Nancy Claire Pittman
Born on the high plains of Texas, Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman’s earliest images of God were shaped by the vastness of the great North American prairie, limited only by shimmering sunrises and dazzling sunsets. And her earliest encounters of Christian community took place in the sprawling structures of First Christian Church, Amarillo, and the intimate Ceta Glen Christian Camp located in a finger of Palo Duro Canyon. She embraced in these places the wideness of God’s mercy and the unity of abiding friendship in Jesus.
Her faith commitments were further formed and informed through her work in the Religion Studies and Psychology departments of Texas Christian University where she earned a BA, and at Brite Divinity School where she was awarded an MDiv. Having known a sense of call to ministry since childhood, she was ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest on April 1, 1984. She has served as a minister in several churches across Texas or Oklahoma and preached or lectured as a guest speaker in numerous congregations and regional and national events.
The centrality of the Bible for Christian life and faith that Disciples have claimed since their founding led Dr. Pittman to earn a PhD in New Testament Studies at Southern Methodist University in 1996. Her dissertation explored images of Jesus the Christ in the Book of Revelation as clues for the demands made upon the followers of Jesus for the first readers of that wondrously strange writing. Her first faculty position was at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, a school related to the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. There she and her husband, Dr. Don A. Pittman, served together for six and a half years as mission partners sent by Global Ministries of the Christian Church (DoC).
Dr. Pittman joined the faculty of Phillips Theological Seminary as the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program in 2005. In that position and then later as dean (2013-2018) she has explored the intersection of practical ministry with intelligent and learned theological and biblical reflection. At the seminary she teaches “Capstones in Theological Leadership” as an invitation to graduating students to live at that intersection throughout their vocational lives. She also continues to be challenged by images of
faithful and faithless community in the New Testament, understandings of ministerial leadership in the 21st century, and our own contemporary ecclesiolatries—idolatries of church and church forms.
Currently, Dr. Pittman is President and Stephen J. England Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In her spare time, she laughs with her family, reads novels, and embroiders flowers.