I am on a life-long journey of learning to steward the power and privilege I carry in the world as a straight, white, educated, able-bodied, cis-gendered, male, Protestant Christian, American citizen. The following statement expresses some of my formation in understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as my intent to participate in the dismantling of white supremacy as part of my vocation as an educator.
Early Formation
Before I had much recognition of the systemic inequities in our society, on a whim of naïve curiosity really, I asked my college housing office to choose an international student roommate for me—a pattern that I eventually maintained throughout my undergraduate years because it so greatly expanded my horizons. Living in daily relationship with students from other countries confronted me with the interpersonal challenges of cross-cultural friendship and gave me a small window into the obstacles faced by outsiders to the systems I usually take for granted. The occasional opportunities I had to spend my privilege as an advocate for these friends were humbling and precious to me. During college, I also had the chance to live and learn as an international student in Jerusalem for seven months and to spend another month that year on a cultural exchange program in Tongliao, China. These studies abroad were key to my growing self-understanding. In Israel, I was invited to be part of a student-led initiative that brought together Jewish, Palestinian, and international students for religious dialogue. In China, I was impacted by long conversations with Chinese college students about our different social customs and ways of looking at the world. Such experiences increased my awareness of the power I hold in the world and at home as a white American and confronted me with my responsibility to contribute to the dismantling of white supremacy. In my adult years, I have continued to pursue opportunities to learn from those who are different from me and to grow in my role as an ally. I lived for five years in a neighborhood that was majority African American; I attended antiracism trainings, where I learned about the systemic and intersectional barriers that minoritized communities face in the attempt to live as full participants in society; I reached out to develop relationships and learn from LGBT leaders in my community; I served on the boards of nonprofits that worked to come alongside economically underprivileged community members; and I participated in the work of a black-led community organizing agency to address racial injustice in our city.
Educational Intentions
These formative experiences convinced me that my best educational path must continue to be rooted in diversity. I chose to attend Louisville Seminary, in part, because of the insight I would gain from feminist pioneers like Johanna van Wijk-Bos (my biblical studies mentor) and minoritized professors like Debra Mumford (homiletics / black church studies, and my academic advisor) and Christine Hong (practical theology / postcolonial studies). At Louisville, I served as a student council representative on the institutional diversity committee and worked alongside minoritized student leaders to help organize our first campus-wide antiracism training. One of my most personally transformative experiences at Louisville was a course I took on diverse religious experience in America, which featured a series of interactive seminar discussions with visiting scholars Diana Eck, Amy-Jill Levine, John Thatamanil, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, and Eboo Patel. That course also involved field research at area mosques, temples, synagogues, and churches, where we learned in conversation with clergy from each tradition.
At Emory University, I have continued to seek out diverse voices to expand my own understanding and influence my pedagogy. For example, when lecturing on the Book of Ruth, I began by engaging a fascinating article authored by my colleague, Hyun-Woo Kim, that connected the experiences of Ruth with those of immigrant Korean mothers. Kim’s perspective helped me see and share Ruth’s story through the lens of recent violence against Asian immigrants in the Atlanta area. In other courses where I have been responsible for creating the syllabus, I have given preference to materials from female scholars and scholars of color, decentering white-male scholarship to a degree. From a desire to partially mitigate the power dynamic that accompanies me in the classroom, in my Hebrew course I introduced my students to non-white-male academic and ministry colleagues via video greetings, presenting myself to students as part of a diverse chorus of experienced voices rather than the sole authority in the course. Just as well, I have benefitted from opportunities to come alongside students with documented learning disabilities in my courses, to learn from them about their needs and develop pedagogical approaches that are more inclusive, in consultation with the office of DEI. As I built my dissertation committee, I opted for an unusually large committee so that there would be room for me to be influenced by scholars who are diverse in their race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and faith tradition. Their insights help nuance the kinds of research questions I ask, which helps my project participate in a broader conversation than the sliver of the field I could access alone. Similarly, in my capacity as a regular contributor and editor for the “Politics of Scripture” blog at The Political Theology Network, I work as part of a multiethnic and interdisciplinary team of scholars who regularly challenge me to expand the limitations I sometimes place on biblical scholarship through my own inherited lens. Working this out in another project, part of the vision for the popular podcast I co-founded, “First Reading,” is to provide a platform where the work of underrepresented biblical scholars can be heard and utilized in the church world. These steps represent my intent to seek diverse mentors and steward my own privilege to transform the dynamic in my field.
Future Plans
My formation and intentions as a white, male scholar committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion deeply inform my ongoing teaching and research. As my career continues, I will continue to proactively center underrepresented scholarly communities in all my syllabi. Though I realize that my makeup limits my ability to fully mentor students of color and those with other minoritized identities, I am prepared to use my privilege as an ally, and to help facilitate access to scholarship and scholars who can mentor them from a place of shared experience. In my teaching, I will welcome interdisciplinary partnerships with other faculty—for my own growth, and to model collaboration and present diverse voices to my students. In my own academic research, I will continue to seek conversation partners whose experiences and perspectives differ from my own and do my best to pursue research questions that draw me beyond my culturally-conditioned methodological comfort zone. As I have opportunity, I will serve within the wider Biblical Studies guild with initiatives that seek greater representation and equity for traditionally underrepresented scholars. Finally, I know that I have much yet to learn, more of my own implicit biases to uncover, and more courage to muster to faithfully steward my unearned power and privilege. It is surely a journey, but I am committed to it for the long haul.