrough

The Very Rev. Timothy Kimbrough is the director of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies and the Jack and Barbara Bovender Professor of the Practice of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School. He was previously dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, in the Diocese of Tennessee (The Episcopal Church). Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he grew up living in North Carolina, New Jersey, and West Germany. He holds bachelor of arts and master of divinity degrees from Duke University. He is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and has served congregations in North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, Tennessee, South Africa, and the Philippines. At Duke, Rev. Kimbrough teaches courses in Anglican studies with a special emphasis on the Book of Common Prayer and Canon Law. His musical compositions are included in a number of hymnals, music series, and other volumes.

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January 19 — Rev. Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams

The Rev. Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams is the Dodge Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Virginia Theological Seminary. In addition to her teaching position, she serves as senior assistant to the pastor for preaching and teaching at the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. In this role, she teaches night Bible study, Senior Bible Study, Christian Life Institute, Ministers in Training, and serves as a retreat facilitator. A member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Postcolonial Biblical Studies Committee, Rev. Dr. Fentress-Williams is an active participant in the Bakhtin and Biblical Studies Group and serves on the advisory board for the Office of Religious Life at Princeton University. In addition to her active bi-vocational ministry, she is also a prolific scholar. She recently published a commentary on the book of Ruth for the Abingdon Old Testament Commentary Series. During her academic career, she has received many awards and honors, including the Distinction in Theological Education award from Yale Divinity School and the Wabash Fellow for Teaching and Learning.

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February 16 — Rev. Dr. Preston Davis

The Rev. Dr. Preston Davis is vice president and minister to the university at High Point University. At the university, he shapes the vision and culture for Christian spiritual formation and interfaith dialogue and service. Rev. Davis, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church in the Western North Carolina Conference, has pastored Christian communities in Decatur, Georgia; New York City; and western North Carolina. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Davidson College, a master of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and a doctor of ministry degree from Duke Divinity School. His writing has been published in Charlotte magazine, The Charlotte Observer, Religion Dispatches, Union in Dialogue, The Term, and Infinite Space.

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March 2 — Rev. Dr. Jessica Wai-Fong Wong

The Rev. Dr. Jessica Wai-Fong Wong is an associate professor of systematic theology at Azusa Pacific University and works in political and liberation theologies with a focus on race, gender, society, and visual theory. She is an ordained ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and holds degrees in Christian theology and ethics from Duke Divinity School and Duke University. She is the author of Disordered: The Holy Icon and Racial Myths and co-author of the curriculum Lamenting Racism: A Christian Response to Racial Injustice. Her current research project, Black Monsters, Yellow Ghosts, considers the racial and sociopolitical dynamics of Asian American invisibility and Black hypervisibility and the Christian understanding of sight as a locus of justice and faithfulness.

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March 9 — Dr. Sarah Jean Barton

Dr. Sarah Jean Barton is an assistant professor of occupational therapy and theological ethics at Duke University. She is a theologian and occupational therapist who holds a dual faculty appointment in the Divinity School and the School of Medicine at Duke, where she serves as program director of the Occupational Therapy Doctorate program. Her scholarly, church, and community work focuses on the intersections of disability with theology, ethics, and participation. She is the author of Becoming the Baptized Body: Disability and the Practice of Christian Community. Dr. Barton serves as a lay leader and preacher at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Durham, North Carolina.

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March 16 — Rev. Dr. Donna Coletrane Battle

A consulting faculty member at Duke Divinity School, Rev. Dr. Donna Coletrane Battle is a spiritual practitioner, soul coach, and educator focused on justice as it relates specifically to the intersection of race, gender, and spirituality. Rev. Dr. Battle is a mother, wife, sister, and friend who also nurtures and coaches leaders, pastors those without a pastor, partners to cultivate healing in relationships, and commits every day to a life of being present, (though not always successful!). She holds a bachelor of arts in public relations from North Carolina A&T State University, a master of divinity from Duke University, and a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy from Eastern University. She loves being restored by spending time with her family (both blood and spirit), reading, chillin' outdoors, and engaging stories through all the many mediums in which they come.

March 30 — Rev. William H. Lamar IV

The Rev. William H. Lamar IV is pastor of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., where he has served since 2014. Under his leadership, the congregation has grown, and its ministries have achieved a significant impact in the local communities it serves. His efforts to embody justice in community have been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, US News and World Report, and the Afro-American and on WNYC’s The Takeaway, NPR’s 1A, NPR’s All Things Considered, MSNBC’s The Reid Out, and PBS’s News Hour. Most recently, Rev. Lamar helped to design Metropolitan’s Sankofa Christian Parenting project, an initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment, to promote parenting practices that are rooted in Black faith and cultural traditions. A native of Macon, Georgia, Rev. Lamar earned a bachelor of science in public management from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1996. In 1999, he earned a master of divinity degree from Duke Divinity School. He is currently a doctoral candidate at in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric at Christian Theological Seminary, one of the oldest seminaries in the country.

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April 6 — Rev. Dr. Richard Lischer

The Rev. Dr. Richard Lischer is a professor emeritus at Duke Divinity School, where he has spent his entire teaching career. Before coming to Duke, he served as pastor of Lutheran churches in Illinois and Virginia. He is the author or editor of fifteen books and has contributed chapters in many others. His reviews and essays appear regularly in The Christian Century. Although an academic and a preacher, his work in memoir has received public attention—including Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery and Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son. In 2020, Oxford University Press released the new, updated edition of his prize-winning book, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America. A collection of sermons and meditative essays, Just Tell the Truth: A Call to Faith, Hope, and Courage, was published by Wm. B. Eerdmans in February 2021. His most recent book, Our Hearts Are Restless: The Art of Spiritual Memoir, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.