Mary Hinkle Shore becomes rector and dean of ELCA seminary in Southeast

Mary Hinkle Shore has become rector and dean of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary of Lenoir-Rhyne University. One of seven seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, LTSS was founded in 1830 in Columbia, South Carolina, and merged with Lenoir-Rhyne in 2012.

“I look forward to deepening our relationships with congregations and other innovative ministries to which our students will be called,” Shore said in a statement from the university. She also hoped “to strengthen connections within the ELCA and with our ecumenical partners. Together, we are stronger and more imaginative as we prepare leaders for mission.”

Shore is author of Signs of Belonging: Luther’s Marks of the Church and the Christian Life and has contributed to the Christian Century’s Living by the Word column. She was most recently pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brevard, North Carolina. From 1997 to 2013 she was a professor and associate dean at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she earned her M.Div. degree. She has a Ph.D. in religion from Duke University.

“Dr. Shore has extraordinary credentials and was clearly the top candidate recommended by the students, faculty, and staff at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary,” said Fred Whitt, president of Lenoir-Rhyne University, in a statement. 

A version of this article appears in the print edition under the title “People: Mary Hinkle Shore.”