Deanna Ferree Womack

The Rev. Dr. Deanna Ferree Womack teaches courses on Christian-Muslim relations and interreligious dialogue and directs Candler’s Master of Religious Leadership program. She served from 2015 to 2020 as director of the Leadership and Multifaith Program (LAMP), established with the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. Womack came to Candler from Princeton Theological Seminary, where she earned her MDiv, ThM and PhD.

Womack’s research combines commitments to interreligious understanding, Christian-Muslim dialogue, and world Christianity. Her first book, Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria (Edinburgh University Press 2019), explores encounters between American missionaries and Arab residents of Syria and Lebanon in the pre-World War I period. In particular, it uncovers the history of Syrian women writers and preachers who navigated cultural and religious boundaries in their experiences with missionaries. Womack’s second book, Neighbors: Christians and Muslims Building Community (Westminster John Knox Press, 2020) examines the history of Christian-Muslim relations and the practices of interreligious dialogue in the United States today. Her current research focuses on themes of gender and violence in American Protestant discourses on Islam.

BOOKS

Co-editor with Raimondo C. Barreto, Alterity and the Evasion of Justice: Explorations of the “Other” in World Christianity,  Fortress Press, 2023

Series co-editor, Middle Eastern and European Christianity, 16^th-20^th Century: Connected Histories, Essays by Bernard Heyberger, in the Edinburgh Studies in Middle Eastern Christianity Series, Edinburgh University Press, 2023

Neighbors: Christians and Muslims Building Community, Westminster John Knox Press, 2020

Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria, Edinburgh University Press, 2019

CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES

“Protestant Portrayals of Islam: From the Reformation to Modern Missions,” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 76:2, April 13, 2022 April 13, 2022

“Christians in and from the Middle East: Lessons from the World Christian Encyclopedia.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 46:1, December 22, 2021 December 22, 2021

“Syrian Protestants and Arab-Islamic Identity: Cultural Dimensions of Interreligious Belonging,” in Studies in World Christianity, vol. 25, issue 1, Edinburgh University Press, April 01, 2019

“’To Promote the Cause of Christ’s Kingdom’ International Student Associations and the ‘Revival’ of Middle Eastern Christianity,” in Church History, vol. 88, issue 1, Cambridge University Press, March 31, 2019

“’Crying for Help and Reformation’: Dissenting Protestants in Ottoman Syria,” in The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume IV, Oxford University Press, May 07, 2019

“The Contested Origins of the 1865 Arabic Bible: Contributions to the Nineteenth Century Nahḍa,” in Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, Vol. 30, Issue 1, Taylor & Francis Online November 5, 2018

“From the History of Religions to Interfaith Studies: A Theological Educator’s Exercise in Adaptation,” in Interreligious/Interfaith Studies: Defining a New Field, Beacon Press, August 21, 2018

“Middle Eastern Protestantism” and “Contributions of Women in the Middle East,” in Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, Rowman & Littlefield June 01, 2018

“Medical Arts and the Healing of Souls: A Transnational Story of Tuberculosis Care in Early Twentieth-Century Syria and Lebanon,” in Practical Matters, issue 11, May 22, 2018

“A View from the Arabic Press, 1928: The International Missionary Conference in Jerusalem,” in Exchange,, vol. 46, no.2. Brill, March 24, 2017

“Images of Islam: American Missionary and Arab Perspectives,” in Studies in World Christianity, vol. 22, no. 1, Edinburgh University Press, April 01, 2016

“Transnational Christianity and Converging Identities: Arabic Protestant Churches in New Jersey,” in Mission Studies, vol. 32, issue 2, Brill, June 01, 2015

“The Authenticity and Authority of Islam: Rashid Rida’s Response to Twentieth-Century Missionary Publications,” in Social Sciences & Missions, vol. 28, issue 1-2, Brill, May 10, 2015

“Lesslie Newbigin’s Indian Interlocutors: A Study in Theological Reception,” in Princeton Theological Review, vol. 18, no. 1, Princeton Theological Seminary, May 01, 2015

Review of Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East, in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, vol. 25, no. 3, Taylor and Francis, July 01, 2014

“Syrian Protestants & the Case of the Beirut Church: Re-imagining the American Missionary Encounter in Ottoman Syria,” in Syrian Studies Bulletin, vol. 19, no. 1. Syrian Studies Association, June 02, 2014

Co-Author, “‘Pick up the pearls of knowledge and adorn ourselves with the jewelry of literature’: An analysis of three Arab women writers in al-Nashra al-Usbu`iyya,” in Living Stones Yearbook: Christianity engages with Islam, Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust, January 01, 2014

Neighbors: Christians and Muslims Building Community selected as one of the top ten recommended books for ministry for 2021 by The Academy of Parish Clergy

Sabbatical Grant for Researchers, Louisville Institute, for “Imaging Islam: Gender, Race, and American Protestant Encounters with Muslims,” 2021-2022

Gerda Henkel Stiftung Grant for “How Gender Constructs Shaped Christian Encounters with Islam Case Studies from the Middle East and South Asia” research project

Gerda Henkel Foundation Research Grant, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2019

Brewer Fund Grant for Communities Research, 2018

Carr Grant for travel to India, 2018

Wabash Center Fellowship for “Interfaith Dialogue: Pedagogy and Practice,” 2017-2018

American Academy of Religion Status of Women in the Profession Mentoring Program, 2014-2015

American Academy of Religion International Dissertation Research Grant

Preserving Protestant Heritage in the Middle East Researcher Grant, Near East School of Theology in Beirut

David M. Stowe Research Fellowship, Yale University Divinity School

Fund for Theological Education Ministry Fellowship, 2004-2005,

Robert A. Caine Memorial Prize in Religion, Macalester College

The Fund for Theological Education Undergraduate Fellowship

George W. Davis Memorial Prize in Religion, Macalester College

Samuel Robinson Award, the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Global Religions and Community Engagement

History and Practice of Christian-Muslim Relations

Islam in America

Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue