Vanderbilt Divinity School celebrates the induction of Professor Anderson and Professor Thompson into the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. College of Ministers and Laity, Collegium of Scholars this week. The honor is part of the 41st Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. College of Ministers and Laity Ceremony.
The College of Ministers and Laity is the signature program of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel and invites academics and scholars across disciplines to convene as students of Dr. King’s philosophies and ethical principles.
Victor Anderson is the Oberlin Theological School Professor of Ethics and Society at the Divinity School and the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. He holds B.A. from Trinity Christian College, the M.DIV and M.TH from Calvin Theological Seminary, and the M.A and Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University in Religion, Ethics, and Politics (1991, 1992). Anderson has published three books: Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay in African American Religious and Cultural Criticism (1995, 2016), Pragmatic Theology: Negotiating the Intersection of an American Philosophy of Religion and Public Theology (1999), and Creative Exchange: A Constructive Theology of African American Religious Experience (2008), and Revives My Soul Again: The Spirituality of Martin Luther King Jr, co-editor with Lewis V. Baldwin (2018). He teaches courses in philosophy of religion, philosophical, theological and social ethics, African American religious studies, and American philosophy and religious thought.
“When school finally ended in Chicago for the summer, my siblings and I would spend the long, hot summer in GA, often touring HBCU sites in ATL. We stopped at Morehouse once, and my grandfather assured me that I would never go there! I may not have attended, but being inducted into the Morehouse collegium of scholars proves transcendence greater than fatalism.”
– Victor Anderson, Oberlin Theological School Professor of Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt University, the Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences
Lisa L. Thompson is and Associate Professor and the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Black Homiletics and Liturgics at the Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion. As a leader in scholarship that values intellectual rigor and concerns of faith, she holds a Doctor of Philosophy and a Master of Arts in Religion from Vanderbilt University. She prioritizes discussing the ways religion can be used for the destruction or uplift of our life together. Her current book projects are entitled Ingenuity: Preaching as the Outsider (Fall 2018) and Preaching the Headlines (Fall 2021). Ingenuity mines the preaching practices of black women for the sake of re-thinking theologies and methods of preaching as a whole. The book is a hallmark of the Black Womanist Homiletic that spans her work. Preaching the Headlines is based on a course she created and has taught since 2012 across multiple academic and non-academic contexts. The project engages the intersection of social and religious discourses for the purpose of helping communities address everyday life issues as matters of faith, while oriented towards a just earth. The Louisville Institute awarded her a First Book Grant for Minority Scholars for the project.
“As the child of parents who grew up as sharecroppers in North Carolina and now stand among the earliest members of a Black land trust, I understand education as an expansive practice of freedom. It is a calling I have inherited, devoted my life to, and am committed to planting forward as seeds in the earth — making this recognition by the Morehouse Collegium of Scholars a profound honor.”
– Lisa L. Thompson, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Black Homiletics and Liturgics; Associate Professor of Black Homiletics and Liturgics
The ceremony will take place on Thursday, April 9, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. It will be held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College.