It is with great sadness that Nashotah House Theological Seminary announces the passing of the Rev. Daniel A. Westberg, a professor of ethics and moral theology. Westberg died Oct. 18, in a boating accident on Upper Nashotah Lake.
A faculty member at Nashotah House since 2000, Westberg was a leading scholar in the area of moral theology. Westberg grew up in Japan, where his parents were missionaries with the Evangelical Covenant Church. While in graduate school in Toronto, Canada, he became an Anglican and experienced a call to ordained ministry. After seminary training and ordination in 1978, he served in the Diocese of Toronto for 10 years, in both rural and city parishes. After the death of his first wife, Lynne, Westberg married Lisa and moved the family temporarily to Oxford, England, where he studied at Oxford University with Oliver O’Donovan and Herbert McCabe and wrote a dissertation on Thomas Aquinas and the virtue of prudence.
From 1990 to 1998, Westberg taught ethics at the University of Virginia, followed by an interim year teaching theology at a seminary in Canada. Since his appointment to the Nashotah House faculty in 2000, Westberg had been the seminary’s professor of ethics and moral theology. His publications include the following books: “Right Practical Reason: Action, Aristotle and Prudence in Aquinas” (Oxford UP, 1994), “Preaching the Lectionary” (3rd ed.; Liturgical Press, 2006) in collaboration with the late Reginald Fuller, and “Renewing Moral Theology: Christian Ethics as Action, Character and Grace” (InterVarsity Press, 2015). He also published extensively in journals such as The Anglican Theological Review, The Thomist and New Blackfriars, as well as several short articles in The New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology (InterVarsity Press, 1995).
“The Rev. Dr. Daniel Westberg was a faithful priest of the Diocese of Milwaukee whose gifts as a teacher were a blessing to us all. Our hearts and prayers go out to his wife Lisa, their family and the community of Nashotah House at this sad time. We pray that Dan will go from strength to strength in God’s perfect kingdom,” stated the Rt. Rev. Steven A. Miller, bishop of Milwaukee.
Westberg is survived by his wife, Lisa, his father, a brother and three sisters, four adult children and three grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending. On the morning of Oct. 19, Garwood Anderson, acting dean of Nashotah House, gave a homily on the occasion of Westberg’s passing.
Founded in 1842, Nashotah House is a seminary serving the Episcopal Church, Anglican Communion and other ecumenical partners.