Inaugural Christian ethics lecture to feature theologian, missionary Stephen Judd

The inaugural Charles Teel, Jr. Memorial Lecture in Christian Ethics will be held Saturday, Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. at the La Sierra University Church. The series honors the life and work of insightful ethicist, enthusiastic activist, and passionate teacher Charles Teel, late Professor of Religion and Society at La Sierra.

Judd, a native of Montana, holds a Master of Arts in Latin American Literature, a Master of Divinity in theology from Maryknoll School of Theology, and a Doctor of Philosophy in the sociology of religion from Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. In addition to his service in the U.S. Air Force, Judd also served as a missionary seminarian between 1975 and 2002 in Peru, and in Bolivia between 2002 and 2015. 

During his years in Peru, he served several years as director of the Campus Ministry Office of the National University of the Altiplano in Puno, and while in Bolivia served as director of the Instituto de Idiomas Maryknoll and Maryknoll Mission Center Cochabamba. His leadership roles have included functioning as president of the Christopher Leadership Institute in Lima Peru. He is presently House Superior and mission educator of the Maryknoll Senior Missioner Community Residence in Los Altos.

He is the author of several scholarly articles in academic, missionary and church and missionary pastoral journals in the U.S., Peru and Bolivia. In 2015 he also published a memoir of his missionary experiences in Peru.

Judd and Teel met in 1986 in Juliaca, Peru while seated next to each other on a flight to Lima. Following that introduction, the two interacted as colleagues and friends many times over the years during Teel’s trips to Peru and on occasions in the United States. During his lecture, Judd will share memories of special times with his scholar and friend, Charles Teel, he said.

Teel passed away Sept. 1, 2017 at age 78 after more than 50 years of service at La Sierra where he was appointed a faculty member in 1967. Though he lived and worked elsewhere at various times during his career, La Sierra was his professional home. He earned an MA in theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, completed a Ph.D. in the sociology of religion at Boston University and a Master of Theology degree in Christian Ethics at Harvard Divinity School where he studied under noted theologian Harvey Cox.

Teel inspired undergraduates with courses in Christian ethics and in Ellen White’s relationship with Adventism, and explored Christian social ethics and Christian engagement with culture with graduate students. He also served as chair of the H.M.S. Richards Divinity School’s Department of Christian Ethics in the 1980s.

After Teel learned that Adventist missioners Ana and Fernando Stahl had played a dramatic role in the economic, political, and social empowerment of previously marginalized residents of Peru’s highlands, he pursued intense historical research of the couple and their work leading to the creation of the Stahl Center for World Service at La Sierra. The center aims to celebrate the Stahls’ work and encourage Seventh-day Adventist young people to re-vision the impact of missionary activity. 

Under the Stahl Center’s umbrella, Teel led repeated tours to South America, while also creating a museum housing artifacts related to Adventist mission and organized campus programming related to the future of mission. 

His creative ways of sparking engagement in world service and social causes included the Global Quilting project which encouraged the crafting of quilts for children with HIV/AIDS, and the development of the Path of the Just along La Sierra’s pedestrian mall. The pathway features gardens in the shapes of continents with boulders and plaques honoring advocates of human rights and religious tolerance including South African cleric and change agent Desmond Tutu, author Pearl S. Buck, and Third Reich resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Teel built his early work on Martin Luther King's protesting pastors to make clear to other academics, church members and church administrators that religious communities could be actively and positively engaged with their cultural surroundings without losing their identities.

A reception for the inaugural Charles Teel, Jr. Memorial Lecture in Christian Ethics will be held at 4:30 p.m. at Sierra Vista Chapel across from the church. Admission is free. The La Sierra University Church is located at 4937 Sierra Vista Ave., Riverside.