I’ve been thinking about and living through significant change these last few months. I prefer to think of it more as “transition” because change always seems to be such a mammoth undertaking. Change signals, for me, a willingness to pull up roots, move on to the largely unknown, try not to stumble in the process, and now, do so with my spouse. However, this past Sunday, as I listened to my spouse preach a brilliant sermon on change and marriage equality—refusing to take the easy way out by caricaturing those who are against equality and those who are for it—I reali More >
Emilie Townes
Professor Townes’s teaching and general research interests focus on Christian ethics, womanist ethics, critical social theory, cultural theory and studies, as well as on postmodernism and social postmodernism. Her specific interests include health and health care; the cultural production of evil; analyzing the linkages among race, gender, class, and other forms of oppression; and developing a network between African American and Afro-Brazilian religious and secular leaders and community-based organizations. Among her many publications are Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health and a Womanist Ethic of Care; Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope; and In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness. Prior to her appointment at Yale, Professor Townes was the Carolyn Beaird Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2008. Professor Townes is an ordained American Baptist clergywoman.
Recent Posts by Author
Though we know that it is impossible to make sense out of the senseless, we find ourselves doing so once again when faced with the massacre of 26 kids and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School here in Connecticut. Twenty of the victims are children who ranged from 5 years old to 10 years old. The principal and some of the office workers were among the adults killed. The young gunman killed his mother, a teacher’s aide at the school, and himself. These are the “facts” as we know them at this point and they are not enough to help us put together the pieces of why A More >
Since the federal election last Tuesday, I have been scratching my head and trying to understand how 332 electoral college votes and 50.5% of the popular vote is now not a mandate (according to all persuasions of reporters) when in 2004 Bush garnered 286 electoral college votes and 50.7% and it was. Is the 0.2% difference that significant? What changed over the last 8 years? It will be interesting to see how these figures shift once the Florida votes are finally counted and certified. Hmmmm… More >
Growing up in the liberal segregated south of Durham, NC in the late 1950s and 1960s, one of the things that was drummed into little Black kids heads was the power and right of voting. From Civics classes to conversations in our homes to messages from stormy pulpits, we learned the story of the hard won victories Black folk in the U.S. fought to be able to go to the polls without physical threat (or in spite of it) and pull the lever—this was democracy, this is what citizens do.
More >
On the morning of November 5, 2008, we gathered for our daily worship in Yale Divinity School’s Marquand Chapel. There was much joy and celebration in the air as almost all of those gathered felt a new day had dawned across America. I was doubtful. Perhaps it was the cranky ethicist in me peaking around the corner of ecstasy, maybe it was the pragmatic womanist in me, looking back at history More >