The Rev. Canon Dr. Christian Brady, an Episcopal priest and scholar of ancient Hebrew and Jewish literature, takes the helm of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, on June 1. Brady, dean of the Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky since 2017, will become the 16th president of the Lutheran institution, founded in 1845.
“Dr. Brady exemplifies the innovative, mission-driven leadership Wittenberg needs to thrive in today’s challenging higher education landscape,” said William D. Edwards, chair of Wittenberg’s board of directors, in a statement. “His commitment to academic rigor and experience in building programs and cultivating philanthropic support will be invaluable as we continue to live out our motto of ‘Having Light We Pass It On to Others.’”
Brady will lead the liberal arts college at a time when higher education is navigating a deeply polarized social and political environment. The conflict between the Trump administration and Harvard University, in which nearly $3 billion in federal research funding was withdrawn after Harvard rejected certain conditions attached to it, underscores both the power of public funding and the high stakes of resisting government demands, which Harvard called “illegal” and “intrusive.”
Universities are also confronting the disruptive influence of digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence, which require nuanced, proactive leadership.
Brady, who has served as dean of three colleges, acknowledges these challenges and said his commitment to Wittenberg’s founding mission, rooted in the English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Ohio, fuels his excitement “for the opportunity to serve.” He was formed for ministry in the Diocese of Louisiana and served as interim rector of St. Bartholomew’s in Nashville, Tennessee.
“I certainly believe that the experiences that I’ve gone through in my career and in my personal life have particularly prepared me to help the Wittenberg community,” Brady said, “and to lead folks on the Wittenberg way as they wrestle with the challenges of the current climate and environment.”
That synod, now part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), founded Wittenberg to serve the educational and cultural needs of new immigrant communities. The university’s first president, Ezra Keller, was a pastor who, “very reluctantly and with some pecuniary sacrifice,” served in Hagerstown, Maryland, “impelled by a sense of duty and a desire to promote the general welfare of the church,” Keller’s friend Charles Krauth wrote in The Evangelical Review in 1854.
Hagerstown is an hour from Montgomery Village, Maryland, where Brady grew up. As he began to apply for the presidency earlier this year, he read A History of Wittenberg College by Harold Herbert Lentz. A passage from Keller’s 1845 diary deeply resonated with him and affirmed his sense of calling to the role:
During the year I traveled three thousand two hundred miles, not including short distances; I preached one hundred and seventy-two sermons, and delivered a number of addresses; organized one congregation; put two churches in progress of erection; collected for college six thousand dollars, for churches one thousand dollars; instructed four theological students two hours each day, during the summer. For strength to perform this labor, I render my thanks to God. The more toil, the more grace.
“There is good work to be done here,” Brady said, adding that the struggles of his predecessors in the mid-19th century helped him “become convicted.” He repeated Keller’s phrase with emphasis: “The more toil, the more grace.”
A son of a NASA engineer, Brady grew up a self-described tech geek. During a Zoom interview with TLC, he pointed to an old Macintosh Plus from 1986. He said Artificial Intelligence must be embraced and taught in the classroom.
“I don’t mean teaching everybody to be programmers on the back end, but rather as a humanist, right?” Brady said.
He recalled assigning a Scripture essay for the General Ordination Exam in the Diocese of Lexington, which he serves as canon theologian. Out of curiosity, he prompted ChatGPT to answer it, and what it produced, he said, was “a very good paper.”
He explained that the experience could serve as a teaching moment: students might be given an essay prompt and encouraged to use any AI tool they wish, then asked, “What did you learn in the process?”
“Nothing,” Brady said, answering his own question. “So, on the positive pedagogical end, I think we need to be engaging with it, helping our students understand these are tools.”
On issues like the Israel-Gaza war and antisemitism, which have roiled many U.S. campuses for the past two years, he said: “One of the most important ways to approach all of these issues is to hold firm to values, to respect and support everyone, regardless of their background and their perspectives.
“If we focus on establishing our values—that we love and support and affirm people against hatred of any kind, for any reason,” Brady added, “I think that provides the foundation from which we can move.”
Before joining Kentucky, the Episcopal theologian served for 10 years as dean of Penn State University’s Schreyer Honors College, where he led a staff of 27 and oversaw a capital campaign that raised $80 million. His wife, Elizabeth, is a communications professor and practitioner at Penn State. Their daughter graduated with honors from the university and shares her father’s love for history.
In 2012, their son Mack died suddenly from sepsis, two weeks before his ninth birthday. Brady reflected on the loss in his book Beautiful and Terrible Things: A Christian Struggle with Suffering, Grief, and Hope. Elizabeth wrote about it as well in a compilation of 30 essays titled Oil for Your Lantern: Sharing Light After the Death of a Child.
“For both Elizabeth and I, writing is a way for us to process,” Brady told TLC. “We write out of where we are.”
“As we wrote, we found people responding … and so much of people’s response was simply, thank you for being open about your grief,” he said. “Vulnerability, openness—I think is important, and not just in a leader, but in human relations.”
Brady will succeed president Mike Frandsen, who has led Wittenberg since 2017.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
