Thee Smith (Ph.D. ’87) practices what he preaches. An associate professor of religion at Emory University and an Episcopal priest on staff at the Cathedral of St. Philip in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, Smith teaches people of all ages about world religions. “We’re often saying we’re illiterate about the religions of other cultures. Let’s do something to make religion more accessible,” he says. As a chaplain for the U.S. chapter of the Community of the Cross of Nails, a community of reconciliation based in England, Smith recently led an interfaith forum at St. Philip’s. Ceremonies and small group sessions focused on the three monotheisms as well as Hindu and Muslim dialogue. “My scholarship has been the deep background of public practices like my continuing education classes and interfaith events,” he explains.

Smith’s years at the GTU were formative ones. He arrived as a black liberation theologian who had worked with former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver. As he dove into his doctoral studies in philosophical and systematic theology, Smith was heavily influenced by the late Baptist theologian James McClendon, who served on the faculties at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and the GTU. He began to focus his own theological understandings around the Gospel narrative, and became interested in the human desire for scapegoating and violence. In his worship experience, the ritual of the Holy Eucharist became a powerful counter ritual to the darker sides of human nature.

Combining his new worldview with the social activist ethos of Berkeley, Smith found a pastoral calling through peer counseling, conflict resolution, and diversity training workshops. He was ordained a deacon in 2001 and a priest in 2002. The author of Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations in Black America (1995), and co-editor of Curing Violence (1994), Smith has skillfully integrated both the private and the public sides of religion.

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