Professors Form Book Club

Last month, several CST faculty members read After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging by Willie James Jennings and formed a book club to talk about what they were learning. 

Professor of Practical Theology, Spiritual Care, and Counseling Duane Bidwell had preordered the text because “I respect Dr. Jennings as a scholar and because it directly addressed a major issue in theological education: the centering of whiteness as an unacknowledged norm and goal that distorts teaching, learning, and research.” 

Dr. Bidwell had read the book last Fall and, feeling convicted by it, he yearned for conversation partners to engage his ideas and experiences. He explained, “Much of what Dr. Jennings wrote felt like a gentle indictment of unintentional and unexamined norms in my teaching and mentoring.” At the same time, CST faculty had embarked on discussions about anti-black racism in connection with CST’s renewed commitment to anti-racism, so Dr. Bidwell emailed the faculty to ask if anyone would like to join him for an informal series of Zoom conversations, one meeting per chapter. 

One faculty participant, Dr. Jack Jackson, the E. Stanley Jones Associate Professor of Evangelism, Mission, and Global Methodism, wondered aloud during one Zoom conversation if Dr. Jennings would join them for one of their discussions. Encouraged by the other participants, Dr. Jackson wrote to Dr. Jennings to extend the invitation.  Dr. Jennings responded immediately to say he was available and interested, and that  conversation allowed the group to clarify some of the finer points in the text and to explore what sorts of actions would create change as our faculty members offered “an education in belonging” (the subtitle of the book) to CST students. 

Ethics professor Grace Kao also participated in the book study. She shared, “I’ve been teaching full-time since 2003 and at CST in particular since 2009, so I have my stories, and it’s very easy to place yourself in the anecdotes from the book. Most of Dr. Jennings’ reflections were of his time when he was academic dean at Duke, so you know he’s seen the landscape. He’s totally committed to theological education and to breaking down this normative notion of the white male.” 

The anecdotes in the book are composites of multiple incidents and stories, but Dr.  Jennings explained during the group conversation that people had come up to him and thought a story was about them when it actually wasn’t or when a previous story was about them but they didn’t realize it.

Dr. Kao explained that Dr. Jennings’ book is written with such vulnerability that it allowed readers to also share in that vulnerability and provided a space for deep conversations to emerge. She said, “Faculty are doing a self-scrutiny of the institution and I think what’s happening is that while CST absolutely prides itself on having a progressive, anti-racist ethos, when faculty hear from their colleagues that that isn’t always true, discomfort is generated. So I think that’s what’s happening right now. I think faculty are getting into structural issues and interpersonal issues. Dr. Jennings’ work allowed us to look at an anecdote and recognize ourselves in it.” 

CST has initiated a number of anti-racism measures in the last year, and the work continues across the institution.