Dr. Frances Taylor Gench and Dr. James Hudnut-Beumler will receive Excellence in Theological Education awards at the 227^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) this summer.

Dr. Gench is the Herbert Worth and Annie H. Jackson Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond and Charlotte. Dr. Hudnut-Beumler served as the Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Professor of American Religious History and the former Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. Dr. Gench is retiring at the conclusion of the academic year in May 2026; Hudnut-Beumler retired in December 2025.

The Committee on Theological Education and the Theological Education Fund will honor both with the Award for Excellence in Theological Education during General Assembly. The 227^th General Assembly is set for June 22 to July 2, 2026, with committee meetings being held online and plenaries being held in person in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The awards are subject to General Assembly approval.

About Rev. Dr. Frances Taylor Gench

Rev. Dr. Frances Taylor Gench is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), was a member of the faculty of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg from 1986 to 1999, and has served on the faculty of Union Presbyterian Seminary since 1999. In May 2026, she completed 40 years in teaching ministry.

Gench served as a member of the PCUSA General Assembly’s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church (2001-2006). She has served as a Parish Associate in two congregations: Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, MD (1992-1999); and The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. (2006-2019). Additionally, she has served as a member of the Committee on Preparation for Ministry in Baltimore Presbytery, a member of the Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations of Candidates (1994-1999), and editor of the Bible Content Exam (1997-1999).

Gench’s research and teaching interests include the Gospels, women in the biblical world and feminist biblical criticism, global and intercultural perspectives on the Bible, and issues of biblical authority and interpretation. She is the author of six books, including Encountering God in Tyrannical Texts: Reflections on Paul, Women, and the Authority of Scripture (Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), Faithful Disagreement: Wrestling with Scripture in the Midst of Church Conflict (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Encounters with Jesus: Studies in the Gospel of John (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), and Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels (Westminster John Knox Press, 2005). She also authored two Bible studies for Presbyterian Women, James and the Integrity of Faith (1992) and Women and the Word: Studies in the Gospel of John (2000).

Gench is nearing the completion of a major commentary on the Gospel of John for the new Interpretations Bible Commentary series.

Gench’s husband, Roger, is a retired PC(USA) pastor. They live in Richmond, Virginia.

Dr. Jacqueline E. Lapsley, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary, says Gench has been a widely respected educator and theological education leader.

“The Rev. Dr. Frances Taylor Gench has for four decades been an extraordinary leader theological educator devoted to the education of pastoral leaders,” said Dr. Jacqueline E. Lapsley, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary. “Revered amongst Union alums and beyond, she is a beloved scholar and teacher because in all she does she exemplifies the very best of scholarship and teaching, suffused with a deep love for Jesus Christ and his church. I am delighted to see her recognized in this way because she has shown herself to be an exemplary, and supremely faithful, theological educator.”

About James Hudnut-Beumler

James Hudnut-Beumler is the Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt University. He served as Dean of the Divinity School from 2000 until 2013. Prior to coming to Vanderbilt in 2000, he was dean of the faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary, a program associate for Lilly Endowment, and director of the undergraduate program in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Dr. Hudnut-Beumler is the author of Looking for God in the Suburbs: The Religion of the American Dream and Its Critics, 1945-1965 (Rutgers, 1994) and Generous Saints: Congregations Rethinking Money and Ethics (Alban, 1999), and is co-author of The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York (NYU, 2005). He is also the author of an economic history of American Protestantism from 1750 to the present, entitled, In Pursuit of the Almighty’s Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism (University of North Carolina, 2007) and Strangers and Friends at the Welcome Table: Contemporary Christianities in the American South (University of North Carolina, 2018). With his Vanderbilt colleague, James Byrd, he is coauthor of The Story of Religion in America: An Introduction (Westminster/John Knox, 2021).

Hudnut-Beumler and his wife, Heidi, are both Presbyterian ministers and make their home in Nashville. They have two adult children.

Vanderbilt Divinity School Dean Dr. Yolanda Pierce says Hudnut-Beumler is a wonderful colleague and educator who has always cared not only about students while they are on campus but also after they graduate and become pastors. He’s also an esteemed leader in the American church. “One of his major contributions is a deep care and love for both the church itself and for the people, particularly within mainline denominations,” Pierce says. “He believes there is always going to be a place for mainline denominations to have a prophetic voice, even in a time of fracture as we see in American religion right now. His major contribution is being a voice of reason, a voice of sanity, a voice of care and compassion for a time in American religion that really feels so disjointed and so disparate. He is an amazing scholar but also a deeply compassionate person who says there is still a role for American religion to play, particularly given the prophetic social gospel movement from which it emerged.”