Landon Wilcox (M.Div. 23) is a 2023 awardee for The Divinity School Prize for Excellence in Service.

What's next for you?

I am excited to say that I have moved to Washington, DC to pursue full-time ministry. I’m not sure where this will take me, but I’d like to pastor a church in the region. Beyond this, I’d like to make connections with the community to discover the good work that God and the church are doing here. 

What brings you to study religion?

I began studying religion as an undergraduate to prepare myself to become a youth minister, but I discovered that there is so much more to studying religion than just its use for ministry. I found critically engaging my own religious tradition’s texts enriched my faith. I found engaging texts and people of other faith traditions was incredibly interesting and rewarding. It brought me to places and spaces where interfaith discussion was rich with depth and creative engagement. Interfaith discussion helps me to better understand myself, my context, and the world around me, but it is still but one part of the study of religion. The study of religion is a point of intersection that touches nearly every other discipline in some way. It serves as a collection of hermeneutical devices that allows us to dig deep into our individual and collective experience of this life. It is a set of tools that helps us build bridges across ethnic, political, and social difference. It is essential that we study religion because it allows us to see where we’ve come from and where we are, but maybe most importantly, it helps us to dream of where we could be. 

What's something unique or special about studying at the Divinity School?

UChicago’s Div School needs to remember to laugh at itself more and continue discovering what Franz Bibfeldt has coming up next.