Senior Fellow Spotlight – Gary Waldron

Senior Fellow Spotlight – Gary Waldron

“Gary exemplifies the kind of commitment to community life that Dietrich lived with his seminarians at Finkenwalde and wrote about in Life Together. Gary also helps us to get a real-life view from Bonhoeffer’s ‘underside,’ the perspective of those who suffer and are marginalized, which brings us closer to the perspective of Christ and the Cross.”

-TDBI President and Founder, Rev. Dr. Rob Schenck

Gary Waldron has been a Catholic Worker in Tacoma, WA for a decade. In this service he has helped provide transitional housing and advocated for people experiencing homelessness, recent immigrants and folks integrating after incarceration. Before entering into this work, Gary served as Professor of Leadership at Faith Evangelical Seminary.

Gary has extensive service overseas living in China for six years and being Director of Strategic Partnerships at ChinaSource. Gary has a PhD from the University of South Carolina and enjoys hiking, camping, and playing ice hockey.

Schenck Talks Bonhoeffer

In this conversation, Rev. Rob Schenck talks with TDBI Senior Fellow, Dr. Gary Waldron about the Catholic Worker community he is part of, and the history of that movement, whose founder, Dorothy Day, was a contemporary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Day’s work had a similar effect on churches in the US as Bonhoeffer’s had in Germany. Like Dietrich, Dorothy was beloved by some and despised by others. Her work endures in the caring, welcoming, and serving Catholic Worker Houses located across the U.S. and throughout the world.

The Catholic Worker Movement 

The Catholic Worker movement was founded in 1933 in New York City during the Great Depression by Dorothy Day. Today, Catholic Worker communities remain committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.

Loaves and Fishes: The Inspiring Story of the Catholic Worker Movement 

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, offers powerful testimony to the unswerving faith of a woman dedicated to improving the lot of all people, and creating a viable alternative to the growing ills of a chaotic world.

Get to Know Our Namesake 

If you’ve ever wanted a Bonhoeffer 101 online course, here’s your opportunity! Complements of The Riverside Church in New York City, who is offering a four week small group overview of the life and work of TDBI’s namesake, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The Riverside Church meets across the street from New York’s Union Theological Seminary where Dietrich did his research fellowship in 1930. The school still holds original Bonhoeffer papers and other materials in its archives.

We highly commend this introductory class to you and anyone you know who is intrigued by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s story. His life, work, witness, and martyrdom are an inspiration to all during this time of resurgent racialized Christian nationalism around the world, including here in the United States, and in Putin’s Russia. Dietrich’s legacy is a rich resource to help us meet these challenges to religious integrity, social justice, democracy, and peace. While this course is tuition-free, we urge you to consider making a free-will donation to Riverside Church as both an expression of your gratitude, but also an encouragement for them to offer more Bonhoeffer programs!