Assisting Clergy
I was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey where I also came of age in the turbulent 1960s. Born into a Roman Catholic and Jewish family, I became an Episcopalian in my early twenties and was first a parishioner at House of Prayer in Newark, New Jersey. Prior to ordained ministry I worked for the American Friends Service Committee (A Quaker Social Service and Social Justice Organization); The World Council of Churches Refugee Resettlement Project; and as a healthcare administrator for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now the Rutgers University Medical School).
I am Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Religious Studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. I hold a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Religion and Society from the Drew University Graduate School of Theology, and a B.A in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Montclair State University. My areas of specialization and expertise are the relationship of Religion to Consciousness, Sexuality, Gender & Race. In the past I taught at the Drew University Graduate School of Theology and the Drew University Theological Seminary. My other areas of expertise are Christian mysticism (AngloCatholic, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox); Islamic mysticism (Sufism) and Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah); African Diasporic Religions; the Indigenous Sacred traditions of the Americas, Tibetan Buddhism and Taoism. I am an avid student of constructive and process theology and a scholar of the works of Thomas Merton, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Dom Bede Griffiths & Henri Le Saux (all Catholic monks or priests who explored and attempted to integrate Christianity with Asian Religions in their own monastic or priestly lives).
In addition to my teaching at Seton Hall and my ministry at St. Luke’s, I serve on the faculty of Interweave. I currently co-teach, with the Rev. Robert Corrin Morris, a ten-month course, the subject of which changes on an annual basis but is always devoted to some aspect of Esoteric Christianity, Mysticism, Contemplative Life and Practice, Interspirituality or Religious Pluralism in the Twenty-First Century and forward. Through Interweave, I have also taught theology to the Vocational Deaconate students for the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. I am a spiritual director and presently, I serve on the Namaste Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark.