FPE: How long have you been interested in theology? When did you know you wanted to be a theologian?
Jason: I’ve been interested in theology since early childhood, although I did not recognize it back then as such. I would ask my mom and maternal grandfather (who was my first pastor) about what happens to us when we die. I recall that reading the Book of Revelation used to scare me as a kid! I read my first academic theology book at the age of eight. It was H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic, Christ and Culture. I was thoroughly intrigued by Niebuhr’s five-part typology to help Christians understand the relationship between Jesus Christ and culture and
their ethical response.
Through my adolescence and young adult years, however, I struggled to accept my queer sexuality and identity. I did not share my struggle with my family members because I understood them to believe homosexuality as a sin. And so, I started reading popular white evangelical and Black charismatic authors (e.g. Stephen Arteburn and T.D. Jakes) to help me understand (theologically) why I was gay while I was in high school. When I entered college, my study of theology intensified when I first picked from the university bookstore up a copy of Daniel L. Migliore’s Faith Seeking Understanding. The second book I remember buying from that same store is Karl Barth’s God Here and Now. I would read other books and collect hundreds of theology articles, stacking them all in my dorm room. Additionally, I started reading books on Black Christian faith. The study of theology up to that point was deeply personal, although I did receive a call to Christian ministry during my junior year in college, which complicated matters even further given that I was closeted. Overall, I never imagined myself pursuing theology as an academic career.
It wasn’t until my second year in the M.Div. program at Duke Divinity School that both classmates and teachers noticed that I had a real knack for teaching theology. I led study sessions on Christian theology before a major exam. I seamlessly helped my classmates navigate complex doctrines like the Trinity. One my classmates, Rev. Wanda Woods, who was a second career seminarian, affirmed that I had a teaching gift after I held a one-on-one tutoring session with her. At the end of my time at Duke, I started to consider a career as an academic theologian. I completed a Th.M. and took a five-year break from the academy before entering into graduate school again. During this break, my research interests sharpened into one central question: “What does it mean to be Black, LGBTIQA+-identified, and saved?” In other words, I wanted to write on the meaning of Christ and salvation from a Black queer perspective.
FPE: You’ve written about the doctrine of salvation, which ethicists don’t always pay attention to. What do Christian ethicists miss if they don’t think about soteriology?
Jason: As a systematic and constructive theologian, I see doctrine and ethics as inseparable matters. I think that salvation, which is the religious end of Christian faith, plays a critical role in shaping how Christians comport themselves in the world. Salvation typically refers to the triune God’s work of redeeming, reconciling, liberating, justifying, rescuing, and renewing God’s creatures from sin and its consequences (i.e., death and decay). God definitively accomplishes this work in the sending of Jesus Christ into the world through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christians believe one responds to the gospel through faith and in turn follow Christ’s teaching and example, empowered by God’s saving grace. Theologies of salvation vary across church traditions and are shaped within particular historical, social, and political contexts, of course. We know all too well from history and the present day that Christians justify wicked actions and institutions (e.g., settler colonialism, chattel slavery, genocide of indigenous people, misogyny, queer-antagonism) by making appeals to salvation, among others. Therefore, I’m sympathetic to ethicists who are quite suspicious of any discussion of salvation or other theological matters in relation to ethics. However, I insist that this elision of salvation and doctrine overall from Christian ethical discourse is in actuality impossible. Doctrine—for better or worse—shapes one’s ethical imagination, and vice versa. What Christians propose about the meaning of salvation—its extent or reach, who’s included or excluded, and what it says about God’s character—influences ethical behavior and politics as well.
FPE: When I think about systematic theologies, I picture massive books written by senior scholars. Why are you interested in writing a systematic theology, and how would your book differ from that picture?
Jason: Honestly, that is also my first impression of systematic theology (laughs!). This impression very much intimidates me because as a “junior” scholar, I do not want to wait until I’m at a ripe old age to state what I think Christian faith is all about. Nevertheless, I find the genre of systematic theology useful insofar as it seeks to present a comprehensive presentation of Christian faith. What makes my future work different, I think, is that it readily takes up matters that impact the lives of Black LGBTIQA+ people and puts these matters in dialogue with dogmatic loci. It seems part and parcel of the field of theology today to distinguish between systematic theology and constructive theology. However, I see no break or discrepancy between systematic matters and contextual or constructive concerns.
FPE: Can you tell us more about the Substack series you’ve been writing?
Jason: I’m completing a six-part series titled, “The Man from Galilee: Ruminations in African American Christology,” which can be found on the God Here & Now Substack published by the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. It provides snapshots into how key Black liberation, womanist, and queer theologians think about Jesus Christ. The last post will be my own reflection placed in conversation with Karl Barth.
FPE: You’re Black, queer, and Baptist, and you work on Karl Barth, who was—if memory serves—none of those three things. Why is Barth important for your research?
Jason: Barth plays a crucial role in shaping my identity as a theologian and my Christology and soteriology. Back in college, I was first introduced to his work while reading some white conservative evangelical theologians who couldn’t stand him! Then, as I mentioned earlier, I bought a copy of Migliore’s Faith Seeking Understanding. Migliore studied Barth and was deeply shaped by his theology. However, Migliore was critical of Barth’s thought. Afterwards, I found a copy of Barth’s God Here and Now. When I began to read the book, I remember saying out loud, “He’s nothing like what the evangelical theologians say!” I found Barth’s thought to be powerful, insightful, and compelling. I dare say, it liberated me from the tyranny of biblical inerrancy! While in divinity school, I took a course on Barth under my former teacher, Willie Jennings. Jennings placed Barth’s thought in his sociopolitical context: the rise of the Weimar Republic and then Nazism in Germany. In so doing, Jennings made Barth come alive to me in a way I hadn’t considered before. Barth’s Evangelical Theology: An Introduction left an indelible impression. However, it was Barth’s mature Christology found in Church Dogmatics that has left the deepest impact on my understanding of election and atonement. Indeed, Barth can only take me so far with respect to race, gender, and sexuality. He was inattentive to race, his gender politics were politics, and despite a possible change of heart in his later years, Barth outright condemns homosexuality in Church Dogmatics. Nevertheless, I find Barth to be useful because his theological ontology overall proves instructive for challenging damaging theologies that impact the lives of Black LGBTIQA+ people.
FPE: How has your work as a Baptist minister informed your scholarly work?
Jason: Being a Baptist minister helps me to ground my theological musings in the life of the church. It shapes the way I seek the task of theology, namely, as a ministry that critical engages the teachings of the church and holds Christians accountable to what they claim about the church’s raison d’être—God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.