Written by: United Theological Seminary September 27, 2018

Don’t Leave Your Trumpet at the Door: A Guide to Theological Education at United Seminary

Don’t Leave Your Trumpet at the Door: A Guide to Theological Education at United Seminary

by Dr. Cindi Beth Johnson

When I talk to potential students I have the opportunity to share how the arts will have an impact on their educational experience. Students in the arts concentration have a direct conduit when it comes to the arts as they reflect, learn and integrate. But at United the arts will infuse your experience no matter what degree or concentration you choose. Here are some of the questions (and answers) that happen in a typical conversation.

What do you mean by the arts? At United we strive to engage all of the arts. Poetry, theatre, visual arts, fabric arts, music, dance, photography, film and more, all conduits for the holy and invite theological reflection.

Do I have to be an artist? Some people make their living as artists but everyone has the capacity to draw upon the creative power of the arts for personal expression, spiritual reflection and as a way of understanding the holy. We are all created in the image of a creating God.

Why did you name your center The Intersection? The name The Intersection speaks to what United literally is…a place in which we hold space for an intersection between theology and the arts. This space is for learners, teachers, seekers and students.

What do you hope students will learn about the arts? I hope that they will find ways to think outside of the box. I hope that the arts will help them to engage their imagination and become better leaders.

Do you have to make art? At United we think that an important part of learning is experiential. We encourage creativity and learning by doing but we also draw upon the arts in the classroom as a source of learning and critical thinking.

Do you emphasize the visual arts? All art forms are key but modality studies indicate that many people learn and remember primarily through visual modes. For that reason we value visual arts.

Anything else? The United Church of Christ has two important sayings as part of their polity. “God is still speaking,” and “There is yet more truth to break forth from God’s Holy Word.” Artists are about this work each and every day. Revealing, critiquing and engaging religious texts in new ways. What we need are eyes to hear and ears to see.

Does religious art have to be explicit? Art can be religious, or provide a spiritual experience, even if it does not have religious subject matter. A poem by Mary Oliver or Billy Collins can speak to love or redemption in a way that is similar to scripture. We rely on the sacred role of the text but we do not limit the canon. Artists can be religious without drawing upon explicit subject matter.

What do your graduates do? They do lots of creative things! Some of them take their work with the arts and it becomes a hallmark of a successful ministry. Some apply their engagement with the arts to their work in social justice arenas. Some continue to do their art but with a different understanding because they look at their work through a lens that draws on deep spiritual questions.

Do you partner with the arts community? United has partnered with a number of groups and hopes to continue that practice. We are proud to have worked with Intermedia Arts, The Penumbra, Mia, The Guthrie and others.

What advice would you give an incoming student? The best advice I would give an incoming student is that you shouldn’t leave your trumpet at the door. Bring your art practice into the seminary with you. And if you don’t have an art practice give yourself permission to experiment and see if the muse is inviting you to try out painting, poetry or some other art form. Be open to the transformational experience of the arts.

What kind of classes do students take in the arts concentration? The required classes give you the opportunity to learn that theology is art and art is theology. Multiple art forms are engaged. A hallmark of the program is the arts practicum which focuses on experiential learning and working as a cohort to engage a spiritual question. Students in the MA also have the option of doing a work of art thesis which combines both creation and reflection.

What if I don’t take any classes in the arts concentration? The opportunity to draw on the arts is available in many of the regular courses and is not limited to courses where the primary focus is on the arts.

Can you share any examples? The students in the arts concentration, like all of our students, do amazing work. Pamela Wynn, a poet, has been published recently in The Christian Century and Sojourners. Anne Brink’s visual art has expanded its focus from social justice to expressions of interfaith art. Craig Wright is the executive producer for Greenleaf which is a production of OWN.

Cindi Beth Johnson is the director of The Intersection: Wilson Yates Center for Theology & the Arts and Professor in the Practice of Theology and the Arts at United. She is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She earned her M.Div. from Luther Northwestern Seminary and her D. Min. from Luther Seminary. She serves as the board chair of the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (SARTS). Most recently, she was a Creative Community Leadership Fellow with Intermedia Arts in 2014. She has written many articles for the SARTS journal, ARTS, as well as contributing to Visual Theology: Forming and Transforming the Community through the Arts (ed. Robin M. Jensen and Kimberly J. Vrudny); Arts, Theology and the Church: New Intersections (ed. Kimberly Vrudny and Wilson Yates); and Teaching for a Multifaith World (ed. Eleazar Fernandez). Cindi Beth believes that the arts are a vessel for imagination and the creative spirit

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October 9, 2026

Alums Homecoming News Releases

Rev. Dr. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell (’06) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is excited to announce that Rev. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell, PhD—who earned his MA in Theology and Biblical Interpretation from United in 2006—has been selected as a 2026 Distinguished Alum. An accomplished preacher, teacher, and published author, Dr. Tredwell has championed biblical narratives that affirm the divinity of all people, regardless of their race, creed, color, class, gender, or sexuality. Adopted at age four, Lee was raised in the Baptist faith and felt called to ministry as a child. Even so, after earning a degree in Political Science and Sociology at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, he spent the first ten years of his professional life as a grain trader for Cargill. After connecting with Drs. Ralph and Alika Galloway, Lee found United, and his call was reignited. He remembers Rev. Dr. Carolyn Pressler (Professor Emerita of Biblical Interpretation, 1990–2020) and Dean Richard Weis* with great affection. Both teachers, he observes, “taught us to wrestle with the biblical text until it opened up and spoke.” They also introduced Lee to Black and post-colonial hermeneutics, and Rev. Dr. Weis led him to passages in Jeremiah 38 (Hebrew Bible) that sparked his interest in learning more about a Black character named Ebed-Melech. Lee also cites the influence of Rev. Dr. Christine Smith’s (Professor Emerita of Preaching 1992–2013) preaching courses on his life. In Colorado, at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, Lee completed a joint PhD program with a concentration in Religion and Social Change in 2017. Ronald Smith, a former United student who nominated Lee for this award, notes, “Dr. Tredwell has demonstrated that he is an innovator and compassionate leader who has served both inside the academy as a professor of African American Preaching at Iliff School of Theology, University of Colorado, Boulder, and in the larger community; he has served as [a] pastor, civil rights and human rights activist, and [a] chief executive officer in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, and Texas.” Lee’s new book—Black, Queer and Blessed: My Story and the Biblical Story Churches Don’t Teach—was published in June 2025. As the description reads, “For all who believe God-Yahweh is angry, mad, disgusted, and against LGBTQIA+ folx, regrettably, you been had, misled, took, hood-winked and bamboozled! Black, Queer and Blessed, through lived experience and the excavation of the subjugated biblical narrative of Ebed-Melech, demolishes society’s antiquated mores.” The book is part memoir and part theological reflection on the Ebed-Melech revelation. In addition to his roles as teacher, preacher, and author, Lee has specifically worked to promote adoption of Black children from foster care and create affordable housing. These days, he serves as the pastor of Theology and Community Engagement at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. As Ronald Smith asserts, “Dr. Tredwell is the embodiment and an exemplar of United Theological Seminary’s mission, vision, and values.” * of blessed memory About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.

Lena K. Gardner (’15) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

[caption id="attachment_11955" align="alignnone" width="1920"] photo by Bethany Birnie[/caption] United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is thrilled to announce that Lena K. Gardner—who graduated with an MA in Justice and Peace Studies in 2015—has been selected as one of our three 2026 Distinguished Alums. A highly respected social justice activist and community leader, Lena is the co-founder and executive director of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU), a nonprofit founded in 2015 that creates life-giving and life-saving opportunities for spiritual community and Black-centered organizing. According to Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel (’13), Lena has “been a force in the Twin Cities’ religiously rooted justice ecosystem for the last 15 years.” Dr. Voelkel, Lena’s nominator, traces Lena’s justice-organizing acumen back to 2011, when she served on the Faith Organizing Roundtable—a body that coordinated religious communities’ opposition to the anti-marriage amendment. Lena went on to champion marriage equality in the 2012–2013 legislative session. After a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black teen, in 2014, Lena played a key role in transforming the Faith Organizing Roundtable into the Multifaith Anti-Racism, Change & Healing or MARCH. “In that same period,” Voelkel notes, “Lena was a core team organizer of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and served on its steering committee.” Lena was deeply involved, quoted in many national and local articles, and interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio after former police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in 2020. In April 2021, after a Brooklyn Center police officer killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, Lena co-wrote an article in the Sahan Journal demanding that Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecute the case, and that the Hennepin County attorney be removed. More recently, Lena embarked on another ambitious project. In May 2024, through the BLUU Cooperative Housing Initiative, she co-hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for an affordable housing complex for single parents in North Minneapolis. In a MinnPost article about the groundbreaking, Lena explained, “It’s really about trying to give back to one of the communities that made me…. We really see providing stable housing in a cooperative framework as one of the many paths to collective liberation and Black liberation. Ultimately, it’s about self-determination.” When Operation Metro Surge arrived in the Twin Cities in late 2025, Lena took action again. As Voelkel observes, she “returned to the MARCH steering committee…. When MARCH organized a clergy call (in five days) to which 700 clergy came, the ability to create and host such an amazing event owes part of its success to Lena’s relationships with communications specialists, graphic designers, and organizers.” Lena was also a driving force behind Neighbors Helping Neighbors (NHN), a mutual aid group she and Anna Stamborski founded in late 2025 to connect vulnerable ICE-targeted families with congregational networks whose members could provide shopping and transportation services. Through all of Lena’s indefatigable contributions to working for justice, Voelkel asserts, she “has focused on Black excellence, Black power, Black spiritual wholeness, Black beauty, and how non-Black folks can act in solidarity and followership of Black folks, particularly Black queer women. She has done so skillfully through building relationships across differences in ways that facilitate and deepen genuine relationships.”

Cori Berg (’98) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is elated to announce that Cori Berg (’98)—advocate, artist, and educator—is a 2026 Distinguished Alum. Cori earned her Master of Arts (MA) in Theology and the Arts in 1998, and for more than 27 years, she has integrated creativity, art, and spirituality into her field. Cori arrived at United in the 1990s, having majored in theater and minored in studio art during her undergraduate studies. “I knew I had an artistic voice,” she recalls, “but it didn’t make sense in any of the traditional contexts.” After seeing an advertisement for United’s Theology and the Arts program, Cori drove from Dallas to the Twin Cities to visit as a prospective student. A campus art exhibit by Merle Janis was all she needed to see—“this school had something I needed: strength, boldness, vulnerability.” For Cori, “life is liturgy.” She credits United with introducing her to “the freedom in a progressive faith.” At United, Cori learned to expand her creativity, which became a launching pad for a vibrant career. “United gave me a safe, nurturing space to explore, dream, and execute big things,” she writes. “I’ve continued that through the rest of my career as an artist, an educator, an administrator, and a speaker.” Art is central to Cori’s work and features prominently in her curriculum development for children. Her art was featured in the 2012 opening parade for the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas, TX, a project that involved “seniors, children, and adults in all aspects” from a local Methodist community program. Ministry with Children and Spirituality, courses taught by Rev. Dr. Barbara Anne Keely (Professor Emerita, 1991–2015), were particularly formative for Cori’s future in education. “I remember she taught us to get on the floor and view the church nursery from a baby’s point of view,” Cori reflects. “I use this today over and over as I teach early childhood educators…. She introduced the idea of seeing oneself not as a separate body, mind, or spirit, but when one part of my being is suffering, to use the other parts to help lift that part.” More recently, Cori has been an active community member at Dallas Meditation Center, where she is known for her moving dharma talks that weave Buddhist themes into contemporary storytelling. In public schools and congregational settings, Cori has applied what she learned as a United student to the field of early childhood education, for which—nominator Rev. Jim Peck (’99) points out—she has become “one of the nation’s leading advocates.” When facing challenges in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cori leveraged her ingenuity and creative vision to support educators with online training resources. As a teacher and an administrator in spaces where lack of institutional funding and support are commonplace, Jim observes, “she uses her [United] education to work for justice and equity,” to “nurture relationships in the early childhood settings where she has served, with an expertise in working in settings in crisis to encourage recovery, healing, and new paths for serving the future.” In May 2026, Cori completed her MEd in Curriculum and Instruction at American College of Education, where she immediately enrolled to begin her EdD in Early Childhood Education. She serves as an executive director at the University of Kansas (KU) and anticipates returning to Dallas to live near her family at the end of the year while awaiting her next opportunity. We are delighted to celebrate Cori and her decades of faithful, innovative leadership in the field of early childhood education and art. About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.