Faculty Directory
Margaret Eletta Guider, O.S.F.
Associate Professor of Missiology
Chair, Ecclesiastical Faculty
Margaret Eletta Guider, O.S.F.
Th.D.
Contact
Simboli Hall 306
Telephone: 617-552-6518
Email: guider@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., University of Illinois
- Centro de Formação Intercultural
- M.Ed., University of Illinois
- Franciscan Institute - St. Bonaventure University
- M.A., Catholic Theological Union
- S.T.L., Weston Jesuit School of Theology
- Th.D., Harvard University
Research Interests
Teaching interests include: Ecclesiology, with a focus on Global Catholicism; World Mission Studies; Contextual Theologies; Mariology; and Consecrated Life
Research and writing focuses on: the History of U.S. Franciscan Missionaries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa; Diversity and Internationalization in Theological Education; and Contemporary Issues in Religious Life
Expertise
- Ecclesiology
- Missiology
- Global Catholicism
- Systematics
- Mariology
- Liberation Theology
- Ministerial Formation
Profile
Margaret Guider was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She completed under-graduate and graduate degrees in education at the University of Illinois and taught in the inner city of Chicago. In 1975, she responded to the call to become a lay missioner in the rural interior of Goiás, Brazil. Upon her return to the United States four years later, she became a Franciscan sister and soon found herself ministering in Chicago again, as Archdiocesan Director of Mission Education and as chaplain for the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. Encouraged to pursue graduate work in theological studies, she completed a Master's degree in theology at the Catholic Theological Union, along with additional coursework in Franciscan Studies at the Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University. In 1986, she began doctoral studies in the area of Religion and Society at Harvard Divinity School, with a particular focus on the comparative study of contextual theologies, faith-based social movements, and models of mission in the world church. In 1990, she joined the faculty at Weston Jesuit School of Theology and in 2008, she became a member of the ecclesiastical faculty of the School of Theology and Ministry.
Currently, Sr. Guider is working on a manuscript entitled With Hearts Broken Open: U.S. Franciscan Missionaries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa (1879-2009). She is co-editor of The Grace of Medellín: History, Theology and Legacy (Convivium, 2018), editor of Doing What Is Ours To Do: A Clarean Theology of Life (Franciscan Institute, 2000, and author of Daughters of Rahab: Prostitution and the Church of Liberation in Brazil (Fortress, 1996). She is Vice-President of the Association of Professors of Mission, Past-President of the American Society of Missiology and a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and the American Academy of Religion. She has served as a Trustee of the University of St. Francis and Siena College. She also has served as an advisor and consultant for numerous religious institutes and missionary societies as well as a board member for a variety of Catholic institutions and organizations. Sr. Guider is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate (Joliet, IL) and served as the Congregation’s Vice-President and Councilor for Mission from 2008-2012.