Awarded a Lilly Faculty Fellowship by the Association of Theological Schools for her sabbatical project, “In Case of Katrina: Reinventing the United Methodist Church in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” Dr. Blue spent the 2008-09 year doing research for a book on that topic. The project is an outgrowth of her course, “The Church’s Response to Katrina,” which takes students to Louisiana to explore the churches’ re-evaluation of their missions.
Dr. Blue’s book, Rampart Street Reformers: Methodist Women, Social Gospel and Civil Rights in New Orleans, will be published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2011. Material from it has appeared in Methodist History; as “True Methodist Women: Reflections on the Community at St. Mark’s, 1895-1939” in Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times, Janet Allured and Judith F. Gentry, eds. (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2009); and as "The Citizens Forum on Integration: 'Underground' Methodist Response in New Orleans to the Brown decision," in New Orleans and Urban Louisiana, Samuel C. Shepherd, Jr., ed. (Center for Louisiana Studies, 2005).
Her book, Attentive to God: Thinking Theologically in Ministry, co-authored with Charles Wood and published by Abingdon in 2008, stems from her interest in connecting theological education with ministerial practice. She teaches History of Christianity and United Methodist studies, along with “Christianity in Latin America,” “Women and Religion in America,” and “Issues for Women in Christian Ministry.” A reflection on teaching the “Issues for Women” course appeared as “Should Theological Education Be Different for Women?” in Women and Ordination in the Christian Churches: International Perspectives, Ian Jones, Janet Wootton and Kirsty Thorpe, eds. (Continuum, 2008).
An ordained elder in full connection with the Louisiana Conference of the United Methodist Church and an experienced pastor, Dr. Blue has also published material in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and “‘Give Me Thy Hand’: Practicing Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Theology at a United Methodist Campus Ministry” in A Passion for Christian Unity, John Imbler, ed. (Chalice Press, 2009). She is a member of the American Academy of Religion, American Society of Church History, Historical Society of the United Methodist History, Southern Association of Women Historians, and Southern Historical Association. She joined the PTS faculty in 2002.