Dr. Lee Ramsey on the Retirement of Dr. Matt Matthews :
I have a sharp mental image of Dr. Matt Mathews when he interviewed to teach theology at MTS back in 2005. I remember the way he answered our questions with depth, practical wisdom, and theological imagination that he punctuated with just the right hand gestures, as if carving perfectly formed thoughts out of the air and handing them to us like cups of fresh insight.
In many ways, Dr. Matt Mathews embodies much of what students and faculty love about MTS. His classes ranged from the foundational course in Christian Beliefs, to courses in Calvin and John Edwards, worship and the religious affections, feminist theology, and theology of gender and sexuality. He plumbed the depths of whatever subject was at hand, and he expected no less of his students.
Matt understood that right thinking goes in tandem with right action. He wanted to help MTS form students who are scholars, pastors, and practical theologians, and who are committed to right worship and right action in a world hungry for both.
It was Matt’s turn more consciously to spirituality and aesthetics that at some point led him to temporarily put down the books and pick up a camera. The lens widened and the world came into sharper focus as Matt became a student of light, form, and the pursuit of God in the world of nature, in the faces of strangers, and in the built world.
There is no way to fully measure Dr. Matt Mathews’ impact upon a generation of MTS students, the gentle yet disciplined wisdom that he imparted in and out of the classroom, or the importance of his careful and generous leadership within the faculty over 15 years. He served and chaired most every committee, and sometimes more than once.
But his imprint is as indelible as an Ansel Adams photograph; his contributions, lasting. Matt Mathews shared with us many formative gifts that have strengthened the community of MTS and the greater community and congregations of the mid-South – scholarship, collegiality, leadership, wisdom, beauty, and friendship. As Matt moves forward in his own vocation, we are left with one overwhelming affection – gratitude.
– Dr. G. Lee Ramsey, Jr.
Marlon and Sheila Foster Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics