 | Emilie M. Townes |
Promoting dialogue between theologians and laypeople is an important mission for a Divinity School professor who was recently elected as a top officer of the American Academy of Religion (AAR).
Emilie M. Townes, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African-American Religion and Theology, has been elected vice president of the 10,000-member organization, putting her in line to assume the presidency in 2008. The official announcement of Townes' election was made Nov. 18 during a board of directors meeting preceding the AAR's 2005 annual meeting in Philadelphia, Nov. 19-22.
Townes would be the first African-American woman to serve as president of the AAR, which is the world's largest association of scholars who teach or research topics related to religion. Townes called the election of an African-American woman a "signal moment" in the life of the academy. She currently serves on the AAR Program Committee and has chaired the AAR Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession and the AAR Ethics Section.
Towns is a pivotal player in the construction of "womanist theology," a field of theological and ethical reflection in which the historic and present-day insights of African-American women are brought into critical engagement with the traditions of Christian theology. Among her books are "Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope," "In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness" and "Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Care and A Womanist Ethic of Care."
She was appointed to the Divinity School faculty in July after having served at Union Theological Seminary as the Carolyn Williams Beaird Professor of Christian Ethics.
Townes says one of her primary goals as an elected officer of the AAR will be to ensure that religious discourse has a place in the public realm, reaching beyond the confines of the academic universe.
"In an increasingly polarized world and a larger academic environment that can often be hostile to things religious, we cannot, as a body of scholars, absent ourselves from the public conversations we now have about religion," she said in a statement published during the election period, which ended Nov. 1.
In an interview conducted on the eve of the meeting in Philadelphia, Townes added, "I want to be very clear that those of us who teach religions and religiosity for a living need to learn how to speak to the public. We have ceded that ground to folks who have a very narrow understanding of what comprises the religious in American life.
"The AAR is an academy full of people who do this all the time -- help people understand the nature of the religious, whatever it looks like," Townes noted. "And so we need to have a much more public voice and an intelligible public voice."
Another major task facing Townes, particularly in the year of her presidency, is administrative, as the AAR transitions from a pattern of concurrent shared annual meetings with the Society of Biblical Literature to entirely separate meetings. The two societies met separately from 1964 to1971, then together beginning in 1972. But as of 2008, when Townes is scheduled to be president, the two will begin separate meetings with concurrent meetings held only once every four years.
Heated controversy surrounded the decision to make the split, and there is still some dissatisfaction with the chosen course, particularly among theological schools and seminaries, where faculties are split fairly evenly between the two organizations.
Townes, who did not support separation, welcomes further discussion even though the decision has been finalized. "I think as long as members of AAR want to talk about this we need to have an open ear. ... I have just enough experience pastoring in the local church to know that the one way you can really get people to come after you is to not let them talk. ... Who knows what will come of it. I don't know."
Townes will serve one year each as vice president, president-elect, president and, finally, as immediate past president in 2009.
Through academic conferences and meetings, publications, and a variety of programs and membership services, the AAR fosters excellence in the scholarship and teaching of religion. AAR members can be found at more than 1,500 colleges, universities, schools and seminaries in North America and abroad. The AAR was founded in 1909 and is a constituent member of the American Council of Learned Societies.
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