Religious Studies Professor Burns Remains Busy in Retirement

by Rashad Mulla

Religious Studies Professor Burns Remains Busy in Retirement

According to John Burns, the premise that retirement brings free time is false. After a 24-year teaching career at George Mason University, Burns, professor emeritus of religious studies, spent the last few months traveling, teaching at the Arlington Learning in Retirement Institute, and working for the Smithsonian’s Behind-the-Scenes program, all while maintaining one of his lifetime hobbies: stage acting. Though retired, he plans to teach on a part-time/adjunctbasis at Mason. Next semester, he will teach RELI 330: Religion, Fantasy and Imagination.

The road to a long and successful career began in an unconventional fashion for the scholar whose career pre-dates the creation of the very department on which he left his signature.

After completing his education in Scotland at the universities of St. Andrews (MA and PhD) and Glasgow (BD), Burns spent 16 years as a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, Canada, and finally, Fairfax, Va.

He came to Mason in 1986 while Young-Chan Ro, currently the chair of the Department of Religious Studies, was chair of a search committee in the mid-1980s looking to fill a tenure track professorship position. According to Ro, the search had hit a snag, and the department was prepared to go for another year with the empty position.

But one day, when Ro and his wife were attending Providence Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Va., Senior Pastor John Burns met them afterward and coincidentally stumbled upon their academic similarities. Burns was looking to leave ministry and get back into academia and Ro was looking for a new faculty member.

“I attended his services and found that he was a good speaker and a good preacher,” Ro said. “He was not expecting any full-time employment at that point. I told him that the teaching job was tough and very competitive, and he may not have a chance.”

But that opinion changed when Burns came to campus for a formal presentation.

“The whole department liked him,” Ro said. “They all said, ‘Why not just hire him for the tenure track position?’”

They never looked back.

Burns quickly adjusted to the department and contributed greatly to its success. He took on numerous responsibilities in addition to his academic pursuits:

  • he served on various committees (including College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean Jack Censer’s Senior Leadership Committee)
  • he read graduates’ names at college convocation just about every year
  • he filled the role of faculty secretary
  • he became director of the master of arts in interdisciplinary studies program, and 
  • he was the director of the concentration in religion, culture and values, which he created.

Over time, Burns developed various research interests, including the religion ofAncient Israel, mythology in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East, scripture and sexuality. He co-authored and edited abook, Chronicles and its Synoptic Parallels in Samuel, Kings and Related Biblical Texts, and he wrote scholarly articles, including, “Devotee or Deviate: The Dog (keleb) in Ancient Israel as a Symbol of Male Passivity and Perversion,” and “The Cedar and Brokeback Mountains: Heroic Passions or ‘I’m not no queer,’”both for The Journal of Religion and Society. He regularly reviewed scholarly publications in his field.

“For me, the transition to academia was not a difficult one,” Burns said. “The research was the most difficult. I was writing for church magazines, but on a more popular level. Teaching and preaching were not too different.”

Burns really took to teaching, and he taught many religious studies classes over the years, from introductory-level courses to more advanced ones. He brought passion and personality to his classes.

“I enjoy teaching enormously, and I have always regarded teaching highly” Burns said. “Throughout the different generations of students I’ve had, there has rarely been a student that I did not like.”

Senior religious studies major Andrew Blackmer offered a complimentary account of Burns’ teaching ability.

“The thing that stands out the most about Professor Burns is that you can never leave a class without learning something and laughing while doing so,” Blackmer said. “A lot of professors can crack jokes and be interesting, but I have never had any that could do both at the same time. He keeps students interested and he challenges them at the same time.”

But after his retirement, which Ro tried to discourage, Burns now makes time for his other passions, including stage acting. He has been on stage at least once per year for most, if not all, of the last 50 years. He hasappeared in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” and Noel Coward’s “Nude with Violin” recently, and in Feb. 2011 he will perform in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in Silver Spring, Md.

In the spring, Burns will bring his act back to the classroom.

“I plan to keep teaching for as long as they want me,” he said.

For Blackmer, signing up for Religion, Fantasy and Imagination was a no-brainer.

“If he taught a class titled, ‘How to Watch Paint Dry,’ I would take it.”