supplemental ~ Prof. Titus Presler Biographical Notes 2006
Prof. Titus Presler Biographical Notes 2006
The Rev. Titus Presler, Th.D., is Sub-Dean, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Mission and World Christianity at the General Theological Seminary. He has responsibility for the faculty and academic life of the seminary and is overseeing the planning for the learning centers of the Desmond Tutu Education Center.
As a scholar, Prof. Presler specializes in issues of gospel and culture, with special reference to Africa, and in mission theology and missionary identity. He served in the 1980s as rector of the Bonda Church District in Zimbabwe’s Anglican Diocese of Manicaland, where rebuilding church life after the Zimbabwe's liberation struggle was a major focus of his ministry. He and his wife the Rev. Jane Butterfield were appointed missionaries of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church. Presler also has experience in India, where he spent 18 years in a mission family.
Dean Presler brings 19 years of fulltime parish ministry to his teaching and leadership in the seminary. During his rectorship of St. Peter’s Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991-2002, the declining inner-city parish became a diverse and substantial congregation dynamically engaged in mission in its urban community and the wider world. Ordained in 1979, he was curate and interim rector at Christ Church, Hamilton, Massachusetts, 1979-83, and interim rector at St. Chrysostom's Church, Quincy, Massachusetts, 1990-91.
Before coming to General as Sub-Dean in August 2005, Presler was Dean and President of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, 2002-05, where he focused on spirituality, leadership and mission in the seminary's life. Global awareness, a Hispanic ministry concentration, a detailed strategic plan, and a seminary-wide Conversation Covenant are highlights he cites from his time at ETSS. Several new faculty were called, and a comprehensive faculty handbook and new bylaws were put in place.
Prof. Presler has a Th.D. degree in mission and New Testament from Boston University (1995), an M.Div. from General (1979), and an A.B. in philosophy from Harvard (1972). He taught mission previously at General as a visiting professor; preaching at Harvard Divinity School; and African mission initiatives at Gaul Theological College in Harare, Zimbabwe. From 1990 to 1997 he helped establish and taught in the Anglican, Global and Ecumenical Studies program at the Episcopal Divinity School. He was previously a Merrill Fellow at Harvard Divinity School (1986) and a Procter Fellow at EDS (1987). He holds honorary degrees from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary (2005) and from General (2003).
Elected by General Convention, Dr. Presler served on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church from 2003 to 2006 and was secretary of the council's International Concerns Committee. He previously chaired the General Convention’s Standing Commission on World Mission and co-authored and edited that group's vision statement, "Companions in Transformation: The Episcopal Church's Mission in a New Century" (Morehouse, 2003). He is active in the Episcopal Partnership for Global Mission, a network of mission agencies. In the Diocese of Massachusetts, he co-chaired the Volunteers for Mission Committee, which sent over 75 missioners abroad from 1991 to 2002, and the diocese's Wider Mission Commission. As a deputy from the Diocese of Massachusetts to five General Conventions, 1988-2000, Dean Presler shaped initiatives in world mission and Jubilee 2000. In 1996 he led the American Pilgrimage to the Centenary Bernard Mizeki Festival in Zimbabwe.
A current research interest is the Global Anglicanism Project, in which Prof. Presler is one of five researchers conducting grassroots research on Christian community, leadership, mission and identity in selected locations throughout the Anglican Communion. His most recent research was in the Church of North India, and he co-authored the project's pilot project report "The Vitality and Promise of Being Anglican" (Episcopal Church Foundation, 2005).
In addition to numerous articles, Prof. Presler is the author of "Transfigured Night: Mission and Culture in Zimbabwe’s Vigil Movement" (University of South Africa Press, 1999), and "Horizons in Mission" in the New Church’s Teaching Series (Cowley, 2001).
Dean Presler was born and grew up in India as the youngest of five children of United Methodist missionary parents. His father, the late Henry Hughes Presler, founded the Department of Organized Research at the Leonard Theological College in Jabalpur and was dean of the college’s post-graduate school, where he taught the sociology of mid-India religions. His mother, Marion Anders Presler, taught the psychology of religion and specialized in Islam.
The Rev. Jane Butterfield has had parish ministries in Dedham, Stoneham, Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts. As Mission Personnel Officer of the Episcopal Church from 1999 through 2005, she renewed the missionary-sending of the church in vitality and numbers. She produced "Windows on Mission," a video series on Episcopal missionaries (available from Episcopal Books and Resources), and edited "The Scripture of Their Lives: Stories of Mission Companions Today" (Harrisburg: Morehouse, 2006). She is Interim Pastor of Grace Church, White Plains, in the Diocese of New York. Titus and Jane have four grown children.
