Stephanie Rutt

Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt received her Doctor of Ministry degree from Andover Newton Theological School in 2017, now Andover Newton Seminary at Yale, where she graduated with honors and was inducted into the Jonathan Edwards Society. Her dissertation, The Call of the Mourning Dove: How Sacred Sound Awakens Mystical Unity, was awarded the Frederick Buechner Prize for Excellence in Writing and was later published in book form by Wipf and Stock Publishers. S. Mark Heim, a nationally recognized theologian, contributed the Forward.

Ordained an interfaith minister in 2005 by the New Seminary in New York City, Rev. Rutt founded the Tree of Life Interfaith Temple in 2009 in Milford, NH, where she served as Presiding Minister until November of 2020. She is the creator of the Tree of Life Interfaith Seminary, a 2-year program, which trains aspiring seminarians for interfaith ministry as well as the Spiritual Mentoring Certificate Program which provides training to seminarians, and to a variety of practitioners engaged in the helping professions seeking to incorporate spirituality into their professional practices.

Rev. Rutt has developed numerous spiritual study programs which have become the source material for the Tree of Life Interfaith Seminary training curricula as well as for her five books: An Ordinary Life Transformed: Lessons for Everyone from the Bhagavad Gita; The Interfaith Worship Manual: The Resource for Creating Interfaith Worship Services; Living the Prayer of Jesus: A Study of the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic; Lovers in the Wilderness: Awaken Mystical Unity and Create a Joyful Life with Mantra Prayer (updated edition to her previous Doorway to the Sacred: Transform Your Life with Mantra Prayer); and, The Call of the Mourning Dove: How Sacred Sound Awakens Mystical Unity. In addition, her essay, "The Sheikh and the Preacher," appears in One Nation, Individible: Seeking Liberty and Justice from the Pulpit to the Streets, edited by Celene Ibrahim.

In 2018, Rev. Rutt appeared on the TEDx stage sharing real-world stories of how it is possible to reach across political, religious and socio-economic divides to connect with others we may perceive as different from ourselves. She has also presented at the annual conference of World AWAKE, the national organizations for interfaith clergy and helping professionals, and at retreat centers such as at the Haden Institute in North Carolina and at the Rolling Ridge Conference and Retreat Center in Massachusetts.

Locally, she has served interfaith councils over the years through the development of such programs as the “To Hear How Other Pray” series which hosted discussions led by lay people and clergy alike from ten faith traditions over two years. She also served as the community organizer for the Under One Sky Interfaith Peace Walk, which attracted representatives from across faith communities, in 2016 and 2017. Today, she's writing her memoir while continuing to promote her books.