Black Church Studies: An Introduction
Stacey Floyd-Thomas is Associate Professor of Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt Divinity School.Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas’ research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of ethics, feminist/womanist studies, Black Church studies, critical pedagogy, critical race theory, and postcolonial studies with an overall approach to the study of Christian social ethics that engages broad questions of moral agency, cultural memory, ethical responsibility and social justice. Drawing upon socio-historical methods and liberation ethics, her work in Christian social ethics has a threefold focus—race, gender, and class—and she is equally interested in the challenges of religious pluralism, social justice and the political world. She is concerned with what she calls "the why crisis" of faith. This task demands more than the conventional modes of descriptive analysis, normative interpretation, and social critique but lends itself to a “meta-ethics” that guides moral reasoning and ethics towards constructive thought that leads to visions of social justice and the common good. She considers the work of religious discourse and Christian faith to be inseparable from thinking about how to construct a justice-seeking community.Juan Floyd-Thomas is Associate Professor of African American Religious History at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee.Carol B. Duncan is Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University.Foreign Resident: = No social security number.Stephen G. Ray, Jr. is  Neal and Ila Fisher Professor of Systematic Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.N. Lynne Westfield is Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Drew University Theological School.