MESLE, Dr. C. Robert "Bob"

MESLE, HILES

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 1/23/2016 at 14:38:53

BIOGRAPHY of C. ROBERT "BOB" MESLE
Graceland University, Lamoni, Decatur County, Iowa

Born on December 8, 1949, in Independence, Missouri, Dr. C. Robert "Bob" Mesle graduated from Graceland with a degree in religion in 1972. He received the Gold Seal, although, technically, he did not have a g.p.a. because he was enrolled in the college's Experimental Curriculum.

Dr. Mesle completed his M.A. in Christian theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1975 and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy and religion from Northwestern University in 1980.

Dr. Mesle began his memorable career as a thought-provoking and thought-challenging Graceland philosophy and religion professor in 1980, becoming known as an advocate of process theology and for stressing the historical context of writings. Students have also known Dr. Mesle for teaching the Humanities I course, for which he developed the "Two Principles" (Copernican and Cartesian) that all enrollees of that class must learn. He has also instructed ethics courses to Outreach nursing students.

Dr. Mesle became founding director of the college's revived Honors Program in 1989 and in 1990 received the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching.

In 1987, Barbara Hiles Mesle (whom Dr. Mesle married in 1970 as a Graceland student) joined the English faculty, making the Mesles among the elite legion of husband-wife faculty members throughout Graceland's history.

Dr. Mesle authored the following works:

Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead. Templeton Foundation Press, 2008.

Tangled, Muddy, Painful, and Perplexed: Pragmatism, Feminism and Life. with Barbara Hiles Mesle. University of Illinois Press, 2003

Theology 9: Process Theology and Religious Pluralism, co-editor, with Joni Wilson, Graceland Press, 2002, and published in Korean, 2003.

Theology V: The Jesus Seminar (editor) "Preface" & "Jesus the Challenge," Graceland/Park Press, Independence, MO 1998.

Process Theology: A Basic Introduction, with a concluding chapter by John B. Cobb, Jr., Chalice Press, 1993.

John Hick's Theodicy, with a response by John Hick, Macmillan in the U.K. and St. Martin's in the U.S., 1991.

The Bible as Story and Struggle, Herald House, 1989.

Fire In My Loins: A Study in Faith and Belief, Herald House, 1984.

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Graceland University, Faculty Highlights, January 26, 2015

Professor Mesle on Exodus

Graceland University Professor of Philosophy Bob Mesle has written a movie review for Exodus: Gods and Kings, which has been published in the Lamoni Chronicle, with a longer essay also published on the website Process Philosophy for Everyone.

In response to Mesle’s essay, Rabbi Bradley Artson, Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles and friend to Mesle, published a response titled The Exodus Invites Us All.

Mesle replied again with a piece titled, Exodus: No Actual People Were Killed in the Making of the Story, which is soon to be posted and is awaiting a final response from Artson at the request of Mesle.

SOURCES: Goehner, David. “The Graceland College Book of Knowledge: From A To Z.” Pp. 427-28. Herald House. Independence MO. 1997.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Robert_Mesle

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, January of 2016

Decatur Biographies maintained by Constance McDaniel Hall.
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