Candler will host an online Convocation on Tuesday, January 26 at 11:30 a.m. to celebrate the start of the spring 2021 semester. Candler Dean Jan Love will give opening remarks and the Rev. Dr. Willie Jennings, associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale Divinity School, will deliver the convocation address, “Speaking Truth to Prophets,” based on Deuteronomy 18:15-20.
The service will be live streamed on Facebook, Instagram, and on Candler’s website, and the address will be available on Vimeo after the live event.
Willie Jennings’ book The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (Yale, 2010) won the 2011 American Academy of Religion Award of Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Constructive-Reflective category, and the 2015 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 (Westminster John Knox, 2017) received the Reference Book of the Year Award from The Academy of Parish Clergy in 2018.
His most recent book, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans, 2020), examines the problems of theological education within western education. It is part of the book series generated by Candler’s “Theological Education Between the Times” project.
Writing in the areas of liberation theologies, cultural identities, and anthropology, Jennings has also authored more than 40 scholarly essays and nearly two dozen reviews, as well as essays on academic administration and blog posts for Religion Dispatches.
In addition to his work as a scholar, Jennings is an ordained Baptist minister and has served as interim pastor for several churches in North Carolina.