Biography

Rev. Dr. Claude Marie Barbour retired in 2016 after 40 years on the faculty. The theology and ministry she practiced with students, ministers, missionaries and others, had roots in her work as a missionary in Lesotho and Soweto, South Africa with the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society during the early 1960’s. Claude Marie came to the United States for further theological studies and was ordained in 1974 to the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) during her years of service in Gary, Indiana. She was among the first women to be ordained in that denomination. She is a member of the Chicago Presbytery (HR – Honorably Retired). Intercultural and Interreligious ministries, spirituality, and ecumenism, have always been her passion. She developed ministries among Native Americans in South Dakota and Chicago and initiated the traveling seminars to the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota in the 1980’s. These seminars continue today and more than 2000 individuals have participated over the years. She is the founder and director of the ecumenical and intercultural Shalom Ministries and Community and has initiated many global/ecumenical programs/projects throughout the years. Reconciliation and the healing of memories have always been part of her ministry including training of others to work with survivors of human rights abuses.

Rev. Claude Marie Barbour

Achievements

Recent Publications
  • “The Return: Returning to the Place of Pain.” In New Theology Review, Vol. 17, Number 1, 2004.
  • “Mission as Accompaniment.” with Eleanor Doidge in Catholic Mission 1910-2010, edited by Stephen Bevans, Oxford, UK: Regnum Books, 2013.
  • “Plural Spiritualities and Dual Religious Belonging” with Robert Schreiter.  In Plural Spiritualities: North American Experiences, edited by Robert J. Schreiter, 75-89. Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2015.