 | Emilie M. Townes |
Two members of the Yale Divinity School (YDS) faculty have recently received
prestigious honors.
T H I S
Two Divinity School professors
earn special honors
Emilie M. Townes, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African-American Religion
and Theology, has assumed the presidency of the American Academy of Religion
(AAR), and Margaret A. Farley, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian
Ethics, has won the 2008 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in religion for her book “Just
Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.”
Emilie Townes
Townes was celebrated as the new president of the American Academy of Religion
during the 11,200-member organization’s 2007 annual meeting, held Nov.
17-20 in San Diego. She will serve as president until November 2008.
The first African-American woman to head the AAR, Townes is an American Baptist
clergywoman and a native of Durham, North Carolina. At Yale, she is also director
of undergraduate studies and professor of African-American studies; women’s,
gender and sexuality studies; and religious studies. She is one of the faculty
leaders of the Initiative on Religion and Politics at Yale, based at YDS.
Townes teaches in the fields of Christian social ethics and African-American
religious communities. She also lectures and leads workshops in local churches
and denominational bodies on a regular basis. In academic settings, Townes
works to show the theoretical and practical links between the study of black
religions and the other theological and academic disciplines. At Yale, she
is especially concerned with bringing together the religious resources of the
community of New Haven and the alumni network to help current students gain
hands-on practical, pastoral and prophetic experience in the various ministries
of the church.
Townes is the editor of two collections of essays and several books. Her most
recent book, “Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil,” was
released in November 2006. She continues her research on women and health in
the African diaspora with attention to Brazil and the United States.
Margaret Farley
Margaret Farley
In his nomination of Farley for the Grawemeyer Award, YDS Dean Harold Attridge
wrote, “‘Just Love’ is a carefully nuanced work that demonstrates
the synergies of science and religion; how coupling religious awareness with
other forms of knowledge can serve to elucidate matters fundamental to the
human condition; and how customs particular to diverse religious traditions
can each contribute to the process of discernment despite differences.”
The Grawemeyer Award is among the nation’s most prestigious prizes in
the field of religion and is awarded jointly by the Louisville Presbyterian
Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville. The award carries with
it a $200,000 cash prize, and is given “to honor and publicize annually
creative and constructive insights into the relationship between human beings
and the divine, and ways in which this relationship may inspire or empower
human beings to attain wholeness, integrity or meaning, either individually
or in community.”
In “Just Love,” Farley asserts that morally appropriate sexual
relationships, heterosexual as well as same-sex, must be characterized by justice.
In her view, “just love” requires consideration for the autonomy
of persons, recognizes the uniqueness and equality of partners, and does no
harm to self or others. In the book, Farley challenges traditional — and
frequently negative —views of homosexuality, masturbation, divorce and
remarriage after divorce.
A member of the Sisters of Mercy order of nuns, Farley is a widely known Christian
ethicist who served on the faculty of YDS from 1971 to 2007. She has been a
progressive theological voice in a broad range of areas including feminist
theology, medical and sexual ethics, the role of women in the church, homosexuality
and the church, and religious perspectives on the environment. She has held
leadership positions in two groups that focus on HIV/AIDS in Africa. She is
a former co-director of the Interdisciplinary Bioethics Project at Yale and
was a founding member of the Bioethics Committee at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
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Campus Notes
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