United Welcomes Rev. Dr. Paul Tsuchido Shew as Visiting Professor

DAYTON, Ohio, Sept. 1, 2026 — President Mark Teasdale and Dr. Wendy Deichmann, Interim Academic Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs, are pleased to announce that Rev. Dr. Paul Tsuchido Shew will join United Theological Seminary as Visiting Professor of Methodist Education and Global Mission for the 2026-2027 academic year. An ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, Dr. Shew comes to United as a member of the West Ohio Conference, returning to his own annual conference after more than 25 years of teaching and ministry in Japan.

Dr. Shew has served since 2004 at Aoyama Gakuin, a prestigious Methodist university in Tokyo founded in 1874 through Methodist missionaries and the support of American Methodist John Franklin Goucher. He is Professor in the College of Literature and University Chaplain, and each year he teaches Introduction to Christianity to over a thousand students, along with other courses such as Christian bioethics and AI and Education. From 2019 to 2024, he served as Vice-Chancellor of Aoyama Gakuin and as Dean of Religion from 2014 to 2018. Earlier in his career he was a lecturer at Seigakuin University and associate pastor of Omori Megumi Church in Tokyo. Prior to moving to Japan, he served congregations in Boston and Los Angeles. In 2012–2013 he was Scholar in Residence at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of The United Methodist Church.

Dr. Shew’s work in global Methodist education spans more than two decades. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Asia-Pacific Association of Methodist Educational Institutions (APAMEI) and has long been active in the International Association of Methodist Schools, Colleges and Universities (IAMSCU) and the Association of Christian Universities and Colleges in Asia (ACUCA). In Japan he serves on the governing boards of numerous Methodist-related schools and institutions.

He holds a PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary and an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School. He earned his BA at Earlham College, with study at Waseda University and Tohoku Gakuin University. He is editor and co-author of Connecting Today and Tomorrow: The SDGs and the Message of the Bible and author of Salt of the Earth, Light of the World, a widely used Japanese-language introduction to Christianity now in revision, and he has published on Methodist higher education, Christian education and technology, and the history of Christianity in Japan.

During his year at United, Dr. Shew will continue research on the theological and historical resilience of Methodist educational institutions in times of social change: how Methodist educational and theological convictions have shaped institutional responses to pressing social issues in the past, and how those same convictions might guide responses to present disruptions such as artificial intelligence, the climate crisis, and social polarization. The project draws on archival research in Methodist collections and field visits to Methodist institutions in the United States and the Global South. A related strand of his work concerns artificial intelligence, Christian education, and character formation, which he has researched and convened conferences on for more than a decade; he will present “Educating for Peace in the Age of AI: Cognitive Science, Moral Agency, and Digital Responsibility” at the European Methodist Lecture Program in October 2026.

“I was ordained an elder in the West Ohio Conference, and coming to United is in part a homecoming,” said Dr. Shew. “It is also a continuation. For nearly two decades I have worked with Methodist schools and colleges across Asia, and I have seen how much our institutions gain when the connections between them are living rather than nominal. United and Aoyama Gakuin are separated by an ocean, but we belong to the same family. I am honored to spend this year here, and I expect to learn at least as much as I bring.”