Episode 1: What is the Center for Theology and Justice?

Learn from its inaugural Director how Brite Divinity School's Center for Theology and Justice originated, what it is doing, and what it hopes to be.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Just Bright, a Bright Divinity School podcast emphasizing journeying with justice. Just Bright provides the opportunity to hear about what makes Bright bright. We feature people who are serious about exploring and pursuing the work of justice in tangible ways. I'm your host, Oluwa Tuemising Olayenka Orede, Assistant Dean and Associate Professor. And in today's episode, I talk with the inaugural director for the Center for Theology and Justice, also known as the CTJ, Dr. Jeremy Williams, to learn more about what a center is. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Reverend Jeremy L. Williams. The Reverend Jeremy L. Williams, PhD, is a nationally sought-out thinker, preacher, leader, and author who hails from Huntsville, Alabama. He's also the author of Criminalization and Acts of the Apostles, Race, Rhetoric, and the Prosecution of an Early Christian Movement, published by Cambridge University Press. As a scholar of religion who specializes in New Testament and early Christianity, Dr. Williams earned his PhD at Harvard University. He is currently assistant professor, we're gonna say assistant professor of New Testament at Bright Divinity School at Texas Christian University. His research involves studying biblical passages, especially in Acts, where imperial and local officials criminalize the Jesus following movement. You can find more about Jeremy at JeremyLwilliams.com. Also, Dr. Williams is also the inaugural director for the Center for Theology and Justice. Let me tell you a little bit about the Center for Theology and Justice. It's described as bringing people and resources to catalyze and amplify the study and practice of justice at Wright Divinity School. The center brings theological perspectives to many issues of justice, especially systematic injustice. Key concerns include but are not limited to attending to how anti-black racism, women and gender, LGBTQIA plus discrimination, poverty, ecological crises, immigration policies, and anti-Semitism manifest in systems. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Williams. And we are excited to be in conversation with you about the Center for Theology and Justice.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Thank you, Dr. Overdain. It's a pleasure. The honor is mine. I'm looking forward to this discussion.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Absolutely, absolutely. So theology explores and tries to put language around the creator God. Justice is this movement and work towards fair and equitable treatment and reality. Given the heart of these components, theology and justice, what is the center for theology and justice?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah, thank you for that question. Which in many ways it epitomizes what Bright Divinity School is really about. As you name the work of theologies talk of talking about the ultimate or creative deity, and then the justice component, which, as you were listing some of the various interests that we try to address, either through the center or otherwise, it demonstrates that we at Bright and those who are like-minded understand that to do God talk right, it involves how we think about humans, who, from Christian perspective, or a very traditional Christian perspective, understands humans to be made in the image of God. And so we think that if we're talking about God, it is connected to how we talk about people, what we're saying about people, and the outcomes and the type of flourishing that we want people to have. So to that end, part of our real work is to help people to think theologically and act justly. Our tagline in some ways, it captures that really popular Micah 6.8 phrase, right? To do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. But in many ways, that's really what I think bright is about. And this center just captures bright at its best, attempting to take language about God and show how we are really committed to saying if we want to say something meaningful and deep about God, then it also involves how we treat people, how how we resist systems of domination, exploitation, and violence impacting lives, and how we recognize that James passage, you know, New Testament guy, that the faith without works is dead. And and we try to put some more meaning on to that.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

So tell me about, I mean, Bright as an institution has historically been progressive facing um justice leaning. Um how was the center for theology and justice, how was it dreamed up?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah. As as you know, um theological education is is changing rapidly in these moments, and and our student profiles are changing and demonstrating the the relevance of what we offer is a project that not just Bright, but many schools are offering. Not because what we're doing isn't important, but because all of these different moments, I mean, probably since time immemorial, demand new articulations of how do you show your values and your commitments and Bright a place that is committed to bringing forth God's vision and God's dream of justice, love, and mercy. Um, it was looking for a new way to express that in these post-COVID age of AI times. And so the Center of Theology was a product of administrators, board members, and faculty trying to capture some of the energy that Bright already had as this place where activists came not only to get theologically trained, but to think through how they were going to go out into the streets. So channeling that energy, but also the faculty that although we have our various um disciplines trained classically, we all bend toward justice like the moral arc of the universe should. And so to that end, we we we we tried to think through how do we take this, which for many is the best of bright, it its connection of God talk, text that talk about God, and the actual practice, and how do we make that concretized in a way? And so the center um has has been trying to do the really ambitious work of trying to represent bright at its best and represent really um we what I don't think it's gone too far to say the best of what progressive theological education looks like to offer theological experiences that are available to not just those students, but to the broader community to create new um academic resources for people to learn about justice, to create an immersive educational experience for students so that they can see that these concepts are not just things they learn about, but that they are joining a long tradition and history of people who have saw that their faith and their social justice action in the world are not separate, but they are a part of one um fabric for their lives. And so we've been able to try to um take some of the lightning or the best parts of this tradition and and turn it into something that we'll we hope um will be yielding to dividends for um years to come.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

An experiment of the best kind. The Center for Theology and Justice was a means of exploring how to enact justice in imaginative ways. Let's hear more of the conversation. From what I understand, the Center for Theology and Justice is only a few years old. Uh that began in 2023. Um but so far, um, from what I understand, the Center for Theology and Justice has kind of put its feelings out there. What are some ways that uh ways, programs, the Center for Theology and Justice is already kind of putting its feet on the ground?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Oh yeah. Um we we we have not wasted any time. We we started with getting faculty members to discuss um um at that time the recent Supreme Court court decision that had overturned Roe v. Wade. Um then for our first um event that would eventually be called the Dream Justice um event, we had the Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas as our first keynote speaker. You were helpful in getting her to come. So we've got to give you a shout out. Nothing great happens alone, it takes teamwork, and so thank you for for your support and teamwork there. And and then we had somebody who uh for our second year, um we which was the first official Dream Justice. You know, you shouldn't call something annual until you've done it at least at least twice. And so we had somebody who who we uh who is world-renowned, someone else you know very well, and the Reverend Dr. Willie Jennings is our keynote. Um, and then this year we'll be having uh attorney Brian Stevenson for our second annual third, but the third event. Um, we hosted a colloquium where we invited Bible scholars to think about what it means to talk about um the kingdom of God, the home space of God, the reign of God in these times, um, especially as we were getting ready to approach authoritarianism in new ways. We didn't even know how relevant that colloquium would be. Um we hosted a scripture and civil rights travel seminar where we took students um from Fort Worth on a bus through a plantation in Louisiana, um, through Alabama, uh to Georgia, then back through Alabama, through Mississippi, um, to see several important sites around how folks use the scripture in order to affect change in the movement for civil rights. And one of the most exciting things that we've been able to do is we've hired an community organizer and residents who was working with the community. And this year we started a community organizing a cohort or theologically informed community organizing cohort where students are taking um coursework in order to lead toward a certificate where they will have learned the fundamentals of theologically informed community organizing, done apprenticeships, and then had a capstone where they were able to reflect on what they've learned and also meet with some key practitioners and scholars. And so we are we are moving through this particular event. One of the exciting parts about this cohort is that it it began as half bright students and half community students, non-traditional students. Um, and so we have not we have kind of been able to stick to part of our commitment of not just focusing on our students, but to offer some of these resources to the broader community. And one of the ways that that we practice, and we'll have some version of this going forth, is we offered a Saturday school where folks could come and get some real-time organizing training on a Saturday morning. And it was intense. So folks came and left with serious um skills that that even impacted beyond just those who were in the course. I mean, so so the center is is is moving in a lot of different ways to try to realize the vision and and to kind of epitomize that that best of bright.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

I'm curious, what are some other directions that in the future, whether it be immediate or down the road, what are some other directions that that CTJ would be interesting, interested in facing, or some some things that CTJ would be interested in taking up?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah, again, thank you for these wonderful questions. Um something that I hope that we can expand is supporting students who are doing a more activist work. We we we have a little bit of that going on now, but I hope that we can continue to be a hub where students feel some protection to do the work of uh of confronting the powers that be. Um I also um am looking forward to to opening up opportunities for my faculty colleagues to to host conferences similar to that Bible one. You know, I'm a Bible guy, so I'm gonna lean into my Bible stuff. But I but I hope that some of the others, and as I noted before, we all have have a bend toward justice in our in our work. And so finding ways to support them through the center to bring in scholars and to increase the the body of scholarly work. Um and again, the colloquium, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but we brought the scholars in, but we invited the community to come. And so we bring in scholars for the broader community to be exposed to and to hear. And then hopefully um these proceedings can turn into an edited volume. We actually have a contract for the previous one that we did. Um, and so we're doing that work, you know, as an editor, the the work of bringing all of the contributors together. And so, so um hopefully we'll be able to have that as uh as a marker of the work that that we have been doing, and we'll continue to be able to contribute to the larger national conversations around, really and international conversations around the connections between theology and justice.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

I mean, it sounds like CTJ is creating opportunities for education, for connection, whether it's within the institution or partners with the local community. Um sounds like CTJ is interested in um creating artifacts that can continue to move um theological education forward. Um what else does CTJ um hope to do in the future?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah. Um I love these questions about about hope because they they they invite um dreaming about what can what can these iterations look like. Um working with our community organizing residents um who is launching a campaign of his own, Reverend Evan Robertson, Robinson, I'm really interested in thinking about what does it look like to take the tentacles of the CTJ just from Bright and to um move it around other parts of North Texas, whether it looks like um a um social justice institute that's held somewhere um in another part of DFW or maybe in in um West Texas to think about how we can um how we can take these resources because one of the things I think about what is powerful about Bright is that it is a unique uh institution, be really because of where it is geographically. And and I and I don't think that we're the only people who think the way we do, or we're the only people who can think in some of the ways that we do. And so as we continue to think about um strategies for opening um ways to connect with people, so that people really in this area and potentially even nationally, when they're thinking about who is preparing and training people to think about theology and justice, that that bright will be one of the first names that that comes to their mind. And so I have a lot more than I could say. I have a lot of dreams. You you you see I I write pages and pages of documents on what on what I want, but but it's a podcast, so I'm trying not to keep my answers relatively short.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Absolutely, and I love that in this in this short amount of time of existing, CTJ is already this creative hub. And I'm I'm glad that there's there's imagination to continue pushing it towards more and more in the future. Well, thank you, Dr. Williams, for your time. Thank you for providing an introduction to what the Center for Theology and Justice is, for helping us understand some things you already are doing, and for helping us dream with you about the things that you hope to do in the future.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yes, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Thank you for listening to Just Bright. We hope that you leave informed and inspired to journey with justice. You can learn more about how to give to Bright Divinity School and its initiatives by visiting Bright.edu. Take care.