About Rev. David Hansen

Rev. David Hansen, Ph.D., Director of IWJ – Central Kansas

I grew up in Wisconsin with an itch to see the world. After graduating from high school, I attended Beloit College, still in college but far from my home. After two years, I moved to Colorado where I attended the University of Denver. Moving west after graduation, I attended the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, where I received both a M. Div. and an M.A. degree. Later I returned to Berkeley to attend the Graduate Theological Union, from which I received a Ph.D. in 1988 with a specialization in social ethics.

I was ordained to Christian ministry in the United Church of Christ in 1971 and served continuously in ministry in that denomination from then until I retired in 2011. I have had the joy and privilege of being in campus ministry in Oregon, and in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. As a local church pastor, I served churches in Wisconsin, California, Hawai’i and South Dakota. I was conference minister in Hawai’i before joining the staff of the Iowa Conference and later becoming the conference minister in the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the UCC. During these years I have served on a number of local and state ecumenical ministries and on the boards of some of the national ministries of the UCC. Ministry also gave me a chance to travel to Germany, India, Israel, and Mexico and be with colleagues in ministry. Now, in 2011, I am ready for a new challenge feeling that the time is ripe to do what is right, as Dr. King reminded us, and start a Kansas chapter of Interfaith Worker Justice—an organization that has been of interest to me for many years and which I am eager to develop.

One of the truly great joys for me these days is having all three of our children and our 10 grandchildren living in Kansas—eight in Wichita and two in Manhattan. Like Sally, my wife, and I, our children have lived in many different places. It amazes all of us to be here together. We are an international, interracial, interfaith family. One son-in-law is French and a second son-in-law is Turkish. Our adopted son is biracial. One of our daughters and her family are Muslim.