BUSTH Announces Distinguished Alumni for 2023
August 2023 – The Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) is pleased to announce this year’s Distinguished Alumni for 2023. A list of previous winners can be found on the BUSTH website.
“The Distinguished Alumni this year really set the bar high!” says G. Sujin Pak, dean. “Their efforts have traversed international borders, impacting communities across the globe for social good from South Africa and Austria to Indonesia to the Pacific Ocean to Puerto Rico. They exemplify the ways that courageous, compassionate advocacy fosters concentric circles of transformation toward peace and justice. I am grateful for the ways they embody and bear witness to ethical leadership, theological education, military chaplaincy, and liberation theologies. Each offers a stunning vision of hope for a hurting world.”
A celebration of these alums and their achievements will be part of our annual Community Day, scheduled for Wednesday, September 20, 2023. Please register for our Community Day by responding on this form.
2023 School of Theology Distinguished Alumni
Walter E. Fluker, Ph.D. (GRS’88, STH’88)
Reverend Dr. Septemmy Eucharistia Lakawa (STH’11)
Reverend John Michio Miyahara, BCC, CDR, CHC, USN (STH’95)
In the category of Emerging Leader:
Dr. Yara González-Justiniano (STH’14,’19)
2023 Distinguished Alumni Biographies
Walter Earl Fluker (1988, PhD) is the founder of Walter Earl Fluker & Associates. He serves as Distinguished 
Professor of the Howard Thurman Center, Hartford University for Religion and Peace; Dean’s Professor of Spirituality, Ethics and Leadership, Candler School of Theology, Emory University; Professor Emeritus of Ethical Leadership (formerly the Martin Luther King, Jr Chair) at Boston University and the editor of the Howard Thurman Papers Project. He was founding executive director of the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership Center and the Coca-Cola Professor of Leadership Studies at Morehouse College. Dr. Fluker is a featured consultant, speaker, lecturer and workshop leader at foundations, businesses, corporations, colleges, universities, governmental and religious institutions, nationally and globally. Among many prestigious honors and awards, Dr. Fluker was recently chosen as the 2023 Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom of Worship Award Laureate.
His publications include Ethical Leadership: The Quest for Character, Civility and Community (2009); The Ground Has Shifted: The Future of the Black Church in Post-Racial America (2016) and the multi-volume series entitled The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman, published by University of South Carolina Press (2009-2016). He is also the editor of the recently released, The Unfinished Search for Common Ground(2023).
He earned a PhD in Social Ethics from Boston University, a Master of Divinity degree from Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and the Doctor of Humanities, Honoris Causa, Lees-McRae College, Banner Elk, North Carolina. He is married to Dr. Sharon Watson Fluker and is the father of four children and seven grandchildren.
Rev. Dr. Septemmy Eucharistia Lakawa (2011, ThD) received her Doctor of Theology from Boston University School of Theology in 2011.
Dr. Lakawa is the first female president of Jakarta Theological Seminary (2019–2023), the oldest Protestant/ecumenical seminary in Indonesia. One of her contributions has been establishing the foundation for the twenty-year Grand Plan of Jakarta Theological Seminary (2022–2042). The first phase is a five-year program called Green Campus Blue Seminary (2022–2027), which is oriented toward ecological sustainability and habituation. Her leadership has also initiated and integrated mental and spiritual health approaches into the spiritual-ecumenical life at the seminary. She is an associate professor of Mission Studies, Feminist Theology, and Trauma Theology. She is also a World Vision of Indonesia board member.
Her research and work on the intersections of mission studies, feminist constructive theology, trauma theology, the role of art in trauma healing, and interfaith women’s networks have been her main contributions to shaping theological, ecumenical, and interfaith discourse and collaboration within and beyond Indonesia. This includes her work as a research associate under a fellowship from the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School (2015–2016). Her latest book, published in the Indonesian language, is Compassion and Trauma: A New Imagination of Christian Mission, with a foreword by Professor Dana L. Robert, and her most recent article is titled “Toward a Blue Missiology: Theological Education as Eco-Missional Formation” published in the journal Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies.
Rev. John Michio Miyahara (1995, MDiv) is a native of Denver, CO, but now claims Honolulu, HI, as his hometown. 
In 1995 he graduated from the Boston University School of Theology and the same year was also ordained Deacon in the former Rocky Mountain Annual Conference. Rev. Miyahara was ordained Elder in 1998. In 2017 he transferred his membership to the California-Pacific Annual Conference. Throughout his ministry career he has served on annual conference and denominational leadership teams.
Rev. Miyahara served parish churches in Washington State and Colorado from 1995-2001. In 2001 he moved to Carlisle, PA, where he was the Director of Religious Life & Community Services at Dickson College until 2007.
Chaplain Miyahara entered the Navy reserve in 2001 and went to full-time active duty in 2007. He has been assigned to shore and operational billets in Earle, NJ, Norfolk, VA, Quantico, VA, New Orleans, LA, Pensacola, FL, Washington DC, Guam, San Diego, CA, Pearl Harbor, HI, and Bremerton, WA. CDR Miyahara is currently stationed in San Diego, CA.
John’s higher education includes an A.A. (Marymount College-1986), B.A. (Loyola Marymount University-1989), MDiv (Boston University-1995), and a MA (US Naval War College-2023). He is currently a DMin student at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Chaplain Miyahara earned 4 Units of CPE in 2015 at the Naval Medical Center San Diego. In December 2022 he completed the MHICS (Mental Health Integration for Chaplain Services) Certificate, a joint program between the Vanderbilt University Divinity School and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. He is a Board-Certified Chaplain through the Association of Professional Chaplains.
John currently lives in San Diego with his wife Andrea and their son Ben.
Emerging Leader
Yara González-Justiniano (2014 & 2019, MDiv & PhD) is Assistant Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture with emphasis in Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University. She is also affiliated faculty of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies.
She received a PhD in Theological Studies with concentration in church and society from Boston University School of Theology, where she also received her Master of Divinity. At the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. González-Justiniano earned a BA in Audiovisual Communications with a concentration on film; she also double majored in theater and modern languages. Her educational journey of interdisciplinarity inform the ways in which she approaches theological studies. She is also currently under care in the ordination process with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the New England region.
Her most recent publication Centering Hope as a Sustainable Decolonial Practice: Esperanza en Práctica (2022), wrestles with answering the question of what does hope look like amid socioeconomic crises. Her interdisciplinary approach to this inquiry grounds itself in ethnographic research in hopes of finding practices that enable a hope that can sustain the collective.