Why Teach Religion?: Eric Lewis Williams

Eric Lewis Williams, Ph.D. is Director of the Office of Black Church Studies and Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School. 

Williams quotes Zora Neale Hurston, "I was born with God in my house." Hear a scholar's story of having been raised in a Pentecostal household, mentored into the scholarship of religion with no contradiction, and working as a professor, museum curator, and higher education administrator. Williams' journey is one of curiosity, boldness, and creativity.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:06):
Welcome to Dialogue on Teaching, Wabash Center's
podcast series.
I am Nancy Lynn Westfield,Director of the Wabash Center.
Paul Myrie is our soundengineer.
It is my great pleasure towelcome to the conversation
today, Dr.
Eric Lewis Williams.
Dr.
Williams is Director in theOffice of Black Church Studies,
as well as Assistant Professorof Theology and Black Church

(00:28):
Studies at Duke Divinity School.
Thank you, Eric, for being here.
Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 (00:32):
Thank you so much.
I'm grateful to be

SPEAKER_01 (00:35):
here.
Thank you for having me.
Let's start with the start.
Where do you come from, Eric,and why in the world are you
studying religion?

SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
Thank you for that.
It's a great question.
I, like so many of the greatpeople of this nation, I hail
from the beautiful state ofIllinois.
though i'm not from chicago i'mactually from rockford illinois

(01:06):
my parents migrated to illinoismy father from mississippi my
mother from arkansas and uh isthere in the words of zora neil
hurston i was born with god inmy house my father had um come

(01:28):
under the influence of the um ofPentecostalism, what they call
it back in Mississippi, where hewas from, the Sanctified Church.
And my mother was raised as aMethodist.
But when they got together andmarried, my parents raised us in

(01:52):
the Church of God in Christ.
And I think in my home andwithin the church is where I...
my interests in religion tookhold of me.
A lot of things that I witnessedin church, the power of the
music, the drama of the worship,the kinds of social teachings,

(02:21):
of course, and then my parents,their teachings, and the
emphasis that was placed onScripture and those kinds of
things kind of got to me.
And I wanted to, as I continuedto grow and meet others from
other traditions, I wasimpressed by their forms of

(02:46):
devotion and the ways in whichtheir traditions and their
upbringings in some waysresembled, in some ways were
dissimilar to mine.
And so it kind of gave me a kindof curiosity about religion and
the force that religion exertedupon communities and upon

(03:09):
families.
And so I, through a kind ofroundabout way, I came back to
the study of religion afterundergrad at the University of
Illinois at Chicago, where Istudied communications and
sociology.

SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
But you could have gotten at similar questions that
you get at in religion throughanthropology, through cultural
studies, through sociology, likeyou said.
Why religion, right?
I'm

SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
pushing, why religion?
I appreciate that question, andyou're absolutely right.
I think part of it was, youknow, I didn't have a roadmap.
I don't come from a traditionwhere people, it's a natural
inclination of people who havetheological questions to go to
seminary.
And so to be completely honest,it probably was in undergrad, I

(04:09):
joined a church in the city ofChicago, the St.
Luke Church of God in Christ.
It was there that I came underthe influence of the late Dr.
David Daniels, who was aprofessor of church history and
world Christianity at McCormickSeminary.

(04:29):
Daniels was one of the associateministers on the staff at our
church.
He had been also raised in theChurch of God and Christ, but he
ended up going to BowdoinCollege for undergrad.
Then he went on to Yale DivinitySchool, and then he went to
Union Seminary and did a PhD inchurch history with Robert Handy

(04:51):
and James Melvin Washington.
He was one of the very faithfulministers in our church, but
when he would teach or when hewould preach, he brought so much
with him to um to the work and iremember um being very impressed

(05:14):
with him and i wanted to have aconversation with him and i
remember the day i asked himafter um after a course that he
taught and what they had theycalled it the midweek um bible
institute but they would doother things besides bible and
he had taught a course on um onC.H.
Mason and the history of theChurch of God in Christ.

(05:36):
But he brought so much with himto his teaching that I had never
heard anything like that before,to be honest.
And so I asked him after thatterm was over, do you teach like
this at the seminary?
I remember asking him that.
And his words to me were, youshould come and see.
And I went to somethingcalled...

(05:59):
I am inquiry into ministry atMcCormick Seminary.
I was an undergrad then, but Istayed on campus, on McCormick's
campus that weekend.
And I was deeply moved by what Iexperienced there.
And my plan was to go to lawschool.
But after that, I figured that Ishould go to seminary and maybe

(06:25):
do law school afterwards, but Inever made it to law school.

SPEAKER_01 (06:29):
So David Daniels made it possible for you not to
be caught up in Pentecostals arenot scholars.

SPEAKER_00 (06:39):
Oh, 100%.
You

SPEAKER_01 (06:41):
know, that's the rumor.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
that is a rumor, though it should be dispelled.
Because once I met him, heintroduced me to so many
scholars that were around thecountry, like people like Robert
Franklin and people like JimForbes and people like Adrian

(07:03):
Israel, who was at GuilfordCollege at the time.
So many, Donald Wheelock, somany others that he, who came
through the revolution with him.
And he exposed me to thatliterature.
Benny Goodwin, he began toexpose me to the literature and
let me know that this was areligious tradition that had

(07:28):
been understudied and that therewas space And so I began to, in
addition to studying Blackchurch studies, Black theology,
I began to study BlackPentecostalism as well, which is
one of the areas that I'm stillworking in today.

SPEAKER_01 (07:47):
So are you surprised you're a teacher now, or was
that always a part of yourscholarship?

SPEAKER_00 (07:54):
It's quite surprising to me.
You know, actually, I thoughtthat if I went to seminary, I
probably would become a pastor.
That's just what I thought.
But it was while I was in myreadings, while I was in
seminary, that I came in contactwith a scholar by the name of

(08:16):
William Clare Turner Jr., whowas here at Duke Divinity, where
I teach now, who had been astudent of Charles Long and C.
Eric Lincoln.

SPEAKER_03 (08:28):
So

SPEAKER_00 (08:29):
he studied sociology and religion and history of
religions.
And what was significant aboutthat is that when I read his
stuff, his categories were justso different than the categories
I had been exposed to inseminary because he was, you
know, he's working in history ofreligions, but asking his
questions within thatdiscipline.

(08:51):
And one day I decided, after Ihad read several articles of
his, I called him.
I just said, I'm just going tocall his office.
He answered the phone.
I don't know what I'm going tosay to him, but I'm going to
tell him that I want to knowwhere his categories are coming
from.

SPEAKER_03 (09:06):
And

SPEAKER_00 (09:08):
I told him he answered the phone.
I told him my name, told himwhere I was from.
I told him how I heard about hisscholarship.
How old were you?
How old were you in thatboldness?
It was probably my second.
So I went straight into seminaryafter undergrad.
So my second year of seminary.
And I just asked him, I said, Ijust want to know, like, what do

(09:31):
you read?
Where are these categoriescoming from?
And he laughed and told me thathe was a student of Charles
Long.
And so his questions areprobably a little different than
a church historian.
And I began to talk to him andhe told me that he was going to
be presenting at the AmericanAcademy of Religion.

(09:57):
conference, which was inNashville.
I told him that that semester Iwas in Atlanta studying at the
ITC for a semester.
And he told me that if you, I'msure there are people from your
institution that will come, butif you're willing to come to
Nashville, that we can talk somemore.
Went to Nashville, and that'swhere I met him.

(10:18):
And he began to talk to me aboutthe THM program.
And I actually came to Duke Iwas accepted into the THM
program, though after my yearwas up, I wanted some more here.
So I asked, Dr.
Willie Jennings was theassociate dean at the time.
And I remember writing to himand asking him if he would allow

(10:41):
me to reclassify from the THM tothe MDiv, to which he replied
that that is the wrongdirection, that one usually goes
from MDiv to THM.
And so I wrote him back andsaid, but this is something I
really want to do.
I've gained a lot.
I have another angle of visionafter being here, after leaving

(11:02):
McCormick Seminary.
And I'd like to stay.
And he told me that if this iswhat you want to do, I will
allow you to do it.
And so he gave me thepermission.
I reclassified.
And I had a year where I justkind of took the courses I
wanted to take at Duke, and thatwas really good for me.
And it kind of gave me a desireto go on to further doctoral

(11:23):
studies, which were doctoralstudies.

SPEAKER_01 (11:26):
Many of our colleagues, by the time they've
been through the formation orthe deformation of a PhD
program, have lost theircuriosities.
When I talk to you, you have notlost your curiosities.
Why not?
Why are you still, you know whatI mean?
Why?
You still have this desire, thispassion, this almost wide-eyed,

(11:52):
isn't the world an interestingplace approach to your teaching
and to your scholarship.

SPEAKER_00 (11:58):
You know, and I appreciate you saying that.
And it's something that I don'tthink about a lot, but I can
tell you that I'm learning.
I'm still learning new things.
I'm still finding new sources.
And in this age in which welive, this digital age, I'm
finding things that I didn'tknow existed.

(12:20):
And so I have to rethink things.
So I think that's what keeps megoing, keeps me interested
because I'm still learning.
I'm still discovering how much Idon't know.
I'm still encountering peoplefrom radically different

(12:41):
disciplines who are raisingquestions that intrigue me and
that cause me to want to engagethem in conversation.
So it's been a really beautifulway for me, religion and
theology, and I didn't know thatthis world existed, so I always
credit David Daniels and WilliamTurner and my teachers for Afe

(13:05):
Adogame who was my doctoraladvisor for exposing me to
worlds that I did not knowexisted.
I

SPEAKER_01 (13:13):
mean, it shows the power of mentoring, right?
It shows the power of formationin relationship and not just
information for information'ssake, right?
That we learn and we arenurtured by the people who we
are around and the fact that youwent out and sought folks to

(13:35):
help you live into yourcontradiction of, and it's not a
contradiction of Pentecostalism,but we know the understudied
nature of Pentecostalism.
So the fact that you found folksto help you in that
conversation, because manypeople would have jettisoned
their Pentecostal traditions fora scholarship and you didn't do

(13:56):
that.

SPEAKER_00 (13:59):
You know, it's been, once I found people who were
raising different questionsabout the tradition, I mean, I
continued to, you know, readwidely in Black religion, Black
church studies.
Then, of course, my time in themuseum, I was kind of projected
headlong into religion andmaterial culture.

(14:22):
I still carry these interestswith me, and I still want to
teach in these areas, and Istill want to learn in these
areas.

SPEAKER_01 (14:32):
So you mentioned the museum casually.
For our listeners who don'tknow, tell our listeners what
the museum is.
It's only one of the mostinfluential museums in the
world.
But go ahead.
I'll let you tell them.
Go ahead.
So after

SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
I finished my doctoral degree, I worked as a
lecturer at Harvard Universityfor nearly two years.
And then I went to work at theSmithsonian National Museum of
African American History andCulture as curator of religion.

(15:07):
And I stayed there for right atseven years before coming to
Duke.
And at the museum, that was awonderful, wonderful experience.
They were interested.
Normally, in kind of museumsettings, curators are

(15:29):
individuals that have a two-yeardegree in museum studies.
You could have an undergraduatedegree in botany, zoology,
anything.
But if you go to a museum, theywant you to enter a museum
studies program, like inHopkins, Harvard has one.
A number of schools have them.
And you study two years, and youget a master's in museum

(15:51):
studies, and then one can becomea curator, which is just the
standard.
But at the African AmericanMuseum, they wanted subject
experts in each of the fields ofcuration.
And so they wanted scholars withPhD level training to serve as

(16:12):
the curators.
And I have become veryinterested in the work of Rex
Ellis, who he had served for atime at Colonial Williamsburg.
He taught at Hampton University.
But when the museum was about toopen, he went to the

(16:33):
Smithsonian.
Ellis was a pastor, and he wasgiven to kind of religious
themes and that kind of thing.
But it was through him thatfunds were secured through the
Lilly Endowment to launch acenter for the study of
African-American religious life,which would be housed in the

(16:54):
museum.
And they would hire curators andstaff through the generosity of
Lily.
And I was fortunate to be hiredafter the director, the first
curator.

SPEAKER_01 (17:10):
And talk about the exhibit that's still up, even
though you've moved to Duke.

SPEAKER_00 (17:14):
Okay, thank you.
So I have been at Duke, I guessprobably 18 months.
But prior to my coming, my lastmajor project at the museum was,
I curated an exhibition entitledSpirit in the Dark, Religion and

(17:35):
Black Music activism and popularculture.
It was in the, it is in theStafford Gallery on the second
floor, and it was to be therefor a half a year, but to my to
my surprise and to my- Delight,to my delight.

(17:57):
Right, right.
To my surprise and to mydelight.
The exhibition has been extendedmaybe three or four times, and
it is still on display there onthe second floor.
So though I left the museum, I'mstill often called back there by
groups and organizations to comeand talk about my exhibition,

(18:19):
which, if I could just give thisplug, that for those of you that
are not able to go toWashington, one of the things,
one of the initiatives at theSmithsonian was the Searchable
Museum Project.
where if you enter Spirit in theDark Searchable Museum, one can
see the entire exhibition.
All of the objects have beenphotographed.

(18:43):
Everything is there.
One can see it and access itthrough the internet.
So Spirit in the Dark SearchableMuseum Smithsonian, and you can
see that.
So

SPEAKER_01 (18:52):
it's accessible, right?
It's about making this workaccessible.
And how many people, mostscholars yearn for a couple
hundred people to buy theirbooks.
Some of the big dog scholarsyearn for a couple thousand
people to buy their books.
So I already know, right?
How many people have seen yourSpirit in the Dark exhibit at

(19:15):
the Smithsonian?

SPEAKER_00 (19:16):
Yes, it's amazing because now we're...
We're over 700,000 and we'rehoping that we could hopefully
get to a million.
That's my dream before thatexhibition comes down.
So if you can just stop by andjust dip your toe into the

(19:38):
threshold, you will be counted.
So we

SPEAKER_01 (19:42):
talk about what is the scholar's work for the
public?
That's one of the things that isbeing grappled with.
It's always been grappled with,I think particularly being
grappled with now.
And for me, your journey andparticularly your work at the
Smithsonian and certainly yourwork at Duke now is about the
scholarship of religion in thepublic and that we have to have,

(20:04):
can have, need to have languagethat meets the public, questions
that consider the curiosities ofthe public.
So our scholarship has somemeaning in a place where people
are asking questions aboutreligion, right?
Sometimes scholarship pretendslike only scholars have
questions of religion whenthat's not the case.

(20:25):
So I applaud you for creating anexhibit, creating your work
toward the questions of thepublic without compromising your
scholarship.

SPEAKER_00 (20:37):
You know, one of the things that I learned in that
work The work that informed theLilly Endowment has involved
itself in a number of museumprojects around the country.
And the reason, the scholarshipthat they're reading and the
research that they're reading,it bears out this fact that

(21:02):
public trust in kind of historickinds of places of religious
authority or religious educationis waning, but a public trust is
actually increasing in museumsand cultural institutions.
And so Lilly launched a majorinitiative on museums and the

(21:25):
public understanding ofreligion.
And so they realize that museumsare becoming kind of frontline
kinds of sites for religiousunderstanding.
And they have supported thatgenerously through not just the
National Museum, but museumsaround the country.

SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
And those are pedagogical sites, right?
They're not just sites ofentertainment, but they are
sites of education.
They are sites of activism.
They are sites where people goto network together and to learn
with these lofty questions.
So it is a natural place for usto want to gravitate to as
scholars.

SPEAKER_00 (22:07):
In fact, I was just with the secretary, Lonnie
Bunch.
He was here at, in fact, hespoke at North Carolina Central.
And then he also spoke at Duke,at the law school, and then for
the history department thatmorning.
But he was talking about whenpeople say that they refer to

(22:33):
the project as an AfricanAmerican history museum, he
always likes to reframe that andsay that this is an American
history museum with the storybeing told through the African
American lens.
That this story, he says, islarger than African Americans,
and it's too large for AfricanAmericans.

(22:55):
This is American history, andthat's his approach.
And I thought that was quite apowerful approach.
Well,

SPEAKER_01 (23:02):
it was Lonnie Bunch that changed and hired you to
say, we need content experts,not just curation experts,
right?
So that's still a part of theBunch vision about how museums
need to help the public, right?
That's all a part of how he'smoving in the world.
And I'm glad he found you andhired you and gave you this

(23:24):
platform.
Thank you so much.
Please come back anytime.
Please continue to work with theWabash Center.
We might have a museum pedagogyproject in the offing.
So, right, everybody stay tunedbecause Eric Williams is a part
of the citizenship of the WabashCenter.
Thank you, Eric, so much.

SPEAKER_00 (23:45):
Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (23:47):
To our listeners, the Wabash Center website is the
place.
Look on our website for detailsconcerning our workshops, for
details concerning our resourceslike our blogs and our journal
on teaching, as well as ourpodcasts.
Also on our website isinformation about our regranting
program.
A special thanks to podcastproducer, Rachel Mills, and the
music which frames our podcastis the original composition of

(24:10):
Paul Myrie.
Wabash Center for more than 30years is exclusively funded by
Lilly Endowment Incorporated.
And we are out.
How was that, Paul?