Education
PhD, MA (Vanderbilt University)
STM (Union Theological Seminary, New York)
MATS (Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA)
MDiv (Kachin Theological College & Seminary, Myanmar)
Profile
Dr. Lama Htoi San Lu is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology and Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at North Park University Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois. Her research and teaching interests include Christian theology and ethics, postcolonial and decolonial studies, and migration and diaspora studies.
Grounded in Asian/American feminist pedagogy that acknowledges and values students’ voice and embodied experience, Dr. Lama is passionate about helping students cultivate and nurture the ability and skills to read and critically and compassionately reflect on theological texts from ancient to contemporary; articulate and engage in the long trajectory of theological discourse through contemplation and writing about our everyday lives and ministerial contexts.
Her first book project, based on her dissertation awarded by the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI), entitled Identity and Belonging in Postcolonial Ecclesiology, explores the intersections of race, ethnicity, and religion from a postcolonial feminist perspective. It illustrates how the Kachin Baptist community constructs and negotiates their ethno-nationalist religious identities and community boundaries in multi and transnational contexts. Her scholarly work has been presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), and the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS).
Born and raised in Burma/Myanmar to an indigenous and interethnic Kachin and Shan family with multiple religious backgrounds, Dr. Lama explores the politics of difference and othering while reimagining the relationality between the divine and humans, and between humans and nonhumans. In Burma, she served in Youth and Women’s Ministries in local and regional church, which is a part of the Lower Myanmar Kachin Baptist Church Association. In the U.S., she has been actively involved in Burmese and Kachin Refugee and Immigrant church communities in Boston, New York, Nashville, Hartford, and Chicago. Her education and ministerial experiences mutually shape the way she constructs and teaches Christian theology orienting towards social justice and planetary liberation.
Lama serves as a member of the board of director in Pacific Asian North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM) and serves as co-chair of PANAAWTM’s Mentoring Committee.
Recent Publications
Lama Htoi San Lu, “Women’s Agency and Divine Promise: A Theological Reflection on the Life of
Walatta-Petros” in The Women’s Christian Theology Reader, ed. Steven R.
Guthrie and Beth Ritter-Conn, (Wiley-Blackwell, November 2025)
Htoi San Lu & Ban Htang, “Inheriting Our Sisters’ Wisdom: Kachin Feminist Theology,” with Ban Htang in Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion: Embodying
Knowledge, ed. Kwok Pui-Lan, (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). 137-
150.
Honors & Awards
Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship
Research Grant Award, Asian Pacific American Religions and Research Initiative (APARRI)
Theology & Practice Fellowship, Graduate Department of Religion, Vanderbilt University
Wendland Cook Fellowship, The Wendland Cook Program in Religion and Justice, Vanderbilt Divinity School
Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative Fellowship, Vanderbilt Divinity School
STM Fellowship, Union Theological Seminary, New York
Bishop Atwood Arizona Prize, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA
Professional Organizations & Associations
American Academy of Religion (AAR)
Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
Pacific Asian North American Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM)