Harold Anderson

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Introducing

Dr. Harold W. Anderson

Pastor

Brush United Methodist Church

Phone: (970) 842-5425 - Home
(970) 842-2522 - Church
(970) 398-1160 - Mobile

I was born in Twin Falls, Idaho on December 17, 1951. At the age of five, my parents, my sister and I moved to Boise, Idaho where I lived until I attended college at Northwest Nazarene College -- a small liberal arts college -- in Nampa, Idaho.

At Northwest Nazarene College, I had a double major in Religious Studies and Philosophy. My minor was in English Literature. While there, I was the Teaching Assistant of Dr. Sherril Munn, the New Testament Professor, and Dr. Edwin Crawford, the Philosophy Professor. I graduated with a 3.55 GPA.

Upon graduation at Northwest Nazarene College (1977), I moved to Berkeley, California where I attended the Pacific School of Religion working towards a MA in Philosophic and Systematic Theology. Pacific School of Religion is a part of the Graduate Theological Union which is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley. My time in Berkeley was a unique experience of both cultural and academic diversity. I truly enjoyed my experience there, and dream of someday returning to teach at one of Berkeley's many educational institutions.

I graduated with my MA in 1980 (3.75 GPA), and from there I moved to Kansas City, Missouri to pursue a M.Div degree at the Nazarene Theological Seminary. A M.Div is a practical degree designed for those people who are studying for the ministry. I don't know if you know anything about the Church of the Nazarene, but it is a fairly conservative Protestant denomination. However, if you are to understand my experience there, some background is in order:

The period of time when I was at Northwest Nazarene College (NNC) was somewhat of an anomaly in that institution's history. During that time, most of the professors I studied with were considered quite progressive both theologically and philosophically. Indeed, only two of the people I studied with remain today. The others, because of their progressivism, where either forced to leave or left on their own accord because they did not feel free to teach their convictions. Needless to say, the progressivism at NNC seemed rather conservative compared to the academic atmosphere of Berkeley. When I moved from Berkeley to Kansas City, I had moved from a more progressive member of the Church of the Nazarene to radical reformer who desperately wanted to transform that Church into something it did not want to become. The mixture was explosive, and upon graduation from the Nazarene Theological Seminary, my professors were as happy to see me go as I was to leave. While there, I was a part of the honors program and taught History of Philosophy. I graduated in 1982 (3.98 GPA, Magna Cum Laude) and soon after that, joined the United Methodist Church where I was a pastor until 1989.

In 1989, I was accepted into the Joint Ph.D. Program at the Iliff School of Theology and University of Denver. My area of concentration was "Philosophy, Theology and Cultural Theory." My dissertation was in the area of computer culture and ethics, and is entitled "Digital Ontology and the Problem of Ethics: A Levinasian Response." I successfully defended my dissertation November 7, 1999 with no revisions and a strong recommendation to publish. I am currently working on getting it ready for publication. It is concerned with computer culture that I am calling "digitization," and the ethical issues that it raises for contemporary humanity. I hope to graduate this coming spring (Spring, 1998).

My hobbies are racquet ball, backpacking and hiking. I enjoy playing with computers and I am quite intrigued with gadgets. I am married to a wonderful woman, Pamela Anderson, who is studying art at Metropolitan State College in Denver. In September, we will have been married nine years.