Olive Hemmings

Chair, Henry and Sharon Fordham Department of Religion
Professor of Religion and Ethics, Washington Adventist University

Olive Hemmings is Chair of the Henry and Sharon Fordham Department of Religion at Washington Adventist University. She has been teaching in Seventh-day Adventist higher education since 1982. Her Masters is in New Testament and Biblical Languages, and her Ph. D is in Theology, Ethics, and Culture (CGU, 2005). She is an ordained minister of the Columbia Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and pursues a yearly itinerary of preaching and teaching. She is engaged in an active writing/publication ministry mainly on topics of current ethical concerns in church and society, with the prophetic origins of the gospel as a foundation. She has presided over the Adventist Society for Religious Studies – a major professional society of Adventist Religion/Theology scholars. In 2022, Hemmings joined the Georgetown University ACPE chaplaincy program in order to develop pastoral/spiritual care competence, and has found it to be a deeply spiritually transforming journey.

Olive has been married to Charles Kuuku of Accra, Ghana, since 1978, and they have three young adult “children.” Her great passion in life is fueled by a strong sense of vocation and sustained by the grace of God.