(Photo Caption: Rev. Keppel Levy is shown after allowing her congregation to shave her head for charity recently.)
The Rev. Elana Keppel Levy, co-pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Bixby, Okla., will visit campus on the week of April 29 through May 3 as part of the University of the Ozarks’ Struthers Visiting Pastoral Study Leave Program. She will lead the University’s weekly Chapel Service at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 30.
From a very young age, Keppel Levy was drawn to study the Holocaust, particularly those who acted with such cruelty. She learned German in school and received undergraduate degrees in German language and psychology at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., in 2005. She spent 10 years translating documents about concentration camp guards for Dr. Susan Eischeid, who recently published a book, “Mistress of Life and Death,” on the subject. Keppel Levy continues to pursue questions: How could humans commit atrocities? Who are we when we stray from our creaturely calling? What can Christians do to cultivate justice? These unanswerable questions prompt her to see people as people first and to reach out even when hope seems lost.
In 2009, she earned a master of social work degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro & North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a special focus on older adults, the bereaved, and those traumatized by sexual assault.
Feeling strongly called to the ministry, Keppel Levy completed her master of divinity at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2014 and received a call as a pastoral care associate the same year at First Presbyterian Church in Roswell, N.M. She worked with the board of deacons and taught some workshops on world religions. In 2016, she was invited to give a talk about people who resisted the Nazis for the Summer Institute for Teaching the Holocaust for Social Justice.
Later in 2016, she and her spouse, Lucus, began serving as co-pastors at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Bixby, Oklahoma. In this call, she has written a number of plays that were performed together with congregants. When the pandemic began, she tapped into her love of languages and began doing Hebrew and Greek word studies of lectionary passages. These, together with the plays, Christian Ed lessons, music, and more, are posted for free on her website: www.somuchbible.com
About 10 years ago, she began living with chronic pain. Fibromyalgia has impacted the way she must balance her time, but not her passion to continue pursuing what inspires her the most. She recently finished writing a book about living with chronic pain and chronic illness as a person with a strong, progressive faith. She is currently seeking publication. In her non-existent spare time, she writes articles for the Presbyterian Outlook every month or two.
Topics: Chapel