The Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray
Associate Professor of African American Studies; Director, Urban Theological Institute
sray@ltsp.edu

Education: B. S., Charter Oak State College, Newington, CT, 1989; M. Div, summa cum laude, Yale Divinity School, 1993; Ph.D., Religious Studies - African American Studies Joint Degree Program, Yale University, 2000

Raised in New York City's Queens Borough, Stephen Ray refers to himself as a man of comparatively simple faith. "My mother instilled in me that God will provide," says Ray, who was baptized into the United Church of Christ at the age of 6 months. "When I worked at the Crisis Intervention Center, I got to see how the social and economic systems work to bring calamity on people who had nothing to do with bringing it on to themselves." Example: a building is found substandard via an inspection process. A family that has been paying the rent is evicted and is suddenly homeless. Ray needed to find them shelter. It was the kind of case he handled, when people, he said, "otherwise would have fallen through the cracks."

Prior to accepting the LTSP position, which also designates him the program director of the seminary's Urban Theological Institute, Ray taught at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for six years. During much of that time he served as pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ. "Teaching and scholarship from my viewpoint always needs to be accountable to the church, and serving as a pastor has been one way I've tried to be accountable," he says. "Teaching needs to be seen through the prism of concrete ministry."

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Links

• Dr. Ray's Curriculum Vitae (Adobe Acrobat format)
• Seminary welcomes Stephen G. Ray