Notes of a Native Daughter: Thestifying in Theological Education

by Keri Day

Bearing witness to more liberating futures in theological education   In  Notes of a Native Daughter , Keri Day testifies to structural inequalities and broken promises of inclusion through the eyes of a black woman who experiences herself as both stranger and friend to prevailing models of theological education. Inviting the reader into her religious world—a world that is African American and, more specifically, Afro-Pentecostal—she not only uncovers the colonial impulses of theological education in the United States but also proposes that the lived religious practices and commitments of progressive Afro-Pentecostal communities can help the theological academy decolonize and reenvision multiple futures.  Deliberately speaking in the  testimonial  form—rather than the more conventional mode of philosophical argument—Day bears witness to the truth revealed in her and others’ lived experience in a voice that is unapologetically visceral, emotive, demonstrative, and, ultimately, communal. With prophetic insight, she addresses this moment when the fastest-growing group of students and teachers are charismatic and neo-Pentecostal people of color for whom theological education is currently a site of both hope and harm. Calling for repentance, she provides a redemptive narrative for moving forward into a diverse future that can be truly liberating only when it allows itself to be formed by its people and the Spirit moving in them.

Genres: Theology

151 pages, Paperback

Published June 29, 2021

About the author

Keri Day is an Assistant Professor of Theological and Social Ethics & Director of Black Church Studies Program at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. She received her B.S. in Political Science with a minor in Economics. She earned an M.A. in Religion and Ethics from Yale University and received her Ph.D. in Religion from Vanderbilt University. She is a theological educator, researcher and writer who focuses on the ways in which race, class, gender, and sexuality relate to American poverty and how faith communities can respond to such socio-economic issues. Her work has been published in a number of nationally regarded journals such as Princeton Theological Review Journal, The International Journal of Black Theology and The Journal for the Society of Christian Ethics. In November 2012, her first book, Unfinished Business: Black Women, The Black Church, and the Struggle to Thrive in America, was published by Orbis Books. She is presently working on a second book manuscript tentatively entitled, Dreaming Dangerously: Global Feminisms and Moral Economy. Alongside her scholarship, she also engages public policy leaders. In 2011, she was the keynote speaker at the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast in Springfield, Illinois, highlighting the importance of interfaith dialogue within local communities. In addition, she was part of the 2012 delegation of scholars who participated in the White House Religious Scholars Briefing in Washington D.C. to discuss issues related to economic policy, religious freedom, faith-based initiatives, human rights efforts, and peace building efforts around the world. She has also been a commentator on KERA, NPR, and DFW/FOX News on issues related to faith and politics.

Reviews

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theological Education is in the midst of massive changes. This is due to many factors, ranging from economics to changing student populations. The day when the majority of seminarians are recent college graduates intending to pursue ordained ministry has begun to pass. That the past two years of theological education have been undertaken under the cloud of COVID has only complicated things even more. There is another element in this discussion and that is the growing awareness that theological education has largely been a white male endeavor, and that seminaries and divinity schools have had a difficult time adjusting to the changes that are underway.

Notes of a Native Daughter is a contribution to a series of reflections published by Eerdmans focusing on theological education, most of which are written by persons of color. The series is titled Theological Education Between the Times and is part of a project funded by the Lilly Enmdowment. Notes of a Native Daughter by Keri Day is the third volume that I've read. There both similarities and differences between these three volumes. This is the second written by an African American (along with the volume by Willie James Jennings) and the second by a Pentecostal (the other being the volume by Amos Yong). While Keri Day, an associate professor of constructive theology and African American Religion at Princeton Theological Seminary, does have administrative experience (she lked the Black Church Studies program at Brite Divinity School), she not only brings that experience to the conversation but her own experiences as a Black Woman theologian with a Pentecostal background.

Day organizes her book in the form of a series of testimonies (something that is prominent within Pentecostal contexts). She wants to bear witness to both the trials and sufferings experienced by students and faculty of color but also the potential that is present for persons of color. She writes from a liberationist/womanist perspective, with a Pentecostal dimension. What we have here is a series of testimonies designed to "tell the truth about difficult experiences that mark theological education, not out of spite or bitterness but to demonstrate the toll that broken communities on all of us" (pp. 2-3). One of the testimonies (chapters) speaks to the feeling on the part of persons of color to learn to pass, to simply blend into the white theological world so as not to make waves, all because structural racism remains present.

This is a very personal book, as testimonies tend to be. She shares not only her experiences as an African American teaching in predominantly white institutions (when she was at Brite she was the only Black woman on faculty and at Princeton she was the first Black woman to teach theology at the seminary), but also the challenges present within the Black church, which doesn't always welcome women or LGBTQ folks within their ranks (as she discovered while at Brite). There is much in this book that speaks of transgressing boundaries, and as we're discovering with the push back against Critical Race Theory, folks who transgress boundaries are not always well received. She notes a number of cases at both institutions.

Because this is a collection of testimonies it's difficult to summarize what one finds here. There is lament but there is also hope. There are prophetic words that will challenge the reader. We're reminded of the possibilities of transformation that Pentecostalism brings to the table, but also the gifts brought by students who do not wish to pursue traditional ministry but desire a seminary education. She speaks of the fear and suspicion that many Aftrican American students bring with them to seminaries that are predominantly white.

As I read this book, and that of Willie James Jennings (After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging, served as a reminder that I managed to make it through college and seminary, even a Ph.D. program, and have only one professor of color (my college Old Testament professor who is Korean). This is true even though I went to the largest Protestant seminary in the world. The fact is, the faculty was almost entirely white, so I didn't have many options. Things have changed, but only slowly. Thus, we need to hear testimonies like the one given here. The message might be hard to hear (remember that we're living in an age of pushback against the push for inclusion), but it is a necessary word.

[Annah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Keri Day challenges and invites the theological academy to imagine 'otherwise futures' by honoring and honestly engaging with the experiences of those on the margins of Christian education, including Black people, queer people, and women. Ultimately, this is a testimony, but it's also a call to change un(-self-)critical approaches to what is "classical," "contextual," and legitimately central to theological training. A favorite line, in Day's description of the Azusa Street Revival: "To announce oneself as Christian was to bring one's entire self, especially the body, near those who generated anxiety in oneself."

[Austyn Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prophetic, challenging, and eye opening, Keri Days request for the church and the academy, but more importantly communities to open ourselves to the Spirit, and face what it might mean to become Undone, will stick with me. Grateful for this read!!!

[Julian Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vulnerable and incisive account of how theological education is epistemically structured to both lock out and invite Black thought.

[Cathy Putman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short insightful book. Helpful in understanding the importance of embodied knowledge for Black religious writers. Gave due discussion of contextual theologians like Cone and Gutierrez who, in my opinion, speak more resonantly to the contemporary church than those from the tradition who address theological categories and doctrines. Interested in working through for myself how virtues morph with changes in context.