Union publishes beloved professor’s collection of heartfelt prayers

Union Presbyterian Seminary has published a book of public prayers by Professor Emeritus of Biblical Interpretation Wayne Sibley Towner, who taught at Union for more than two decades.

Towner’s prayers were always delivered from the heart, revealing his deeper sensitivities and commitments. Yet they were also works of theopoetical craftsmanship — carefully designed to focus minds and imaginations in lifting up shared praises, joys and sorrows, and petitions to the Deity. The prayers could be bold and provocative — though, as a man of peace and consistent benevolence, he never traded in guile, polemic, or anger. His prayers were eloquent, but did not waste words. They were typically succinct — even epigrammatic in their rhetorical strategy — exhibiting a delight in striking vivid, well-turned phrases.

Towner was born in 1933 in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He earned Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Divinity, Master of Arts, and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University. He also studied at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and Mansfield College, Oxford University. Towner was ordained to the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church in 1960 and became a missionary teacher in Lebanon for three years. He taught Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, and University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Iowa, and for 26 years he was Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Union Presbyterian Seminary (formerly Union Theological Seminary) in Richmond. He was valued by his colleagues at Union for his wisdom and humor, and for his remarkable capacity to relate the Bible to the creative arts and the art of living. Towner retired in 2002. He and his wife, Jane, live near Kilmarnock, Virginia, and have two adult daughters.