After Whiteness

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Written By Open Plaza

Dr. Teresa Delgado talks to Dr. Willie James Jennings about education in belonging and forming people who form communion

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Dr. Teresa Delgado and Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings discuss his most recent book, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans, 2020), the inaugural volume of the groundbreaking Theological Education between the Times book series. As the publisher notes, Rev. Dr. Jennings draws on "the insights gained from his extensive experience in theological education, most notably as the dean of a major university's divinity school—where he remains the only African American to have ever served in that role." In order to “tell the truth from deep down inside of it,” says Rev. Dr. Jennings, “I couldn't get to it just by standard academic writing. I can only get to it by drawing on all the sides of what it means to talk and write about life, but also all the sides of me.” In the book, these “sides” include vignettes, poetry, short stories, and analysis. “What I try to do is to bring people in through the back door,” he says. “I  was an academic dean. I learned all the secrets. Yes, I cannot tell you the secrets, but I can tell you what they mean.”

This episode of OP Talks is part of the Theological Education between the Times (TEBT) series, an initiative out of HTI member school Emory University Candler School of Theology that "gathers diverse groups of people for critical, theological conversations about the meanings and purposes of theological education. The project begins with a recognition that theological education is between the times, on the way. And it works in the confidence that we do not walk this road alone."

 
 
 
 
 

In the tradition of bell hooks and Paulo Freire, Jennings’s insightful indictment of the church and university will be an ideal choice for group discussion…When the academy is not a home, but your skin, paying attention requires everything. A fearlessly candid diagnosis of the failures of the theological academy—its soul-killing cultivation of the self-sufficient man builder—Jennings’s poetic truth-telling nevertheless refuses cynicism’s surrender.

— Andrea C. White
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

 
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Teresa Delgado

Dr. Teresa Delgado is Professor of Religion and Ethics at Iona College, where she is also Chair of the Religious Studies Department and Program Director of Peace and Justice Studies. Her research interests and scholarship engage the experiences of marginalized peoples to articulate a constructive theological/ethical vision. Dr. Delgado holds a BA in Religion and Women's Studies from Colgate University, as well as MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees in Systematic Theology from Union Theological Seminary. She has published on topics ranging from diversity in higher education, transformational pedagogies, constructive theology and ethics, and justice for racial/ethnic/sexual minoritized persons. Dr. Delgado is the author of A Puerto Rican Decolonial Theology: Prophesy Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and she is currently working on a manuscript in sexual ethics, titled “Loving Sex: Envisioning a Relevant Catholic Sexual Ethic.”

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Willie James Jennings

Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at the Yale Divinity School. A Calvin College graduate, he holds an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in religion and ethics from Duke. Rev. Dr. Jennings is widely recognized as a major figure in theological education across North America. Writing in the areas of liberation theologies, cultural identities, and anthropology, he has authored more than 40 scholarly essays and nearly two-dozen reviews, as well as essays on academic administration and blog posts for Religion Dispatches. He is the author of After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans, 2020), which examines the problems of theological education within western education. His book The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (Yale, 2010) won the American Academy of Religion Award of Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Constructive-Reflective category and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the largest prize for a theological work in North America. Englewood Review of Books called the work a “theological masterpiece.” His commentary on the Book of Acts, titled Acts: A Commentary, The Revolution of the Intimate (for the Belief Series, Westminster/John Knox), received the Reference Book of the Year Award from The Academy of Parish Clergy in 2018. He is now working on a major monograph provisionally entitled Unfolding the World: Recasting a Christian Doctrine of Creation, as well as a finishing a book of poetry, entitled The Time of Possession. Rev. Dr. Jennings is an ordained Baptist minister and has served as interim pastor for several North Carolina churches.

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