Princeton Alumnus Forges a Unique Ministerial Path

He is an artisan, most notably a blacksmith, who celebrates life, forging Christian symbols out of nearly any kind of metal, including weapons whose original intent was to take life.

Scotty grew up in an “interdenominational space” with a Catholic mother and a Presbyterian father. While not fitting the stereotypical mold of a pastor, Scotty felt called to a life steeped in ministry. Jim Hinch MDiv ‘62, a pastor at the church where Scotty grew up, attended Princeton Theological Seminary and highly recommended the institution.

After receiving encouragement from his former pastor, Scotty applied to the Seminary.

“It sounded like a fun next adventure,” he recalled.

However, this is a journey with many stops and signposts, two distinct parallel tracks, and many adventures along the way, both at home and abroad.

Scotty spent the summers of his youth in the mountains of North Carolina at a summer camp (something that would become a recurring theme throughout his life). That early experience seeded his desire to attend Seminary.

I thought this would be a great place to help kids who didn’t have all the opportunities I had. I really thought I was going to start like a ranch for young people.

He added, “I found ranch life invigorating. One day, you were a farmer, the next day, a veterinarian, a mechanic. You had to fix any plumbing that went wrong. There were all different things that you could expose people to, and they could find their niche. That’s also where I learned welding.”

Scotty attended Samford University in Birmingham, AL, where he studied Business Finance. After graduation, he began an itinerant lifestyle that mostly found him in ranches located in the western United States.

While trekking in the mountains of Nepal, Scotty called his parents who told him that his application to Princeton Seminary was accepted.

Scotty immediately recognized the Seminary as a place where all perspectives could find their voice and knew he was home. A serendipitous moment occurred when he went to live with the late Gerald Landry, a Third Order Franciscan, and conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

Mr. Landry introduced Scotty to peace activists Daniel and Philip Berrigan and Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, all legends in their respective spheres. Their influence, coupled with his studies, inspired Scotty to adopt nonviolence as one of his core beliefs.

At Princeton Seminary, Scotty encountered faculty and staff who inspired and stimulated him, bringing him to a greater awareness of the theological perspectives that would dominate his life, not the least of which was that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“If I’m going to be a follower of Christ, I have to renounce violence in all its forms. There can never be an excuse.”

The Other Piece of the Puzzle

Scotty has worked on ranches, “cowboying” as he succinctly puts it, in Wyoming, Montana, picking up a myriad of practical skills that have served him well both in his everyday life and his spiritual journey. However, it all began at the foot of his father.

Scotty’s father, Thornton Utz, was an illustrator and craftsman who taught him to use hand tools at an early age. “I had to be able to cut boards square with the handsaw before he’d teach me how to use any of the electric tools. He built our house. He was incredible.” He added, “I was always going to museums with him and building with him. That’s where it started.”

While working on a boys’ ranch in north Georgia, Scotty built log furniture and kept seeing crosses in all the wood scraps. “They would like sit over there and bug me. Finally, I’d be like, ‘Okay!’ and ended up carving hundreds of crosses.”

Scotty realized this compulsive behavior had a deeper purpose. He was trying to understand the meaning of the cross and why it had emerged as the predominant symbol of Jesus.

In college, Scotty worked with Habitat for Humanity and then as a carpenter during his years at the Seminary.

“All of this crossed over when I took a class on the Mystics at Princeton,” in which Scotty was allowed to do an art project for his midterm. “I did these carvings of crosses with my chainsaw. That was the first time where I made a sculpture and started using my hands to make something that related to theology, and I loved that.”

Scotty is also dyslexic, and visually interpreting theology using drawings and symbolism helped him through his Seminary experience.

After graduating from Princeton with his Masters of Divinity, Scotty returned to Wyoming to work with underprivileged kids on yet another youth ranch as Chaplain and Program Director. He opted not to pursue ordination as another kind of ministry began crystallizing for him. The final piece of that puzzle came with his pursuit of the art of blacksmithing.

An Arcane Art, a Modern Purpose

“I picked up working with metal when I was on ranches and started making little metal sculptures, making stuff out of old horseshoes because we had a bunch of those around,” Scotty recalled, adding that he found more satisfaction bending useable metal than cutting it up and sticking it back together.

Years later, Scotty, now a married father of three, moved back to North Carolina. His wife taught at Warren Wilson College, which featured a blacksmithing program. “I immediately fell in love.”

From there, he dove into several blacksmithing programs offered at local schools and found himself tapping into all the latent skills he had cultivated from his earliest days.

Blacksmithing was a hobby that became my side hustle. People would ask me to make them stuff. Now, it’s how I spend the vast majority of my time.

Blacksmithing became an essential element of Scotty’s spirituality and is now the primary vehicle through which he expresses a love of God and all Creation.

Scotty eventually met two individuals who would have a profound impact on him named Mike Martin, and Shane Claiborne, co-authors of Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence, a book exploring the issue of gun violence and offering a Christian perspective on how to address it, inspired by the idea of beating swords into plowshares.

“I was like, ‘These are my people.’ This effort was pulling together all these disparate strands of my life. So I started volunteering with their non-profit organization, RAWtools,” which turns guns into garden tools (or anything else that can be used for a positive purpose), resourcing communities with nonviolent confrontation skills in an effort to turn stories of violence into stories of creation.

A typical day often sees Scotty doing RAWtools work, fashioning guns into garden tools, pendants, bracelets, or other artwork. Many of the guns come from safe gun surrender events held in communities throughout the South.

“We also get invited to speak or preach at events. I’m really drawing on my Seminary experience at events like this.” He also gives blacksmithing lessons to private individuals, camps, and organizations.

Another group Scotty devotes himself to is Forging for Peace, an international organization of blacksmiths that helps people impacted by war with food, shelter, medical care, or other humanitarian needs. Those who donate to the group receive a “peace nail,” forged by hand and symbolizing the blacksmith’s commitment to peace.

Shaping this path of nonviolence has brought Scotty into the orbit of the victims of gun violence and their families. A few years ago, he was contacted by Teresa, the mother of Alex Schrachta, a United States Marine who died by suicide, who wanted the gun destroyed.

“I obtained the gun, and Teresa and her three surviving children came here. We put together a ritual that remembered her son, his gifts, and all the good he brought into the world. Together, we destroyed that gun and transformed it, and we all picked up the hammer together. There were parts of that ceremony that were super intense and hard and other parts that were so joyful.

“Getting to do that work with her was maybe some of the most beautiful experiences of my life, particularly in my professional life. It’s a privilege.”

Scotty added, “It is a real service we provide for folks that’s part of the bigger picture that I believe Jesus is calling us all into. It just so happens that I’m a blacksmith, and this is how I’m doing my little part.”