Kelly Brown Douglas facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
The Very Reverend
Kelly Brown Douglas
|
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born |
Kelly Delaine Brown
1957 (age 67–68) Dayton, Ohio, US
|
||||||||
| Other names | Kelly Delaine Brown Douglas | ||||||||
| Title | Former Dean and President Episcopal Divinity School | ||||||||
|
|||||||||
| Alma mater | |||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||
| Institutions |
|
||||||||
| Academic advisors | James H. Cone | ||||||||
Kelly Brown Douglas (born 1957) is an African-American Episcopal priest and a special kind of theologian called a womanist theologian. She was the first Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary. She also served as the interim president when the school moved in 2023.
Dr. Douglas is also the Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral. This means she helps lead important discussions about faith and current events. She has written seven books, including The Black Christ (1994), Black Bodies and Black Church: A Blues Slant (2012), Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (2015), and Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter (2021). Her book ... and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (1999) was important for talking about how to make churches welcoming for everyone.
Contents
Biography
Early Life and Education
Kelly Delaine Brown was born in 1957 in Dayton, Ohio. She grew up in a middle-class family. Her father worked outside the home, and her mother took care of the children.
She went to Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where she studied psychology. She was a strong student leader and even helped choose a new university president in 1976. She graduated with top honors in 1979.
Becoming a Priest and Scholar
After college, Kelly Brown Douglas moved to New York City. She attended Union Theological Seminary. She earned her Master of Divinity degree in 1982.
On September 1, 1983, she became an Episcopal priest. This was a big step because the Episcopal Church USA had only recently allowed women to be ordained in 1976. Kelly Brown Douglas was the first black woman to become a priest in her diocese (a church region). She was also one of the first ten black women ordained in the entire Episcopal Church USA.
She continued her studies at Union Theological Seminary, earning her PhD in 1988. She studied with James Cone, who was famous for starting black liberation theology.
Teaching and Writing Career
Dr. Douglas began her teaching career at Edward Waters College in Florida. Soon after, she started teaching at the Howard University School of Divinity in 1987. She taught theology there until 2001.
While at Howard, she wrote her first two books. These included Black Christ (1993) and ... and the Black Church (1998). Her book ... and the Black Church was groundbreaking. It was one of the first books to openly discuss how to make Black churches more inclusive and understanding for all people.
In 2001, Dr. Douglas moved to Goucher College in Baltimore. She was a distinguished professor there for six years. She continued to write many articles and three more books. One of her books, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, was written after the death of Trayvon Martin. It looked at how society sometimes fails to hold people accountable for racist actions.
In 2018, she became the first Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary. She was the first African-American woman to lead a seminary connected to the Episcopal Church. In 2024, she also became an honorary Canon at Newcastle Cathedral in England.
Church Leadership and Impact
For two decades, Dr. Douglas served as a priest at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church in Washington, DC. In 2017, she joined the staff of the Washington National Cathedral as the Canon Theologian. In this role, she helps guide discussions on important issues for the church community.
She was part of a group that studied two stained glass windows in the cathedral. These windows honored historical figures Andrew Jackson and Robert E. Lee. After two years of discussion, the cathedral decided to remove the windows in 2017.
In 2019, Dr. Douglas gave a sermon at the special ceremony for Kimberly Lucas. Kimberly Lucas became the first woman and first African-American bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado.
Awards and Recognition
Kelly Brown Douglas has received many awards for her work. In 2023, she won the Grawemeyer Award for Religion for her book Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter. This award is given for important ideas in religion.
She also received awards from Denison University, including the Grace Lyman Alumnae Award in 1995 and the Alumni Citation in 2000. While teaching at Goucher College, she received the Caroline Doebler Bruckerl Award.
She has also been honored by the Union of Black Episcopalians with the Anna Julia Haywood Cooper Award. Several universities have given her honorary doctorates, including Denison University (2021), Ithaca College (2021), and General Theological Seminary (2022).
Published Works
- Black Christ (1993) - ISBN: 9780883449394
- ... and the Black Church (1998) - ISBN: 978-1570752421
- What's Faith Got to Do with It: Black Bodies/Christian Souls (2005) - ISBN: 9781570756092
- Black Bodies and the Black Church: A Blues Slant (2012) - ISBN: 9780230116818
- Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (2015) ISBN: 9781626981096
- Black Christ, 25th Anniversary Edition (2019) - ISBN: 978-1626983168
- Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter (2021) - ISBN: 9781608339082
