Nowlin 2019

Thomas Wayne Nowlin holds a B.A. from Charleston Southern University in Charleston, SC, with an emphasis in Religious Studies. He also holds a Master of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, with an emphasis in Pastoral Care. He is a graduate of the International Institute for Japan Studies, Nigawa, Japan, and the Kansai Missionary Language Institute, Kobe, Japan. He is fluent in Japanese. Mr. Nowlin completed 5 years of work toward a PhD in Theology, Church History and Missiology at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, TN, before transitioning to Neopaganism. He also completed independent study in philosophy and Japanese at the University of Memphis in Memphis, TN. After 20 years of Christian ministry – a pastor of three stateside churches in Kentucky and Arkansas (8 years) and a denominational missionary to Japan (12 years) – he became a Neopagan Druid having been influenced by his study of the Shinto paleo-paganism of Japan and the Irish Druidry of his family ancestry. He is a member of the Druid organization Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF) and has supported the work of the ADF Ozark Druid’s Grove in Fayetteville, AR and the Central Arkansas Pagan and Witch’s Meetup in Little Rock, AR. A graduate of the US Navy’s nuclear power school, and a former submarine nuclear operator during the Cold War, he later became a Conscientious Objector to the use of nuclear weapons. He is currently an electric utility office manager and a pagan farmer in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. He is committed to clean efficient energy use, sustainable agricultural practices, and whole natural foods. Mr. Nowlin is passionate about the study of philosophy, theology, and ethics, and their disciplined practical application in facilitating the health and well-being of our planet, environment, and humanity. He is a practitioner of the spiritual disciplines – simplicity, meditation, virtuous living, piety, study, service, etc. – through which he believes we are better able to honor the Powers, the Kindreds (Nature Spirits, Ancestors, and Deities), the Earth Mother, and our fellow humanity in all its positive potential and rich diversity.