Rhetoric Race and Religion
When he was named the Pusey Minister of Harvard University’s Memorial Church, Jonathan Walton became the latest in a line of prominent African-American ministers to call the greater-Boston area home. The New York Times noted as much in its coverage of Walton’s installation ceremony that took place last November, linking Walton to his predecessor, the late Reverend Peter Gomes who led Memorial Church from 1970 until his unexpected death in 2011. Martin Luther King Jr. earned his doctorate at nearby Boston University under the tutelage of theologian Howard Thurman. Thurman served as the dean of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel from 1953-1965, the first black man to occupy such a prominent position at a majority-white American university.
Walton celebrates his connection to black America’s—and black Boston’s—storied past. But he is not beholden to it. “We’re all standing on the shoulders and benefiting from the sacrifices of those who came before us,” Walton explains. “But it can’t be totally reducible to race,” or for that matter, religion. Walton is a self-described “post-civil rights kid.” This means instead of focusing on the battles of the past, Walton hopes to “contribute a voice to some of the challenges of the contemporary age, informed by the religious traditions from which I come.”
Walton spoke with R&P; about how he understands the long history—and continued importance—of people of faith engaging constructively and critically in politics. In his capacity as a preacher, scholar of American religion, and commentator on American culture, Walton sees his work as fundamentally “about the rich tradition of the Hebrew prophets: to be able to speak truth to power in love.”
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