Advent Meditation: December 25, 2024

Dean Bader-Saye is the ninth dean and president of Seminary of the Southwest. He was appointed in 2024 after serving on the faculty as the Helen and Everett H. Jones Professor of Christian Ethics and Moral Theology for fifteen years and as academic dean for eleven years. He continues to teach ethics classes and to form Southwest students in practices of moral reasoning, critical thinking, and healthy disagreement.He is a respected scholar of theological ethics, and his research explores issues in the areas of politics and culture, gender and sexuality, ecology and economics. A revised and expanded edition of his book Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear was published in October 2020. He is also the author of Formed by Love, a brief introduction to ethics in the Episcopal Church, and Church and Israel After Christendom, an exploration of the idea of divine election and its political implications. He has contributed chapters to The Routledge Companion to Christian Ethics, The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, and The Cambridge Companion to the Gospels.Dean Bader-Saye was a psychology major in college, beginning a lifelong interest in the working of the human mind and the search for wholeness and flourishing. This interest drives his passion to see Southwest’s counseling program thrive.Prior to joining the seminary faculty in 2009, Dean Bader-Saye taught for twelve years at the University of Scranton, a Jesuit university in Scranton, PA. During that time, he helped found an Episcopal house church, which he led with his wife, Demery, for three years. He has served in volunteer and staff positions for youth ministry and adult formation. He has served on various church-wide and diocesan bodies, including the Episcopal Church’s Economic Justice Loan Committee, the Peace and Justice Task Force of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, and the board of directors for Gathering of Leaders. At General Convention in 2024, he was elected to the General Board of Examining Chaplains. He is currently an active lay participant at St. Julian’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas.He and Demery have three grown children, a dog, and a cat. For fun and refreshment he enjoys playing guitar, watching baseball, and hiking. His strategy for health and wholeness was captured in a recent Instagram post: “You’re not sad. You just need to go hiking and eat little snacks on top of a mountain.” Being in Texas, he chooses to include large hills in the category of "mountain."