King’s Launches Center for the Study of Christianity and the Black Experience

The King’s College is pleased to announce the launch of the Center for the Study of Christianity and the Black Experience and the appointment of Dr. Jacqueline C. Rivers as senior fellow of the Center.

Rivers is the executive director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where she was a doctoral fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Rivers gave this year’s Black History Month lecture at King’s on February 13. In addition to Rivers, the Center’s leadership includes Dr. David Tubbs, associate professor of politics, as director and Dr. Dami Kabiawu, assistant professor of finance, as associate director.

The Center’s mission statement reads: “Through teaching, research, scholarly writing, and public engagement, the Center seeks to increase our knowledge of Black Christian communities’ influence on the faith around the globe, with critical attention to the ancient, modern, and future roles of the Black Church, and its contributions to worldwide Christianity, including the civic dimensions of its work.”

The College plans to hold a formal launch of the Center on campus in the 2020-21 academic year. Through the Center, Rivers is slated to teach a spring 2021 elective course on “The Black Church in Slavery and in Freedom.” In the same semester, Tubbs will teach the Civil Rights course (Politics 451), which he has taught at King’s since 2010. The Center’s leadership also intends to host online panel discussions in academic year 2020-21.

Rivers says, “The King’s College and the Center for the Study of Christianity and the Black Experience have an extraordinary mission. The critical analysis of God’s work in the American context and globally through the Black Church will enrich students called to lead in business, in law, in social justice and in a wide variety of vocations. The scholarly work on the Christian faith in the black world that the Center will sponsor is particularly important given the shift of the geographic center of Christianity from the West to Africa.”

The Center for the Study of Christianity and the Black Experience is the fruit of several years of planning and collaboration at The King’s College. Rivers and her husband, Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, first met Tubbs in the summer of 2016 in connection with then-president Dr. Gregory Alan Thornbury’s Commission on Multi-Ethnicity. In the last three years, Dr. and Rev. Rivers have spoken a number of times at King’s, including a 2018 Black History Month address by Rev. Rivers and a presentation from Dr. Rivers in a 2019 panel on religious liberty. Dr. Rivers also spoke at a breakfast in 2019 cosponsored by The Table (a community of Black and Hispanic students who meet to support the minority populations at King’s and to engage the broader community in discussion of multi-cultural issues) and Students for Life (a student organization that facilitates pro-life awareness and service).

The creation of an academic institute focused on the contributions of Black Christian communities to Christianity worldwide was one of a series of proposals submitted in April 2017 by the Commission on Multi-Ethnicity. (Other proposals included the crafting of a theological vision statement for ethnic diversity and supporting the launch of The Table.) The first organizational meeting for the Center took place from November 21-23, 2019.

Tubbs says he is very grateful to President Tim Gibson and Provost Mark Hijleh for their support in the Center’s creation.

“This is a signal moment in the life of The King’s College. The vision cast for this new Center by its leadership aligns perfectly with the mission of the College as our students are being equipped to shape and eventually to lead strategic institutions in the 21st century,” said Hijleh. “The Center will also provide a strong platform for resident and visiting faculty to directly engage culture through writing and speaking publicly on the importance of Christianity and the Black experience worldwide, across history, in and for our time.”

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