Descriptive Summary
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Biography / Administrative History
Scope and Content of Collection
Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Related Material
Descriptive Summary
Title: Wayne R. Rood collection
Dates: 1946-2002
Bulk Dates: 1963-1992
Collection number: GTU 92-7-02
Creator:
Rood, Wayne R.
Collection Size:
2 linear feet (2 record boxes)
Repository: The Graduate Theological Union. Library.
Abstract: Wayne R. Rood (1915 - 2000) taught for 44 years at the Pacific School of Religion. He wrote, directed and acted in religious
plays, taught courses on theater and theology, and supervised many theses and dissertations on the subject. Rood was raised
and ordained in the Seventh Day Baptist tradition. He received his AB and BS from Salem College; BD, Alfred University; MRE,
Hartford Seminary Foundation; and ThD, Pacific School of Religion.
Physical location: 4/D/6
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to The Graduate Theological Union. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Graduate Theological Union
as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must
also be obtained by the reader.
Preferred Citation
Wayne R. Rood collection, GTU 92-7-02. Graduate Theological Union Archives, Berkeley, CA.
Acquisition Information
The Collection came to the Graduate Theological Union Archives as a direct
donation by Wayne Rood in July 1992.
Biography / Administrative History
Wayne Ray Rood was born in Neillsville, Wisconsin, on June 24, 1915, and
raised in the Seventh Day Baptist tradition. His family moved to Riverside, California,where he attended public schools from
the second grade through Junior College. He completed undergraduate work at Pacific Union College in California and Salem
College in West Virginia before enrolling in The School of Theology of Alfred University in New York where he graduated with
a Bachelor of Divinity in 1940. Rood was ordained in the Seventh Day Baptist Church in Riverside where he served as pastor.
He attended the
Hartford Seminary Foundation in Connecticut where he earned a Master of Religious Education in 1943. In 1949, he achieved
a Doctor of Theology degree, graduating magna cum laude from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.
Rood was trained in the U.S. Military Chaplain School and served as Army
Chaplain from May 1944 until September 1946. He was stationed variously in New
Caledonia, New Hebrides, Okinawa and Japan during the war years. These
experiences were later privately published 2002 in You Okay, Chappy? Memories of
Infantry Field Chaplain WWII, and his Wife on the Home Front. Upon discharge as a Major in 1945, he taught Historical and
Systematic Theology at Alfred University. 19521981, he was Professor of Religious Education at Pacific School of Religion,
continuing as Adjunct Professor of Theater and Theology until his retirement in 1996.
Rood developed an early interest in theater arts. He participated in the
development of the Religion and the Arts program at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He was founder and artistic
director of BARDS (Bay Area Religious Drama Service). Using liturgical readings and performances to teach Christian education,
he served as lecturer, director and/or actor. He staged dramatic productions on Christian themes and figures in churches throughout
the San Francisco Bay Area.
In addition to his teaching career, Rood also held Baptist pastorates in Rhode
Island and New York, and served as interim pastor for Swedenborgian and Baptist
churches in El Cerrito and Berkeley, California. He taught at The College of Theology at Silliman University in the Philippines,
served as Acting Dean of the Chapel at Stanford University in Palo Alto, and acted as Resident Theologian at the University
of Colorado and the Lilly Visiting Professor at Berea College in Kentucky. He was also a Student of the University of Oxford
in the United Kingdom for two sabbatical years.
Rood authored three books published by Abingdon Press,
The Art of Teaching Christianity (1968),
Understanding Christian Education (1970), and
On Nurturing Christians (1972). He created numerous lectures, addresses, articles, sermons, theater scripts and autobiographical ruminations.
Rood met Anna Loofbourrow while he was a seminarian in New York, and they
married in 1940. They had two children. He died on May 20, 2000, in Berkeley,
California.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Collection consists of materials for lectures and seminars for teaching purposes; dramatic readings and dramatizations
adapted from liturgical sources; service materials and sermons; articles, criticisms, essays; books and autobiographies, published
and unpublished. All materials in the Collection
are mimeographed, Xeroxed, or laser-printed copies. Dr. Rood did not include personal papers in the Collection.
Arrangement
The Collection is divided into five series: Series 1) Academic: Lectures,
Seminars, Addresses, Curricular materials. Series 2) Theater: Readings,
Performances, Dramatizations. Series 3) Worship: Services, Sermons, Convocations.
Series 4) Articles: Articles, Essays, Criticisms, Other Writings. Series 5) Books:
Books, Autobiographies.
Rood often adapted liturgical sources for readings and theatrical productions. He
included a brief preface for many of these materials in the Collection that helps to place their origin and purpose. Materials
that he reworked over time will show the original dates and the reworked dates in the Container Listing.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Rood, Wayne R. (1915-2000)
McPherson, Aimee Semple, (1890-1944)
Pacific School of Religion (Berkeley, Calif.)--Faculty.
United States. Army--Chaplains.
Theology--Study and teaching--California--Berkeley.
Christian education--Teaching methods.
Christian education--Outlines, syllabi, etc.
Theater--Religious aspects--Seventh Day Baptists.
Drama in Christian education.
Seventh Day Baptists--Clergy--Biography.
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American.
Seventh-Day Baptists--Missions--Nigeria.
World War, 1939-1945--Chaplains.
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