President Felix Theonugraha: On Presidents, Pastors, and the Purpose of Seminaries

In the third episode of the season, Dr. Michelle Knight and Dr. Fellipe do Vale sit down with President Felix Theonugraha of Western Theological Seminary and alumnus of the MDiv and PhD in Educational Studies at TEDS. Felix previously served as Dean of Students and VP of Student Life and University Ministries at TEDS.

Michelle and Fellipe engage Felix about his experiences as the President of a seminary—both the joys and the challenges. The inevitable complexities of leading during the pandemic are discussed, and Felix offers wise and compassionate insight. He also describes the journey into his current role, a path that involved both great hope and the recognition of the pressures of the task. From there, the conversation transitions from past to future as Felix lays out his hopes for the role of a seminary within the United States and throughout the world. Chief among them is the hope that the people who make up a seminary genuinely know God and see their education as an act of worship and spiritual formation. He also hopes that seminaries take seriously the global and racial diversity they ought to nurture. Questions of the relationship between strategies that have been good and worked in the past and those that need to change for the future are also broached.

Along the way, listeners will discover…

• Which member of the Foreword crew is in a picture Felix has hanging in his house
• Which TEDS professors have been most formative for Felix in thinking about institutional leadership
• Of which club Michelle was the treasurer

To learn more about President Felix Theonugraha, visit his website bio, the President’s page at WTS (where you can find statements and interviews), or watch his talk from Mosaic at TEDS.