The Person, Community, and Religious Life Program (PCRL) provides opportunities to explore basic questions of religious practice that occur at the intersection of religious and social science studies of persons, communities, and cultural systems. This broad scope of inquiry encourages work in such areas as human development, education, sociology, psychology and sociology of religion, homiletics, pastoral counseling, practical theology, spirituality, congregational studies, and other areas of research. Students draw on faculty scholarship in the above fields, and are encouraged to do interdisciplinary work in the other areas of the GDR and across the university.

PCRL students may take advantage of Emory's many rich and varied educational and research resources, including the Carter Center, the Georgia Association for Pastoral Care (a counseling center), the Center for Ethics, The Emory Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion, and The Emory center for Myth and Ritual in American Life.

Because of the breadth of the PCRL program and the rich variety of course offerings available, students work with faculty to craft their studies around their own intellectual and vocational goals.

• Those students who plan to teach in a college or university religion department usually pursue issues in the theory and practice of person and community in relation to religious studies. 

• Students seeking teaching careers in seminaries and theological schools generally focus their programs on such practical theological fields as religious education, pastoral theology, homiletics, or liturgics. 

• Some students combine clinical supervision in pastoral or other professional disciplines with their academic work in order to broaden and supplement their future careers. Programs of clinical or field supervision lie outside formal degree requirements. However, the PCRL faculty accommodate and encourage such interests when they are integral to a student's vocational goals. 

• PCRL students may qualify for Emory's joint Doctor of Law/Doctor of Philosophy degree. In addition, coursework can be arranged to qualify for specialized university-wide certificates in such programs as Women's Studies, and Psychoanalytic Studies.

Person, Community, and Religious Life Faculty

Theodore Brelsford (Ph.D., Emory University, 1999) Assistant Professor. Religious imagination, theological epistemology, cultural diversity, and religious education.

Teresa L. Fry Brown (Ph.D., Iliff School of Theology and University of Denver, 1996) Associate Professor. Homiletics, with an emphasis in African American and womanist styles; womanist ethics, sociology, and history focusing on African American spiritual values.

Carol Lakey Hess (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1990 ) Associate Professor of Religion and Education. Practical Theology; Theology and Literature; Feminist Approach to Human Development; Philosophy of Education.

Emmanuel Y. Lartey (Ph.D., The University of Birmingham, England, 1984) Professor. Pastoral care, counseling, and theology in different cultural contexts; theological implications and practical effects of pastoral care in a diversity of cultures.

Thomas G. Long (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1980) Bandy Professor. Homiletical theory, biblical preaching; worship and Christian practices.

Mary Elizabeth Moore (Ph.D., Claremont School of Theology, 1981) Professor. Feminist theologies; education, spirituality, and sacramentality; religion and violence.

Karen D. Scheib (Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 1994) Assistant Professor. Pastoral care and counseling, practical theology, aging, identity and otherness.

John Snarey (Ed.D., Harvard University, 1982) Professor. Psychology of human development, moral education, psychology of religion, William James.

Theophus H. Smith (Ph.D., Graduate Theological Union, 1987) Associate Professor. Philosophy of religion, African-American religious studies, religion and violence, liberation theology.