FORA.tv Speaker - Rodney L. Petersen

Rodney Petersen has been Executive Director of the Boston Theological Institute since moving to the Boston area from Switzerland in 1990. In addition to this work with the BTI, he teaches in both the member schools and overseas. He teaches in the areas of history and ethics, currently focusing on issues of religion and conflict. Together with BTI colleagues these courses have taken students to various regions of the world in order to understand and film ways in which faith communities are implicated in regional violence and how they can be avenues of reconciliation. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., serving on several of their committees and served for seven years as the pastor of the Allston Congregational Church (U.C.C.). Prior work included teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois), Webster University (Geneva, Switzerland), and with the Federation des Institutions etablies a Geneve (FIIG). He also worked with churches in France and Eastern Europe, primarily Romania.