The OASIS,
the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of
Newark, honored Dr.
Louie Crew for a lifetime of justice ministry at a
reception Friday, and presented its first annual scholarship and grant awards.
The Right Rev. Mark
Beckwith, Bishop of Newark, and OASIS Commission Chair John Simonelli presented
Dr. Crew with a hand-illumined certificate of appreciation and announced the
first recipients of the scholarship and grant created in his honor.
Dr. Crew founded
Integrity,
the national organization for LGBT Episcopalians, in 1974. A retired professor
of English (most recently at Rutgers University) he served on the Executive
Council of the Episcopal Church from 2000-2006 and represented the Diocese of
Newark as a member of the House of Deputies
from 1993-2011, among many other acts of service to the church. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama,
Doctorates of Divinity from the Episcopal Divinity School and General
Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate of Human Letters from the Divinity School of the Pacific. Dr. Crew is
extensively published,
on matters of English composition, social justice, faith, and poetry. Dr. Crew is a three-time recipient of the National
Endowment for Humanities, was honored by the Ragdale Foundation and the
Wurlitzer Foundation, and received the Bishop’s Cross from the Diocese of
Newark.
The first Louie Crew scholarship was presented to
Darnell L.
Moore, a writer and activist who is currently the Associate Director of the
Newark Schools Research
Collaborative (NSRC) and an Affiliate of the
Institute on Education Law and
Policy (IELP) both at Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey-Newark. He holds a BA in Social & Behavioral
Sciences (Seton
Hall University),
MA in Counseling (Eastern
University) and MA in
Theological Studies (Princeton Theological Seminary).
Moore also serves as the Chair of Mayor Cory Booker of
Newark’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Concerns and Education, Chair of the
Newark Pride Alliance,
and has served appointments as a Visiting Fellow at Yale Divinity School and
Lecturer in the Women & Gender Studies Department at Rutgers-New Brunswick,
as well as Visiting Scholar at the
Center for
the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. Moore plans to use
the scholarship money to participate in two writing retreats to further his
first book, tentatively titled
To be Black, Queer and Christian: Essays on
the Black church and Sexuality.
The first OASIS Grant was awarded to the Montclair
Protestant Chaplaincy, an ecumenical collaborative, to support the work of the
Rev. Deacon
Diana Wilcox as chaplain at Montclair State
University. A recent graduate of Drew Theological School
in Madison, Wilcox provides a progressive Christian presence at the university
with weekly prayer services, spiritual counseling and other programming. Wilcox studied at Montclair State University
and Fairleigh Dickinson University before pursuing her Master of Divinity at
Drew. Her campus group, the Web of Life Christian Community, became a
Believe Out Loud Congregation in 2011,
and took part in the response to bias incidents on campus this fall and winter.
The OASIS, founded in 1989, is a justice ministry of the
Episcopal Diocese of Newark. Once providing “safe space” worship and spiritual
counseling, the organization has evolved into an educational and advocacy role. The
Louie Crew Scholarship and Oasis Grant, which
were first announced at the 2012 Diocesan Convention, will be awarded annually at
the Oasis anniversary in June to individuals and groups working “at the
intersection of sexuality and faith.”
