Dr. Jennifer McBride, Wartburg College assistant professor of religion, is among nine writers selected for the Virginia Seminar in Lived Theology.

The Virginia Seminar, a four-year program of the University of Virginia’s Project on Lived Theology, provides scholars of religion with a fellowship to help underwrite books exploring vital religious issues while offering creative interaction with their peers.

McBride, who earned a doctorate at the University of Virginia in 2008, joined the Wartburg faculty at the beginning of the current academic year. She is Regents Chair in Ethics and was recently named director of a new Peace and Justice Studies major.

A Virginia Seminar grant allowed her to work as a full-time volunteer in 2010-11 at Atlanta’s Open Door Community, an interracial, residential Christian activist and worshipping community with roots in the Catholic Work movement — although its leaders are from various mainline Protestant denominations. It has assisted the homeless and prison populations for 30 years

McBride is writing a book with the working title, “Reducing Distance: Radical Discipleship through an Open Door,” based on that experience.

“I worshipped there while in Atlanta for three years, but felt drawn to be more deeply involved in the daily work,” McBride said. “The unexpected opportunity to teach and direct a theology program at a women’s prison through Emory University’s Candler School of Theology drew me even deeper into the concerns of the Open Door.

“My book will reflect on the interconnected experience of serving at the Open Door and teaching at the prison,” she added.