Announcing the The 2006 Goodwin Prize for Excellence in Theological Writing

It is with great celebration that Theological Horizons congratulates Kendall Cox for her essay, “The Trinitarian Dialectic of Creative Fullness and God’s Shared Mission of Suffering Love,” winner of the 2006 Richard and Louise Goodwin Graduate Prize for Excellence in Theological Writing

Kendall graduated from Wake Forest University in 2001, where she studied Religion and earned the prestigious John Allen Easley award for excellence in scholarship.  Courses in Christian history and gender studies taught by a Christian professor revealed to Kendall that rather than rob her of the faith of her Christian upbringing, theology gave a thickness to faith, as “Jesus was no longer just a solution to sin” but rather one transformative, incarnational aspect of the trinity, informing both a spiritual conversion and a social challenge to Christians.  Thus, these theological questions drew Kendall to seek out more descriptive and deeper means of understanding, speaking about and living within the mission of the church.  Essentially, explains Kendall, “I was converted to following Jesus.”

Her graduate work in the MDiv program at Regent College in Vancouver presented a unique time for the integration of the life of the church and scholarship, and gave Kendall greater imagination of the church’s mission in the world.  Encountering the work of Jurgen Moltmann at Regent laid the groundwork for her prize-winning paper and presented Kendall, as she considered the academic vocation and the vocation of ordained ministry, with directives for her own work and life.

As a recent divinity school graduate, Kendall and her husband, Stephan Hitchcock, now live in her native Charlottesville, where Kendall teaches studio art at Covenant School and is applying for PhD programs in Theology.  Kendall describes winning the national Goodwin Writing Prize competition as “a huge gift – so exciting, so encouraging.  Knowing that what you are writing about and working through matters tremendously.” 

Theological Horizons is grateful to support the work of young scholars like Kendall Cox, who, because of her great love for Christ and the church, continue to seek ways to challenge the church to proclaim God’s love for the world from the place of the cross.  We pray that Kendall Cox will continue to endeavor in the pursuit of what the Trinity and the incarnation mean for human flourishing.  We pray as a result of her work, and the work of all of our students, the mission and mercy of Christ will move forth from the church with greater courage and fullness.  We congratulate Kendall and we wish her the best! 

 Words from the Kendall Cox, 2006 Goodwin Prize Winner

I wrote this paper in an attempt to understand the mission of the church. My conclusion is that we have been made bearers of God’s mission to bring humanity into communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit and that it is the call of the church to continue incarnating (literally “putting flesh on”) God’s love and presence in the world. Throughout the Biblical narrative we discern God’s persistent and generous mission to establish and renew relationship with us – beginning at Creation, culminating in the Incarnation, and continuing through the indwelling of the Spirit. These acts attest to the fact that God has drawn near to us. In fact, God has drawn so near as to endure all kinds of things normally dissociated from divine nature: time, space, bodily life, and suffering. Truly God has laid down God’s life. God has not abandoned the world as it is. It is this example that the church has been given for Christian life and mission. If God has affirmed our humanity and the particulars of earthly living, if God has loved us even to the point of suffering with us, then the mission of the church must also be incarnational: Christian mission means announcing the good news – God and the kingdom come near – precisely by embodying it. What God has done, in dwelling among us, encourages and empowers us to do likewise: to engage the world, to identify with the weak, and to embrace the mundane, specific, and concrete aspects of our lives. It is in our real relationships with one another, in the world, that God’s mission continues.

--Kendall Cox, winner of the 2006 Goodwin Prize for Excellence in Theological Writing