James Nieman, Academic Dean, has announced that Dr. Scott Thumma, Professor of Sociology of Religion, is the Seminary?s new Director of the Doctor of Ministry program. Dr. Thumma adds this to serving also as Director of the Seminary?s Distance Education efforts, the Parish Inventory program and a member of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Dr. Thumma has a Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta and a Master of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory. His areas of academic specialization are congregational studies, sociology of religion and contemporary religious movements.
Dr. Thumma has studied megachurches, gay religious life, and recently nondenominational religious trends and congregational use of Internet technologies.Besides journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Thumma is co-author of The Other 80%: Turning Your Church's Spectators into Active Participants(2011), Beyond Megachurch Myths (2007) and Gay Religion (2001).