Performer, Pastor and Activist

Ordained as a clergy in the Disciples of Christ tradition, the Rev Dr. Beverly Dale has been a public theologian and outspoken presence on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania since 1989. She has been an advocate for creating a more compassionate and just world on such varied topics as worker rights, race relations, and civil rights for the sexual minority communities, and gender equity. Believing that "God always revises our boundaries outward," Dale leads interfaith discussions and works to promote understanding across the boundaries of gender, race and sexual orientation even as she challenges the Penn community to  take seriously its responsibility to use its resources to create a more ethical institution and humanistic environment.  She has been introduced by one faculty member as "Rev Bev, the conscience of the University."

Dale is also a teacher for change and, as such, has taken scores of students under her tutelage to help them consider how best to contribute their unique skills and interests to the service of humanity, directing and challenging their vocational choices to examine their underlying values. Her passion is to stimulate people to think deeper and to live more fully. while her primary work is in small groups, facilitating and leading discussions, she also provides spiritual direction, limited pastoral counseling and premarital counseling.

Her theological enterprise is to explore the intersection of spirituality and sexuality and to create opportunities where a sex positive and woman friendly message can be heard in a Christian context. Much of her teaching,  writing, and performance is in this context as she helps both spiritual people explore being sexy and sexy secular people explore being spiritual. (Find out more about our sexuality ministry called PassionWorks!)

She received her Doctor of Ministry degree from the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1988 specializing in pastoral counseling. Her doctoral work focused on revitalizing small churches. Her undergraduate and masters degrees in sociology, specializing in sexuality and family, were awarded by Illinois State University. Dale was honored by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights in 1998 for her work on the Domestic Partnership Bill adopted by the City Council of Philadelphia. Besides being quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer on several occasions and writing for the Daily Pennsylvania as a guest columist, she has also written for The Disciple, and Disciple World, The Other Side, and the Journal for Women and Religion.