About Myself

My name is Aaron Rathbun, and I am an educator and ecumenical minister. I presently serve as chaplain and Director of Spiritual Life at the college preparatory school Choate Rosemary Hall, and occasionally teach as an adjunct professor at Sacred Heart University, leading seminars on the Christian intellectual tradition. I completed my graduate seminary studies as a Marquand Scholar at Yale University Divinity School, focusing on ethics and the intersections of religion and politics. My undergraduate degree is in philosophy from Calvin University where I studied continental, pragmatist, and analytic schools under James K. A. Smith. Finally, I have a diploma of theological and biblical studies from my time in the UK through the University of Wales, Bangor, particularly focusing my own studies in the Augustinian and Reformed traditions—where I was blessed to study alongside global Christians hailing from Brazil, South Korea, Ghana, Finland, China, Zambia, and beyond.

I'm a nisei Japanese-American born on the Gulf of Mexico in Corpus Christi—the "Body of Christ"! My students not only come from countries all around the world, but also come from the entire breadth of the Christian faith: Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Non-denominational, and more. As such, I especially appreciate teaching and worship resources that introduce students to the unity and catholicity of our faith, cultivating a Christ-centered and cosmopolitan ecumenical spirituality. With my own family history having come from Methodism and Roman Catholicism, and spending my formative years in Michigan within Continental Reformed and charismatic circles, I appreciate particular sensibilities from the entire family tree of Christianity, and ways that different traditions can reinforce and strengthen one another: Patristic-Orthodox soteriology, Presbyterian and Reformed ecclesiology, Anglo-Catholic sacramentality, Pentecostal spirituality, Catholic social teaching, Anabaptist political theology, the Black Church and Latin American ethical traditions, and more.

Academically, my research interests include pluralist postsecular political theology, Patristic neoplatonist metaphysics, postfoundationalist epistemology, hermeneutics, and philosophy of science. Ministerially, I like to summarize my sensibilities with the homiletical alliteration "Jesus, Justice, Jubilee"—unequivocal and confessional fidelity to Christ, an ecclesial commitment to redemptive and restorative justice, and a biblically-informed ethic toward material conditions and economics. Beyond teaching and ministry, I also have the privilege of coordinating interfaith functions as the director of our institutional chaplaincy team, alongside our Jewish, Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Buddhist chaplains. I also serve on the Equity & Inclusion team, helping promote DEI work with students and campus life. Outside the classroom, I can be found reading, keeping up with current events, joining community faith-activist functions, enjoying esports, watching reruns of Star Trek, playing electric guitar, and spending time with family.