Popular Searches
Three Princeton Theological Seminary alumni were among just 10 Christian scholars and leaders selected for Interfaith America’s inaugural Good Neighbors Fellowship.
Gavin Chase, MDiv ’26, Yanan Rahim N. Melo, MDiv ’25, and John Walker, MDiv ’22, will participate in the one-year fellowship dedicated to modeling how evangelicals can contribute to and learn from a religiously pluralist U.S. society. Amar Peterman, MDiv ’22, who serves as the civic strategies specialist for Interfaith America, is leading the project.
“It is an incredible honor to be considered among the scholars, pastors, and thought leaders in this fellowship who are at the forefront of rethinking evangelical identity in the U.S.,” said Chase, who is pursuing his PhD in theology at Villanova University. “Through working with these fellows, and through the various platforms of our work, I hope to see a rise in Christians, who traditionally hold the idea of ‘religious pluralism’ at arm’s length, becoming more appreciative and mobilized to consider their neighbors who worship differently in the world.”
Grounded in Interfaith America’s values of pluralism and interfaith cooperation, the Good Neighbors Fellowship has three overarching goals: to prepare the fellows to serve as bridgebuilders in a religiously diverse society and polarizing political climate; to create a community of thought leaders rooted in faith and committed to collective flourishing; and to develop insightful research and resources that promote religious pluralism in and for Christian faith communities. The fellows will participate in a leadership summit and produce a series of essays that highlight the intersections of evangelical faith and civic pluralism.
I hope to see a rise in Christians, who traditionally hold the idea of ‘religious pluralism’ at arm’s length, becoming more appreciative and mobilized to consider their neighbors who worship differently in the world.
“My hope for this fellowship is to contribute, even in a small way, to the conversation about the future of Christian discipleship in the United States — a discipleship that refuses to abstract itself from the political moment we are living in, and that lives into the gospel’s radical call to love our neighbors, even when that love entails real risk,” said Melo, a journalist and theologian, who serves as the editorial director for Princeton Theological Seminary’s Center for Barth Studies.
Walker is eager to work alongside the other fellows to develop a “faithful, generous, and unfearful approach to encountering those who are religiously different,” especially during this challenging moment in history.
“Good theology aims to support the common deliberation of the church,” said Walker, a PhD student at Princeton University focusing on religion, ethics, and politics. “My hope is that the shared reflection we undertake as fellows will be able to provide some stimulus and encouragement to others to join in that deliberative task. The social and political problems that we are facing are vexing, and it will require patience, fortitude, and a willingness to resist premature closure. At the same time, there are fundamental claims that should orient us and anchor us. Not least is the call to love our neighbor and to live from the mercy of Christ.”
Each alumnus brings his own diverse and thoughtful perspective to the fellowship program, grounded in years of academic and practical work.
Chase’s scholarship has focused on the intersections of ecology, power, and end-of-life care. His current research explores how U.S. evangelical commitments to rapture and afterlife ideologies sidestep materiality, mortality, and the ecological world. His work has been featured at Yale University’s Graduate Conference in Religion & Ecology, at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, and in the Center for Barth Studies’ publication God Here & Now, as well as in several academic journals.
My hope for this fellowship is to contribute, even in a small way, to the conversation about the future of Christian discipleship in the United States — a discipleship that refuses to abstract itself from the political moment we are living in, and that lives into the gospel’s radical call to love our neighbors, even when that love entails real risk
Melo’s research interests lie in the intersection of theology and politics. His master’s thesis, “To Begin Again: Christology at the End of the World,” proposed a decolonial theology of divine grace in response to the mass deportation crisis. At the Center for Barth Studies, Melo oversees and guides public scholarship initiatives that bridge the intersections between systematic theology, cultural commentary, and progressive politics. His op-ed work has been published in Sojourners, Christianity Today, BitterSweet Monthly, Space on Space Magazine, Geez Magazine, Interfaith America, and more.
Walker’s scholarship focuses broadly on Christian moral and political thought, with a special interest in Augustine and the Protestant tradition. He is currently writing a dissertation on the virtue of mercy. Since 2022, he has been a co-organizer of the Oxford-Princeton Seminar in Christian Ethics. In 2024-2025 he served as a Social Impact Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. Most recently, he was selected as a member of the Templeton Pluralism Fellowship, a two-year program supported by the John Templeton Foundation that convenes 12 Christian and Muslim scholars to study the relationship between religion, pluralism, and democracy.
