Tradition has it that graduating seniors at New Brunswick Theological Seminary select the preacher for their baccalaureate service. This year NBTS Seminarians called on Rev. Dr. John Coakley to address graduates, alumni and guests at our 2013 Baccalaureate Service held on May 17, 2013 at Second Reformed Church of New Brunswick, NJ.Read his sermon, Our Struggle: 2013 Baccalaureate Sermon by Dr. John Coakley.”Having taught a large majority of the students who have come through NBTS over the past three decades, I take pride and pleasure in congratulating graduates,” says Dr. Coakley. “I was honored to be asked to preach the sermon at this years Baccalaureate service. ”

Dr. Coakley joined the NBTS faculty in September, 1984, after serving as a pastor in Massachusetts for ten years. He has been the L. Russell Feakes Memorial Professor of Church History since 1995. He holds degrees from Wesleyan University (A.B.), Rutgers University (M.L.I.S.), and Harvard Divinity School (M.Div., Th.D.), and is a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America. Among his books are Women, Men and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators. (Columbia University Press, 2006) and Readings in World Christian History, vol. 1 Earliest Christianity to 1453. (Orbis Books, 2004).