President of the University
Professor of Hermeneutics and Homiletics
B.A., Seattle Pacific University; M.Div., Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; M.A., University of Washington; Ph.D., University of Washington; joined UDTS in 1996

Contact Info:
110 Severance | (563) 589-3224 | president@dbq.edu

“For the past twenty-five years, practitioners of what has come to be known as the New Homiletic have attempted to discover a way through the ’crisis’ of preaching to a ’new effectiveness.’ Consequently, New Homileticians have looked to story, narrative, and semantic imagination as ways to move from a homiletical practice that is based in argument and representational language to one that is more experiential or presentational. What theorists have overlooked, however, is something that I was fortunate to learn early on in my pastoral ministry; that is, at its best, preaching is an ongoing conversation between God, congregation and pastor. Therefore, the first move that any practicing homiletician should make before he or she delivers a sermon is to listen rather than to speak, is to pastor rather than to preach.”

Before coming to UDTS, Dr. Bullock served Presbyterian congregations in Pennsylvania and Washington. He has been active in the area of church revitalization and redevelopment and has served on the Committee on Ministry and the Committee on Preparation for Ministry. In addition to denominational publications, Dr. Bullock has published articles in the Journal of Communication and Religion and reviews in the Quarterly Journal of Speech. His book Preaching with a Cupped Ear focuses on appropriating the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer into contemporary homiletical theory and analyzing what it means to preach in a Postmodern World.