Date: March 27, 2026
Time: 9AM-5PM CT
Location: Main 205 and Online

Registration closes on March 23. Lunch will be provided to in person participants. Participation is free for the Garrett community. Talking about race and racial discrimination can be hard, but it’s important to understand how to fix these ongoing social issues. When we talk about belonging and diversity as strengths for communities and organizations, we must also recognize the challenges preventing these goals. Understanding antiracism and what it requires from leaders is key to creating diverse, fair, and welcoming places. This workshop aims to give participants a foundation of these concepts and practices to facilitate deeper, future learning.

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By Benjamin Perry

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This event is co-sponosored by Center for Asian/Asian American Ministry and Stead Center for Ethics and Values. Register to join online.

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Garrett-Evangelical and the Evanston NAACP work for ecological justice

In 1992, , to recognize her 20+ years of work fighting environmental racism—trying to build a better Chicago for her and her neighbors. Despite the widespread celebration, many of the injustices she sought to fix are still harming people thirty years later—particularly Black communities throughout Chicagoland. On , Garrett’s Center for the Church and the Black Experience and Stead Center for Ethics and Values are partnering with the Evanston branch of the NAACP to help educate the community about ongoing ecological harm and its adverse health effects. The keynote speaker will be Hazel’s daughter Cheryl Johnson, renowned activist and Executive Director of People for Community Recovery—the organization her mother founded.

When I speak with Evanston NAACP President Rev. Dr. Michael C. R. Nabors, he says environmental injustice was one of the first things he noticed when he moved to the area. “I was immediately aware of the waste management company on Church St., across from Mason Park,” he remembers, “You have this wonderful, historic place for African-Americans in Evanston and right on the other side of the street you have a waste incinerator.”

Long-term exposure to industrial pollution contributes to a wide array of illnesses, he observes. “It creates all sorts of health challenges from babies all the way to adulthood,” he says, “higher rates of asthma, skin conditions, cancer and more.” Too often, this kind of structural violence goes so unnamed in public life that suffering people suffering may be unaware of why they are hurting. “It’s not always easy to get a room filled with Black folks to talk about environmental injustice,” he says, “because they’re talking about economic and political injustice, police violence, housing inequality and so many other forms of racism.” But he believes the moment is ripe to deepen community understanding and response—and that the Church can play a central role.

Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount, Associate Professor of Formation, Leadership and Culture at Garrett and Director of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience, notes that the Black Church has always been essential in galvanizing collective action. “The move toward environmental justice is not unique,” he says, “It’s tied to how the Black Church has called for justice in so many other areas, acting as prophetic voices alongside the people and communities they serve to raise awareness and push for change.”

Moreover, both Nabors and Blount are quick to note that ecological violence isn’t just a political crisis—it’s a theological scandal, too. “When you look at issues of environmental injustice, it is always aimed at the least and the lowest, the left out, the poor, the marginal,” Dr. Nabors says, “theologically, people have decided that some groups of people are less deserving of clean air, soil and water—and it has to do with race.” This tragic reality asks us to consider the theological anthropology guiding our culture, Dr. Blount agrees. “Do we understand God as one who functions out of a hierarchy?” he asks, “Or do we know the God who created all of humanity with sacred worth?”

Facilitating these kinds of community conversations is part of the central calling for Garrett’s Stead Center for Ethics and Values. “We’re really focused on the ways people come together and talk about justice issues,” says Dr. Kate Ott, Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Director of the Stead Center, “enhancing moral communities one conversation at a time.” Dr. Ott notes that this focus on community partnerships is a distinct shift from how social ethics is often taught in seminaries. “The foundation of theological education, that we perhaps lost sight of along the way,” she says, “is that we learn in community, and we learn from community.”

Moral formation isn’t something that principally happens from something we read, but from our lived experiences. And students can learn from organizers in Evanston about how to bring a community together. “Many of our students come from all over the globe and are concerned about environmental issues,” she says, “What someone can learn from a small neighborhood in Evanston and the way that they are addressing the intersection of environmental and racial justice issues, it won’t look the same when they take it back to their congregation in India or their community in Kenya, but it’s going have similar threads, challenges and possibilities.”

This collaboration between Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and the Evanston NAACP is the product of organic communal connection. Dr. Andrew Wymer is the Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship at Garrett, but it was his role as a concerned community member that led him to chair the NAACP branch’s Environmental & Climate Justice Committee. “Our vision is for an inclusive community rooted in liberation, free from discrimination, and without racism,” he says, “That’s still such a daunting task right here in Evanston in relationship to environmental justice, so our committee is trying to build relationships with other organizations around each event that we plan.” Dr. Nabors is effusive in his praise for Wymer’s collaborative approach to justice. “Listen, Andrew is key,” he laughs, “he has taken this bull by the horns and is working like you would not believe to create partnerships in this work.”

April’s event is the first in what will be a biannual conversation series on the topic, shifting location every six months between Garrett and hosts throughout Evanston. Organizers are hopeful that this sustained approach will keep an ongoing focus on issues affecting ecology and community health. “A long arc of justice implies the necessity for consistency,” Dr. Blount says, “And it requires strategic work. We must keep this issue in front of elected officials who have the resources to make needed change.” Ultimately, this not just a political necessity—it’s holy work. “We believe in a God who promises that the best is yet to come,” Dr. Nabors says, slipping into his cadence as a preacher, “I’m not talking about the other side of the Jordan River I’m talking about right here, right now. God works all things for good, but we have to educate ourselves and walk down the path of making things better.” Dr. Blount notes that, for those of us who follow Jesus, this work is the ministry he modeled. “Jesus was in the community,” he says, “It was in the community that Jesus identified communal needs and began to do something about it. It was in the community that he fought against the political and religious powers of that day that got in the way of persons being healthy and whole. So the question is: How are we walking in that way of Jesus?”

Interested in attending April’s Environmental Justice Conversation Series? Sign up today!

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On Thursday February 15, 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. the Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas will deliver the inaugural James H. Cone and Emilie M. Townes lecture, “Shades of Black: Doing Theology and Ethics in a World on Fire,” in-person at the Chapel of the Unnamed Faithful and livestreamed online. As the title indicates, the lecture series will feature the nation’s foremost religious scholars, reflecting on the scholarship and legacy of two of Garrett-Evangelical’s most influential alumni: Rev. Dr. James H. Cone and Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes. It’s only fitting that the first address will be delivered by Dr. Douglas, who studied under Dr. Cone for her Master and Ph.D., and has enjoyed decades-long friendship and collaboration with Dr. Townes. Delivering this address amid rising white Christian nationalism—precisely as the flames heat this already-inflamed world—I asked her why their work is so crucial for this moment.

“Drs. Townes and Cone never wrote in abstract ethical categories, but always from out of the struggle of Black life,” Dr. Douglas says, “They understand what a liberative ethic looks like in relationship to Black living—what it means to follow an incarnate faith.” Academic work that engages the question of what freedom demands cannot be divorced from the everyday realities of communities suffering injustice, she elaborates, “It must come together in this confluence of concern for justice and liberation grounded in the realities of the cross.”

Indeed, the focus of Dr. Douglas’ remarks will center around Christian hope in a context of overwhelming trauma. “What does it mean to speak about justice,” Dr. Douglas asks, “when there is a cross not simply at the center of our faith, but in the middle of these crucifying realities? How do we begin to understand God’s justice in such a way that we aren’t talking about a utopian hope or a rhetorical, abstract notion?” For Dr. Douglas, true hope is embodied in the communities that protest and resist dehumanizing systems. “And Dr. Cone and Dr. Townes’ dialogue partners,” she points out, “were always those who engaged in the struggle.”

Her passion for this lecture isn’t purely academic, though, it’s also deeply personal. “Dr. Cone reconnected me to my grandmother’s faith—helped me to understand that I could be both Black and Christian at a time when I was more than willing to give up my Christian identity to live more fully into my Black identity,” she remembers, “I read A Black Theology of Liberation and couldn’t believe that someone was saying God was Black, Jesus was Black.” After reading, she resolved to study under Dr. Cone. “But you always worry if the person of their books is the person in reality,” she confesses, “And the first thing that I discovered when I began studying with Dr. Cone was that the man of that book was also the man in reality. Not only his passion and uncompromising attitude toward justice but his uncompromising commitment to the Black struggle for freedom and to Black people.”

That lived integrity is also an essential part of her deep respect for Dr. Townes. “Emilie, with her poetic, literary sensibility opens up our moral imaginary—artists help us to see things that others can’t,” Dr. Douglas explains, “I can never remember a time when Emilie didn’t push me to see the complex other side, to see even a perspective that I might not want to deal with.” This relentless pursuit for truth pushes back against the easy answers that too often pass for cultural analysis. “Emilie always complicates narratives and reminds me. ‘It ain’t that easy,’” Dr. Douglas laughs, “She complexifies what you thought was going to be your easy ethical answer.”

It’s this combination of nuance and radical integrity that Dr. Douglas feels our world needs so badly. “They continue to speak of Christian faith in the face of white Christian nationalism,” she says, “reminding us that when we understand Christianity through this lens, it never accommodates subjugating, dominating oppression,” even when those forces proudly wear the cross.

And the grim reality of this cultural moment, she says, is part of why she’s so impressed by Garrett-Evangelical’s choice to found this lecture series. “When even academic institutions are running away from their histories, running away from things like DEI or anything that smells of ‘wokeness,’ Garrett isn’t running away,” she says, “It has the unmitigated gall to name a lecture series after these two people who carved the way, these radical voices in the theological/ethical dialogue that center the struggle for Black freedom, for Black women’s freedom, without compromise. I’m the incidental part of this,” she says with humor, “The real story here is that this religious institution, in the context in which we find ourselves living, is going out boldly to and say, ‘No. This is what it means to be an academic institution, to be committed to a more just future.’”

But perhaps it’s not surprising, she muses. After all, it’s also the institution that nurtured these two revolutionaries. “Garrett didn’t mold these two persons into whatever their image of Garrett might be, it gave them space to grow into their voices,” she says, “Dr. Cone writes about it—even with the tensions and antagonism. But still, without Garrett, he wouldn’t be Dr. Cone.” And, studying at a different period, Dr. Townes received the same gift. “There weren’t spaces for Black women to do anything—particularly for Black women to do their work from the vantage point of what is meant to be Black and female,” Dr. Douglas explains, “It says something that Garrett provided a space for Cone in one in one era and Townes in another era, to begin to do their work.”

In the end, it’s authentic commitment to helping people become fully who they are that nurtures hope. Institutions don’t have to be perfect, and will never be, but they can call us to collectively embrace God’s future. “Hope and protest signal, ‘No, this is not the way it is supposed to be, and this is not the way it is going to be,” Dr. Douglas says with a smile, “There will always be a movement that moves closer and closer to the realities of justice.”

To attend Dr. Douglas’ lecture online or in-person, please .

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sustainGETS invites the Garrett community to learn about Native tea-making practices with Bonnie McKiernan of the Menominee Nation

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The Reverend Dr. Brent P. Waters, Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics and director of the Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Center for Ethics and Values at 91PORN, retired on July 1, 2022. At their meeting in May of this year, the Board of Trustees unanimously granted Waters the status of faculty emeritus upon the recommendation of the faculty. Waters joined the Garrett-Evangelical faculty in 2001.

A leading social ethics scholar with a commanding grasp of wide-ranging issues pertaining to the care for human life within the late-modern world, Waters spent much of his academic career focusing on bioethical and political dimensions of Christian thought. During his tenure, he has written, co-authored, and edited sixteen books, more than fifty articles in academic journals, and numerous book reviews that encompass topics from bioethical issues to spirituality, from what affects family life to the challenges of capitalist societies, from the mystery of the incarnation and Christology to posthumanism. Through his writings, Waters combined profound scholarship with deeply humane insights that will leave an indelible mark on the field of Christian social ethics.

“As I grow older, I find I am becoming more retrospective and focused,” said Waters. “St. Augustine’s aphorism, love God and do as you will, takes on greater meaning while remaining challenging. I realize now that much of my work focused on fulfilling the two great commandments to love God and neighbor and act accordingly. I’m now retiring from a job but not a calling, so I am still trying to figure out how to will what my (imperfect) love for God and neighbor requires. Or as I used to tell my students, I intend to keep on reading, thinking, and writing (roughly in that order) for a while longer.

“I enjoyed my time at Garrett, and I leave with an abundance of good memories and friends. But all good things come to an end, and the time has come for me to move-on, and I do so with much appreciate and gratitude for my colleagues, and especially Jerre and Mary Joy Stead.”

Waters earned the admiration and respect of countless students in the classroom, the academy, and in church and society. Central to his pedagogical approach was an insistence on tracing questions back to their theological and philosophical roots, all the while challenging students how and why we frame the questions in the way we do. By questioning the questions, new and deeper insights would often result.

As director of the Jerre L. and Mary Joy Center for Ethics and Values from 2001 to 2022, Waters worked collaboratively with colleagues and organizations locally, nationally, and internationally to bring theological perspective to ethical issues facing contemporary society. Through numerous conferences, guest lectures, and articles, the Stead Center under Waters’ direction has addressed a wide variety of topics, including technological interventions at the beginning and ending of life, war and religion, the theology and economics, the environment, and human experimentation.

During his tenure, Waters has been recognized and celebrated in a number of accolades including being the recipient of The Paul Ramsey Award for Excellence in Bioethics in 2016 and the Templeton Prize for Outstanding Books in Theology and the Natural Sciences in 1997.

Prior to joining the faculty in 2001, Waters served as the director of the Center for Business, Religion and Public Life, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania (1999–2001); ), as lecturer in theology, Harris Manchester College, Oxford, United Kingdom (1996–1999); as Omer E. Robbins Chaplain to the University and director of the J.W. and Ida M. Jameson Center for the Study of Religion and Ethics, University of Redlands, California (1984–1995); and as campus minister, United Ministries in Higher Education, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (1979-1984).

Waters received a distinguished education as a Christian ethicist. He holds a B.A. from the University of Redlands, an M.Div. and D.Min. from the School of Theology at Claremont, and a D.Phil. from University of Oxford.

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Presented by Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount on the Occasion of the Launch of the Center for Ecological Regeneration

The history of centers and institutes at Garrett-Evangelical begins with the creation of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience. Instituted in 1970 as one of the primary emphases of the seminary, the Center for the Church and the Black Experience has been a beacon of hope and inspiration for Black students, pastors, churches, and communities for nearly five decades. It has been instrumental in fusing Black people and Black religious life into the entire seminary community.

In 1984, the Center for Asian and Asian American Ministries was formed to serve the needs of Asian American students, pastors, and churches. It continues today as a vital home away from home, a haven, for our Asian descent students. The Center for Asian and Asian American Ministry invites our Asian descent students to explore, critically reflect, and thrive spiritually, academically, and experientially at Garrett.

The Hispanic-Latinx Center was established in 1988 to bring Hispanic-Latinx culture and experience into the life of the seminary. The Center’s mission is to meet the needs of Hispanic-Latinx students, pastors, parishioners, and community leaders in creative, insightful, useful, and organic ways.

In 1997, The Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Center for Ethics and Values was developed in order to draw together seminary resources, graduate professional schools, area pastors, and laity to address the compelling ethical issues facing contemporary society. The Styberg Preaching Institute was launched in 2005 to partner with the church by preparing persons for vital, effective Christian preaching. And in 2012, the Rueben P. Job Institute for Spiritual Formation was established as an initiative for continuing education in spiritual formation of laity and clergy.

We share this with you today to acknowledge the key role our centers and institutes play in the history of and expanding vision for who God is calling us to be as a seminary. Not only do our centers and institutes enrich seminary life through lectures, workshops, conferences, and supporting our students, but they also offer new perspectives, resources, and continuing education opportunities to the wider community outside of the seminary.

We are pleased that the Center for Ecological Regeneration joins this history and look forward to the ways in which it will both work alongside our existing centers and institutes, as well as provide new spaces for the work of ecological regeneration and environmental justice.

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Dr. Kate Ott has been named the next holder of the Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics and director of the Stead Center for Ethics and Values, beginning July 1, 2022. Ott will be the second to hold this endowed chair following the upcoming retirement of the Reverend Dr. Brent Waters in June 2022.

“Professor Ott is a highly respected scholar, teacher, and author and we are so fortunate to be able to welcome her to Garrett-Evangelical,” said President Javier A. Viera. “A nationally recognized expert in a number of ethical discourses, she is the unique scholar who is able to write and communicate successfully for multiple audiences—the academy, the church, and the general public as well.  She will build on the already solid foundation of the Stead Center and expand its audiences and its reach, which will honor the hopes and intentions of Mary Joy and Jerre Stead.”

A feminist and Christian ethicist, Ott is an expert on the formation of moral communities with specializations in technology, children and youth, sexuality, pedagogy, and professional ethics. She lectures and leads workshops across North America on technology and sexuality issues that are related to faith formation for young adults, teens and parents, and religious educators and professionals.

“From our very first conversation with Dr. Ott, we were struck by her vision for the Stead Center for Ethics and Values and the ways she creatively reimagined connections between technology, children’s advocacy, and the Christian life,” said Dr. Brian Bantum, chairperson for the faculty search committee and Neal F. and Ila A. Fisher professor of theology. “She is a leading scholar whose work and collaboration moves easily between the academy and the public spaces, and who writes and teaches to the complexities of race, gender, and sexuality in the world. We are excited for the ways her presence will build on Garrett-Evangelical’s strengths and bring new energy and insights to our collective work.”

Ott’s teaching areas include Christian ethics (history and method); medical and healthcare ethics; children, youth, and young adults; sexuality; digital ethics; and feminist and queer ethics/theology. She uses feminist pedagogies as well as integrating advanced digital technologies. Ott currently serves as professor of Christian social ethics at Drew Theological Seminary and is the co-editor of the Journal of Feminism in Religion.

Prior to joining Drew, she was the Deputy Director of the Religious Institute, a non-profit committed to sexual health, education, and justice in faith communities and society. There she led the project and publication of Sex and the Seminary: Preparing Ministers for Sexual Health and Justice. She has also taught as a lecturer at Yale University Divinity School and Union Theological Seminary and served as a youth minister and religious education director for five years.

“I look forward to working with the faculty, staff, and students of Garrett-Evangelical, community partners, and churches to engage in the work of cultivating ethical resources desperately needed in response to critical issues of our time,” Ott said. “I am excited and honored to be chosen to direct the Stead Center for Ethics and Values, to further its foundational work on technology and bioethics while expanding teaching and research materials on a broader range of topics with a commitment to inclusion of diverse voices. As a learner-teacher and scholar-activist, I hope to contribute inside and outside the classroom while being enriched and challenged by the Garrett-Evangelical community.”

Ott is the author of Christian Ethics for a Digital Society (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and Sex + Faith: Talking to Your Child from Birth to Adolescence (Westminster John Knox Press, 2013). Ott also served as co-editor of Teaching Sexuality and Religion in Higher Education (Routledge, 2020), Faith, Feminism, and Scholarship: The Next Generation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and Just Hospitality: God’s Welcome in a World of Difference (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). Her newest book, Sex, Tech, and Faith: Christian Ethics for a Digital Age is forthcoming from Eerdmans Press in 2022.

Ott is a member of the American Academy of Religion, Society of Christian Ethics, Catholics for Choice, and Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. She is also a member of the Guilford Land Conservation Trust, a non-profit, all-volunteer organization devoted to conserving open space and natural resources in Guilford, Connecticut, for the public benefit. Ott is also the Christian education board chair and Sunday school teacher at First Congregational Church in Guilford, Connecticut.

Ott earned her bachelor of arts from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, her master of arts in religion at Yale University Divinity School, and doctor of philosophy from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

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