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Rev. Nikia Smith Robert enthusiastically embraces her divine purpose to preach, teach and engage in social activism. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems and Finance from Fairfield University (Connecticut). Rev. Robert pursued graduate studies at Union Theological Seminary and obtained a Master of Divinity degree in Systematic Theology and Social Ethics. Rev. Robert completed her master thesis entitled, “Penitence, Plantation and the Penitentiary – A Liberation Theology for Lockdown America.” She has matriculated post-graduate studies in... Read more

By Yolanda Pierce, Ph.D.,from KineticsLive.com The tears started while I was sitting in a Barnes and Noble bookstore and they refused to stop. I gathered my laptop and purse, hurried back to the car, and sat quietly – expecting the flow to cease. But it would not. Tears were in my eyes on the way back home and tears stayed with me throughout the day. I wept while folding the laundry and while trying to decide what to cook for... Read more

In July 1966, an informal group of clergy met to discuss events that had happened a month earlier. In June, Stokely Carmichael lit the world on fire with his call to consciousness in his cry of “black power.” Carmichael’s black power cry was the culmination of years of black freedom struggle that endured police and mob lynchings, voting law restrictions, unfair arrests and prison sentences, inequitable education, and separate but (un)equal public accommodations (sound familiar?). Carmichael and his colleagues in... Read more

Do American military chaplains need to believe in God? Or, as the Navy Times once asked, “Who supports the atheists in the military?” These questions attracted renewed attention this year after the Army formally recognized humanism as a religious preference for soldiers in April, and the Navy rejected the application of a humanist chaplain to join its ranks in June. The issue of how to meet the needs of non-theists in the military is neither new nor incidental. Rather, “who... Read more

Danielle Dowd was back in front of the Ferguson police department Oct. 15, just two days after being arrested there while protesting the fatal police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown and other African-American youths. Since Brown’s Aug. 9 death, “I’ve come a couple of days every week, except for when my 7-year-old daughter had her tonsils out and I needed to do the mom thing. I’ve been able to form some good relationships with young people, whose voices need... Read more

As we approach the sesquicentennial mark of the cessation of hostilities in the US Civil War, Prof. Sean Scott – visiting assistant professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University – joins us to talk about the religious views of the “common folk” in the “Old Northwest” and his book A Visitation of God: Northern Civilians Interpret the Civil War. His research dives into the personal letters, diaries, sermons, and other forms of correspondence of individuals living in the Great... Read more

As I have read more writing on postmodernism I have begun to question many of the assumptions that I have learned throughout my education career. Recently, I have begun to question my own belief about the study of religion. Specifically, through reading Anderson’s piece on postmodernism and religion I question my previous notions of what categorizes religion. I attended TCU as an undergraduate and religion was one of my majors. I chose religion as my major because I wanted to... Read more

In 2002, then-Berkeley (now-NYU) sociologist Michael Hout and I published apaper pointing out a new trend in Americans’ religious identity: A rapidly increasing proportion of survey respondents answered “no religion” when asked questions such as “What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion?” In the 1991 General Social Survey, about 7 percent answered no religion and in the 2000 GSS, 14 percent did. [1] We explained the trend this way: the increase was not connected... Read more

Rosemary Radford Ruether embodies the theological vocation well lived. Her scope is awesome, her writing compelling, her commitment to a livable planet unceasing. The impact of her work can be found in so many fields and hearts that she fairly defines the term “scholar activist,” teaching and mentoring generations of appreciative colleagues, myself included, by challenging fundamental ways of thinking. I met Rosemary in the fall of 1972 when we accidentally sat down at the same table in the refectory... Read more