Education history
- Ph.D., Systematic and Philosophical Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, 2003
- M.Div., Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, 1994
- B.A., English, University of California at Berkeley, 1988
About
Raised primarily in 51, Dr. Roberts returned in 1994 to begin teaching in 51 Pacific’s Biblical and Religious Studies division. Since 2004, that teaching has focused on courses that put theology ‘to work,’ including Theological Ethics and the Environment and Theology and the Arts. In fall 2024 she was appointed Director of General Education for the university. Research interests include Anabaptist-Mennonite theology, ecotheology and environmental ethics, theological anthropology, and applications of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical hermeneutics.
Selected works
- “‘The World is Full of Persons, Only Some of Whom are Human’: Recasting Personhood and Relationality for Mennonite Ecotheology and Environmental Ethics,” Agency and Solidarity Beyond the Human Session, Theology and Religious Reflection Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, November 20, 2022.
- CONCERN for the Church in the World: Essays on Christian Responsibility, 1958-1963, Series and Volume Editor, Wipf & Stock, 2022.
- CONCERN for Church Mission and Spiritual Gifts: Essays on Faith and Culture, 1958-1968, Series and Volume Editor, Wipf & Stock, 2022.
- “Pandemic Liturgy: Implications for Mennonite Communal Identity and Ecclesiology,” Pandemic Learnings Session, Practical Theology Unit and the Association for Practical Theology, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Antonio, November 21, 2021.
- Recovering from the Anabaptist Vision: New Essays in Anabaptist Identity and Theological Method, ed. Laura Schmidt Roberts, et al., T&T Clark Studies in Anabaptist Theology and Ethics, 2020.
- “Refiguration, Configuration: Tradition, Text, and Narrative Identity,” in Recovering from the Anabaptist Vision: New Essays in Anabaptist Identity and Theological Method, ed. Laura Schmidt Roberts, et al., T&T Clark, 2020.
- “Practical Formation: Teaching Critical Thinking via Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Model,” in The Just University: Paul Ricoeur and the Hope of Higher Education, eds. Jeff Keuss and Daniel Boscaljon, Lexington Books, 2020.
- “‘In the beginning is relation’: Re-forming Understanding of Human Creatureliness,” Direction 49, no. 1, Spring 2020.
- “The Theological Place of Land: Watershed Discipleship as Re-placed Cultural Vision,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 94, no. 1, January 2020.