In Memoriam: Sonia E. Waters

It is with heavy hearts that the community of Princeton Seminary shares the passing of Associate Professor Sonia E. Waters, PhD ’13. Dr. Waters passed away peacefully at home with her husband at her side.

Dr. Waters earned her BA in literature with a minor in gender studies from Wheaton College, her MDiv with honors from The General Seminary of the Episcopal Church, and her PhD in pastoral theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. She joined the Seminary faculty in 2013, and served as Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology. Her book Addiction and Pastoral Care was published in 2019.

“Sonia was a brilliant scholar, a gifted priest, and a faithful friend. She had a way of loving people into being better people, and we are better people for having known her,” says Kara Slade, friend and Priest at Trinity Church, Princeton.

An Episcopal Priest, Dr. Waters was profoundly committed to feminist advocacy work, where she focused on the prevention of violence against women. She had experience serving as a crisis counselor and shelter advocate. Her research interests included addictions, contextual pastoral theology, relational perspectives on the self, socioeconomics and mental health, and creativity.

Eric D. Barreto, Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament, says, “Dr. Sonia Waters was a model of thoughtful pedagogy in the classroom, of generous collegiality with her faculty colleagues, and, most of all, of faithful obedience and deep integrity in her daily walk with God. In this last season, I have been struck and inspired by the way she has talked, taught, and preached about her illness and impending death with raw honesty and the kind of faith in Christ to which I aspire. She is deeply loved, and I lean into the promise that she is feeling and experiencing that love in a profound way today.”

John R. Bowlin, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, reflects, “We are a community broken with grief over the death of Sonia Waters, our dear colleague, teacher, and friend. The loss is heavy, hard to bear. We give thanks to God for her courage and wisdom, for all that she taught us in living and departing this life. We pray that her husband John will know God’s comfort and peace in the days ahead. We confess that whether we live or die we belong to a God who is love, who will not turn away from us—who did not turn away from Sonia. And yet, this loss is heavy, this grief hard to bear. We will need God’s unfailing mercy in the days ahead.”

“We are heartbroken. Sonia’s life was a beautiful expression of love and gratitude that no words can truly capture. She was deeply respected and brought joy and laughter to those around her. Her unapologetic Christian witness to truth and justice is just immeasurable. She will be missed and never forgotten,” shares Keri Day, Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religion.

Robert Dykstra, Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology, reflects on Dr. Waters’ profound ministry on campus and far beyond. “Professor Waters was a vital and stabilizing presence on our campus, generous in giving counsel amid tears and great laughter. Her expansive mind probed interests ranging from art history and the uses of art in psychospiritual healing, to psychoanalysis and gender studies, to mental illness and contextual pastoral care. Her rich and nuanced Addiction and Pastoral Care is now a standard textbook in addiction studies across the nation. Her dynamism in teaching was unrivaled, her every course always oversubscribed. She used her own experience of dying as case material in her final course on ministry with the dying and grieving—its sea of students hanging on her every word with a sense of awe and overwhelming gratitude. A bright light has gone out at Princeton Seminary. The vast chasm of our grief will not soon be filled.”

Micah Cronin, MDiv ’20, remembers the experience of learning in her classroom: “Dr. Waters loved Jesus. The incarnation of God in Christ was her source and destination. As a pastoral theologian and professor, she taught her students to practice the incarnation of God in Christ in our own ministries through practices of empathy. She’d have students attend open 12 step meetings, carry around ice packs that were not allowed to melt (that was for the class on ministry and mental illness), practice graveside prayers on the spot in the cemetery before a classmate playing dead. These activities were a small part of her pedagogy, but they pointed to her goal: she wanted her students to understand that as ministers, pastors and priests, our spiritual discipline must be love. We must get close to the people God has entrusted to us. We must get close to their pain, their joys, their sins, and their victories, and we must love them. Let this be Dr. Waters’ legacy.”

“Dr. Waters touched the lives of so many with her pastoral wisdom, inspirational courage, and, above all, her unwavering Christian witness,” says President Jonathan Lee Walton. “In her final letter to us over the summer, Dr. Waters left us with a lasting challenge that will continue reverberating throughout our learning community and hearts. ‘I pray you choose joy. Anything else is a waste of time.’ May we all strive to live with the grace, faith, and joy that Sonia modeled for us.”

The funeral service for Dr. Waters will be held at St.Luke’s Episcopal Church in Montclair, New Jersey, on Saturday, September 30, at 3:00pm.