Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez elected to LSTC faculty as associate professor of Lutheran systematic theology and global Lutheranism

The Rev. Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez has been appointed associate professor of Lutheran systematic theology and global Lutheranism by the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) Board of Directors. He will join the LSTC faculty January 1, 2021 and teach courses in Lutheran Confessions and Theology of the Cross during the spring 2021 semester.

“Dr. Pérez-Álvarez brings many strengths as he returns to LSTC, where he earned his PhD with distinction,” said Esther Menn, dean of academic affairs. “He is a recognized expert in Kierkegaard and an experienced teacher and mentor with deep roots in global Lutheranism, especially in the Caribbean and Latin America. In addition to his teaching scholarship, he has served as pastor of congregations in Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. I celebrate the many gifts the Dr. Pérez-Álvarez will contribute to our faculty and students, and I look forward to welcoming him back to the LSTC community.”

Pérez-Álvarez said, “The Syrophoenician woman was the only one who defeated Jesus in a verbal debate. Almighty men tried to shame him publicly and showed everybody his mental inferiority, but Jesus, the freedom riddler knew how to save his neck by flipping over the tortilla.”*

Pérez-Álvarez has most recently served as associate professor of theology (as an ELCA missionary) at the United Theological College of the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. He previously taught for the Advanced Latino Theological Education (ALTE) program of the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education (SCUPE); the Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest (LSPS) in Austin, Texas; at the Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico; and at the Seminario Teológico Presbiteriano de México; along with a variety of adjunct and summer engagements, including work in the DMin program at McCormick Theological Seminary, Perkins School of Theology and the Hispanic Summer Program.

Pérez-Álvarez also has extensive administrative experience including directing the ALTE program of SCUPE, being Theological Education for Emerging Ministries (TEEM) coordinator for LSPS, and directing the national Presbyterian publishing house in Mexico, “El Faro.”

He studied philosophy and theology at Mexico City, Atlanta, Chicago, and Copenhagen. He has done research at the Kierkegaard Library in St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.

* See “Jesus the Riddler,” John 7.10-24, in The Gospel to the Calypsonians: The Caribbean, Bible and Liberation Theology, Foreword by Elsa Tamez (2004), p. 181.

Contact

Cheryl Hoth Assistant to the Academic Dean choth@lstc.edu