Loye Sekihata Ashton

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT LOYE SEKIHATA ASHTON

An ordained Deacon in the United Methodist Church, I serve as Executive Pastor at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Previous to this appointment, I served as the Minister of Discipleship and Communications at Desert Skies United Methodist Church, in Tucson, Arizona. As a minister, social enterprise business leader, scholar, musician, and administrator, my mission is to promote wider global awareness, greater economic opportunity and social equity, expanded educational access, and deeper spiritual reflection in order to foster intercultural cooperation and respect for human dignity among people from every walk of life. I also assist Class2Class, an educational technology social enterprise based in Austin, Texas that empowers future ready graduates through collaborative intelligence solutions and has developed a leading global platform for virtual exchange and collaborative online international learning (COIL), ImmerseU. In 2019 I finished a Visiting Associate Professorship in the College of Literature at Aoyama Gakuin University, Shibuya campus in Tokyo, where I conducted research in the area of intercultural ethics and exponential technology/artificial general intelligence (AGI). Formerly an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Bioethics as well as the Senior International Officer at Tougaloo College, I hold a Ph.D. in comparative religious philosophies from Boston University, have authored and edited numerous academic publications, and am the series co-editor for “Comparative Theology: Thinking Across Traditions” published by Fordham University Press. With respect to community development through interfaith dialogue and interreligious studies, I have partnered with and worked alongside the American Academy of Religion (Atlanta) for over three decades and the Dialogue Institute of the Southwest (Houston) and the International Museum of Muslim Cultures (Jackson) for over twenty years.