Public Theology

The Rev. Teresa L. Smallwood, who helped launch Vanderbilt’s Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative as associate director in 2017, is moving to Pennsylvania’s United Lutheran Seminary in January. Over Smallwood’s four years at Vanderbilt Divinity School, the Collaborative has hosted nearly 30 workshops and more than 20… Read More

The question of the "other" is a recurring one. Many scholarly volumes wrestle with this inquiry: who is the other? Toni Morrison enters the discourse with a decidedly reflective view of her own work alongside a plethora of writers who have produced both fictional and scholarly, literary and scientific contributions. Morrison’s particular reference to “origin” is a play on the folksy notion of creation as she weaves her literary prowess into the fabric of despair for those "othered," while concomitantly leveling seismic critique upon those whose literal and figurative expressions serve to “other” human beings, historically and presently. Read More

The 2016 presidential election carries with it the enormous gravity of deciding not only who will be the next President of the United States—and, by extension, the leader of the free world—but also of determining if this culturally-constructed public theology that is manifested in the legacy of American Civil Religion (ACR) will undergo… Read More