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Matthew Ichihashi Potts will serve as the next Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals beginning July 1, University President Lawrence S. Bacow announced in an email to Harvard affiliates last Friday. Potts, who received both his Master of Divinity and Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from Harvard, currently serves as an associate professor at the Harvard Divinity School and an affiliated minister at Memorial Church. Bacow highlighted Potts’ scholarship and sustained investment in spiritual teaching in his email announcing Potts’ appointment. “Matt is a gifted preacher who brings to the pulpit a deep appreciation and understanding of texts rooted in his own acclaimed academic work at the intersection of religion and literature,” he wrote. “His incisive research and scholarly achievements are complemented by an extraordinary devotion to teaching.” ....
Photograph of Michael Potts by Evgenia Eliseeva; Photograph of Memorial Church courtesy of Wikimedia/ Crimson400. Potts, an Episcopal priest (he was an officer in the U.S. Navy and a college administrator before being ordained) who earned his undergraduate degree in English from Notre Dame, is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School (M.Div. ’08) and earned a Ph.D. in the study of religion in 2013. He has been a member of the faculty since then. As a scholar, he has used literature and literary theory to analyze Christian ethical and sacramental practices. He is writing a book about forgiveness. According to the University announcement, Potts opted for conscientious-objector status after his naval service, and delivered a well-known Veterans Day sermon in 2019 that put the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border into the context of his own experience as the son of a Japanese woman who was raised during the American occupation of that country. His wife, Colette, ....
To greet with praise the listening skies. From an ode by Mabel S. Merrill, an 1891 Bates College graduate, sung during the dedication of the chapel in 1914. LEWISTON On a chilly November afternoon in 1912, Bates President George Colby Chase dedicated the cornerstone of what would become the college’s chapel. A small section of the large window facing the congregation. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal He told the audience of students, professors and residents that “eminent and skillful architects” had designed an English Collegiate Gothic-style chapel that would be “commodious, beautiful in outline, harmonious in details and enduring as our New England hills.” ....